These forty black, naked, mop-headed savages seemed intoxicated with joy and excitement.

Not one of them could remain still for a moment.

Every individual of our crew was in turn surrounded and examined, asked for tobacco or arrack, grinned at and deserted for another.

All talked at once, and our captain was regularly mobbed by the chief men, who wanted to be employed to tow us in, and who begged vociferously to be paid in advance.

A few presents of tobacco made their eyes glisten; they would express their satisfaction by grins and shouts, by rolling on deck, or by a headlong leap overboard.