EASTWARD HO! 75 



curing house, about 50 ft. below the house terrace, and drop 

 lightly, if possible on the high road, another fall of about 30 

 ft. Poor Harris jibbed, so G. A. F., who stands about 6 ft. 2 in. 

 in his socks, made a dive for him with a hand like that of 

 Providence, and sad to say, Harris "took bush." 



We left about noon and drove through the long, strag- 

 gling Manzanilla village for a little over two miles, when 

 coming over the rise of a hill, the cool strong breeze and roar 

 of the surf warned us of our proximity to the beach. A few 

 more seconds and there we were in full view of the Atlantic, 

 a most refreshing sight, particularly to a denizen of the 

 tropics. On the left the Manzanilla shipping place or depot, 

 where the produce of the district is collected to be shipped 

 on the R. M. S. coastal steamer every week, and the mouth of 

 the Lebranche River, a great resort of the famous mullet 

 that goes by that name. Beyond the river, Manzanilla 

 Point runs out about a mile into the sea, having at its ex- 

 treme end several half-submerged rocks called the Carpen- 

 ters, which have been responsible for several shipwrecks, 

 amongst them as the legend goes, the establishment of the 

 Cocal, a vessel loaded with coco-nuts from the Orient, being 

 driven on the Carpenters and totally wrecked, the cargo of 

 coco-nuts gradually drifted ashore, where Mother Earth 

 took them to her bosom and generously nourished them, so 

 that they formed the advance guard of the present fine prop- 

 erty called the Cocal, a stretch of near fourteen miles from 

 the Manzanilla Road to the Ortoire. All cultivations have 

 more or less their attractive featitres, and, although that of 

 the coco-nut does not aspire to the generosity of colour and 

 lush vegetation of a cocoa estate, yet it has its own peculiar 

 charm, more especially at the Cocal, where the foam-capped 

 breakers with their everlasting roar seem to be perpetually 

 gibing the slow work of Nature and her workers, saying, 

 " Come, hustle up now, see what a hurry we are in and always 

 at work. Take a lesson from us, we are the only exponents 

 of perpetual motion"; while just outside the high-water 

 mark are the groves of coco-nut palms, quiet and still as the 

 Temple of Silence, with the pale amber light that is caused 

 by the combined reflective action of sun, palm, and sand. 



