A Queer Race: The Story of a Strange People — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

A QUEER RACE. 125 rise, we should have to breakfast by candle-light, and that I was to be one of the queen’s guests on board her own yacht. J am always punctual, and at five the next morning I entered my host’s dining-room, arrayed in my flannels, and we reached the jetty at the very moment that the sun emerged from the sea and chased the shadows from the mountain-top. We had not long to wait. The day was hardly born when the island queen, followed by a gay company of male and female Fanes and their kindred (who alone were admitted to her intimacy), came trooping down the hill, She greeted me very graciously, and invited me to join her party, an invitation which, I need scarcely say, was ‘‘accepted with thanks.” Kather to my surprise, her yacht, the Sunflower, was a — schooner of some seventy tons burden, solidly built, and well fitted and found. So soon as we were on board, the order was given to weigh anchor and make sail, and followed by several other yachts and a crowd of smaller boats, we moved slowly—the wind being light—down the ereek. ‘There they come?” cried Mab, pointing to a large boat, with a lug-sail, for which all the other boats respect- fully made way. It was the shark-hunters’ boat, and contained eight men, six of whom were rowing, while one steered, and the other seemed to be attending to the sail. ‘The cock- swain, and apparently the captain, was Amyas Fane. In the bottom of the boat were two or three dark objects that looked like bundles of rags. As she passed us the crew gave a cheer, which was cordially returned by the people on the yacht. «The shark-fighters, I suppose?” I said to the queen. ‘Yes. What do you think of them?” ‘‘T never saw a set of finer young fellows in my life.” And I never had.* All were over six feet three, brawny and broad-shouldered, deep of chest and long of limb, and as lithe and active assomanycats. ‘They were nearly naked, wearing only short drawers, but each man had on a belt, from which hung a sword, and their black hair was confined in a sort of fillet. Their boat was abead, and when she was well into the Gomichboo cS (e(@)