CARIBEE INDIANS. 249 



principally from some Mosquito Indians on 

 the coast, I learnt the following particulars 

 about them. 



A long time ago (when I could not make 

 out, but I thought about a hundred years), 

 these Caribee Indians lived on some of those 

 small islands in the Caribean seas, that were 

 the haunts and rendezvous of the pirates and 

 buccaniers of that epoch. These pirates were 

 mostly English, or from the North American 

 colonies, and the habitual violence and bar- 

 barities they practised upon the unfortunate 

 natives induced the latter to abandon their 

 homes and country, and seek that quiet on 

 the main land they were denied on their own 

 islands. They landed on the Mosquito shore, 

 and established themselves on the coast be- 

 tween the spot now called Bluefields and the 

 Boca St. J uan ; but the life did not suit 

 them. The Mosquito Indians used to jeer at 

 them for their want of skill and enterprise in 

 striking turtle and taking their boats through 

 the heavy surf, until at last, having discovered 

 an inland lake connected with the river St. 

 Juan by a creek, or " estero," as they call it, 

 they abandoned the sea-shore and took up 

 their dwellings on the banks of this lake, and 

 sometimes, but not often, a few of these 



