SAVANNA-LE-MAU. 37 



every rock, patch of sand, or bunch of weed, was 

 as distmct as if seen simply through a broad plate 

 of glass. We ran in through a very narrow channel, 

 the coral reef almost touching us on either side, as I 

 saw plainly enough from a little way up the shrouds. 

 The pilot had taken his station on the end of the 

 bowsprit instead of the poop, that he might the 

 better discern the slender passage, cut as it were 

 through the coral rock, which we were threading; 

 and very delicate work it was, This was not the 

 ordinary channel for large craft, but that was denied 

 to us in the present case by the wind, except with 

 the loss of a tide. 



SAVANNA-LE-MAR. 



The town of Savanna-le-Mar presents little which 

 is attractive to a stranger, though its aspect is charac- 

 teristic enough of West Indian manners. It stands 

 very low ; on the eastern side a grove of cocoa-nut 

 palms, nearly a mile in length, fringes the white 

 beach ; and on the other the eye rests on nothing at 

 all but a wall of sombre mangrove trees, growing 

 actually out of the sea for miles. You climb the 

 wharf, and are immediately in a broad and long 

 straight street, that constitutes the town. There is 

 no pavement but the sandy earth, ploughed into 

 ruts by the waggons, some of which you may see 

 with their long teams of oxen, bringing in puncheons 

 of rum and hogsheads of sugar from the country. 

 Right across, at irregular intervals, run great water- 

 courses, dry sometimes to be sure, but in the rainy 



