358 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



At eleven o'clock we reached the island of Mu- 

 geres, notorious in that region as the resort of La- 

 fitte the pirate. Monsieur Lafitta, as our skipper 

 called him, bore a good character in these parts ; he 

 w^as always good to the fishermen, and paid them 

 well for all he took from them. At a short distance 

 beyond the point we passed a small bay, in which 

 he moored his little navy. The mouth was nar- 

 row, and protected by ledges of broken rocks, on 

 which, as the patron told us, he had batteries con- 

 stantly manned. On the farther point of the island 

 we had a distant view of one of those stone build- 

 ings which were our inducement to this voyage 

 along the coast. While looking at it from the prow 

 of the canoa, with the patron by my side, he broke 

 from me, seized a harpoon, and pointing with it to 

 indicate the direction to the helmsman, we came si- 

 lently upon a large turtle, apparently asleep, which 

 must have been somewhat surprised on waking up 

 with three or four inches of cold steel in his back. 

 The patron and sailors looked upon him as upon 

 a bag of dollars snatched from the deep. There 

 are three kinds of turtles which inhabit these seas ; 

 the Cahuamo, the eggs of which serve for food, and 

 which is useful besides only for its oil ; the Tortu- 

 ga, of which the meat as well as the eggs is eaten, 

 which also produces oil, and of which the shell is 

 worth two reales the pound ; and the Kare, of which 

 the shell is worth ten dollars a pound. It was one 

 of this kind, being the rarest, that had crossed our 



