he coco-palms which they have planted
along their shores, and by thousands of pounds the profit which
accrues from them.

After breakfast--call it luncheon rather--we started for the lagoon.
We had set our hearts on seeing Manatis ('sea cows'), which are
still not uncommon on the east coast of this island, though they
have been exterminated through the rest of the West Indies since the
days of Pere Labat. That good missionary speaks of them in his
delightful journal as already rare in the year 1695; and now, as far
as I am aware, none are to be found north of Trinidad and the
Spanish Main, save a few round Cuba and Jamaica. We were anxious,
too, to see, if not to get, a boa-constrictor of one kind or other.
For there are two kinds in the island, which may be seen alive at
the Zoological Gardens in the same cage. The true Boa, {277a} which
is here called Mahajuel, is striped as well as spotted with two
patterns, one over the other. The Huillia, Anaconda, or Water-boa,
{277b} bears only a few large round spots. Both are fond of the
water, the Huillia living almost entirely in it; both grow to a very
large size; and both are dangerous, at least to children and small
animals. That there were Huillias about the place, possibly within
fifty yards of the house, there was no doubt. One of our party had
seen with his own eyes one of seven-and-twenty feet long killed,
with a whole kid inside it, only a few miles off. The brown
policeman, crossing an arm of the Guanapo only a month or two
before, had been frightened by meeting one in the ford, which his
excited imagination magnified so much that its head was on the one
bank while its tail was on the other--a measurement which must, I
think, be divided at least by three. But in the very spot in which
we stood, some four years since, happened what might have been a
painful tragedy. Four young ladies, whose names were mentioned to
me, preferred, not wisely, a bathe in the still lagoon to one in the
surf outside; and as they disported themselves, one of them felt
herself seized from behind. Fancying that one of her sisters was
playing tricks, she called out to her to let her alone; and looking
up, saw, to her astonishment, her three sisters sitting on the bank,
and herself alone. She looked back, and shrieked for help: and
only just in time; for the Huillia had her. The other three girls,
to their honour, dashed in to her assistance