es. A reciprocation of courtesies which the sight-loving Africans
hailed with clapping of hands.

Two of the less wilted pumpkins being reserved for the cabin table, the
residue were minced up on the spot for the general regalement. But the
soft bread, sugar, and bottled cider, Captain Delano would have given
the whites alone, and in chief Don Benito; but the latter objected;
which disinterestedness not a little pleased the American; and so
mouthfuls all around were given alike to whites and blacks; excepting
one bottle of cider, which Babo insisted upon setting aside for his
master.

Here it may be observed that as, on the first visit of the boat, the
American had not permitted his men to board the ship, neither did he
now; being unwilling to add to the confusion of the decks.

Not uninfluenced by the peculiar good-humor at present prevailing, and
for the time oblivious of any but benevolent thoughts, Captain Delano,
who, from recent indications, counted upon a breeze within an hour or
two at furthest, dispatched the boat back to the sealer, with orders for
all the hands that could be spared immediately to set about rafting
casks to the watering-place and filling them. Likewise he bade word be
carried to his chief officer, that if, against present expectation, the
ship was not brought to anchor by sunset, he need be under no concern;
for as there was to be a full moon that night, he (Captain Delano) would
remain on board ready to play the pilot, come the wind soon or late.

As the two Captains stood together, observing the departing boat--the
servant, as it happened, having just spied a spot on his master's velvet
sleeve, and silently engaged rubbing it out--the American expressed his
regrets that the San Dominick had no boats; none, at least, but the
unseaworthy old hulk of the long-boat, which, warped as a camel's
skeleton in the desert, and almost as bleached, lay pot-wise inverted
amidships, one side a little tipped, furnishing a subterraneous sort of
den for family groups of the blacks, mostly women and small children;
who, squatting on old mats below, or perched above in the dark dome, on
the elevated seats, were descried, some distance within, like a social
circle of bats, sheltering in some friendly cave; at intervals, ebon
flights of naked boys and girls, three or four years old, darting in and
out of the den's mouth.

"Had you three or four boats now, Don Benito," said Captain Delano, "I
think that, by t