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390
Spanish language during my rambles in
Texas.
Amongst the first settlers on the Man
atee river, there was an old friend of
my father, by the name of B , who
had “ cast his lines” in that out of the
way locality, with the expectation of
soon realizing a fortune by the cultiva
tion of the sugar cane and tropical fruits
—an expectation,* by-the-bye, in which
he was sadly disappointed. Not a
great while after he had settled upon
the Manatee, I received a letter from
his son, (an old chum and school mate
of mine,) giving me a glowing account
of the fine hunting and fishing to be
had in that vicinity, and a.so a cordial
invitation to come down and spend a
few weeks with him —as I had no urgent
business just then on hand, I made up
my mind at once to go down to the
Manatee, for I had long had a secret
desire to see that portion of the penin
sula, in which my friend B. had settled.
A day or two after the receipt of his
letter, having made all the necessary
preparations for mj r intended trip, I
bade farewell to all ‘enquiring friends,’
and lastly to my sweet heart, Miss TANARUS.,
—(that was a trying scene, I can tell
you. I choked all the'time I was telling
her good bye, worse than if I had been
eating a cold sweet potato without any
water to wash it down—but she gave
me a lock of her soft, brown hair, which
was very consoling’to" me, and which I
promised to wear next my heart until
it should cease to beat —by the way
though I rammed it down my gun one
day with the paper it was wrapped up
in, in my hurry to get a shot at a fine
buck.”)
“Oh! shucks,” said Jimmy Dunn,
still evidently inclined to pay otf some
body, for the criticisms upon his own
yarn, “ never mind about those ‘ wishy
washy ’ side dishes—bring in the roast
beef and plum pudding.”
“Well,” said I, “Jimmy, it is a
hard ease that you wont permit me to
romance a little, particularly as it is
but seldom I ever indulge in that line.
However, from this time on I will try
to keep strictly to the ‘ thread of my
story. ’
“ To continue then, I took the stage
for the old town of St. Marks, where I
was lucky enough, on my arrival, to find
a good boat just preparing to set sail for
Tampa, which was only about sixty
miles from my place of destination. In
an hour after, I had embarked myself
and ‘ traps ’ on board of this boat, we
set sail with a fair breeze, and after a
short and pleasant voyage, landed at
Tampa, the little village located on the
eastern arm of the bay of the same
name.
“ From this place to the Manatee,
(about sixty miles down the bay,)
where my friend lived, there was no
road at the time, and my only chance
to get there was by taking passage on
some of the little fruit vessels or fishing
smacks, that occasionally plied between
BURKE’S WEEKLY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.
Tampa and other parts along the coast
—and which usually touched in at the
Manatee, going and coming. But, up
on enquiry, I found there was no boat
at Tampa to sail shortly, and I had to
make up my mind ‘ per force ’ to re
main there, and wait as patiently as I
could for one, which I was informed
would sail for Key West, (via Manatee,)
in the course of eight or ten days.
Fortunately for me, however, I had
some few acquaintances in the place,
and among them my time passed off
much more agreeably and pleasantly
than it probably would have done if I
had been dependent altogether upon
my own resources for amusement.
“ One day we went out driving for
deer, the next we were off upon a fish
ing frolic, and the next perhaps upon
an oystering expedition or hunting gulls’
eggs upon the reefs and barren islets in
the bay. One morning, 8., an old ac
quaintance, at whose hospitable board
I was breakfasting, said to me :
“ ‘Well, Jack, we have hunted you,
fished you, sailed and rowed you, and
there is nothing left to kill time that I
can suggest unless we take you to the
stronghold of Don Sebastian, the Pi
rate. ’
“ ‘And who,’ I asked, ‘may this re
nowned piratical character be to whom
you allude, and what is he doing in
these peaceful waters ?’
“ ‘Don Sebastian,’ answered my friend
8., ‘is indeed a very mysterious sort of
character, and there is no one here who
knows anything about his antecedents.
Four or five years ago, he landed at this
place from a vessel that had sailed from
some out of the way port in the West
India Islands, together with his family,
(his wife and two lovely and accomplish
ed daughters,) and several outlandish
looking servants, and a large amount of
miscellaneous plunder. In a little while
after his arrival, he purchased a con
siderable tract, of land some ten or
twelve miles above here on the bay,
where he built a fine house, in which he
is now living like an Eastern nabob. It
is said that he openly confesses having
served under Lafitte for a number of
years in his younger days, and what
seems to give some plausibility to this
scandal is the fact, that everything he
has purchased since he came here has
been paid for in old Spanish coin—
‘pieces of eight’ mostly, as he calls
them. But, whatever he may have been
in times gone by, he is undoubtedly now
‘as mild a mannered man as ever scut
tled ship or cut a throat,’and dispenses
the hospitalities of his house with a lav
ish hand to all who choose to call upon
him.’
“ ‘By all means, then,’ said I, ‘ let us
visit the redoubtable pirate, for I am
dying of curiosity to see him and his
accomplished daughters. By the way,’
I continued, ‘does he still wear the con
ventional slouched hat, the crimson
sash around his waist, with the stiletto
and pair of silver-mounted pistols stuck
in it?’
