packages of tobacco, the whole making a most vivid and
brilliant display of color.

The crew bought eagerly, regardless of price. Limes, oranges, mangoes,
bananas, and pineapples came over the side in a steady stream, while an
equally steady, though smaller, stream of silver went back to the boats.

It was a harvest day for the Montego Bay "bumboatmen."

Though we bought the fruits without hesitation, we bit into them
gingerly, for, to most of us, many of them were strange.

Tom LeValley brought me a mango and said that I could have it if I would
sample it and tell what it was like. I accepted, for I had not been
lucky enough to get near a boat to buy for myself.

He handed me something that looked like a pear but was of the color of
an orange. I was just about to bite into it when I chanced to look up. I
saw that I was the target of all eyes. Putting on a bold front, I sunk
my teeth in the yellow rind. I found it was pleasant to the taste, but
unlike anything that I had ever put in my mouth before. Still the
fellows gazed at me. Was it a trick mango I had tackled so recklessly? I
determined not to be stumped, and took a good big bite. In a moment, I
discovered why I was the "observed of all observers." The last bite
loosened a good deal of the peel, and the thing began to ooze. It oozed
through my fingers and began to run down my sleeve; it dripped on my
trousers and made an ineradicable stain; my face was smeared with it, my
hands were sticky with it, my mouth was full of it, and still the blamed
thing oozed.

Then the unfeeling crowd laughed. Some one shouted "get under the hose."
Another yelled "Swab ho," whereupon a none too clean deck swab was
brought and applied to my face and hands, protests being unavailing.

I afterwards remarked to Tom that he had better try experiments on
himself, or present me with a bathtub along with the next mango, and I
have since learned that a Distinguished Person came to the same
conclusion when first introduced to this deceitful fruit.

We enjoyed our stay in this beautiful island port very much, and it was
with great reluctance that we obeyed the order to "haul on the cat
falls." As we were walking away with that heavy line, we saw a liberty
party from the English warship start for shore in the ship's cutters,
and we envied them with all our hearts.

The town looked very attractive, set as it was on the side and at the
base of a high hill, the red-tiled roofs of its houses