918 THE OCEAN. 
we open a small but deep and beautiful bay. “A 
pretty little village or plantation appears at the 
bottom of the cove: the sandy beach stretches like 
a.line of silver round the blue water, and the cane- 
fields form a broad belt of vivid green in the back: 
ground. Behind this, the mountains rise in the 
most fantastic shapes, here cloven into deep chasms, 
there darting into arrowy points, and every where 
shrouded, and swathed, as it were, in wood, which 
the hand of man will probably never lay low. The 
clouds, which within the tropics are infallibly at- 
tracted by any woody eminences, contribute greatly 
to the wildness of the scene: sometimes they are 
so dense as to bury the mountains in darkness, at 
other times they float transparently like a silken 
veil; frequently the flaws from the gulleys perforate 
the vapours, and make windows in the smoky mass; 
and then, again, the wind and the sun will cause the 
whole to be drawn upwards majestically, like the 
curtain of a gorgeous theatre.” 
Around these islands the water is frequently shal- 
low, a fact made sufficiently obvious by its colour: 
instead of the deep-blue tint which marks the un- 
fathomed Ocean, the water on these shoals becomes 
of a bright pea-green, caused by the nearness of 
the yellow sands at the bottom; and the shallower 
the water, the paler is the tint. The light thrown 
upwards by reflection upon the under part of the 
swollen sails, transfers the same hue to them, giving 
them a singular aspect; but once I observed a still 
more curious appearance, arising from the same 
cause. Being becalmed off one of the little Keys 
