thazard,
a native of Marseilles, as eccentric a man as I have ever known. When
Joachim was young, he set sail from Marseilles. When he arrived at
Bourbon, his name not being on the crew's list, he was arrested,
and put on board the Astrolabe, which was then making a voyage
round the world. He deserted at the Marianne islands, and came to
the Philippines in the greatest distress, and addressed himself to
some good friars, in order, as he said, to effect his conversion
and his salvation. He lived among them, and at their expense, for
nearly two years; afterwards he opened a coffee-house at Manilla,
and spent in pleasure and debauchery a large sum of money that a
fellow-countryman and I had advanced him. He afterwards built upon
my grounds a large straw edifice, that had more the appearance of
a huge magazine than of a house. There he kept a kind of seraglio,
adopted all the children which his numerous wives gave him, and, with
his own family, made his house not unlike a mutual school. Whenever
he was weary of either of his wives he called one of his workmen,
saying to him in the most serious manner:

"There is a wife that I give you; be a good husband, treat her well:
and you, woman, this is your husband, be faithful to him. Go, may
God bless you! Be off, and let me never see you again."

He was generally without a farthing, or all of a sudden rich with heavy
sums, that were spent in a few days. He borrowed from everybody, and
never paid them back; he lived like a real Indian, and was as cowardly
as a half-drowned chicken. His light-coloured hair, sallow complexion,
and beardless face, gave him the nick-name among the Indians of
Onela-Dogou, Tagalese words, that signify "one who has no blood."

As I was one day crossing over the lake in a small canoe with him and
two Indians, we were assailed by one of those extraordinary gales of
wind, which in the Chinese seas are called Tay-Foung (typhoon). These
gales of wind, though extremely rare, are tremendous. The sky is
covered with the heaviest clouds; the rain pours in torrents; the
day-light disappears, almost as much as in the densest fog; and the
wind blows with such fury that it throws down everything it reaches
in its course. [17]

We were in our canoe; the wind had scarcely begun to blow with all
its violence than Balthazard commenced to invoke all the saints in
Paradise. Almost in despair, he cried out aloud:

"Oh, God! have mercy upon me, a wretched sinner! Grant