tch the pelicans
devouring them. They gather in flocks, sweep and wheel in the air, and
when they plunge they strike the water with a violence which one would
expect would break their wings. They do not dive, but seize their prey
with their long, broad bills, and seem never to miss.

Between the ships and the barracks, there are many single men in Port
Royal, for whom amusement has to be found if they are to be kept from
drink. A canteen is provided for them, with bowling alley, tennis court,
beer in moderation, and a reading room, for such as like it, with
reviews and magazines and newspapers They can fish if they want sport,
and there are sharks in plenty a cable's length from shore; but the
schoolmaster has been abroad, and tastes run in more refined directions.
The blacks of Tobago acted 'The Merchant of Venice' before Governor
S----. The ships' companies of the gunboats at Port Royal gave a concert
while I was there. The officers took no part, and left the men to manage
it as they pleased. The commodore brought his party; the garrison, the
crews of the other ships, and stray visitors came, and the large room at
the canteen was completely full. The taste of the audience was curious.
Dibdin was off the boards altogether, and favour was divided between the
London popular comic song and the sentimental--no longer with any
flavour of salt about it, but the sentimental spoony and sickly. 'She
wore a wreath of roses' called out the highest enthusiasm. One of the
performers recited a long poem of his own about Mary Stuart, 'the lovely
and unfortunate.' Then followed the buffoonery; and this was at least
genuine rough and tumble if there was little wit in it. A lad capered
about on a tournament horse which flung him every other moment. Various
persons pretended to be drunk, and talked and staggered as drunken men
do. Then there was a farce, how conceived and by what kind of author I
was puzzled to make out. A connoisseur of art is looking for Greek
antiques. He has heard that a statue has recently been discovered of
'Ajax quarrelling with his mother-in-law.' What Ajax was quarrelling
about or who his mother-in-law might be does not appear. A couple of
rogues, each unknown to the other, practise on the connoisseur's
credulity. Each promises him the statue; each dresses up a confederate
on a pedestal with a modern soldier's helmet and a blanket to represent
a Greek hero. The two figures are shown to him. One of them, I forget