ink, paint, and pitch; and more than one charred
spot indicated that some of my predecessors had
been careless in their habits, and that an
incipient fire had been trampled out just in time
to avert a conflagration. There was no furniture
worth mentioning, except some broken chairs
and tables, an oaken press, and a barrack
bedstead of iron.

But there was plenty of wood piled under
cover; there was oil in abundance; there were
three telescopes with the government mark
upon them, and, on the wall of the principal
apartment, hung a long duck-gun, surmounting
a pair of naval cutlasses, whose brass hilts were
green as verdigris with the tarnish of the moist
sea air. I had been warned that I must bring
everything I wanted with me, and the boat was
pretty well stored with provisions, cooking utensils,
mattresses, blankets, and so forth. In
carrying up these matters from the little half-
decked vessel I had engaged, I and my black
allies were assisted by the boatmen. The latter,
who consisted of a fine old patriarch in striped
shirt and a suit of homespun, his son, and a
strapping young mulatto, waited awhile to drink
my health in a horn of whisky.

"You do look a little more shipshape, now,
Britisher," remarked the old man, as he surveyed
the mattresses and clean Pennsylvania blankets
which now reposed on the rusty iron bed; " but
you'll find the place a thought lonesome or so
to a city-bred chap. There's neighbours, sure
enough; but, stranger (here the fisherman
dropped his voice), I advise ye to be careful as
a b'ar on hot iron, till you've larned the length
of their foot."

"How do you mean?" I asked, with a puzzled
look. But the old man was not disposed to be
explicit; he only muttered that a nod was as
good as a wink to a blind horse, and presently
took his departure. The negress, who had a
real taste for work and bustling not very usual
in one of her colour, was singing as she arranged
matters in the kitchen, and Juba was slowly
carrying in logs from the woodpile, with a very
unnecessary amount of hard breathing and
frequent pauses for rest. Having taken a glance
at the lantern, and filled the lamps with oil, I
walked out at the half-open door, and sauntered
to the beach. The prospect was a wide one,
but monotonous. Sea and sand, sea and sand
—as far as the eye could range, from north to
south, from east to west, nothing but sea and
sand. The dazzling azure of the one was only
varied by the pure white of the other. On the
beach itself were a number of bright coloured
shells, and some heaps of gaily tinted weed.
There were crabs, too, in quantities, and a salt-
water tortoise (or mud turtle) went flopping
down into the depths of a little creek, as I
approached. I looked along the coastline, as it
trended sharply away. The sand-hills were
heaped up, with hollows scooped out between
them, in a swelling irregular line, as the wild
wind had piled them during the hurricane months.

Vegetation was scanty and coarse; a few hardy
plants and grasses, of a dusky green hue, clung
desperately to the hummocks of sandy soil, and
there were one or two specimens of the cotton
shrub growing wild: the seeds having probably
been blown by some gale across the landlocked
sea that severed us from the mainland. The
aquatic birds were strangely tame; they flew
screaming around me in a manner that reminded
me of Alexander Selkirk and his dreary lordship
over " the fowl and the brute" more vividly than
was pleasant. I looked long and hard, but
could make out no signs of human habitation
within my range of vision. A few white sails
were visible on the far-away blue of the
horizon: the very presence of those ships seemed
a comfort to me, as a link between my lonely
self and the great stirring world of healthy
movement and bustle. I began to doubt
whether I had done wisely in accepting the situation.

"Hulloa, chap! Air yew the new lighthouse-
keeper?" hailed a deep voice among the sandhills. ,

I wheeled round. Behind me, on the summit
of a mound, stood a very tall swarthy young
man, in a checked frock of Osnaburg cloth, sea-
boots, and a battered straw hat. He had a gun
in his hand, and a game pouch by his side, which
was nearly full of recently shot birds of the
sand-piper class. A red handkerchief was
knotted loosely around the fellow's sunburnt
neck, and he was altogether dressed in a careless,
picturesque fashion that gave him the wild
aspect of a brigand.

"Hulloh! Can't yew answer?" thundered
the deep voice.

I replied that I was the lighthouse-keeper;
had but just arrived from the mainland, and was
very much at his service.

"Then I guess we're neighbours?" said the
sportsman, as he advanced and extended me
the hand of friendship. A brown big knuckly
hand it was, and the squeeze that I received
brought tears into my eyes. After this salutation,
the islander leaned on the stock of his
piece and scanned me from head to foot, and
back again, very slowly and deliberately. " I
heerd there war to be a new keeper," observed
the giant, "and my father, old Daddy Brown,
of Fruit Creek—my name's Japhet Brown,
stranger, at your call—Daddy Brown said, if
I tumbled across you, and liked the looks of
you—why, I were to say there's dinner and
liquor at your bidding, any day you stroll Fruit
Creek way."

After growling out this hospitable message,
Japhet Brown stared again, as if to make
quite sure that he really did like " the looks of
me." For myself, I felt an inward conviction
that I did not much admire the looks of my new
acquaintance. I did not, somehow, fancy the
man. It was not that he was rough and
uncouth, that his shaggy black hair hung like
layers of sable fringe under the torn rim of his
straw hat, or that his clothes were daubed with
tar and fish scales. I had seen sterling good
fellows in still ruder guise, and had knocked
about the world too long, to despise the toil-