he
either looked love or shame-stricken. Probably I was mistaken, as I
concluded he had discarded the latter when he entered the Service as an
unmanly appendage.

Whilst here I went on shore with some of my messmates, and dined with the
mess at the Castle off goat, boiled, broiled, roasted, stewed, and
devilled, and some fish. In short they have nothing else except some
half-starved fowls and Muscovy ducks; sometimes, but not very often,
buffalo beef, which is so tough that after you have swallowed it--for you
cannot chew it--you are liable to indigestion for two months or so; so
naturally they prefer young goat. The Castle, which stands on an eminence,
is strong on the sea face, but I presume it would not hold out long on the
land side against a regular siege, but as I am no engineer, I will leave
it, as Moore's Almanac says of the hieroglyphic, to the learned and the
curious. The town consists of small, low huts, the greater part of which
are built of stakes and mud, whitewashed over, and thatched with palm
leaves. I saw a spot of parched, arid ground which was designated a
botanical garden. If it did not contain many exotics, it did a most savage
tiger, which was enclosed in an iron cage.

We had been cruising along the coast, and sometimes anchoring for about
five weeks, when the captain of the sloop of war was promoted from this
fleeting world to a better. I was, in consequence, appointed as her
captain, being in my ninth year as lieutenant when I obtained my
promotion. I parted company with the frigate shortly afterwards, and
anchored off Accrah. A canoe soon came off with an invitation from the
Governor requesting my company to dinner. I accepted it and went on shore,
where I was received by a young man who was more merchant than soldier,
but who had command of the fort which commanded the roadstead and the
town. He informed me that a little distance from the town was a large
lagoon or lake in which were frequently found four or more large tame
alligators. "For," added he, "although the natives often suffer from their
depredations, and once one of their children was devoured by one of these
reptiles, they hold them sacred, and they are 'fetiched' or made holy." "I
should much like to see one," said I. "I will," answered he, "send for one
of the Cabaceers, or head men of the town, and we shall soon know if there
are any in the neighbourhood." A quarter of an hour had elapsed when in
came a grave-looking black man