"How many warnings," said I, "how many lessons am I to receive before I shall reform? How narrowly have I escaped being sent to my account 'unanealed' and unprepared! What must have been my situation if I had at this moment been called into the presence of my offended Creator? This poor girl is pure and innocent, compared with me, taking into consideration the advantages of education on my side, and the want of it on hers. What has produced all this misery and the dreadful consequences which might have ensued, but my folly in trifling with the feelings of an innocent girl, and winning her affections merely to gratify my own vanity; at the same time that I have formed a connection with this unhappy creature, the breaking of which will never cause me one hour's regret, while it will leave her in misery, and will, in all probability, embitter all her future existence? What shall I do? Forgive, as I hope to be forgiven: the fault was more mine than hers."
I then knelt down and most fervently repeated the Lord's Prayer, adding some words of thanksgiving, for my undeserved escape from death. I rose up and kissed her cold, damp forehead; she was sensible of my kindness, and her poor head found relief in a flood of tears. Her eyes again gazed on me, sparkling with gratitude and love, after all she had gone through. I endeavoured to compose her; the loss of blood had produced the best effects; and, having succeeded in calming her conflicting passions, she fell into a sound sleep.
The reader who knows the West Indies, or knows human nature, will not be surprised that I should have continued this connection as long as I remained on the island. From the artless manner in which Carlotta had conducted her plot; from her gestures and her agitation, I was quite sure that she was a novice in this sort of crime, and that should she ever relapse into her paroxysm of jealousy, I should be able to detect any farther attempt on my life. Of this, however, I had no fears, having by degrees discontinued my visits to the young lady who had been the cause of our fracas; and I never afterwards, while on the island, gave Carlotta the slightest reason to suspect my constancy. I was much censured for my conduct to the young lady, as the attentions I had shewn her, and her marked preference for me, had driven away suitors who really were in earnest, and they never returned to her again.
In these islands, the naturalist would find a vast store to reward investigation; they abound with a variety of plants, birds, fish, shells, and minerals. It was here that Columbus made his first landing, but in which of the islands I am not exactly certain; though I am very sure he did not find them quite so agreeable as I did, for he very soon quitted them, and steered away for St Domingo.
It is not, perhaps, generally known, that New Providence was the island selected for his residence by Blackbeard, the famous pirate; the citadel that stands on the hill above the town of Nassau, is built on the site of the fortress which contained the treasure of that famous freebooter. A curious circumstance occurred during my stay on this island, and which, beyond all doubt, was connected with the adventures of those extraordinary people, known by the appellation of Buccaneers. Some workmen were digging near the foot of the hill under the fort, when they discovered some quicksilver, and on inspection, a very considerable quantity was found; it had evidently been a part of the plunder of the pirates, buried in casks or skins, and these having decayed, the liquid ore naturally escaped down the hill.
Though not indifferent to the pleasures of the table, I was far from resigning myself to the Circean life led by the generality of young military men in the Bahamas.
The education which I had received, and which placed me far above the common run of society in the colonies, induced me to seek for a companion whose mind had received equal cultivation; and such a one I found in Charles ——, a young lieutenant in the —— regiment, quartered at Nassau. Our intimacy became the closer, in proportion as we discovered the sottish habits and ignorance of those around us. We usually spent our mornings in reading the classic authors with which we were both familiar; we spouted our Latin verses; we fenced; and we amused ourselves, occasionally, with a game of billiards, but never ventured our friendship on a stake for money. When the heat of the day had passed off, we strolled out, paid a few visits, or rambled over the island; keeping as much aloof from the barracks as possible, where the manner of living was so very uncongenial to our notions. The officers began their day about noon, when they sat down to breakfast; after that, they separated to their different quarters, to read the novels, with which the presses of England and France inundated these islands, to the great deterioration of morals. These books, which they read lounging on their backs, or laid beside them and fell asleep over, occupied the hottest part of the day; the remainder, till the hour of dinner arrived, was consumed in visiting and gossiping, or in riding to procure an appetite for dinner. Till four in the morning, their time was wholly devoted to smoking and drinking; their beds received them in a state of intoxication more or less; parade, at nine o'clock, forced them out with a burning brain and parched tongue; they rushed into the sea, and found some refreshment in the cool water, which enabled them to stand upright in front of their men; the formal duty over, they retired again to their beds, where they lay till noon, and then to breakfast.
Such were their days; can it be wondered at that our islands are fatal to the constitution of Europeans, when this is their manner of life in a climate always disposed to take advantage of any excess? The men too readily followed the example of their officers, and died off in the same rapid manner; one of the most regular employments of the morning was to dig graves for the victims of the night. Four or five of these receptacles was thought a moderate number. Such was the fatal apathy in which these officers existed, that the approach, nay; even the certainty of death, gave them no apparent concern, caused no preparation, excited no serious reflection. They followed the corpse of a brother-officer to the grave in military procession. These ceremonies were always conducted in the evening, and often have I seen these thoughtless young men throwing stones at the lanthorns which were carried before them to light them to the burying-ground.
I was always an early riser, and believe I owe much of my good health to this custom. I used to delight in a lovely tropical morning, when, with a cigar in my mouth, I walked into the market. What would Sir William Curtis, or Sir Charles Flower have said, could they have seen, as I did, the numbers of luxurious turtle lying on their backs, and displaying their rich calapee to the epicurean purchaser? Well, indeed might the shade of Apicius[A] lament that America and turtle were not discovered in his days. There were the guanas, too, in abundance, with their mouths sewed up to prevent their biting; these are excellent food, although bearing so near a resemblance to the alligator, and its diminutive European representative, the harmless lizard. Muscovy ducks, parrots, monkeys, pigeons, and fish. Pine apples abounded, oranges, pomegranates, limes, Bavarias, plantains, love apples, Abbogada pears (better known by the name of subaltern's butter), and many other fruits, all piled in heaps, were to be had at a low price. Such was the stock of a New Providence market.
[Footnote A: Lyttleton's "Dialogues of the Dead.">[