vi lOTRODUCTORY. 

 six cruises we visited almost every island, large or small, 

 in these two basins, besides seeing something of places on 

 the neighbouring coasts of the mainland— Venezuela, 

 Mexico, and Florida. 



Many of these islands are far off the beaten track, 

 seldom or never visited, and practically unknovm even to 

 those who are quite familiar with the West Indies as 

 generally understood. 



Commercially and politically speaking they are to all 

 intents and purposes non-existent. They have little 

 or no historical, and very little human, interest. To 

 appreciate them at all one must be a naturalist in the 

 widest sense of the term. 



To those who have the wandering spirit, who delight 

 in seeing Nature, pure and unalloyed, who feel the strong 

 desire now and again to get away from the babble and 

 clamour of their fellow creatures, these islands have the 

 attraction that all isolated islands inevitably possess. 

 For anyone else, it may be frankly said they would 

 probably prove to be intensely boring. 



Some of them are uninhabited ; others are inhabited 

 by a single family who have elected to make a home on 

 them and there to live the " simple life " ; others are 

 inhabited by fishermen, at certain times of the year only ; 

 Avhile others, such as the Caymans, give shelter to small 



