120 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
watch the faces of the sailors, some of whom were free 
and gathered round to listen. He said they looked so 
earnest and engrossed, and while Agassiz was describ- 
ing with the help of the blackboard the structure of 
some of the little animals found on the gulf weed, Dr. 
Hill went out to them with a microscope and showed 
them the actual specimen through the lens. It does 
more than please them. It gives them such an interest 
in the work [that] they are indeed most ready to help. 
I am just going to bed having been on deck, with the 
exception of meals, from half-past seven o’clock this 
morning till half-past eight this evening. You who 
know only the North Atlantic voyages have little 
idea of this tropical sailing. 
St. Thomas, December 19 
WE are getting rather dissipated at St. Thomas. I 
began this day by rising at five o’clock and going on 
shore with Pourtalés. We had planned a walk to a 
hill-top called “‘Luisen Height,” a pretty house on the 
very top of the edge of the island. Every native whom 
I have consulted on the subject looked at me in horror 
and assured me that it was altogether too rough an 
undertaking for a lady unless on horseback. It is in 
fact an easy walk of a mile and a half or two miles, 
perhaps, and at the hour at which we went not too 
warm. We were on shore an hour before sunrise; the 
town was just waking; the negroes just beginning to 
get their little trays and stands of fruit in order as we 
climbed the steep street towards the mountain. The 
streets are so steep here that carriages are out of the 
