Then there was ——, that Will-o'-the-wisp, that strange compound of opposite and seemingly, contradictory qualities, the unwinking, almost ubiquitous celerity of the lizard, and more than elephantine clumsiness. He needed to tie up his wits, as Lightfoot in the story tied up his legs that he might run slow enough to catch the deer. He walked with a pair of seven-league boots, and stept beyond the mark continually.
At table, he was the victim of more unlucky accidents than all the rest of the ship's company. He upset his soup into his lap. He ran his fork through his cheek. He stept into the slop-pail. He trod on his own toes. He tript himself up. If it had been possible, he would have run between his own legs. He was always sure to spit on his own boot, or on another's. He emptied his wash-bowl on the Captain's head. Off Cape Horn he fell overboard, and only saved himself by catching his leg in a rope that lamed him for a week. As he said, nobody else could have possibly done it; but nobody else would have fallen.
[CHAPTER IV.]
Nearly two months after leaving home we entered the harbour of Rio; or, to borrow the spirited lines of Madame W. our poetess,—we were so fortunate as to possess the species, both male and female,—
"We crossed the line in cheerful glee,
And anchored safe in Rio Janee."
We were nearly out of sight of the city; but its scattering suburbs lay all around in the laps of the mountains, the white walls of the houses contrasting finely with the deep green of the back ground. The nearest mountain peaks stood with their naked feet in the very bottom of the bay, presenting, on the water side, a smooth, and, in many places, almost perpendicular wall, and enclosing between them long winding coves, stretching away almost out of sight.
We were obliged to remain on board all the next morning, until the officers had made their customary visit, but having endured this formality with what patience we could, and eaten a dinner of "fresh," as it is called at sea, we went ashore in a boat manned by four slaves entirely naked. We landed near the emperor's palace; and having no particular object in view, strolled through the streets as chance directed. Partly from thoughtlessness, and partly to obtain a better view of the buildings, we walked carelessly along, in the middle of the street, staring about us like a parcel of backcountrymen just landed in the city of New York; at least so said the respectable Busby, who never, in any case, forgot his propriety, and even now, though nobody about him talked with an English tongue, or saw with English eyes, conducted himself precisely as if he had been in his favourite Broadway.
But we were too much engrossed with the strange objects about us, to waste a thought on our own appearance. It was as if we had gone back to the days of childhood, and recovered, for a season, that delicious sense of novelty that gave those days their peculiar charm. We resembled a piece of sponge, from which the last drop had been squeezed, suddenly plunged into a vessel of water. Every sense, every pore, seemed made the highway for a whole host of new ideas. We read volumes at a glance, sucked up knowledge at every breath, and found sermons in the very stones of the streets. Slaves were crossing the great square in every direction, carrying on their heads tall jars of water, baskets of clothes to be washed at the fountain, and large trays full of fruit and flowers. They moved with a peculiar erect and springing gait, balancing their awkward burdens with such dexterity as made them seem rather a natural excrescence than anything they could lay aside at pleasure. Others were basking in the sun, in the very middle of the street, like so many bundles of old clothes.