chor was signalized by a discharge of heavy bird artillery,
and a splashing into the water to pick up the dead and wounded. In
wading ashore we stuck in a mud-bank, and had time to contemplate the
picturesque beauty of the scene before us. It was a small sandy beach,
with a rocky coast on each side, and trees growing down to the water,
broken only by a small clearing opposite the beach, in which were two
palm leaf huts, and an arbour covered with palm leaves. Under the
arbour hung three small hammocks, and a hardy, sun-dried fisherman sat
repairing a net, with two Indian boys engaged in weaving a new one. The
old fisherman, without desisting from his work, invited us to the
hammocks, and, to satisfy our invariable first want on this coast, sent
a boy for water, which, though not good, was better than that on board.

Along the shore, at no great distance, was a funeral pile of the
carcasses of turtles, half burned, and covered with countless millions
of flies, actually heaving and moving as if alive; and near this
hideous pile, as if to contrast beauty and deformity, was a tree,
covered to its topmost boughs with the white ibis, its green foliage
appearing like an ornamental frame-work to their snowy plumage. We
ordered our dinner to be brought to the arbour, and as we were sitting
down a canoe came ashore; the fishermen dragged across the beach two
large turtles, and leaving the carcasses to swell the funeral pile,
brought down to the arbour strings of eggs, and the parts that served
for food or oil, and hung them quivering in the sun along the fence,
their sudden blackness from swarms of flies disturbing somewhat the
satisfaction with which we had first hailed this arbour. We had again
stopped to visit ruins, but in the afternoon it rained, and we could
not go to them. The arbour was no protection, and we were obliged to go
inside the hut, which was snug and comfortable, the oil jars being
arranged under the eaves, with turtle-shells tied up carefully in
bundles, and on the rafters hung strings of eggs, while nets, old
sails, blocks, and other characteristic furniture of a fisherman's hut
filled up the corners. It was no hardship to be obliged to pass the
afternoon among these fishermen, for their hardy, independent
occupation gave manliness to their character, and freedom to their
speech and manners.

The island was famed among the fishermen as the rendezvous of Lafitte
the pirate, and the patron told us that our hos