Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/185

 negro entertainment. Juba and Zib Coon danced and highly delighted them, and the Virginia reel  set them wild. Then followed a novel representation of a donkey. Two of the Peacock's crew stood back to back, and were tied loosely together about the waist. Iron belaying-pins were put into their hands, which served for feet. They then bent forward so they could strike the deck with the iron pins. A Mackintosh blanket was thrown over them, a pair of old shoes served  as ears, and a ship’s swab for tail. When this donkey, with his comical looking rider, Jim Crow Rice,  on his back, made his appearance from between two of  the guns which had been screened off with a tarpaulin,  they were frightened, but the sound of the animal’s feet  on deck and the braying of the beast fairly terrified  them. When the blanket was removed and they saw only two men, they expressed the greatest astonishment,  and even laid their hands on them to satisfy themselves  that they were not two mules.

In the afternoon the officers heard that an attack would be made on the observatory during the night by  a party of warriors from the chief Vendovi’s district, as  they had learned that the chief was a prisoner in irons  on board our ship. Their object was to secure Captain Wilkes, and by that means compel an exchange of prisoners. The commodore immediately came on board ship. The observatory was re-inforced by the first part of the starboard watch, armed and equipped for any  emergency. The ship was laid broadside to the shore, with springs on her cables, so as to bring the guns to  bear on each side of the observatory.