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We were three days running down to Yap, and arrived there late one afternoon just at the fall of dusk. On going ashore, I had the good fortune to secure a little house which happened to be lying vacant through the death of its last tenant; who, on the principle, I suppose, of letting the tree lie where it falls, had been buried within six feet of my front verandah. The following morning I moved my things into my new quarters, Bo following me obediently ashore in the ship’s boat, seated on the top of her chest. I soon got the trade-room into shape for my work, unpacking my note-books, my little library, my collector guns, my photographic and other apparatus, as well as my big compound microscope with which I meant to perform scientific wonders in a part of the world so remote and so little known. Busy in these preparations, I managed to forget my slave and enjoy a few hours’ unalloyed pleasure. I was brought back to earth, however, by the sound of her sobbing in the next room, where I rushed in to find her weeping on her mats, with her face turned to the wall. I made what shift I could to comfort her, talking to her as I might to a frightened dog, though she paid no more attention to me than she did to the parrot, who had raised its voice in an unending scream. At last, in despair, and at my wits’ end to know what else to do, I put ten dollars in her little claw, and tried to tell her that it was her first month’s wages in advance. This form of consolation, if altogether ineffective in the case of Bo herself, came in capitally to cheer the monkey, whom I heard slinging the money out of the window, a dollar at a time, to the great gratification of a crowd of natives outside.

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