A negro in cotton drawers, shivering in our northern dune, had more attraction for me than the fairest maid, and I was eager to speak with all and every one who had crossed the ocean.

One bronzed mariner with silver earrings I entertained to three stoups of usquebaugh, hoping for strange tales, but the little I had from him before he grew drunk was that he had once voyaged to the Canaries.

You may imagine that I kept my fancies to myself, and was outwardly only the sober merchant with a mind set on freights and hogsheads.

But whoever remembers his youth will know that such terms to me were not the common parlance of trade.

The very names of the tobaccos Negro's Head, Sweet-scented, Oronoke, Carolina Red, Gloucester Glory, Golden Rod sang in my head like a tune, that told of green forests and magic islands.
But an incident befell ere I left which was to have unforeseen effects on my future.