MYSTERIOUS ISLETS. 



191 



Sea, which dashes itself in impotent fury against their 

 granite walls. 



With such "reflections" the "West India Pilot," 

 which contains the only other reference to the islets we 

 have seen, concerns itself not at all. It dismisses them 

 with the following almost curt remarks : "A group of 

 seven wooded islets, knoAvn as the Hermanos, which 

 occupy a space of eight miles in a N.N.W. and opposite 

 direction. The three southernmost (the northernmost 

 of which is named Pico, five hundred and seventy feet 

 high) lie close together, and are separated from the others 

 by a clear channel three miles wide. The southernmost 

 of the remaining four is named Orquilla ; this is the largest, 

 and about six hundred and fifty feet high. Most of them 

 are high, bluff, conical rocks — they are all steep to, 

 but no soundings have been noted in the passages between 

 them." 



* * 4: * 



From the wooded eastern sides of Blanquilla we first 

 looked across the intervening ten miles of open water, 

 to see these islands rising stunt from the sea — mysterious 

 and alluring — ^like so many pyramids covered with a soft 

 green mantle of vegetation, dimly seen through a misty 

 blue haze. 



We were lying in the woods, stretched at full length, 

 under the welcome shade of a guaiacum tree, after a hard 

 morning's tramp in search of birds. Tired and sleepy 

 from the intense heat and the long walk, we were 

 listlessly munching our sandwiches, eking out the 

 last few drops of refreshment in the water bottles, and 

 gazing dreamily across at these mysterious witnesses 

 of a bygone geological age. Strangely fascinating they 

 appeared, seeming to beckon to us to come and explore 

 the secrets they held ; seeming, somehow, to wear an 

 aspect of wild romance, and almost to be speaking 

 to us of those long-past adventurous days, when the 

 old sea-robbers roamed this sea at their own free, dare- 

 devil wills. 



