Chap. X. MANATI CAVE. 173 
The reader will allow me to assure him that these 
portrait sketches of a black woman and a black man are 
conscientiously taken from nature. I must add, however, 
that in general free negroes born in the tropical regions 
of America are a race more favourably developed than 
negroes, free or slaves, under the less genial climate and 
institutions of the United States. 
By several islands, peninsulas, and tongues of land, the 
lagoon of Manati is divided into several branches and 
subordinate basins ; and by a narrow channel, such as 
that by which we had entered, it is connected with another, 
and still larger, lagoon, situated to the northward. The 
shores of this latter are entirely uninhabited. From the 
west, a stream, called the Manati .River, enters into the 
first lagoon. By several falls or rapids, it descends from 
the mountainous regions situated in that direction. Some 
ten or fifteen miles before reaching the lagoon, it passes 
through the interior of a mountain in a natural tunnel, 
navigable for small canoes 5 the Manati Eiver thus repeat- 
ing a remarkable feature characteristic of the physical 
geography of Yucatan and Honduras. 1 This tunnel is 
known by the name of the Great Manati Cave, and it 
had been our intention to visit the locality ; but to pro- 
ceed up the river was declared a very toilsome and diffi- 
cult task at this time of the year, when we should be 
obliged to drag our canoe over the sand more than a dozen 
times. There is, however, another cave, called the Cave 
of Ben Lomond, in this neighbourhood. It is situated in 
a rocky hill, at the north-western corner of the lagoon. 
A Scotch gentleman at Belize, the owner of that tract of 
1 Lake Yojoa, in the State of Hondu- I Squier, a considerable number of sub- 
ras, has, according to the statements of terraneous outlets. 
Mr. Emory Edwards, published by Mr. 1 
