th so serious an exterior any appetite
for romantic adventure.

Nevertheless, finding himself suddenly transported, as it were, from
the quiet of so sober a town as that of Philadelphia to the tropical
enchantment of Kingston, in the island of Jamaica, the night brilliant
with a full moon that swung in an opal sky, the warm and luminous
darkness replete with the mysteries of a tropical night, and burdened
with the odors of a land breeze, he suddenly discovered himself to be
overtaken with so vehement a desire for some unwonted excitement that,
had the opportunity presented itself, he felt himself ready to embrace
any adventure with the utmost eagerness, no matter whither it would
have conducted him.

At home (where he was a clerk in the counting-house of a leading
merchant, by name Jeremiah Doolittle), should such idle fancies have
come to him, he would have looked upon himself as little better than a
fool, but now that he found himself for the first time in a foreign
country, surrounded by such strange and unusual sights and sounds, all
conducive to extravagant imaginations, the wish for some extraordinary
and altogether unusual experience took possession of him with a
singular vehemence to which he had heretofore been altogether a
stranger.

In the street where he stood, which was of a shining whiteness and
which reflected the effulgence of the moonlight with an incredible
distinction, he observed, stretching before him, long lines of white
garden walls, overtopped by a prodigious luxuriance of tropical foliage.

In these gardens, and set close to the street, stood several
pretentious villas and mansions, the slatted blinds and curtains of the
windows of which were raised to admit of the freer entrance of the cool
and balmy air of the night. From within there issued forth bright
lights, together with the exhilarating sound of merry voices laughing
and talking, or perhaps a song accompanied by the tinkling music of a
spinet or of a guitar. An occasional group of figures, clad in light
and summer-like garments, and adorned with gay and startling colors,
passed him through the moonlight; so that what with the brightness and
warmth of the night, together with all these unusual sights and sounds,
it appeared to Jonathan Rugg that he was rather the inhabitant of some
extraordinary land of enchantment and unreality than a dweller upon
that sober and solid world in which he had heretofore passed his entire
existence.