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Reginald Clifford, C.M.G., a stiff little withered-up official Briton, half mummified by long exposure to tropical suns, was sitting in his drawing-room with Mrs. Clifford, his wife, and discussing what subject of all others on earth but the personality of Cyril Waring?

At length the door of the hut opened, and a gigantic figure, with a splendid tiger-skin karross flung over its shoulders, stepped out, followed by the boy Scragga, and what appeared to us to be a withered-up monkey, wrapped in a fur cloak.

As I stepped in through the entering port a small, withered-up, sun- dried, yellow-complexioned man in full captain's uniform met me, and, introducing himself somewhat pompously as Don Felix Calderon, the captain of the Santa Catalina, bade me, and through me my companions, welcome on board his ship, congratulating us upon our speedy rescue, and expressing the gratification he felt at being the means of saving so many gallant enemies from a possible watery grave.

Making our way into one of the larger huts, we stroll into the open door, and ask a more important-looking man if he has any water-melon? We get a splendid one for "four-pin," and have a delicious "gouter." Our host a little, dry, withered-up fellow, dressed in a soiled blue cotton jacket, and wide trowsers which flap about his ankles collects the rind for his fowls.

I have learned from history that dynasties dry up like trees, and that it is better to uproot the hollow, withered-up trunk rather than permit it, in its long decay, to suck up the last nourishing strength from the soil on which it stands."

There was a whole group of Dummer Pines: Levi, the little wiry, witty poacher; Cornish Bill, the honest-hearted old peasant, with his stalwart figure and uncouth dialect; and David and Ned all good men and true; and Malachi Chroak, a queer, withered-up, monkey-man, that seemed like some mischievous elf, flitting from heap to heap to make work and fun for the rest; and many others were at that bee who have since found a rest in the wilderness: Adam T, H, J. M, H. N These, at different times, lost their lives in those bright waters in which, on such occasions as these, they used to sport and frolic to refresh themselves during the noonday heat.

There was a whole group of Dummer Pines: Levi, the little wiry, witty poacher; Cornish Bill, the honest-hearted old peasant, with his stalwart figure and uncouth dialect; and David, and Nedall good men and true; and Malachi Chroak, a queer, withered-up, monkey-man, that seemed like some mischievous elf, flitting from heap to heap to make work and fun for the rest; and many others were at that bee who have since found a rest in the wilderness: Adam T , H , J. M , H. N .

The captain of the POCAHONTAS was a little, withered-up old man with sharp, deep-set eyes of brightest blue, and had the reputation of possessing the most fiery and excitable temper of any of the captains of the sixty or seventy American whale-ships that in those days cruised the Pacific from the West Coast of South America to Gaum in the Ladrones.

Everywhere were pretty children, young, slatternly mothers, withered-up grandmothers, the gleam of glowing reds and yellows, and the coolness of subdued greens and fine blues. Such at least was the composite first impression made on Mr. and Mrs. Porson.

Every spring they put forth a brave show of pink and white blossoms, as though this year, at all events, they were going to do themselves credit, and every autumn the result appeared in half-a-dozen hard, small, sour, withered-up apples that hardly deserved the name.