204 THE COCAL. 



out to sea or upset ; liow some horses would swim, and others 

 would not ; how the Xegros held on by the liorses till they 

 all went head-over-ears under the siu-f; and how, at last, 

 breathless with laughter and anxiety for our scanty ward- 

 robes, we scrambled ashore one by one into prickly roseau, 

 re-saddled our horses in an atmosphere of long thorns, and 

 then cut our way and the-rs out through scrub into the 

 Cocal ; all this should not be written in these pages, but 

 drawn for the benefit of " Punch," by him who drew the egg- 

 stealing frog whose pencil I longed for again and again 

 amid the delightful mishaps of those forest rambles, in all 

 of which I never heard a single grumble, or saw temper 

 lost for a moment. We should have been rather more serious, 

 though, than we were, had we been aware that the river-god, 

 or presiding Jumby, of the Doubloon, was probably watching 

 us the whole time, with the intention of eating any one 

 whom he could catch, and only kept in wholesome awe by 

 our noise and splashing. 



At last, after the sun had gone down, and it was ill 

 picking our way among logs and ground-creepers, we were 

 aware of lisi'-hts ; and soon found ourselves a^ain in civiH- 



O J CD 



zation, and that of no mean kind. A large and comfortable 

 house, only just rebuilt after a fire, stood among the palm- 

 trees, between the sea and the lagoon ; and behind it the 

 barns, sheds, and engine-houses of the coco-works; and 



