116 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



the vivid lights of its actuality pushed into obscu- 

 rity by some harsher present. Soon the popular 

 th would be gone, and be succeeded by some 

 other no less popular regiment and then, thought 

 I, how long will the girls be before their grief finds 

 consolation from among the new arrivals ? Will 

 any inconsolable one remember us ? Will any re- 

 member me 1 A buzz of the island patois broke in 

 upon my meditations, just as I was beginning to 

 make out the image of one fair friend, who seemed 

 to stand forth in favourable relief from among the 

 multitude. It was very annoying to be forced from 

 hope just nascent in distinguishable form ; but the 

 ideal must ever, experimentally, give way to the real. 

 I approached the window, where a Babel of 

 tongues was raging " Gaitli done, gaitli / li grand 

 mossieu, su li petit cheval." l 



The cause of the commotion was apparent, in the 

 person of rny friend Hamilton, who, at the precise 

 moment of my reaching the window, had managed 

 to make his way through the crowd, and was dis- 

 mounting. I might have guessed, before seeing him, 

 who was the comer, for he never stirred out, in his 

 then fashion, without causing a disturbance of the 

 popular quiet. He was a tremendous big fellow, who 

 had a fancy for riding the smallest pony, that would 

 keep his legs well bent up from trailing on the ground. 

 This sight, for some reason or other, particularly 

 l - "Look there, look at the big gentleman on the little horse." 



