Among all that wasted regiment of weary and broken-down men, there wasprobably no one but Stedman who looked backward with longing as theysailed down the lovely Surinam. True, he bore all his preciouscollections with him,--parrots and cheeseflies, drawings on the backs ofold letters, and journals kept on bones and cartridges. But he had leftbehind him a dearer treasure; for there runs through all his eccentricnarrative a single thread of pure romance, inside his love for his beautifulquadroon wife and his only son.