flat-bottomed boats which carried the oysters ashore; and here and there, lurking among the sand-hills with his gun, you might descry a Spanish sportsman, creeping along the shore to get a good shot at widgeon or teal. Upon the landward side there stretched out in the hot sun a wavy, sand-heaped shore, feathered here and there with a palm, bending in the sea-breeze. The village, which was two or three straggling streets of huts, built of wood and wattled branches, with some roofs scattered here and there of tarred canvas, which sailors call tarpaulin, supported upon stakes, boats’ masts, oars, and what not, lay, as it were, roasting brown in the fierce glare of the sun. A few black and stark-naked children played in the sand before the doors, and a Spaniard or two, with their white linen jackets, and broad straw hats, and red sashes tied round their middles, and everlasting pipes of tobacco in their hands, would be sitting in the shade, outside the long low hut which was the posada of the place, drinking draughts of wine from gourds or cups made of cocoa-shells mounted with silver, and playing cards or dice for shining dollars. At one end of the village was a rude sort of fort, built of unhewn stone, piled up and supported by a framework of stakes; it had no cannon, but was loopholed for musketry, and was set all round with sentry-boxes, in which Spanish soldiers dozed away the greater part of the day and night. Above the ramparts or palisades, which were not more than twelve feet high, and planted upon the roof of an inner house, rose a flag-staff bearing the broad red and yellow banner of Spain. In this fort, or stockade, lived the governor of the fishery, the chief superintendent, and the captain of the convoy, when he was ashore. All the pearls which were found were conveyed thither twice a-day, and overseers were continually passing and repassing from the great gate down to the opening tables, which stood in divers ranks all round the central pit into which the oysters were flung. From among those tables, half covered by their thin roofs of grass and hurdles, and lined by the dusky rows of working slaves, continually came the sharp crack of the whip, followed by a loud howl from some poor wretch detected whispering to his neighbour, or pausing a moment in his toil. Now and then an Indian would run hurriedly away from the tables towards the village, that man having found and delivered up a pearl above a certain weight, which entitled him to a holiday until the next morning; while, again, perhaps a poor brown devil would be walked off between a couple of the soldiers who attended at the tables, and taken to the fort, there to be flogged to an inch of his life for some offence given to the overseer of the board.