44 THE CRUISE OF TEE 'CUBAQOA.' 



splendid view. I endeavoured to procure some cocoanuts 

 of an old native ; but the miserly fellow having asked me an 

 absurd price for half-a-dozen nuts, which he had knocked 

 down and unhusked, I refused to buy them, whereupon he 

 at once offered them to me for a small piece of tobacco. I 

 met here several men who wore their hair in a strange 

 fashion : short and black on the top of the head, but long 

 and reddish below and all round. I returned to the shore 

 without difficulty, and had myself carried to the canoe, 

 which I preferred to wading and getting my boots wet. The 

 water was extremely shallow, and the boat grazed the 

 bottom several times on its way to the ship. At ten in the 

 evening the thermometer stood at 85° on deck and 105° in 

 the gun-room. The trawl which I had thrown overboard 

 before going to land brought me twenty species of shells, 

 generally small, and of little interest. 



The next day, being Sunday, about half-past three I 

 landed with the Commodore, under a brilliant sky, to pay a 

 visit to the missionary, whose house is built on the top of 

 the hill at some distance from the sea. We found only his 

 wife, who at once presented us with a cup of milk. Mrs. 

 Powell, the mother of six children, is suffering from ele- 

 phantiasis, of which she hopes the climate of England will 

 cure her in a year, whither she is on the point of going 

 with all her family after an expatriation of twenty years. 

 She said the people had a great aptness for learning, and 

 with the exception of some old men and children, eveiy- 



