180 VOYAGE TO PANAMA. 



took in her starboard studding-sails^ reefed 

 her topsails, and dashed through the waves 

 at eleven knots with a fair wind. We passed 

 along the group of the Pearl Islands, coasting 

 them on our larboard side. The loveliness of 

 these bright and verdant jewels of the ocean, 

 rising up in the midst of the blue gulf of 

 Panama, renders their name of Las Perlas 

 iiot inappropriate to their beauty. Here 

 and there a negro hut, surrounded by cocoa- 

 imt trees, peeps out of the thickly-hanging 

 wood, with the white smoke curling above it, 

 contrasting, in an agreeable maimer, with the 

 deep blue sky and the dark foliage out of which 

 it seems to ascend. Pearl-diving is still carried 

 on, but no pecuniary tribute is demanded by 

 New Granada, as formerly by Old Spain, for the 

 trade. Messrs. Rundell and Bridge purchased 

 the right to monopolize this trade, and sent out 



