It's recommended by the faculty, &c. Give the young
one a glass, R., and score it up to yours truly."'
I fancy the great man who recorded these words was more
afraid of Mr. Harry PHOCA than of any other man in the
Garrick Club - possibly for the reason that honest Harry was
not the least bit afraid of him. The shy, the proud, the
sensitive satirist would steal quietly into the room,
avoiding notice as though he wished himself invisible. Phoca
would be warming his back at the fire, and calling for a
glass of 'Foker's own.' Seeing the giant enter, he would
advance a step or two, with a couple of extended fingers, and
exclaim, quite affably, 'Ha! Mr. Thackry! litary cove! Glad
to see you, sir. How's Major Dobbings?' and likely enough
would turn to the waiter, and bid him, 'Give this gent a
glass of the same, and score it up to yours truly!' We have
his biographer's word for it, that he would have winked at
the Duke of Wellington, with just as little scruple.
Yes, Andrew Arcedeckne was the original of Harry Foker; and,
from the cut of his clothes to his family connection, and to
the comicality, the simplicity, the sweetness of temper
(though hardly doing justice to the loveableness of the
little man), the famous caricature fits him to a T.
The night before we left London we had a convivial dinner at
the Garrick - we three travellers, with Albert Smith, his
brother, and John Leech. It was a merry party, to which all
contributed good fellowship and innocent jokes. The latest
arrival at the Zoo was the first hippopotamus that had
reached England, - a present from the Khedive. Someone
wondered how it had been caught. I suggested a trout-fly;
which so tickled John Leech's fancy that he promised to draw
it for next week's 'Punch.' Albert Smith went with us to
Southampton to see us off.
On our way to Jamaica we stopped a night at Barbadoes to
coal. Here I had the honour of making the acquaintance of
the renowned Caroline Lee! - Miss Car'line, as the negroes
called her. She was so pleased at the assurance that her
friend Mr. Peter Simple had spread her fame all the world
over, that she made us a bowl of the most delicious iced
sangaree; and speedily got up a 'dignity ball' for our
entertainment. She was rather too much of an armful to dance
with herself, but there was no lack of dark beauties, (not a
white woman or white man except ourselves in the room.) We
danced pretty nearly from daylight to daylight. The blending
of rigid propriety, of the severest 'dignity,' with the
sudden guffaw and outburst of wildest spirits and comic
humour, is beyond description, and is only to be met with
amongst these ebullient children of the sun.
On our arrival at Golden Grove, there was a great turn-out of
the natives to welcome their young lord and 'massa.' Archy
was touched and amused by their frantic loyalty. But their
mode of exhibiting it was not so entirely to his taste. Not
only the young, but the old women wanted to hug him. 'Eigh!
Dat you, Massa? Dat you, sar? Me no believe him. Out o' de
way, you trash! Eigh! me too much pleased like devil.' The
one constant and spontaneous ejaculation was, 'Yah! Massa too
muchy handsome! Garamighty! Buckra berry fat!' The latter
attribute was the source of genuine admiration; but the
object of it hardly appreciated its recognition, and waved
off his subjects with a mixture of impatience and alarm.
We had scarcely been a week at Golden Grove, when my two
companions and Durham's servant were down with yellow fever.
Being 'salted,' perhaps, I escaped scot-free, so helped
Archy's valet and Mr. Forbes, his factor, to nurse and to
carry out professional orders. As we were thirty miles from
Kingston the doctor could only come every other day. The
responsibility, therefore, of attending three patients
smitten with so deadly a disease was no light matter. The
factor seemed to think discretion the better part of valour,
and that Jamaica rum was the best specific for keeping his
up. All physicians were SANGRADOS in those days, and when
the Kingston doctor decided upon bleeding, the hysterical
state of the darky girls (we had no men in the bungalow
except Durham's and Archy's servants) rendered them worse
than useless. It fell to me, therefore, to hold the basin
while Archy's man was attending to his master.
Durham, who had nerves of steel, bore his lot with the grim
stoicism which marked his character. But at one time the
doctor considered his state so serious that he thought his
lordship's family should be informed of it. Accordingly I
wrote to the last Lord Grey, his uncle and guardian, stating
that there was little hope of his recovery. Poor Phoca was
at once tragic and comic. His medicine had to be
administered every, two hours. Each time, he begged and
prayed in lacrymose tones to be let off. It was doing him no
good. He might as well be allowed to die in peace. If we
would only spare him the beastliness this once, on his honour
he would take it next time 'like a man.' We were inexorable,
of course, and treated him exactly as one treats a child.
At last the crisis was over. Wonderful to relate, all three
began to recover. During their convalescence, I amused
myself by shooting alligators in the mangrove swamps at
Holland Bay, which was within half an hour's ride of the
bungalow. It was curious sport. The great saurians would
lie motionless in the pools amidst the snake-like tangle of
mangrove roots. They would float with just their eyes and
noses out of water, but so still that, without a glass,
(which I had not,) it was difficult to distinguish their
heads from the countless roots and rotten logs around them.
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