"
Then again--as I praised his lovely taper fingers--they were more like
bunches of frosted carrots, dipped in a tar--bucket, with the tails snapt
short off, where about an inch thick.
"My taper fingers--oh lord! Now, Peter, I can't stomach this any longer,
I'll give you my grog for the next two days, if you will take my spell
here--My taper fingers--murder!"
As the evening closed in we saw the high land of Jamaica, but it was the
following afternoon before we were off the entrance of Mancheoneal Bay.
All this period, although it must have been one of great physical
suffering, has ever, to my ethereal part, remained a dead blank. The
first thing I remember afterwards, was being carried ashore in the dark
in a hammock slung on two oars, so as to form a sort of rude palanquin,
and laid down at a short distance from the overseer's house where my
troubles had originally commenced. I soon became perfectly sensible and
collected, but I was so weak I could not speak; after resting a little,
the men again lifted me and proceeded. The door of the dining--hall,
which was the back entrance into the overseer's house, opened flush into
the little garden through which we had come in--there were lights, and
sounds of music, singing, and jovialty within. The farther end of the
room, at the door of which I now rested, opened into the piazza, or open
veranda, which crossed it at right angles, and constituted the front of
the house, forming, with this apartment, a figure somewhat like the
letter T.
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