enants she must wait until
they were tired of the governor's ball, we having given the preference
to hers."

This remark set all to rights; sangaree was handed about, and I looked
around at the company. I must acknowledge, at the risk of losing the
good opinion of my fair countrywomen, that I never saw before so many
pretty figures and faces. The officers not having yet arrived we
received all the attention, and I was successively presented to Miss
Eurydice, Miss Minerva, Miss Sylvia, Miss Aspasia, Miss Euterpe, and
many other, evidently borrowed from the different men-of-war which had
been on the station. All these young ladies gave themselves all the
airs of Almack's. Their dresses I cannot pretend to describe--jewels of
value were not wanting, but their drapery was slight. They appeared
neither to wear nor to require stays, and on the whole, their figures
were so perfect, that they could only be ill-dressed by having on too
much dress. A few more midshipmen and some lieutenants (O'Brien among
the number) having made their appearance, Miss Austin directed that the
ball should commence. I requested the honour of Miss Eurydice's hand in
a cotillon, which was to open the ball. At this moment stepped forth
the premier violin, master of the ceremonies and ballet-master, Massa
Johnson, really a very smart man, who gave lessons in dancing to all the
"'Badian ladies." He was a dark quadroon, his hair slightly powdered,
dressed in a light blue coat thrown well back, to show his lily-white
waistcoat, only one button of which he could afford to button to make
full room for the pride of his heart, the frill of his shirt, which
really was _un jabot superb_, four inches wide, and extending from his
collar to the waist-band of his nankeen tights, which were finished off
at his knees with huge bunches of riband; his legs were encased in silk
stockings, which, however, was not very good taste on his part, as they
showed the manifest advantage which an European has over a coloured man
in the formation of the leg: instead of being straight, his shins curved
like a cheese-knife, and, moreover, his leg was planted into his foot
like the handle into a broom or scrubbing-brush, there being quite as
much of the foot on the heel side as on the toe side. Such was the
appearance of Mr Apollo Johnson, whom the ladies considered as the _ne
plus ultra_ of fashion, and the _arbiter elegantiarum_. His _bow-tick_,
or fiddle-stick, was his