We left a few sheep, to be slaughtered when they wished for fresh meat, and two dozen fowls.

Purchasing more, they soon had double the number of the latter, and anticipated a good supply of eggs; but they also bought two monkeys, and _they_ ate all the eggs.

A hippopotamus came up one night, and laid waste their vegetable garden; the sheep broke into their cotton patch, when it was in flower, and ate it all, except the stems; then the crocodiles carried off the sheep, and the natives stole the fowls.

Nor were they more successful as gun-smiths: a Portuguese trader, having an exalted opinion of the ingenuity of English sailors, showed them a double-barrelled rifle, and inquired if they could put on the _browning_, which had rusted off.

"I think I knows how," said one, whose father was a blacksmith, "it's very easy; you have only to put the barrels in the fire." A great fire of wood was made on shore, and the unlucky barrels put over it, to secure the handsome rifle colour.