292 CRUISE OF THE BARRERA 



sents every appearance of better days and the 

 residents look unhealthy. Ill fortune broods over 

 the place. Trade is low and the death-rate high. 



Returning to the landing place, we took a few 

 land-shells in a prosperous looking cemetery. 

 These were of the Havana province type with 

 some common species of very general lowland 

 distribution, but none even suggested the sierra 

 fauna. 



Our hopes for good marine collecting in and 

 about the entrance of the harbor had been running 

 too high, for we found in the soft muddy bottom 

 little of life to interest us and any reef collecting 

 outside was made impossible by the rough sea. In 

 Professor Nutting's charming account of the Iowa 

 State University expedition to the Bahamas and 

 Cuba (1895) he relates the misfortunes of the 

 party in this port. We, too, met here our one 

 and only instance of official interference, although 

 we were in no way inconvenienced by it. It 

 amounted merely to a display of a rather fussy au- 

 thority on the part of the port officer, who seemed 

 much exercised over our lack of clearance papers. 

 Our explanations never fully satisfied him that we 

 were neither pirates nor revolutionary agents. 



