b THE MAROON PARTY ; 



ing convenient room for one hundred times its population ? There 

 is no ocean so stormy, but that the prospect of gain will lure the 

 navigator to traverse it there is no mine so gloomy, but lucre will 

 tempt man to labour in it no spot so dangerous, inconvenient, and 

 insalubrious, but that gain will stimulate some men to fix their 

 dwellings on it. Saut d'Eaux is the only inlet for some miles on this 

 mountainous shore, where are found the united advantages of fresh 

 water, a good bay, and space for a village ; besides, it is decidedly 

 the best fishing station in the island. Of the abundance of the finny 

 tribe that the sea here affords, the reader may judge, when he is in- 

 formed that at certain times of the year it supplies the greater part of 

 the fish consumed by the inhabitants of Port of Spain (nearly 12,000). 



The villagers are generally peons, that is Spaniards from the main, 

 of the mixed Indian and European race, some few mullattoes, and 

 two or three negroes. I saw but one white resident. Their occu- 

 pation is catching, selling, and carrying fish to town. Agriculture is 

 here out of the question; and the only one of its inhabitants who enters 

 into any other commerce, save the barter of their staple articles for 

 the necessaries and conveniences of life, is a man of colour, the soi- 

 dissant adjoint-commandant, their only magistrate, ; who, with that 

 public spirit which becomes a justice of the peace, retails by license 

 a (no very) slow poison, called " taffia," better known to the English 

 reader by the name of new rum. 



We bought at this village a kingfish that weighed l51bj this, ex- 

 cepting the groper, is the best fish which swims on our coast. It 

 cost us a pistereen, about tenpence sterling ; but from the rela- 

 tive value of money here and in England, it should not be con- 

 sidered above half the amount. Yet Cuffy quarelled with the fisher 

 man, telling him," that he had taken us in, because we were buckra" 

 (white men.) 



Returning on board the Flying-fish, we took breakfast, and ran 

 down a mile or two towards the Bocas ; when, as it was agreed, we 

 left the vessel, landed, and putting ourselves under the pilotage of 

 Rattoon (who was well acquainted with the mountains) followed an 

 Indian tract in order to pass southwards into the valley of Diego 

 Martin, arid then home. 



The first things that took our attention were the mangroves,* a 

 species of marine vegetable found in most countries lying between 

 the tropics, the ocean washing the seeds from one shore to another, 

 and this hardy vegetable takes root on every sea-coast of the torrid 

 zone ; but what renders these mangroves most remarkable, is that a 

 species of the oyster is found to attach itself to its sea- washed roots, 

 and even to those of its branches which hang in the water. These 

 oysters are very irregular in form, three or four growing on each 

 other in all manner of shapes. When Columbus discovered this is- 

 land, misled by Pliny, he imagined that those oysters opened their 

 shells to receive the dews, which they converted into pearls. This, 

 though a more fanciful, was not a greater error than his taking the 

 sea-side or mangrove grapesf for the fruit of the genuine vine, which 



* The rhizophora mangle. f Coccoloba uvifera. 



