He was the ward-policeman, and I found him (as I did all the coloured police) able and courteous, shrewd and trusty.

These police are excellent specimens of what can be made of the Negro, or half-Negro, if he be but first drilled, and then given a responsibility which calls out his self- respect.

He was warning our crew not to run aground on one or other of the pitch reefs, which here take the place of rocks.

A large one, a hundred yards off on the left, has been almost all dug away, and carried to New York or to Paris to make asphalt pavement.

The boat was run ashore, under his directions, on a spit of sand between the pitch; and when she ceased bumping up and down in the muddy surf, we scrambled out into a world exactly the hue of its inhabitants--of every shade, from jet-black to copper-brown.