382 I\Ir. 0. Salvin on the Sea-birds of British Honduras. 



drink. The tub is then removed, and buried in another hole. 

 During the dry season, the few people who live on the Cays 

 have no other supply. Of wood we could always find enough 

 from the broken spars, boards, and logs thrown up on the beach. 



Rounding the south end of Half-Moon Cay, the schooner 

 passed out into open water, and Sam steered her straight for 

 Glover's Reef. The wind was light, the water lumpy, and the 

 sun intensely hot as we slowly made our way across. I was 

 glad enough when I detected a white line of breakers far ahead. 

 This was the northern end of the reef, towards a gap in which 

 we steered. Passing through this channel, Sam pointed to the 

 spot where the schooner ' Susan ' was wrecked, with 300 fili- 

 busters on board, some few years ago, as they were sailing to 

 join Walker on the coast of Honduras, for the purpose of attack- 

 ing Nicaragua, after passing through that republic. This dis- 

 aster put an end to the expedition for the time, the shipwrecked 

 adventurers being taken back to New Orleans by a British 

 cruiser. The next attempt upon the same point put an end to 

 Walker's career, when he was taken by the ' Icarus,' handed 

 over to the Honduras authorities, and shot. Sam had many a 

 story to tell about them, how he and his brothers had fished up 

 muskets and sold them in Belize, and how a party of the fili- 

 busters whilst living on Middle Cay had shot his mother's pigs 

 with their revolvers, and eaten his father's cocoa-nuts. Once 

 inside the reef, there was not much time for talking, as patches 

 of coral-rock studded the lagoon, and the schooner dashing 

 along under the freshening breeze required careful steering. 



Middle Cay now stood before us, and, anchoring under the 

 lee of the island, we went ashore with our hammocks, and took 

 possession of an empty hut built out of the wreck of the ' Susan.' 

 There is little variation in all these Cays, one sees the same 

 repetition of cocoa-nut groves and m.angrove-swamps, the 

 latter, when present, being usually in the middle of the island. 

 The cocoa-nut trees have most of them been planted by the 

 occupier of the Cay, the " bush " growing on the sandier portions 

 being cleared for the purpose. It is said that in five years a 

 tree produces its first fruit ; and that it lives for sixty or more, 

 if not uprooted by a storm. Cocoa-nut growing seems profit- 



