EASTWARD HO! 79 



smooth on the surface, "the water Hke 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 paysdes 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 in the 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 



