CHAPTER I. 



WESTWARD HO ! 



IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODTJCED TO AN ALMOST UNKNOWN" 

 CORAL ISLAND. 



FAR away, in the western end of the Caribbean Sea, 

 miles out of the track pursued by the ordinary 

 visitor to the West Indies, and ninety-eight ahnost due 

 north of Patook Cape (the nearest point of land in 

 Honduras), lie two mere specks of coral, known as " Swan 

 Islands." 



They seem to be anchored hke floating gardens on the 

 placid surface of a sapphire sea — lonely and isolated, 

 and unknown. So practically unknown, indeed, that 

 the staff of the Royal Greographical Society had never 

 heard of them, and could give me no information concern- 

 ing them, beyond what I had already read in the " West 

 India Pilot." To be exact, they are situated in lat. 

 ir 25' N., long. 83° 56' W. If you look for them on the 

 map, it is just possible you will look in vain ; for in some 

 maps they are either not indicated at all, or, if they are, 

 they are merely pricked in as two small dots which are 

 sometimes nameless. 



These twin islands, of coral limestone and coral debris, 

 are densely overgrown with forest trees and bright green 

 scrub, and are separated by a space of very shallow water, 

 barely four hundred yards in width, at the bottom of 

 which, hving reef -building corals are in process of rapidly 

 effecting a dry-land connection between the two islands. 



In calm weather it is just possible to pick one's way 

 through this gap in a boat ; but there are always swirling 



