saw the hill a mile off from which Abercrombie had
battered out the French, having dragged his guns through a roadless
forest to a spot to which there seemed no access except on wings. The
word 'impossible' was not known in those days. What Englishmen did once
they may do again perhaps if stormy days come back. The ruins themselves
were silently impressive. One could hear the note of the old bugles as
they sounded the reveille and the roaring of the _feu de joie_ when the
shattered prizes were brought in from the French fleet. The signs of
what once had been were still visible in the parade ground, in the large
mangoes which the soldiers had planted, in the English grass which they
had introduced and on which cattle were now grazing. There was a clump
of guavas, hitherto only known to me in preserves. I gathered a blossom
as a remembrance, white like a large myrtle flower, but heavily
scented--too heavily, with an odour of death about it.

Mr. Laborde's conversation was instructive. His entertainment of us was
all which our acquired West Indian fastidiousness could desire. The
inevitable cigars followed, and Mr. L. gave me a beating at billiards.
There were some lively young ladies in the party, and two or three of
the ship's officers. The young ones played lawn tennis, and we old ones
looked on and wished the years off our shoulders. So passed the day. The
sun was setting when we mounted to ride down. So short is the twilight
in these latitudes, that it was dark night when we reached the town, and
we required the light of the stars to find our boat.

When the coaling process was finished, the ship had been washed down in
our absence and was anchored off beyond the reach of the dirt; but the
ports were shut; the windsails had been taken down; the air in the
cabins was stifling; so I stayed on deck till midnight with a clever
young American, who was among our fellow-passengers, talking of many
things. He was ardent, confident, self-asserting, but not disagreeably
either one or the other. It was rather a pleasure to hear a man speak in
these flabby uncertain days as if he were sure of anything, and I had to
notice again, as I had often noticed before, how well informed casual
American travellers are on public affairs, and how sensibly they can
talk of them. He had been much in the West Indies and seemed to know
them well. He said that all the whites in the islands wished at the
bottom of their hearts to be taken into the