70 ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS ON 



As it blew fresh, we shot along the smooth water of Drake s 

 channel merrily. The uneven ridge of this island, broken at 

 intervals by rifts ; the young cane shoots, spread over small 

 levels on the coast, or higher up almost edging the jungle; 

 the scattered sugar works that glanced out each through its 

 own tall guard of palmettos; the coral reefs lining a shore 

 dense with mangroves, and this opening, at times, with 

 channels into a sedgy lagoon within ; now a fisherman 

 silently plying along shore in his coble, then again the noisy 

 crew of some droguer at anchor off a plantation — all these passed 

 before me as in a panorama. Presently our boat dashed quicker 

 across the opening west of Peter's island, having to leeward the 

 swatch of St. Jan's. In the distance through this passage, the 

 eye lighted on many an islet; some without one ripple to disturb 

 the bright stillness about them ; some more exposed, and stand- 

 ing forth to breast another Euxine that 



" roiled 

 Upon the bine Symplegades." 



Then having glided under the shelter of Witch quay, startling se- 

 veral albatross, and other birds, engaged at their rock-fishing, a 

 long swell that began to set in shore across us, told the entrance 

 of Crawl Bay. 



This deep inlet, which intersects the whole eastem quarter of 

 St. Jan's, is esteemed the best hurricane harbour in the Antilles. 

 II. M. Sloop Fly, after loosing her masts outside, weathered a 

 tremendous gale here some years since : she ran into one of the 

 creeks with which this shelter abounds, and lay close under the 

 mangrove bushes. On sounding a bluff point which terminates 

 the spit of land eastward, the bay open on your right, its aper- 

 ture, which is particularly closed within by the quay, lying io a 

 bight to the north-west, being about four miles wide. We ran 

 down the coast, along a line of breakers that dashed over the 

 reef under it, until a second headland threw as it were a mole 

 out behind us. Just within was a delightful beach of coral, 

 skirting the now smooth sea with a narrow border that peered 

 from under the impending green of a tropic forest. The spot 

 tempted us to anchor off it; but when lunded, the sun glared 

 down on the coral so intensely that our feet were almost scorched 

 in walking there, and we were glad to betake ourselves afloat 

 again. Several negro wenches, engaged in washing at a brook 

 hard by, moved about in their short geer, which they had tucked- 

 much above the knee, with an ease that betokened no inconveni- 



