I was of the same opinion myself, and I could not but admire the judgment of the Buccaneers in rowing into the centre of the sleeping squadron, just before the outbreak of the squall, and then swooping off with their prey, in the midst of the confusion which it created. The weather soon cleared up. By midnight the stars were twinkling forth, and the frigate having worked up near us, we hailed that the crew of the pinnace were safe, and presently another boat coming on board, carried them to their own ship. With the earliest peep of the dawn I was at the mast-head of our bark. The fleet, with the exception of the one spirited away, were riding at their stations. The boats which had, yesterday evening, gone into the river with their cargoes, were again standing out for the bank. The frigate lay to windward—rising and falling on the froth-laced seas, with her main-topsail flat to the mast—but elsewhere the ocean was sailless. The Buccaneer and her prize, one of the largest and quickest vessels of the fleet, had disappeared. That morning, we began our proper business of collecting pearls, the method of which I will briefly describe. First, the fat negro went in the canoe to several points round about the vessel, diving into the water at each, and thus finding where the shell-fish lay thickest. This having been ascertained, he placed a small buoy upon the spot, and the bark was warped up to it. The iron-basket, which I have mentioned, was then let down to the bottom of the sea, the depth of which was hereabouts nearly five fathoms, or almost thirty feet. Then Wooroo and his comrade prepared for their day’s work, by stuffing their ears full of the down of the cotton-tree, without which, or some similar precaution, divers frequently become deaf. They anointed their limbs, too, with some sort of vegetable oil, and then taking the sinkers of lead, which I have spoken of, in their hands, they poised their bodies, standing upon the gunwale of the ship, and keeping time, as it were, to her roll, flinging back their arms and shoulders, and breathing deeply, so as to puff out their broad chests with air. Wooroo, while so standing, looked like a great black image of Strength. At length they leaped simultaneously, making but one splash, and as the water settled over them, we could see their black forms wavering and quivering, as it seemed, owing to the motion of the sea, and then presently clinging to the projections of rock, all tufted over with green sea-weed—in the rifts of which the oysters lay thick. As soon, however, as they began to tear up the latter from their beds, the water became so much mudded that we could not remark the process. In the meantime, we hauled up both sinkers, which the divers had let go on reaching the bottom, and placed them on the gunwale, all ready for the next plunge. The little man came up to the surface first—puffing and blowing. There was a sort of broad-stepped