cockpits were so few that the white men could always find a well-beaten track which led them to the mouth of a defile; but beyond the mouth they could not go. A deep fissure, from two hundred to eight hundred yards long, and impassable except in single file, was easily guarded. Warned by the horns of the scouts that an enemy was approaching, the Maroons hid themselves in ambush behind rocks and trees, selected each his man, shot him down, and then vanished to some fresh position. Turn whither he might, the unlucky pursuer was met always by a fresh volley from an invisible foe, who never fired in vain. Nevertheless the white men were sufficiently persistent in their pursuit of Cudjoe to force him to abandon the Clarendon district; but this only made matters worse, inasmuch as it drove him to an impregnable fastness, whence there was no hope of dislodging him, in the Trelawney district farther to the north-west. This cockpit contained seven acres of fertile land and a spring of water. Its entrance was a defile half a mile long; its rear was barred by a succession of other cockpits, its flanks protected by lofty precipices. Here Cudjoe made his headquarters and laughed at the white men. The Maroons lived in indolent savagery while their provisions lasted, and in active brigandage when their wants forced them to go and plunder. They were fond of blood and barbarity, as is the nature of savages, and never spared a prisoner, black or white. After nine or ten years of successful warfare Cudjoe fairly compelled the whites to make terms with him; and accordingly, in the year 1738, a solemn treaty was concluded between Captains Cudjoe, Johnny, Accompong, Cuffee, Quaco, and the Maroons of Trelawney town on the one part, and George the Second, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and of Jamaica Lord, on the other. [Sidenote: 1795.] The terms of the treaty granted the Maroons amnesty, fifteen hundred acres of land, and certain hunting rights; also absolute freedom, independence, and self-government among themselves--the jurisdiction of the chiefs being limited only in respect of the penalty of death, and of disputes in which a white man was concerned. On their part the Maroons undertook to give up runaway slaves, to aid the king against all enemies, domestic and foreign, and to admit two white residents to live with them perpetually. A similar treaty was concluded with another body of Maroons that had not followed Cudjoe to Trelawney from the windward end of the island; and thus the Maroon question for the present was settled.