157 I learn of flamingos and hurricanes 



chorus of girlish simpers. Up the hill we trudged, water jugs and 

 all, and as we came down the last slope toward the village we saw 

 that our Cameron was holding hands with a slim, fetchingly 

 dressed young woman who was fully two heads taller than the old 

 rooster. This was amusing enough, but it had an even better 

 aftermath, for when Montour had gone on by himself to the 

 village well to direct the water drawing, I saw a tall, very angry- 

 looking young Negro step from behind a bush and kick the wil- 

 lowy young woman soundly on her bottom. With a frightened 

 yelp she disappeared into a nearby house. 



As we proceeded down the coast we soon found that, as a 

 pilot, Montour was a great hand to strike dramatic poses, lounging 

 in the shade of the mains'l and holding fast to the stays, his straw 

 hat pushed back on his wooly head and a pipe of tobacco in his 

 mouth. He would wave his arms this way and that, talking con- 

 stantly. So long as we were well offshore he was quite successful 

 at this particular duty, identifying islands and headlands and re- 

 galing us with tales, real or imagined, of the former inhabitants, 

 now dead ("God rest their souls, forever, Amen!") or driven else- 

 where by hurricanes and other dire calamities. But when we 

 steered in among the islands and cays themselves, seeking an inside 

 channel, it was at once evident that our draft was somewhat 

 greater than he was accustomed to, and the second day on that 

 western coast he had the Kamona hard aground. And there we 

 lay, unable to budge her, until high tide floated us off early the 

 following morning. Completely unperturbed in spite of the ragging 

 we gave him, Montour went off in his shallow coffin searching 

 for turtles. These, like the deep channels he had promised, also 

 failed to materialize. 



It was the Fourth of July when we dropped our anchor off 

 Mastic Point Cay and set off with the keel boat and Montour's 

 coffin in search of the flamingos. There are an endless maze of 

 channels, many of them too shallow to navigate, and countless 

 little cays, some high enough to support coppices (locally "cop- 

 pets") of palmettos and a few hardwoods. We saw white-crowned 

 pigeons, willets, tricolored herons, brown pelicans, laughing gulls, 

 and gull-billed terns, but no flamingos. Young Rodney and I, 



