Later in the evening the quartette received a call from a fine looking old farmer and his wife, both arriving in one of those peculiarly rotten old skiffs which, when one sees them in use, seem strong arguments in favor of a special Providence interposing to protect human life. The lady was curious to see the culinary outfit of the party, while her husband led conversation slowly but surely toward the subject of the late war in the States. When he learned that some of the party had seen military service, he manifested great satisfaction, and told of his own experiences, which the military and political exigencies of France had caused to be of varied but stirring nature. The Vice listened with a sympathy born of his recollections of the blockade-running service, but when he learned that the old fellow, when a soldier, had once fraternized with the revolutionists and fought beside them behind a barricade, he shouted, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité," and tumultously embraced the grizzly old warrior in true French fashion.
The next morning found the expedition still in camp upon the island, and not caring to depart. Scenery so diversified it had not been the fortune of any of the party to have seen elsewhere. Every hour of the day revealed some new beauty, and every change of light discovered new charms in those which had been seen before. The Cook, who had become so enamored of the view that he occasionally forgot his official duties, arose at dawn one morning to enjoy the scene by sunrise. The air was chilly, so he kindled his fire and soon had a fine bed of coals behind which he stretched himself, with his face to the east. The dawn had doffed its bluish-grey night-robe and was putting on a morning-dress of soft pink, but doing it as leisurely as if this were not an age of action, and as if time were not money. Then its complexion slowly but steadily brightened under the influence of atmosphere unpolluted by factory chimney, and undisturbed by rumbling omnibus or rattling milk-wagon. It glanced kindly down into the farmer's barnyard, and received murmuring acknowledgments from the cattle and fowls; it peered between the young trees on the steep bank of the opposite shore, and each of them seemed to stand a little straighter than before, while each leaf gazed down into the watery mirror beneath and made its most elaborate toilet. The river saw it coming, and, ashamed of its own leaden complexion, hastened to throw over its face a misty veil which should prevent too close a gaze until the river's only valet should arise from his couch behind the dawn, and brighten the heavy countenance. The birds greeted cheerily the acquaintance who came every day, and whose only fault was that it never remained long enough; the tiny blossoms beneath the trees began to peer forth at it; a million daisies turned their yellow eyes toward it, and with each new attention bestowed it blushed more and more. It sent the politest of zephyrs to beg the river to remove its veil; it lavished its own charms upon the river until the stream seemed to have emerged suddenly from the fountain of youth; the most subtle and delicious perfumes diffused themselves every where, and the Cook breathed them in with a feeling that he was absorbing Nature's own sweet self. Then there floated through the air an odor more pronounced and less fragrant, and the Cook discovered that a large fold of one of his baggy trouser legs had succumbed to the attentions of the neighboring fire, and disappeared like the baseless fabric of a vision and left but a rag behind. Just then the Purser, who at home was a philosopher as well as an artist, emerged yawning from his couch and proceeded to the river and his ablutions.