hunting, were attending to their boucans, or fires, for the drying of the meat, and I thought as I saw them, working like butchers and cooks, that I would rather take the huntsman’s part of the business. All around lay the quarters of slaughtered beeves and hogs, while the Buccaneers, armed with long knives, cut the flesh from the bones. These lumps were then carefully salted in open sheds used for that purpose, and after being well steeped in brine, were placed on the boucan—that is to say, upon the grille of wood above a slow fire, which gradually dried and cooked the meat, giving it at the same time a sort of smoky taste, which however is not without an aroma to the palate. This method of preserving meat may be called national in these islands, for so did the original Charibs dress their food, whether fish or flesh. These savages were so fond of this cookery, and of such endurance, that an Indian returning from the chase, fatigued and hungry, would often wait patiently by the boucan, or as they called it, the _barbecu_, the best part of a day, until a fish or slice of hog, or beeve, was well cooked, the morsel being suspended almost two feet above a little and slow fire. The Charibs, being cannibals, were often in use to treat their prisoners just as they treated their game, and I know many who, visiting some of the smaller windward islands, and also the Brazilian coast, saw great flitches of human flesh, smoked and barbecued, hanging in the huts. The meat, when sufficiently preserved in the manner which I have described, the Buccaneers placed in storehouses, built so that both land and sea winds may play well around them. The hides are also prepared in a rude fashion, and the tallow, the whole being periodically sold, either for money or goods, to the captains of privateers for their crews, or to certain planters in those islands in which cattle do not abound. The latter are the best customers, making regular contracts with the Buccaneers for the supply of a certain quantity of meat and hides for a fixed sum, the stipulations on both sides being honourably adhered to. Many of the Buccaneers have servants and hired assistants, who are chiefly employed in conveying the cattle from the spot where they are killed to the boucan, and afterwards in helping to stow away the food. Although this appeared to be a regular settlement, its inhabitants led but a roving life. Many of them intended to go to sea for a change at the first opportunity, and others, conceiving that there were more cattle and fewer hunters to the eastward, spoke of shifting their quarters. This I heard while wandering about with Nicky, from boucan to boucan, and hut to hut. The scene indeed was a new one to me. Such groups of wild-looking blood-stained men; such slashing and cutting of meat, as though one were in the shambles; such shouting and singing in different tongues, mixed with the clamour of dogs and the screams of