“ ‘No,’ said 8., ‘ that is not his ordi
nary style of dress now, but he has dark,
piercing eyes, a magnificent moustache,
and a sinister smile.’
“ ‘That will do,’ I said, ‘as far as I
am concerned. I vote for a visit to the
freebooter.’
“‘And I,’ ‘and I,’ said everybody
else present.
“So the visit was determined upon,
and the next morning, according to
agreement, we all assembled at B.’s af
ter an early breakfast. My friend had
already made every preparation requis
ite for the trip. So, embarking in a
comfortable boat, rowed by four jolly
tars, whom B. had hired for the occa
sion, we started off upon our proposed
excursion to the ‘pirate’s den.’
“The day was a. beautiful one. Not
a cloud obscured the sky, and the rays
of the sun were tempered by the steady
sea breeze that blew cool and bracing
from the waters of the gulf. On our
route, we passed some noted oyster
banks, where we tarried long enough to
fish up with a pair of oyster tongs we
had on board, eight or ten bushels of
the most splendid bivalves I had ever
seen. They were all single oysters, not
being, as is usually the case, cemented
together in clusters, and some of them
were fully six or seven inches in length.
Having thus secured an ample supply
of shell fish, we determined to ‘ press
our luck ’ and see what we could do in
the way of angling for the finny tribe ;
so, after capturing a number of mullet
for bait, which we caught by throwing a
cast net half a dozen times into the fre
quent schools we passed on the way, we
let go our anchor on the edge of a sand
bar, and threw our long hand lines into
the deep water beyond.
“ I never saw the fish bite more ra
venously than they did at that place.
We did not have to wait for hours for a
glorious nibble, but on the contrary, the
moment our hooks touched the water,
they were seized by the red fish and
salt-water trout, and in less than half
an hour all hands were thoroughly wor
ried out with the labor of hauling them
in.
“ Weighing anchor, and leaving these
fishing grounds, we soon rounded a cape
that jutted out into the bay from the
main land, and came suddenly in view
of the 1 castle’ of Don Sebastian, the pi
rate, situated on a gentle eminence at
the extremity of a small cove or harbor.
Moored to the bank near the castle, I
discovered ‘ a long, low, rakish-looking’
boat; but I looked in vain for the ‘skull
and cross bones ’ and the ‘ black flag ’
flying from the mast-head; and as we
neared the castle, it gradually resolved
itself into a large frame building, sur
rounded by gardens and orchards. Ro
mance was gone, but a very comfortable
reality had taken its place.
“ One thing about the locality struck
me particularly, and] that was the fact
that in lieu of the low, marshy shores I
had everywhere else seen around the
bay, here the banks were eight or ten
feet above high water mark, and com
posed of masses of solid rock, —a most
uncommon feature anywhere on the
Florida coast. From the edge of these
rocks, luxuriant evergreens hung over
the waters of the bay, which were then
gently rippling and breaking at their
base.
Behind the house, at the distance per
haps of a quarter of a mile, the dark
line of the primeval forest, shut in from
the outer world the little cove that Don
Sebastian had chosen for a’retreat in
his declining years.
“We landed a few yards from the
house, and boldly advanced towards the
pirate’s stronghold. Our approach, no
doubt, had been observed for some
time, for the whole family came forth
at once to greet us, led in person by Don
Sebastian himself. My friend 8., who
had met him before, made some com
mon excuse for this intrusion on his
premises, but the Don told him that no
excuse was necessary at all; that he
was always rejoiced to see his friends
and welcome them to the best he had.
B. thereupon formally introduced us all
one by one, and Don Sebastian return
ed the courtesy by introducing us in
turn to his wife and daughters.
“Ah! those fascinating daughters!
everything I had ever read in fiction or
romance about the ‘ dark-eyed senoritas
of Spain,’ ‘ the lovely dames of Circas
sia,’ and the ‘favorites of the Eastern
harems,’ seemed realized in their grace
ful forms and languishing eyes. lam
very much afraid if I_had been exposed
for any length of time to their bewitch
ing charms, that my constancy to my
‘first love,’ MissT., would have been
terribly jarred.”
“ Look here,” said Jimmy Dunn, in
terrupting me again, “ if you don’t stop
all that bosh about ‘ first love ’ and
‘ dark-eyed senoritas,’ I’ll take my blan
ket and ‘ turn in ’ for the night. We
have read all about them in the * Pi
rate’s Own Book.’j go on with the
story, if you please.”
Extract of Flowers.
The fragrance of flowers can be ex
tracted in this way : Take thin layers of
cotton-wool, and dip them into nice
sweet oil, and sprinkle a small quanti
ty of fine salt on the flowers whose fra
grance is to be extracted ; then place in
a jar a layer of cotton and a layer of
flowers, until the jar, or a wide-mouth
ed glass bottle, is full. Close the top
tightly with a bladder, or air-tight stop
per, and place the jar in a southern as
pect, to receive the heat of the sun fif
teen days. When you uncover it, a
fragrant oil may be squeezed from the
cotton equal to the otter of roses.
The poor have little, beggars none,
The rich too much, enough not one.