man, his declared rival, or he would urge them into the most abominable excesses. He converts their credulity to his own profit, persuades the women out of their ear-rings and necklaces, and the men out of their fowls and pigs. He has even set them to rob one another, assuring them that whatever they bring to him is a sacrifice to God. His rapacity almost equals that of the priesthood of old, but his Obeah rival still retains an influence over even his followers,—an influence under which they were born, and, by his spells, his charms, and his fetishes, guards the property of his less enterprising and more peaceful neighbours.

As the practice of Obeah is illegal, and the persuasion of Saint Swipes in fashion, the latter affects to defy the wizard, and threatens to give him up to the law, forgetting that he lies at the mercy of his adversary, and may in turn be called to account for poisoning the methodist.

CHAPTER IX.

December 30.-Tuesday.

THE Creole tongue, if I may so call it, is a curious corruption of English, and very difficult to my inexperienced ears; though, like all other mutilated dialects, it is not unfrequently a source of mirth and risibility. I did not want opportunities of acquiring it or of laughing at it, in listening to the frequent dialogues of my two followers. The first, Ebenezer, like a barking spaniel, was always snapping and snarling at his companion, who, like a bull-dog, seldom growled but he bit hard and held. I had much trouble to keep them quiet when the spirit moved Mr. Sneezer, for Dollar seldom began the attack, and would always endeavour to laugh away the insinuations of the Christian; but, when he was completely roused, he was half furious.

I left Vaughan's field at seven o'clock in

the morning for the residence of Mr. S to whom I had a letter of introduction, almost superfluous in a country where hospitality reigns paramount. My course lay again through rocky ravines, embosomed in woods matted together by the vines that overgrow them. From the loftiest trees hung down the pendant streamers of the parasites, taking root again in the earth, or attached to other trees twenty or thirty yards distant. The traveller has always in mind the idea of a ship's rigging, for the whole forest is connected by these living ropes, that wave in the wind and give a most romantic grace to the scenery. I saw one mocking bird, who warbled prettily enough; pigeons and parrots are the chief tenants of the wilderness, and a cricket, whose horrid screams are sufficient to stun one, and chase away every agreeable idea that the sight of these grand and magnificent solitudes may inspire.'

I found Mr. Swas a serious Christian, what in England we call a methodist; but as I make it a rule never to interfere with the feelings of any man on the subject of his faith, I had no difficulty in conforming to the customs of his house, and avoiding the possi

bility of any argumentation about religious points.

Before we retired to bed, the house-people of all colours and ages were called in to pray and sing psalms, while a young lady made a scrambling over the keys of a jingling spinnet, and my host gave out the staves with the true nasal twang. Ebenezer was in raptures while the chorus lasted,' and Abdallah, acting the part of an accomplished renegado, behaved with every attention to decorum as far as utter indifference could express it.

When the musical discords ceased, Mr. Şopened the Bible, and cocking up his legs in the Creole fashion on the table, to be more at ease, began to read, in a solemn though affected manner, the second epistle of Paul to Timothy, while a negro-boy, holding a candle with a glass shade over it at his right hand, stood winking and blinking, and from time to time yawning, until at last he actually fell asleep and tumbled with a lee-lurch headLong against his devout and persevering master, whom he almost knocked out of his chair. The glass shade was crushed to atoms, and the Bible flew half across the hall. Mr. S recovering himself, and looking at Samson

with a good-natured air of discomfiture, which was reciprocal, only observed that "this was not the way to be enlightened." My friend Dollar retreated, as if satisfied, and the most serious could not repress a titter; I would say the most serious of the brown girls, a goodly and a pretty family. The devout S lost none of his gravity, except in reproaching them for making a precipitate retreat; for they rushed out in a body, whereas their entrance had been slow and by distant instalments, "like angel's visits-few and far between."

I had been in bed and asleep for some hours, as I guessed, when I was awaked by footsteps in the piazza to which my chamber windows opened, and, looking naturally towards the light, I thought I perceived a human form standing against the wall and peeping into my room. I could not immediately rouse myself, and by the time I had rubbed my eyes, the figure had disappeared I thought I must have been mistaken, and would have re-composed myself to sleep, but looking still from time to time towards the window, I not only saw the same form again, but I was convinced it was one of the mu