26 A NATURALIST ON DESERT ISLANDS. 



off ; and a nice hash they made of him too, more often 

 than not, I'm thinking." 



" Yes, yes ! I think this island must have been called 

 after Captain Swan the buccaneer." 



" There's another island away south of this, off the 

 Mosquito coast, called Old Providence — ah ! you know it 

 perhaps — got some rare birds on it, has it ? Well, there 

 was a famous buccaneer called Mansveldt* went there ; 

 had a regular big turn-up with the Spaniards, and took 

 the island with this same notion, I guess, of using it as a 

 station for worrying their ships on their way home. 

 Very likely some of his men used to come to Swan Island. 

 The only thing against it would have been that there's 

 no really comfortable riding for a ship here when there's 

 a blow, as your people found this morning, and had to 

 move round to the south side. Otherwise they could have 

 stayed here as long as they liked, stocked the place with 

 stores, and held the key to the western outlet of the 

 Caribbean. Why, I reckon that with a little bit of a 

 breakwater the States might find this a handy place 

 for the same purpose when the Panama Canal is finished — 

 it would make a snug little station for torpedo boats, and 

 no mistake." 



"But what," I interrupted, "made the buccaneers 

 choose the north-east comer of the island to stick up their 

 breastworks and anchor their vessels off ? Why, they 

 would have been on the weather side of the island there." 



" Ah ! well, if you walk over to-morrow you'll find a 

 curious sort of bight in the coast, and across it a reef, 

 inside of which there is ^mooth water. You can see tlie 

 gap in the reef where they brought their vessels through, 

 and once inside the reef they would have been fairly snug. 

 But there's a funny thing about it too, for to-day there's 

 hardly enough water for a smack to anchor in ; from which 

 I calculate, either the waves on that weather shore have 

 been piling in a good deal of coral sand and rubbish to 



* This was in 1664. Mansveldt had fifteen vessels, live hundred 

 men, which he had collected at Jamaica. 



