Some strong abolitionists at the port would have us dine in an epicurean
way in commemoration of the name given our canoe, which was adopted
because of her having been put afloat on the thirteenth day of May, the
day on which every human being in Brazil could say, "I have no master
but one." I declined the banquet tendered us, having work on hand,
fortifying the canoe against the ravaging worms of the seas we were yet
to sail through, bearing in mind the straits of my great predecessor
from this as well as other causes on his voyage over the Caribbean Seas.
I was bound to be strengthened against the enemy.
The gout, it will be remembered, seized upon the good Columbus while his
ship had worms, when both ship and admiral lay stranded among menacing
savages; surrounded, too, by a lawless, threatening band of his own
countrymen not less treacherous than the worst of cannibals. His state
was critical indeed! One calamity was from over-high living--this I was
bound to guard against--the other was from neglect on the part of his
people to care for the ship in a seaman-like manner. Of the latter
difficulty I had no risk to run.
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