A 'stretch of the imagination,' doubtless: but no greater stretch than will be required by any explanation of the facts whatsoever.
And so, thanking Mr.Bland heartily for his valuable contribution to the infant science of Bio-Geology--I take leave, in these pages at least, of the Earthly Paradise.
Our run homeward was quite as successful as our run out.

The magnificent Neva, her captain and her officers, were what these Royal Mail steamers and their crews are--without, I believe, an exception--all that we could wish.

Our passengers, certainly, were neither so numerous nor so agreeable as when going out; and the most notable personage among them was a keen-eyed, strong-jawed little Corsican, who had been lately hired--so ran his story--by the coloured insurgents of Hayti, to put down the President--alias (as usual in such Republics) Tyrant--Salnave.
He seemed, by his own account, to have done his work effectually.

Seven thousand lives were lost in the attack on Salnave's quarters in Port au Prince.

Whole families were bayonetted, to save the trouble of judging and shooting them.