my escape
through the blood[K] of my companions, whose mangled carcasses
were now perhaps mouldering on the shore.

[Footnote K: While escaping from the Pirates at the Cove, as I
passed between the canoes, the water was coloured with blood as
far as the shore.]

The next day at four o'clock, P. M. I came out to CANIMAR River,
about nine miles from Matanzas, where I found a number of
American and English coopers, employed in making and repairing
sugar hogsheads, &c. Here I passed the night; and the next
morning I departed for Matanzas in a Spanish launch. The wind
blowing a gale against us, we made but little headway, so that I
had a good opportunity to observe and admire the stupendous
precipices that compose the banks of this river; some of which on
either side, arise perpendicularly to the height of 200 feet,
presenting an appearance as though the opposite banks had been
burst asunder by some dreadful convulsion. It is extremely deep,
about 180 feet wide, and terminates very abruptly at about eight
miles from its mouth, two or three miles below Matanzas. At
the head of the Canimar is a small settlement, called the
Embarcadero, a kind of thoroughfare to Matanzas for twenty or
thirty miles in the interior. I was informed that at this little
settlement, nearly two million pounds of coffee and half that
quantity of sugar, were annually purchased and sent to Matanzas
for a market. Nothing could have prevented the growth of a large
city at the head of this river (or rather arm of the sea,) but
the bar at its mouth. But even with this obstruction, such is the
business between the Embarcadero and Matanzas, that a steam-boat
is about running, for their mutual accommodation, shoal enough to
pass the bar loaded.

Owing to the violence of the gale, we did not arrive at Matanzas
until eight o'clock in the evening. Fearing I might meet with
some of the numerous piratical spies that infest that place, who
are ever ready to intercept and murder an informant of their
diabolical traffic, I remained on board the launch; but had
little disposition to sleep among such a crew. The next morning I
went to the U. S. Agent, Mr. Adams, who directed me to his
partner, Mr. Lattin, our consignee, in order to inform him of the
loss of the brig, whose arrival he had been expecting for two or
three weeks. In a few moments I met Capt. Holmes of the ship
Shamrock, belonging to the owner of the brig, (Hon. Abiel Wood,)
who sailed from the same w