“I am very glad to see you,” said the lady; “but breakfast is ready; welcome, sir, welcome.”
The food was not amiss, the coffee decidedly good, and the chocolate, wherein, if you had planted a teaspoon, it would have stood upright, was excellent. When we had done with substantials, dulce, that is the fruit of the guava preserved, in small wooden boxes, (like drums of figs,) after being made into a kind of jam, was placed on the table, and mine host and his spouse had eaten a bushel of it apiece, and drank a gallon of that most heathenish beverage, cold clear water, before the repast was considered ended. After a hearty meal and a pint of claret, I felt rather inclined to sit still, and expatiate for an hour or so, but Campana roused me, and asked whether or not I felt inclined to go and look at the town. I had no apology, and although I would much rather have sat still, I rose to accompany him, when in walked Captain Transom and Mr Bang. They were also kindly received by Don Ricardo.
“Clad of the honour of this visit,” said he in French, with a slight lift of the corner of his mouth; “I hope neither you nor your boat’s crew took any harm after the heat of yesterday.”
Transom laughed.
“Why, you did beat us very neatly, Don Ricardo. Pray, where got you that canoe? But a lady Mrs Campana, I presume?—Have the goodness to introduce me.”
The skipper was presented in due form, the lady receiving him without the least mauvaise honte, which, after all, I believe to be indigenous to our island. Aaron was next introduced, who, as he spoke no lingo, as I knows of, to borrow Timotheus Tailtackle’s phraseology but English, was rather posed in the interview.
“I say, Tom, tell her I wish she may live a thousand years. Ah, so, that will do.”
Madama made her conge, and hoped “El Senora Maria un asiento.” “Mucho, mucho,” sung out Bang, who meant by that that he was much obliged.
At length Don Ricardo came to our aid. He had arranged a party into the country for next morning, and invited us all to come back to a tertulia in the evening, and to take beds in his house, he undertaking to provide bestias to carry us.
We therefore strolled out, a good deal puzzled what to make of ourselves until the evening, when we fell in with one of the captains of the English ships then loading, who told us that there was a sort of hotel a little way down the street, where we might dine at two o’clock at the table d’hote. It was as yet only twelve, so we stumbled into this hotel to reconnoitre, and a sorry affair it was. The public room was fitted with rough wooden tables, at which Spaniards, Americans, and Englishmen, sat and smoked, and drank sangaree, hot punch, or cold grog, as best suited them, and committed a vast variety of miscellaneous abominations during their potations. We were about giving up all thoughts of the place, and had turned to go to the door, when in popped our friend Don Ricardo. He saw we were somewhat abroad.