Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/37

Rh as you never saw. Likewise there was tinned things like cocoa, and boxed things like China tea. And any quantity of blankets, and rugs, and donkeys' breakfasts. And oilskins there was, and rubber sea-boots, and shore shoes, and Crimee shirts. Also Dungarees, and soap, and matches, so many as you never heard tell. But no, not for one of these things was Bill going for to bargain.

"Then there were lamps and candles, and knives and nutmeg-graters, and things made of bright tin and saucers of red clay; and rolls of coloured cloth, made in the hills by the Indians. Bowls there were, painted with twisty-whirls by the folk of old time. And flutes from the tombs (of the Incas), and whistles that looked like flower-pots. Also fiddles and beautiful melodeons. Then there were paper roses for ornament, and false white flowers for graves; also paint-brushes and coir-brooms. There were cages full of parrots, both green and grey; and white cockatoos on perches a-nodding their red crests; and Java lovebirds a-billing, and parrakeets a-screaming, and little kittens for the ships with rats. And at the