We went swimming at the Balboa Club-house pool, one of the best I have ever seen. Mr. Grieser showed me the proper leg stroke for the crawl, and I met a twelve year old boy there who had gone to New York with a crack team of swimmers. He dived from a sixty-foot board in Madison Square Garden. Don Dickerman bought three dugouts from a native fisherman in Panama, and he also got two monkeys, a Cebus, a marmoset, and a cunning little monkey-like animal called a kinkaiu, which goes out mostly at night. This last little one was very soft and furry and was very gentle too. He curled himself and tried to keep in the dark all day, sleeping. I hope I can buy one some time for I like him better than the other pets. Bobbie Fish bought a little pet called a coatamundi. We call him “Snootie” for his upper lip is long and sticks out over his lower. He is little almost as a rat with a furry long tail. Betty has a brown puppy, named Dyna—short, she says, for Dynamite Bill who gave it to her. Gregory Bateson left at Panama and took many of the live things back with him to New York. The lizards and smaller things died but the pair of lovely albatrosses lived and I hope I shall see them when I go to the Zoo. Bateson is still a student at Cambridge University in England and his father is a famous scientist. On Saturday night late we pulled out of the dock at Panama, but we had to wait all next day at anchor in the outer harbor for two new firemen. Two of ours had left and not come back to the boat. And as the Captain wanted to keep all the rest of the crew aboard we stayed out there so more couldn’t leave. COCOS ISLAND Cocos Island is about five hundred miles from Panama, in the Pacific Ocean, and belongs to the country of Costa Rica. Four times a year it is visited by a government boat from Costa Rica. It is a steep high island, bright green jungle, with few protected coves or bays. The best anchorage is Chatham Bay which has some shelter with a big high solid rock island to the west and a small rock island to the east side. The only settlement ever made here was around two bends or coves from Chatham Bay, at Wafer Bay. The beach is more beautiful there and the slope behind the beach is easier to climb; there was more level ground to cultivate and plant to trees and vegetables. But this second bay is not a safe harbor for a ship to lie in, open and with squalls and winds blowing all the time and rollers on the beach at nearly every high tide. For about ten years a Captain Gissler, his wife and servants lived at this Wafer Bay. He spent his time mostly looking for treasure and we saw many deep holes which he probably had dug. As he is not here today and the place is deserted, maybe he found it and moved away to a less lonely place. Pirates had been here and buried gold, and it is said that some treasure has been found at different times.