A Tragical Tale of the Tropics

Jean Jacque Knyfe was a jolly tar,
Aboard of the steamship “Golden Star,”
That belongs to the line of old what-d’ye-call,
And sails from New York to Aspinwall.

Kitty Bo Peep was a dusky maid,
Whose father was in the banana trade;
Oranges, too, were in his way;
And the Bo Peeps lived at Panama Bay.

One day Jean Jacque Knyfe left his ship,
And across the Isthmus he took a trip;
And in his wanderings who should he see,
But Kitty, asleep, ‘neath the mango-tree.

Under a mango-tree, fast asleep,
With her head on her arm, lay sweet Bo Peep,
She looked like an angel --- minus wings ---
In her snow-white muslin and other things.

And Jean he took and shivered his eyes,
And swore an oath of tremendous size,
That any party might take his hat,
If he’d ever seen a sight like that.

Kitty Bo Peep started up in alarm,
And Jacque Knyfe offered to her his arm:
You’d thought he’d known her a year or two
If you’d only seen the kisses he threw.

‘Twas love at first sight, I am sure, with he;
And ditto it was, I know, with she:
She promised to meet him and tell her love
That night, at nine, in the pine-apple grove.

And there, at that witching hour in June,
They whispered their love ‘neath the round full 	moon;
He held her fast in his manly arms,
And feasted his eyes on her dusky charms.

The ring tailed monkeys sported around,
And the speckled snakes squirmed over the 	ground;
The crocodile paused in his wild career

When he heard their low-toned voices near.
Ominous hour! Sad to relate!
A cocoanut dropped on Jean Jacque Knyfe’s pate;
It doubled him up, --- she gave a yell, ---
And down a cold corpus Jean Jacque fell!

Bo Peep she shrieked for a glass of rum,
And an ounce of a kind of native gum,
Which the generous neighbors, quick as flash,
Kindly supplied her with --- for cash.

She mixed them together, and every speck
She --- drank, and fell on her Jean Jacque’s neck;
Then smoothed her hair, and laid by his side,
And, bidding farewell to Bo-Peep, died.

They buried them under the Ginkgo-tree,
Jean Jacque Knyfe and Kitty Bo P.;
And around the foot of the Gingko’s trunk
The mourners, I’m sorry to say, got drunk.

And over Jean Jacque’s and Bo Peep’s grave
The winds and the bald-faced monkeys rave;
This for a trysting-place they choose, ---
The aforesaid monkeys and kangaroos.

Stranger! If ever you pass that way,
Remember the lovers of Panama Bay;
Find the Gingko-tree under which they sleep,
Where the gay gorillas their vigils keep.