and that if all of us had our deserts, I should be both of them rolled
into one. (It may be imagined what sort of an officer of marines I
should have made, without the power of reading a written order. And as
to any knowledge how to command the sloop--Lord! I should have sunk her
in a quarter of an hour!)

However, such were my reflections; and when we men were ashore and
dismissed, I strolled about the place along with Charker, making my
observations in a similar spirit.

It was a pretty place: in all its arrangements partly South American and
partly English, and very agreeable to look at on that account, being like
a bit of home that had got chipped off and had floated away to that spot,
accommodating itself to circumstances as it drifted along. The huts of
the Sambos, to the number of five-and-twenty, perhaps, were down by the
beach to the left of the anchorage. On the right was a sort of barrack,
with a South American Flag and the Union Jack, flying from the same
staff, where the little English colony could all come together, if they
saw occasion. It was a walled square of building, with a sort of
pleasure-ground inside, and inside that again a sunken block like a
powder magazine, with a little square trench round it, and steps down to
the door. Charker and I were looking in at the gate, which was not
guarded; and I had said to Charker, in reference to the bit like a powder
magazine, "That's where they keep the silver you see;" and Charker had
said to me, after thinking it over, "And silver ain't gold. Is it,
Gill?" when the beautiful young English lady I had been so bilious about,
looked out of a door, or a window--at all events looked out, from under a
bright awning. She no sooner saw us two in uniform, than she came out so
quickly that she was still putting on her broad Mexican hat of plaited
straw when we saluted.