A WEST INDIAN SKETCH. 



63 



The negroes made a song about it, of which the following is a 

 specimen : 



" Who hearee tell such a tale afore, 



Of hig fish left in a lurch, 

 No somebody sawy a whale afore, 

 Take path for go in a church." 



Although the current was against us, we had a breeze which quickly 

 carried us to the Bocas or Dragon's Mouths. This is a scene of 

 peculiar grandeur, the two points of land, one of Trinidad, the other 

 of the Spanish Main, strongly resembling each other, being lofty 

 mountains of similar forms, covered with forests, and distant from 

 each other about fourteen miles. Between them are three small bold 

 islands, looking, as some one has said, like sentinels to guard the 

 peaceful gulph from the rude assaults of the Atlantic billows, or by 

 a more poetical stretch of the imagination, we might suppose them to 

 be three of the mountains pitched about by the Titans in their war 

 with Jove. Between them run the long and narrow watery roads 

 called Boca de Monos (monkey's mouth), Boca de Huevos (egg's 

 mouth), Boca de Navios (ship's mouth), from the name of the re- 

 spective islets ; and outside, between the island Chacachacareo* and 

 the Main is the noble passage called the Grand Boca (Boca Grande), 

 beyond those singular passages the ocean sullenly roars inside slum- 

 bers the "peaceful gulf" as it was well denominated in some old 

 charts. Between those islands run strong, deep, but smooth and si- 

 lent streams. There is something indescribably awful in sailing be- 

 tween those lofty mountains, whose height make the passage look 

 narrow, and give to the noblest ship an appearance of insignificance. 

 The first of these mouths is seldom attempted but by small vessels ; 

 the second used to be considered a safe entrance into the gulf by 

 ships of any size, until the earthquake of 1825 ; it is an extraordinary 

 fact, that immediately after that event, the first ship attempting to 

 pass into the gulf this way, met with a counter-current, that nearly 

 carried her on the rocks she narrowly escaped destruction ; and, 

 the very next ship, a fine new vessel, called the Naparima, was lost 

 there. Many other wrecks have been subsequently made here, and 

 many vessels have had narrow escapes. These circumstances have 

 induced the underwriters at Lloyd's to forbid the ships entering the 

 gulf* except at the passage called Navios, or between Chacachacareo 

 and the Main. The fact of the second passage being safe previous 

 to, and a perilous one after, the earthquake, I can vouch for ; yet it is 

 singular, that an earthquake that did no other damage than cracking 

 a few walls, and injuring the tower of a church, built on infirm land, 

 should have influenced the currents of the ocean. 



5 o'clock, p. M. Through the day we had " light winds inclining 

 to calms," as midshipmen's journals say ; the breeze however now 

 freshened. We attempted to pass through the small Boca, although 

 the current was against us. The " Flying-fish " stemmed the stream 

 beautifully, and in about fifteen minutes we were within a hundred 



* So called by the Indians from a bird peculiar to this island, whose notes re- 

 semble the sound of this word. 



