Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/352

320 the Morro Velho Master of Horse, who had been sent to attend upon me, in English. When she heard me speaking English so fluently, she flew at the padre and punched him in the ribs in a friendly way, and told him he was a liar; but she kept up the joke with the rest; so we had coffee and very interesting general conversation about England and civilization, church matters and marriages, and were taken round to several houses. They would have been jealous if we had only visited one; so we did not reach home till late in the afternoon.

One day afterwards, as I was sitting at the church door at Morro Velho, I saw some hammocks with bodies lying in them. They were carried by others, all dripping with blood. The kibble—the same one we had been down the mine in—had broken a link of its chain and fallen. How sorry it made me feel, and how thankful that it did not happen on our day, as it easily might!. Mr. Gordon is so careful about accidents that he has the chain hauled over and examined every twelve hours, and a prize is given to any one who can find a faulty link; yet in spite of all this from time to time it will break away. I think it happened twice during my stay. There is not the smallest occurrence that happens in that large colony that does not come under Mr. Gordon's eye between nine and ten o'clock every morning. The wonder is how he finds time for everything and every one with so much ease to himself.

While I was at Morro Velho he allowed me to