EASTWARD HO! 79 
smooth on the surface, “‘the water like a witch’s oil burnt 
red, and blue, and bright.’’ While he was waiting for it the 
light suddenly went out, there was a wail like that of a lost 
soul and the spectral boat vanished. At other times the 
“zombi” would appear in a buggy, with a phantom horse, 
breathing fire from its nostrils like the steed in the Erl-king’s 
ride. One night L. E. B. was waiting anxiously for the Doctor 
from Manzanilla to see an invalid in his house. The clock 
had just chimed the first hour of the morn, when he heard 
buggy wheels. He rushed out and met it, when to his sur- 
prise the driver took no heed, but drove straight on. He 
could plainly see him, a big, old man, of sad and stern ex- 
pression, “with long grey beard and glistening eye.’”’ He 
enquired of the Nariva ferrymen next morning, and the man 
told him no vehicle had crossed over during the night. I 
enquired after the patient, and L. E. B. told me, he went out 
with the tide like Barkis, before the doctor’s arrival. The 
suggestion that I made, to the effect that Vanderdecken and 
his Flying Dutchman, weary of trying to round the Cape, had 
come westward, was not received with enthusiasm, they evi- 
dently preferring the local legend, which is that some 60 years 
back the Portuguese captain of a slaver, one Joachim deGama, 
being pursued by a British cruiser off Point Mayaro, had 
brought his manacled slaves on deck and thrown them over- 
board, for which awful crime he had been doomed to cruise 
the East coast for ever. Perhaps this part of the Island is 
“le pays des revenants,”’ and the phantoms, particularly the 
buggy ones, are the old-timers come back to review the 
scenes of former glories. Thence to bed and a glorious sleep, 
unbroken by “zombis.”’ 
Up inthe morning early, for L. E. B. and self were going 
to take the long drive to Guayaguayare, about 24 miles, 
having sent on a relief horse to Plaisance, Mayaro, the night 
before. We ferried over the Nariva, which is here a fairly 
large stream (vide illustration), and then drove the 6-mile 
stretch of beach lined with coco-nut palms to the Ortoire 
ferry (vide illustration). On gaining the other bank of the 
Ortoire we left the beach and drove on the burnt clay road 
past swamp land heavily fenced in with lofty red mangroves 
