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WEST INDIES AND SOUTH AMERICA 
Trinidad lady, accompanied by her married sister. She was to have 
landed the day before in order to be married at noon to a young 
fellow employed on the canal works, who had been granted two days’ 
leave of absence for this very special purpose. Fortunately the 
bride-elect took chaff well, for she got plenty of it. Fancy the 
would-be bridegroom returning to his work without a wife! 
At dinner we did our level best to be merry, but the attempt was 
only partially successful. 
Boxing-day found us anchored off Colon. The wind had not 
abated, and after watching the big waves breaking on the quay for 
some hours we weighed anchor and set off for the old harbour of 
Puerto Bello, some 20 miles to the northward. The entrance is 
narrow, with rocks on either hand, and thrice we essayed to enter, 
but each time as we drew near a heavy rain-squall obscured every¬ 
thing, and we had to sheer off, finally putting out to sea again for 
the night. 
December 27th. After a very rough night outside, we woke to 
find ourselves just off the entrance, and got in before breakfast, 
passing between cruel-looking rocks on which the waves were lashing 
themselves in a fury of rage. 
Puerto Bello, which gave its name to Portobello near Leith, is 
a tiny port like a tropical Dartmouth; quite land-locked, its steep 
shores covered with forest which overhangs the water, it looks like 
the most peaceful and secluded of lakes. The town has almost 
disappeared, the fortifications that Yernon destroyed in 1739 have 
been long dismantled, and are in great part draped with creepers. 
I would much have liked to land, but no boats put off, moreover 
it rained steadily most of the day. We shared the anchorage with 
three vessels wind-bound like ourselves. 
As the wooded shores were only half a mile away on either hand, 
and the wind was but trifling in the sheltered harbour, it is not 
surprising that a number of insects came to the ship’s lights, and a 
very interesting lot they were. The creature which interested me 
most at the time was a Neuropteron with conspicuously clubbed 
antennae, presumably a species of Ascalaphus, a curious genus that 
I have not come across alive either before or since. 
The sole Geometer, Anisodes placidaria, Guen., is in effect a tiny 
Ephyra [near pendularia\ ; Selenis suero, Cram., and S. lanipes, Guen., 
are Quadrifid Noctuae [of which the former has a wing pattern like 
our Hemerophila abruptaria ]; Aluaca loxea , Cram., a chocolate- 
coloured moth with a round pale spot on the fore-wing belongs to 
the same group, and all three are very distinct from anything 
