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E were skirting the Island of Margherita, which belongs to Venezuela and produces pearls of small size but excellent quality. I was smoking an after-dinner cigar with Dr. Leyden, the collector, who earns his living by supplying museums and professors with specimens from the animal, vegetable, and mineral worlds.

"Did you ever notice, Doctor," he asked, suddenly, "how African blood is curdled by being mixed with Anglo-Saxon?"

"I had always thought," said I, "that African "blood mixes badly with any other."

"No. With Latin blood it will combine like whisky and soda, but the Anglo-Saxon plasma exerts upon it an action like that of alcohol upon albumen" He paused and absently followed the course of a school of flying-fish [ 46 ]