A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES IN VENEZUELA. 75 



if we never would right ourselves after heeling far over into 

 the depths. But the calm face of our helmsman dispelled 

 all uneasiness, and I lay staring into the darkness, feeling 

 myself the veriest atom amid this fierce tumult. 



To this moment I cannot tell how long it took us to get from 

 Trinidad to Venezuela across that awful Gulf of Paria. To 

 me it seemed an endless space of time — day succeeding 

 night — with choppy seas, ominous noises in the pitching cabin, 

 hot sleepy hours on deck in the shade of the sail, with the great 

 green waves forever rolling after and breaking partly over us. 

 By the Captain's reckoning, however, it was the noon of only 

 the second day which revealed the distant shore, and soon we 

 forgot all the discomforts of the past hours in the wonderful 

 beauty of the scene before us — the still, brassy waters and 

 the rich green mangroves. 



Entering the wide Cano San Juan we dropped anchor in 

 the lee of a solitary guard ship, a poor derelict, a rusty and 

 worn-out freighter, whose last days were to be spent here in 

 the calm waters at the edge of the mangrove forest. Our 

 little sloop was soon over-run with young custom-house 

 officials from the guard ship, curious but courteous, and far 

 more appreciative of the stiff rounds of rum which our Cap- 

 tain willingly served to them under our direction, than of 

 our gilt-sealed letters of introduction. 



If we would but take their photographs on board the " Pon- 

 ton," they would row us close along the shore while we waited 

 for the " fulling tide,'' as the Captain called it. Of course we 

 agreed. Shouldering their rusty muskets they stood in a row 

 to be photographed, — young inexperienced boys, whose 

 idle days on the derelict were spent in drinking, smoking 

 cigarettes and lying in hammocks playing the mandolin, 

 watching for the rare sloop or schooner which might enter 

 Venezuela by this desolate and unfrequented cano. 



We promised to send them the pictures; but Captain Trux- 



