MOSQUITIAX VILLAS. 
397 
Chap. XXIV—B. P.] 
earth, beaten hard, and a slight partition divides the 
sitting-room from the sleeping apartment. All cook¬ 
ing is done outside. The •whole building, about 
twenty feet square, is very neatly constructed, and, 
my creoles informed me, could be built in about a week, 
at a cost of perhaps <H20, or £4, and would last for 
years, if not washed away by a flood. 
If Anglo-Saxons ever people the banks of this river, 
they will doubtless place their habitations further 
inland, and on higher ground, unlike the present oc¬ 
cupants, who build close to the edge of the bank, in 
which steps are cut and logs of wood laid almost 
from the door to the water’s edge. At every mile one 
is more and more struck with the value of this river, 
which is by far the deepest on the coast. I was as¬ 
sured that, for a long distance, ten to twelve fathoms 
was a common depth; and this I know, that I re¬ 
peatedly sounded with a palanca twenty-five feet in 
length, close to the bank, and never could touch the 
bottom. 
At a quarter-past eight we passed Hone Creek, 
which is a celebrated locality for mahogany; and a 
quarter of an hour later the house and plantation of 
Hercules Temple, on the right bank of the river, at 
the mouth of Mahogany Creek, and on its right bank. 
The water was still brackish, even up that creek. 
It was about high water as we passed Temple’s house, 
and the current was still running up a little. The rise 
and fall of the tide is only eighteen inches at Blewfields; 
this will give some idea of how very level the country 
must be between the lagoon and this place, a distance 
