Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/88

( 63 ) or Seraphina, he deprecates the hell-invented barrier, that precludes him from imprinting the impassioned kiss on the hand of the sweetly pensive recluse. For the encouragement of my enamoured countrymen, who might otherwise give way to despondency, and pine in hopeless love, I cannot help informing them, that the iron bars of the convents are not quite so hard as adamant, nor the walls so high as to render an escalade impracticable; and that the watchful eye of the dragon, who guards the Hesperian fruit, has more than once been eluded by British ingenuity, or lulled to sleep by Brazilian gold.

The custom of dropping bouquets upon the heads of passengers, as signals to