“I say, skipper,” quoth Mr Bang, “I have a great mind to ride with Tom what say you?”
“Why, Aaron, you are using me ill; that shaver is seducing you altogether; but come, you won’t be a week away, and if you want to go, I see no objection.”
It was fixed accordingly, and on the morrow Mr Bang and I completed our arrangements, hired horses, and a guide, and all being in order, clothes packed, and every thing else made ready for the cruise, we rode out along with Mr S——(we were to dine and sleep at his house) to view the fortifications on the hill above the town, the site of Christophe’s operations when he besieged the place; and pretty hot work they must have had of it, for in two different places the trenches of the besiegers had been pushed on to the very crest of the glacis, and in one the counterscarp had been fairly blown into the ditch, disclosing the gallery of the mine behind, as if it had been a cave, the crest of the glacis having remained entire. We walked into it, and Mr S——pointed out where the President’s troops, in Fort Republicain, had countermined, and absolutely entered the other chamber from beneath, after the explosion, and, sword in hand, cut off the storming party, (which had by this time descended into the ditch,) and drove them up through the breach into the fort, where they were made prisoners.
The assault had been given three times in one night, and he trembled for the town; however, Petion’s courage and indomitable resolution saved them all. For by making a sally from the south gate at grey dawn, even when the firing on the hill was hottest, and turning the enemy’s flank, he poured into the trenches, routed the covering party, stormed the batteries, spiked the guns, and that evening’s sun glanced on the bayonets of King Henry’s troops as they raised the siege, and fell back in great confusion on their lines, leaving the whole of their battering train, and a great quantity of ammunition, behind them.
Next morning we were called at daylight, and having accoutred ourselves for the journey, we descended and found two stout ponies, the biggest not fourteen hands high, ready saddled, with old fashioned demi piques, and large holsters at each of the saddlebows. A very stout mule was furnished for Monsieur Pegtop; and our black guide, who had contracted for our transit across the island, was also in attendance, mounted on a very active, well-actioned horse. We had coffee, and started. By the time we reached Leogane, the sun was high and fierce. Here we breakfasted in a low one—story building, our host being no smaller man than Major L——of the Fourth Regiment of the line. We got our chocolate, and eggs, and fricasseed fowl, and roasted yam, and in fact made, even according to friend Aaron’s conception of matters, an exceedingly comfortable breakfast.
Mr Bang here insisted on being paymaster, and tendered a sum that the black major thought so extravagantly great, considering the entertainment we had received, that he declined taking more than one half. However, Mr Bang, after several unavailing attempts to press the money on the man, who, by the by, was simply a good looking blackamoor, dressed in a check shirt, coarse but clean white duck trowsers, with the omnipresent handkerchief bound round his head, and finding that he could not persist without giving offence, was about pocketing the same, when Pegtop audibly whispered him, “Massa, you ever shee black niger refuse money before? but don’t take it to heart, massa; me, Pegtop, will pocket him, if dat foolis black person won’t.”
“Thank you for nothing, Master Pegtop,” said Aaron.
We proceeded, and rode across the beautiful plain, gradually sloping up from the mangrove—covered beach, until it swelled into the first range of hills that formed the pedestal of the high precipitous ridge that intersected the southern prong of the island, winding our way through the ruins of sugar plantations, with fragments of the machinery and implements employed in the manufacture scattered about, and half sunk into the soil of the fields, which were fast becoming impervious jungle, and interrupting our progress along the narrow bridle-paths. At length we began to ascend, and the comparative coolness of the climate soon evinced that we were rapidly leaving the hot plains, as the air became purer, and thinner, at every turn. After a long, hot, hot ride, we reached the top of the ridge, and turning back had a most magnificent view of the whole Bight of Leogane, and of the Horseshoe, and Aaron’s Frog; even the tops of the mountains above the Mole, which could not have been nearer than seventy miles, were visible, floating like islands or blue clouds in the misty distance. Aaron took off his hat, reined up, and turning the head of his Bucephalus towards the placid waters we had left, stretched forth his hand:
‘Ethereal air, and ye swift-winged winds,
Ye rivers springing from fresh founts, ye waves
That o’er the interminable ocean wreathe
Your crisped smiles, thou all-producing Earth,
And thee, bright Sun, I call, whose flaming orb
Views the wide world beneath. See!’
Nearly got a stroke of the sun, Tom—what Whiffle would call a cul de sac by taking off my chapeau in my poetical frenzy so shove on.