LIFE nr THE LIGHT-HOUSE. £67 



the storms among the islands, and who gained a liveli- 

 hood from the shipwrecked vessels that monthly dashed 

 to i^ieces on the coast. Most of them were desperate 

 men, without famiUes, only cultivating the soil to plant 

 cocoa and plantain trees, and relying upon the sea for the 

 supply of their wants. Their low craft could bo seen 

 among the innumerable reefs at the beginning of every 

 storm, like sea-gulls foreboding the tempest, and hover- 

 ing for its waifs. 



In the interior of the peninsula the Indian still remained 

 secure in his morass, and from Key Biscayne at times 

 his camp-fires could be seen bright against the midnight 

 sky. 



The only thing that was human on the coast, contrast- 

 ing with tlie cruel shore and the more cruel wreckers, 

 w^the light-house on the Key. The great charity reared 

 Itself between the howling wilderness and the beating 

 surges, an oriflamme over the strife. It stood on a jut 

 of beach at the lower end of the island, where the 

 palmetto trees dried out in the sand, and only the long 

 sword-grass grew around in scattered spears. A boat 

 with a mast lay on the shingle, and a log canoe, and close 

 by the light stood a little low white house, with two 

 square windows and a door toward the sea, and two 

 square windows and a door toward the bay. A tiny 

 porch covered each doorway, and the little windows 

 were opened and closed by heavy wooden shutters. The 

 only vegetation near the light was one tall, twisted cocoa- 

 tree, whose tuft of heavy leaves were so high in air they 



