170 NEGEO SETTLEMENT. Book I. 
together from different quarters of the globe — some speaking 
French, some Spanish, some English in preference, and 
others a language composed, no doubt, of an idiom of 
African origin, mixed up with elements of the various 
European dialects used in the West Indies. Of this settle- 
ment of black squatters scarcely anything was known at 
Belize, where even the best-informed told us that we should 
be obliged to bivouac in the wilderness, wherever we might 
land around the lagoon — a statement to which our boatmen 
would only respond with a smile, or a mysterious "let us 
take care of that and you will see." Indeed here they had 
their own houses, though they had left them uninhabited 
for a considerable time while they were working in some of 
the mahogany cuttings of the interior, or in the port of 
Belize. All the neighbours around were their friends or 
relations, with whom they passed the night, leaving us on 
board our sloop as we refused their invitation to go on shore 
with them that evening. Next morning they returned and 
landed us close to some cane-huts, surrounded by palm- 
trees on a strip of land not more than one hundred yards 
broad. Black and brown women and children gathered 
around us. Of the male portion of the little settlement, 
only a few appeared to be present. No trace of cultivated 
land was to be seen, and indeed the soil, though overgrown 
with trees, shrubs, grass and herbs, seemed to be very poor 
— a mere accumulation of sand. Fresh water is nowhere 
to be found on this long and narrow dike : it is brought in 
canoes from some places on the opposite shores. But the 
refreshing liquid of the cocoa-nut is so plentifully at hand 
and so generally in use as to make water almost superfluous 
for drinking purposes. 
Though well recommended by our boatmen, as I sup- 
posed we were, the population of this secluded place ap- 
