We set out by moonlight, intending to sleep during the heat of the day; and after an hour’s trudge through the wet grass and bushes, which were quite drenched with the copious dews, passed the spot where lay the Buccaneers who had been hanged by the Spaniards. Truly our poor comrades slept in a tranquil resting-place—a spot of greenest grass, with feathery palms overhead, bending and rustling in the night wind. We stopped to rest, when the sun rose, until the sea-breeze should set in, watching its coming from beneath a thick mango-tree, whence we could look down upon the blue sea beneath. After the land-breeze flickered and failed, there was a pause, during which the sun shone with blistering power. Then, far off, on the glassy surface of the sea, came the dark belt of roughened water, streaked with white, which proclaims the daily return of the brisk north-westerly trade, and in half an hour more, it was whistling through the bushes in half a gale of wind. We dined this day by the little runnel where I had killed the duck, and then travelled until sunset, when we encamped in our blankets, well worn out by our long day’s march. The journey to the cove was fatiguing, but performed without any particular adventure. We sometimes saw wild cattle, and heard the cry of wild dogs, and I observed, when we got glimpses of the sea, numerous great brown pelicans, flapping heavily over the water, somewhat like the cranes on our own coasts, and often diving down with a splash into the sea after the fish, which they mark from a great height. In the afternoon of the second day, I reckoned that we could not be far from the cove, but the exact spot was difficult to hit, as the general appearance of the coast hereabouts was very similar, and the tangled growth of underwood prevented us from always keeping so close to the edge of the sea-cliff as we otherwise should have done. We had trudged along all the afternoon, keeping a sharp look-out, and sometimes forcing our way with our great knives through the creepers and brushwood, so as to be able to gaze down the iron-bound sea wall to where the great driving swells were rising and sinking upon the rock, and foaming furiously over every projecting peak and pinnacle of stone; when, having stopped to hold a consultation—for I was now becoming very fearful that we had overshot our mark—we all suddenly heard the report of a musket or fowling-piece, fired not far off. This terribly disconcerted us, for we knew that the cove could not be distant, and we feared that the secret of its existence was not known to me alone. However, we withdrew into the thicket, where we could not well be discovered, and lay close. In the course of the next hour, we heard three shots fired from different points around us, and discoursed eagerly as to whether they were probably Buccaneers, or Spaniards who were hunting in the neighbourhood. At all events, we now despaired of recovering the