King 



You can see, therefore, how little 

 chance I had of keeping him amused. 

 Had I been a Cuban negro, it would 

 have been easy, or a Carib or a brig- 

 and ; but unless I could find some 

 way of reverting, step by step, through 

 all the stages of human change, back 

 to a pithecanthropos, or much better, 

 a pithecgunai, I could not keep King 

 occupied for twenty-four hours. I 

 could not even handle a machete, or 

 herd a bull, or dance the culebra. He 

 had to get the priest to show me 

 how. For such eccentric types, the 

 little town of Santiago was then a 

 marvellous garden of survival. No- 

 where in the world had I ever seen 

 anything more amusing, and I thought 

 it a Heaven-sent harbor for us two 

 worn-out craft to rest in. Four years 

 later all America rang with the fame 

 of Santiago, and especially with the 

 name of Ramsden, the British Consul, 

 but at that time King alone knew 



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