was round her horns she was soon towed to a landing-place on the opposite side, where she was met by a woman sent a mile round for that purpose, and driven home.
That night, when every door was standing open, we heard a cheerful voice shouting the name of "Master," and in walked Khourabene, whom we had not lately seen, desirous of being informed whether what he had heard in the town was true, that to-morrow was "Kismas." Khourabene knew very well the kind of dinner to expect if this report should prove correct, and had had his own reasons for timing his visit so neatly, for if there is one thing in the world in which natives show a similarity of taste to white people, it is in fondness for a Christmas pudding. He did not mistrust our willingness to give him a share of our plum-pudding, but he had a great desire to make one for himself, in fact, had brought with him flour for the purpose, and, being humoured with the other ingredients, he tied them up all in a cloth, and dropped his bundle very knowingly into the pot where the parson's pudding was already boiling.
Khourabene had gained this expertness in cookery by frequenting the house of a very kind-hearted settler, whose own and wife's great pleasure at Christmas was to make an enormous plum-pudding expressly for the natives, and to see their enjoyment of it, Khourabene's recollections of this good couple were sometimes of the suggestive sort, as for instance, it so happened that my husband being seriously indisposed on one occasion when he paid us a visit, after eying the invalid with tears for a few moments, he informed me that he had cried so much when his "old master" was ill that "missis say,
