When we looked out of the window, there was a black stripe lying across the court-yard on the flags, a whole army of them coming.

We saw it was impossible to get the skins of the birds, so threw them out of the window, and the advanced guard faced about and followed them.
On the sand in front of the village the Castor-oil plant flourished, the _Palma Christi_; its little nuts were ripe, and tasted so innocent that, undeterred by the example of the boy in the Swiss Family Robinson, I ate several, and was handsomely punished for it.

In the evening I recounted my ill-advised experiment to the white-jacketed loungers in the verandah of the inn, and was assured that I must have eaten an odd number! The second nut, they told me with much gravity, counteracts the first, the fourth neutralizes the third, and so on ad infinitum.
We made two clerical acquaintances in the Isle of Pines.

One was the Cura of New Gerona, and his parentage was the only thing remarkable about him.

He was not merely the son of a priest, but his grandfather was a priest also.
The other was a middle-aged ecclesiastic, with a pleasant face and an unfailing supply of good-humoured fun.