In Search of an Unknown Race — page 115: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

VAN. 105 fever on the return passage from the south coast of Africa, and been buried at sea, Van himself being not quite three years old at the time. There was a small sum of money left for the support of the orphaned child, whom Captain Peterson had informally adopted as soon as he knew of Captain Briscoe’s death. And the good captain had been a true father to his adopted son. Then followed the story of Martin’s appearance in America with Richard Briscoe’s letter, and the results with which the reader is acquainted. After this Van described his unexpected meeting with Martin in Para, which none of his hearers thought in the least strange. “You will see and hear far stranger things before you leave Itambez,” said Mr. Briscoe with a smile; after which a grave looking servant with distinctively Indian features gave the summons to dinner. Mr. Briscoe had tried to introduce European fashions and habits into his own household as far as possible. And as Van learned later, many of the inhabitants of Itambez—particularly the higher orders of society—had copied them to a greater or less extent. And so in a large cool apartment, whose stone walls were fantastically frescoed in quaint patterns and colors, a table was spread, and around it were cushioned seats of mahogany, inlaid with mother of pearl. The meal itself was of the most appetizing order, though prepared in a manner not unlike that employed in Mexican or Spanish cookery. There were fish from the river, ortolans from the valley, and mutton from the mountain uplands. There was sherbet cooled withsnow from the Cordilleran peaks, and fragrant coffee grown within a pistol shot of the estate, with such a profusion Eomicboo .S (E(0) im