S A VANN A-LE - MAE. 
37 
every rock, patch of sand, or bunch of weed, was 
as distinct as if seen simply through a broad plate 
of glass. We ran in through a very narrow channel, 
the coral reef almost touching us on either side, as I 
saw plainly enough from a little way up the shrouds. 
The pilot had taken his station on the end of the 
bowsprit instead of the poop, that he might the 
better discern the slender passage, cut as it were 
through the coral rock, which we were threading; 
and very delicate work it was. This was not the 
ordinary channel for large craft, but that was denied 
to us in the present case by the wind, except with 
the loss of a tide. 
SAVANNA-LE-MAR. 
The town of Savanna-le-Mar presents little which 
is attractive to a stranger, though its aspect is charac- 
teristic enough of West Indian manners. It stands 
very low ; on the eastern side a grove of cocoa-nut 
palms, nearly a mile in length, fringes the white 
beach ; and on the other the eye rests on nothing at 
all but a wall of sombre mangrove trees, growing 
actually out of the sea for miles. You climb the 
wharf, and are immediately in a broad and long 
straight street, that constitutes the town. There is 
no pavement but the sandy earth, ploughed into 
ruts by the waggons, some of which you may see 
with their long teams of oxen, bringing in puncheons 
of rum and hogsheads of sugar from the country. 
Right across, at irregular intervals, run great water- 
courses, dry sometimes to be sure, but in the rainy 
