216 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



loAvered into the fire room, smashed up with axes, 

 and sugar and boxes together shoveled into the 

 furnaces. From that hour 80,000 pounds of 

 sugar, mixed with pieces of boxes, fragments of 

 furniture, and such portions of the boat as could 

 be hewed away without danger to the craft were 

 pitched onto the grates. The gale lessened, the 

 continuous prayer meeting in the cabin became 

 intermittent, and when one night the Highland 

 lights were sighted the passengers were half crazy 

 with joy. Some laughed, some cried, and some 

 danced, all expressive of the same emotion. The 

 first act of the men was to subscribe a liberal sum 

 for the purchase of a gold watch for Captain 

 Curtis which was later duly engraved and cere- 

 moniously presented to him. At the steamship 

 office I learned that there was much anxietv 

 about us and that a steamer was being fitted out 

 to cruise for us. 



The Crescent City with my guests was to have 

 left Havana for home on the tenth of February, 

 two or three days after we were due in New 

 York, and I knew there would be much appre- 



