the exact time it would take to
discharge their part of the living and dead
freight, and received or gave their orders,
and performed their work with the calmness
of treasury clerks, or field-marshals.

My old friend, Pencarryn, about to report
on certain South American and West Indian
mines, had caught me on my way to the
New Forest, and secured me as a spectator
of his departure,—not romantically, for the
voyage was nothing new to him— but he
asked me to see him off just as he would
have done, if he had been merely taking the
steamer for Edinburgh instead of for Rio de
Janeiro.

In due time we moved from the hotel on
shore—through the broad, clean, well-built
streets of New Southampton — in an involuntary
procession of other voyagers, their friends
and interpreters, led on by baggage carts on
which were artistically piled trunks, chests,
and hat-boxes, of every description of
trunkish physiognomy. There is a physiognomy
in trunks, and a specialty in baggage
very suggestive, in the eyes of an old
traveller, of the owners. There were vast square
wooden boxes, not of the sailor sea-chest
look, strong, serviceable, cheap, which hailed
quite naturally from Aberdeen. Large
portmanteaus of unmistakeably stout leather,
no calf or canvass imitations, of curious
colours, well banded round, and covered with
stout protective knobs, some being provided,
in addition, with little castors, were
unmistakeably North American. Then there
was the regular military baggage, black
marked in white, "Captain Stumpe, one
hundred and fiftieth West Indian Regiment."
Even without the loud screams and vivid
gesticulations of the proprietor, I should
have known that the two yellow, ill-made
portmanteaus, the capacious carpet-bag, the
square hat-box, and the bundle of bludgeons
and canes curiously carved, bound up with
two umbrellas of brilliant colours, belonged
to Monsieur Millefleurs, artist in hair-
dressing, perfumer, and tonsor, bound for
Havannah, from Paris, who was on his first
voyage. Besides tin-boxes, bonnet-boxes,
chests, bags, there were many others, which
to name, as the Latin Grammar says, would
take up too much room.

The Mouse, tender-steamer, waiting to
receive us—dwarfed to the size of a very Aztec
by comparison with a huge mass in the offing
— hissed impatiently in the manner peculiar
to such sea sprites on such occasions. The
deck was soon crammed with passengers and
luggage— a Noah's ark of varieties, enlivened
by a confusion of tongues. I will not profess
to give the characteristics of each nation—
that has been done too often. The march of
steam has rubbed habitual travellers down
to a general class not easily to be
distinguished. A sombrero-hatted, black
moustachioed, solemn, cigarette-smoking, person,
whom I took for a Spaniard, turned out
to be a Scotchman, deep in the hide trade;
a thin dandy— ringed, chained, curled,
caned, and studded; in the neatest of boots
and tightest of gloves—in fact, in externals
a pure Parisian, fresh from Tortoni's, the
Jockey Club, and the Bourse—was a New
Yorker. At any rate, there were gathered
on the deck of the little tender English,
Scotch, Irish, French, Germans, "Statesmen,"
Spaniards, Spanish creoles, Italians. Portuguese,
Brazilians, English West Indians, and
gentlemen and ladies of colour of divers
tongues. With a few striking exceptions,
there was no special difference between our
party and one that may be found any
summer's day on a Rhine steamboat. Wide-awake
hats, moustachios, cigars, and cigarettes, many-
pocketed garments and ample nether
integuments abounded, as well as the before-
mentioned curious bundles of sticks of all
dimensions, from the shillalagh to the thin
cane with gold, silver, or ivory head, strapped
round an umbrella, which forms the invarible
accompaniment—the modern fasces of a
foreign fine gentleman.

One figure, however, stood out involuntarily,
almost timidly, from the common-place
groups around him—a middle-aged, middle-
sized, fattish, lemon-complexioned gentleman;
beardless, whiskerless, perfectly smooth-
faced, spectacled, in snow-white trousers,
white waistcoat, white cravat, grey cloth boots
tipped with varnished leather, grey wide-
awake hat, and loose black coat. I had never
seen him before, except in pictures, sitting
under a verandah, with a cigar in mouth,
but at once recognised the West Indian creole
shivering in spite of a bright English sun
under the rising sea breeze. But the great
attraction (not to me only) was a real Spanish
or rather Havanese baby, a few months old,
in the arms of a large, flabby, hard-complexioned,
sedate Spanish nurse. It was a little
plump thing, of pale white-lead tinge—not
the whiteness of English babies—with the
blackest beads of eyes, and a profusion of jet-
black straight hair peeping from beneath its
night-cap. The little creature was full of the
strangest antics and grimaces, screwing up
its red little button of a mouth in a manner
so unearthly, that a Scotchwoman, the wife
of one of the engineers, pronounced it to be
"no canny."  Its favourite toy was—what
will you guess, you learned in English
nurseries? — not a coral, nor a bunch of keys, nor
an ivory ring, nor a watch-chain, but—a fan!
—they begin in time; taking their first lessons
in a nurse's arms; whenever the little imp
seemed inclined to be fractious, the fan was
unfolded, gently waved before its face by the
grave nurse, fluttered for a moment or two,
and then the infant stretched out its tiny fist,
seized the prize in a firm grasp, and tried to
imitate the operation.

Of course we had not steamed many yards