INTRODUCTION. 
13 
dred yards,’ and sometimes, as I have observed, they fly 
as high out nf the water as to reach the deck of a small 
vessel. This attempt at aerial navigation is no delight to 
them, hoivever pretty it may he for us terrestrial beings 
to look upon; for it is in order to escape from their 
bitterest enemy, the haracuta, that they are constrained 
to leave their native element, which they could not do 
without these extraordinary flns with which they are 
provided. The kind Creator either gives to the lower 
creation strength to resist, cunning to elude, or velocity 
to outstrip their enemies. 
Thus then, charmed with the beauties of the vaults 
of heaven at night, pleased with the wonders of the 
deep, and engaged in efforts to do good by day, the 
five weeks of our voyage soon passed by. 
On the 17th of October, a man was sent aloft to look 
for land, which he saw on the weather bow. We were 
consequently a little too far to leeward, so that our yards 
were braced aft, and our course altered a point to the 
eastward. About six o’clock, we distinctly saw the 
Grenadines, a number of small islands running out to 
the eastward of Tobago. These we soon cleared, and 
then our course lay westward, down between Tobago 
and Trinidad. We sat up till twelve o’clock, and saw 
Scarborough Light. At six in the morning, look- 
ing out of our little port-hole, we saw Point Galero, and 
the north coast of Trinidad extending down to the Bocas. 
About two o’clock we were opposite the Bocas, and very 
soon entered the Gulf of Paria. At five p.m., on the 
