1 88 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE 



him his entire services for a salary of four dollars a 

 month. This arrangement continued until the naturalist 

 returned to England, and proved eminently successful. 

 He says : — 



" Sam soon approved himself a most useful assistant 

 " by his faithfulness, his tact in learning, and then his 

 " skill in practising the art of preparing natural subjects, 

 " his patience in pursuing animals, his powers of obser- 

 'Wation of facts, and the truthfulness with which he 

 " reported them, as well as by the accuracy of his 

 " memory with respect to species. Often and often, 

 " when a thing has appeared to me new, I have appealed 

 " to Sam, who on a moment's examination would reply, 

 " ' No, we took this in such a' place, or on such a day,' 

 " and I invariably found on my return home that his 

 " memory was correct. I never knew him in the slightest 

 " degree attempt to embellish a fact, or report more than 

 " he had actually seen." 



Sam became so intelligent and serviceable, that, at length, 

 he could be trusted upon expeditions of his own, and he 

 added not a few specimens, and some of them unique, to 

 the general collection. 



For a long time, almost the only breaks in the tranquil 

 life at Bluefields were occasional visits to Savannah-le- 

 Mar. After the silence of the week, Saturday would 

 present a scene of unusual bustle, and not less than one 

 hundred persons would assemble at sunrise on the beach 

 at Bluefields, a population drained from many square 

 miles of the interior. Three or four canoes, laden with 

 fruit and vegetables, are slowly packed for the market of 

 Savannah-le-Mar, and but little room is left for the legs of 

 any would-be passengers : 



" The jabber is immense ; a hundred negroes, many of 

 " them women, all talking at once, make no small noise ; 



