A SPANISH TRADE ROUTE. 



25 



tethered under the shade of some trees. It was a scene 

 straight from Arcady, and a more charming site for a 

 bmigalow one could hardty wish to have owned. 



We sat and smoked, and presently the talk fell upon 

 buccaneers. Had I seen their breastworks at the 

 other end of the island ? " Well, no, I had to confess, I 

 hadn't as yet, having been too keen to make the most 

 of the birds and see what there was to be seen at this 

 end. " Ah ! well," said the " laird," there are some there 

 right enough, and I guess the old sea-robbers used this 

 island as a sort of watch-tower guarding the approaches 

 to the Yucatan Channel. It w^as like this, you see. In 

 the old days, when the Spaniards ruled the roost, their 

 trouble was to get their ships home safe to Europe from 

 the Spanish Main. Now these ships couldn't go beating 

 eastwards against the Trade-winds all down the Caribbean 

 Sea, and then away out across the Atlantic, with the wind 

 against them all the way home ; let alone when they were 

 heavily freighted with all sorts of treasure and stuff from 

 their so-called Colonies. So all ships going home from 

 Carthagena, the Panama Isthmus, Boco del Toro, and 

 such like fever-stricken spots as they w^ere then, used 

 to make northwards with the current and wind for the 

 Yucatan Straits. Once through these, they would call 

 at Havana, get a final fit out, and so make home with the 

 Gulf Stream and the westerly winds, which are the rule 

 further north. Now if you look at a good map, or better 

 still a chart, you'll find a big submarine bank sticks out 

 from the comer of Honduras, stretching across half-way 

 over to Jamaica. Well, this bank, I take it, w^as a pretty 

 ticklish proposition in those days of rough charts, and still 

 rougher instruments to navigate with ; and so they had 

 to give it a wide berth, which narrowed their fairway 

 down pretty considerably ; for mind you, they would fight 

 shy of getting too close to Jamaica. And so, as I size 

 up the state of affairs, after Mr. Spaniard had got clear 

 of the bank, why, he found Captain Swan or some other 

 of his friends waiting there right in his track to cut him 



