204 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



" the town, I and a single companion who had separated 



" from the main party found that we could not get a 



" boat for less than four dollars, for about fifteen minutes' 



" rowing. The steamer, however, was under way, and 



" we had no alternative but to pay it, and I found that 



" my afternoon's stroll had cost me half a guinea." 



The reason of his separation from the others was that 



they had all trooped into the cathedral, where Philip 



Gosse's strong conscientious objection to the Roman 



Catholic forms of worship made it impossible for him to 



follow them. To the end of his days he never, on one 



single occasion, entered what it was his uncompromising 



habit to call a " popish mass-house." 



A little before daybreak next morning, the steamer got 

 into the Danish harbour of St. Thomas. Though it 

 rained hard until after sunrise, and the mist enveloped the 

 hills, yet the beauty of the town, rising from the sea on 

 the sides of three conical mountains, could not be con- 

 cealed. Gosse walked a little way into the bush, and 

 captured fifty-two insects, almost all of them new to him, 

 among which were some fine and curious Curcidionidce 

 and Longicorns. In the evening he took another pleasant, 

 though rather fatiguing walk, and saw the Slip, "a noble 

 work on which the largest ships can be hauled up and 

 repaired." Next morning he again entomologized in the 

 bush, and captured fifty-four insects. He saw all the 

 sights of St. Thomas, visited the Moravian mission, " called 

 on Mr. Nathan, the Chief Rabbi, a very friendly and gen- 

 tleman-like man," and went back to the steamer to sleep. 

 At sunrise on the 16th, they quitted the beautiful harbour 

 of St. Thomas, having received many new passengers, and 

 steamed north for Bermuda. These two slight excursions, 

 at San Juan and St. Thomas, were the only occasions, 

 during the whole of my father's life, when he stepped on 

 land that was not Anglo-Saxon. 



