In a very few minutes I got all the water I wished for; also some aurora
shells from the governor's lady, who had arisen with the sun to grace
the day and of all things most appropriate held in her generous lap
beautiful aurora shells for which--to spoil the poem--I bartered
cocoa-nuts and rusty gnarly yams.
The lady was on a visit only to her lord and master, the monarch of all
he surveyed. Beside this was their three children also on a visit, from
Nassau, and two assistant keepers of the light which made up the total
of this little world in the ocean.
It was the smallest kingdom I had ever visited, peopled by happy human
beings and the most isolated by far.
The few blades of grass which had struggled into existence, not enough
to support a goat, was all there was to look at on the island except the
lighthouse, and the sand and themselves.
Some small buildings and a flagstaff had once adorned the place, but
together with a coop of chickens, the only stock of the
islanders--except a dog--had been swept away by a hurricane which had
passed over the island a short time before. The water for which we had
called being now in the canoe, and my people on board waiting for me, I
bade the worthy governor good-bye, and, saluting his charming island
queen in a seaman-like manner, hastened back to my own little world; and
bore away once more for the north.
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