154 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



gave us the impression that he had a hidden treasure 

 near of some kind ; he seemed as anxious to get rid of 

 us as before he had been to have us come with him. 



When the old Indian visited the gorge again, Coryet 

 was on his track, at a distance not to be observed, yet 

 near enough to note his movements. He followed the 

 bed of the stream running through the hot-spring 

 basin until it was narrowed to a rivulet flowing between 

 high converging walls of rock. A narrow ledge, 

 sometimes in, sometimes above the water, afforded a 

 pathway through, after following which for a few 

 hundred feet, the old Indian disappeared in an open- 

 ing in the rock. It was just wide enough for Coryet 

 to squeeze through, but soon opened into a wide 

 chamber-like passage so dark that the boy was terri- 

 fied and soon beat a retreat. He could hear his 

 guide, however, as he scrambled over loose rocks 

 and stones, penetrating deeper and deeper into the 

 cavern. He lighted a match and examined the rock, 

 but discovered nothing save that it seemed veined with 

 sparkling metal. He brought me a fragment contain- 

 ing this ore, but whether it was gold or pyrites I could 

 not tell at the time. I tried to save it for examination 

 when I reached home, but it was lost. Whether the 

 old man took the alarm or not we could not tell, but 

 he did not appear at all that day. 



In the afternoon Meyong came in with a snake, 

 a species of boa, and the only one peculiar to this 

 island. He called it a "Serpent tete chicn" or Dog- 

 head snake. It was twelve feet in length and looked 

 capable of crushing a sheep to death — as indeed I 

 was told it could. The little inoffensive agouti and 

 birds are its prey, and it lives in holes in the earth and 



