100 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. viii. 



picturesque islands and wooden shores, seemed all aglow with 

 gold and amber, while the white breakers dashing over the coral 

 reefs, and gathering force and grandeur at every fresh breath of 

 the sea-breeze, lent such an additional charm to the rich green 

 forest, still dripping and sparkling with pendent rain-drops, that 

 the scenery attained an almost ideal beauty, impossible to 

 describe — so soft — so fresh — so glorious. 

 " That earth now 



Seem'd like to heaven, a seat where Gods might dwell 



Or wander with delight." 



The distance across the bay is rather more than three miles, 

 and it was about eleven o'clock when we landed at Hope Town, 

 on the still unfinished pier, which scarce three months later 

 earned such a melancholy celebrity by the assassination of Lord 

 Mayo. 



After a short delay at the village, until the servants arrived 

 with our supplies of food and other impediments, we commenced 

 the ascent by a very good bridle-road of thirteen furlongs in 

 length, which climbs easily and pleasantly through a beautiful 

 virgin forest to the Commissioner's bungalow upon the summit of 



discomfort, for the heaving and tossing motion made me ill, and, as 

 there was no room for me to stretch my legs, I suffered terribly from 

 the cramped position which I was obliged to maintain for nearly 

 thirty hours. We did not get back until 3 p.m. the next day, and the 

 canoe was so small and crank, that I was confident we should not 

 have accompished the voyage in safety, if the boatmen had not been 

 plucky fellows and thoroughly up to their work. I believe all the 

 other fishing parties returned to the shelter of the harbour before it 

 grew dark. We shipped so much water that one of the men was 

 constantly employed in bailing, and even then, we narrowly escaped 

 beine swamped. We used ordinary deep-sea lines, and the bait con- 

 sisted of bits of fi>h. Those which we caught were from ] 8 to 24 

 inches in length, and weighed perhaps between 8 and 14 pounds. I 

 believe they are called cocoa-nut fish, but I regret to say, I knew 

 nothing further about them. Our take would have been very great, 

 had it not been for the sharks, which, in many instances, robbed us 

 of our captives by taking them off the hooks, while they were being 

 hauled in, and leaving nothing but the heads. This was done so deftly 

 and expeditiously too, that the monster's snap was sometimes hardly 

 perceptible. I was so faint when I got back, owing to sickness, the 

 miseries of my awkward position and want of food — plantains and 

 papaws being the only provisions we had with us — that I could 

 scarcely stand." 



