213 



myself perfectly and thoroughly like a schoolboy, quite 

 careless of everything. In a cove, which sea nymphs or 

 syrens might well have made, I took off my clothes and 

 paddled about in the water, tumbling over rocks, catching 

 lisas (mullet) and crabs, till the eye of Phoebus found 

 out my back, and made me beat a retreat to the shelter- 

 ing alcove. The sand, which had been washed so fine 

 by the waves of ages that it resembled dust more than 

 sand, served as a couch at once soft and cool. Stretching 

 myself at full length, I let the sand run lazily through 

 my fingers and listened to the hollow murmur of the 

 wave, as I watched the glistening fixed eye of a huge 

 green lizard, flaming like an emerald, who doubtless 

 wondered who was the mortal that had invaded his 

 domain. I almost began to fancy myself a lotus eater 

 and ask, like Amyas Leigh in " Westward Ho ! '' why 

 should I not leave all 'the world and its cares, and buy a 



boat and live here, and fish and hunt goats, and 



But here my reveries were most unromantically dis- 

 turbed. Master Federico — who, I suspect, always 

 thought I was in league with the doctor — had perceived 

 my clothes left carelessly on the rocks outside, and, 

 guessing I was taking a siesta somewhere, quietly 

 walked off with them, and placing them on a balsa, 

 paddled to the entrance of the cove. A shout aroused 

 me, and on looking up I perceived my festive acquaint- 

 ance, with my clothes ironically and defiantly pitch- 

 forked on a fish spear ! Remonstrance was useless ; 

 diplomacy was the only thing to try. " Aha, my 

 youthful wag,^^ I cried, as I held up my wicker flask of 

 real old Islay (the doctor^s same " old original ^'), '^ fair 

 play's a jewel; my clothes — this cove, this flask, a 

 cigarro.'' The enemjr struck his colours. The old 



