The doctor dined me often on good Brazilian fare, that I might, as he said, "salle gordo" for the voyage; but he found that even on the best I fattened slowly.
Fruits and vegetables and all other provisions necessary for the voyage having been taken in, on the 23d of October I unmoored and made ready for sea.

Here I encountered one of the unforgiving Mello faction in the person of the collector of customs, who charged the _Spray_ tonnage dues when she cleared, notwithstanding that she sailed with a yacht license and should have been exempt from port charges.

Our consul reminded the collector of this and of the fact--without much diplomacy, I thought--that it was I who brought the _Destroyer_ to Brazil.

"Oh, yes," said the bland collector; "we remember it very well," for it was now in a small way his turn.
Mr.Lungrin, a merchant, to help me out of the trifling difficulty, offered to freight the _Spray_ with a cargo of gunpowder for Bahia, which would have put me in funds; and when the insurance companies refused to take the risk on cargo shipped on a vessel manned by a crew of only one, he offered to ship it without insurance, taking all the risk himself.

This was perhaps paying me a greater compliment than I deserved.