A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 373 



nature of the forces affecting them, are causes the 

 concurrence of which for a long time within narrow 

 and shallow limits might alter the equilibrium of 

 the sea. 1 When the shores are so low that the level 

 of the country for a league inland, varies only a few 

 inches, these risings and fallings of the sea excite the 

 imaginations of the inhabitants. 



Cay Bonito (Beautiful Cay), which was the first I 

 visited, is worthy of its name from the force of its 

 vegetation. Everything indicates that it has been a 

 long time above the surface of the ocean, for the 

 interior of the cay is hardly lower than its margin. 

 From a layer of sand and broken shells, covering 

 the fragmentary coral rock to the depth of five or 

 six inches, a forest of mangroves rises, which when 

 seen from a distance, seem from their height and 

 foliage to be laurel trees. The avicennia nitida, 

 batis, small euphorbia, and several grassy plants, 

 serve to fix the movable sand with their roots. But 

 what particularly characterizes the flora of these 



1 1 do not pretend to explain, by these same causes, the phenomena 

 which we see on the coast of Sweden, where the sea has the appear- 

 ance of an unequal fall at several points, amounting to from three 

 to five feet in the century. A supposed analogy has occurred to the 

 inhabitants of Dutch Guiana. — Bolingbroke, Voyage to Demarara, 

 p. 148. — H. 



