Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

[599] conversation. His complexion, like that of most Brazilians, was about that of a side of tanned sole-leather. His rank was that of a major in the Brazilian Army. He received us very cordially. We found him at breakfast with his family and some guests, and he insisted that we should be seated at the breakfast-table, and partake of a second breakfast, though we endeavored to decline. The meal was quite substantial, consisting of a variety of roast meats, as well as fruits and vegetables.

As soon as I could find a little time to look around me, I discovered that her ladyship, the governess, was a very sprightly and not uncomely mulatto, and that her two little children, who were brought to me with all due ceremony, to be praised, and have their heads patted, had rather kinky, or, perhaps, I should say curly, hair. But I was a man of the world, and was not at all dismayed by this discovery; especially when I observed that my vis-a-vis — one of the guests — was a beautiful blonde, of sweet seventeen, with a complexion like a lily, tinted with the least bit of rose, and with eyes so melting and lovely, that they looked as though they might have belonged to one of the houris, of whom that old reprobate Mahomet used to dream. To set off her charms still further, she was arrayed in a robe of the purest white, with a wreath of flowers in her flaxen hair. She was a German, and was seated next to her father, a man of about sixty, who, as the Governor afterward informed me, was one of his chief criminals.

The Governor seeing me start a little as he gave me this information, made haste to explain, that his guest was not of the canaille, or common class of rogues, but a gentleman, who, in a moment of weakness, had signed another gentleman's name to a check for a considerable amount, which he had been clever enough to have cashed. ‘He is only a forger, then!’ said I to the Governor. ‘That is all,’ replied he; ‘he is a very clever old gentleman, and, as you see, he has a very pretty daughter.’ There was certainly no gainsaying the latter proposition. The chaplain of the penal colony —which numbered about one thousand convicts, the entire population of the island being about two thousand—a portly and dignified priest, was also at the breakfast-table, and my paymaster and myself spent a very pleasant half-hour around this social board,