ze to get to the mainland
before the calm leaves us at the mercy of the currents."

A few minutes later the boat careened over gently, and glided fast
through the water, while I steered, making for an opening which Uncle
Dick made out with his glass to be the mouth of a valley running up the
country.

"It's too far off to see all I want, Nat," he said, as he closed his
glass; "but I fancy we shall find a river there, and we'll run in and
try our luck. If there's nothing attractive about the place, we'll make
a fresh start after a night's rest, and go on coasting along south till
we find the sort of place we want. How well the boat sails with her
load!"

On we glided, with the vessel we had left gradually getting hull down as
the afternoon wore on, while we passed no less than three
tempting-looking wooded islets where we might have landed to pass the
night; but Uncle Dick shook his head.

"No, my boy," he said; "we'll keep to our course. There are more of
these cays about, and we could land upon one if the wind dropped. As it
holds fair, we'll run on to the mainland, for if it only keeps on till
sunset, we shall reach the shore before dark."

Uncle Dick was right, and as it drew near sunset I was feasting my eyes
on a wild-looking region whose beauty increased as we drew closer.
There was dense mangrove jungle, then cliff covered with verdure, and
this was broken up by patches of yellow sand backed by fringes of
cocoanut grove, which again gave place to open park-like forest with big
trees--this last where the great rocky bluff towered up with another
eminence on the other side of the opening--but there was no river,
nothing but a fine sandy cove, with a tiny stream running down from a
patch of beautiful forest.

As we ran in we had our last sight of the distant vessel which had
brought us so far on our journey, and Uncle Dick, who was standing up
forward to direct me in my steering, cried--

"Nothing could be better, Nat. It's like landing on one of our old
islands. Neither hut nor inhabitant to be seen. This is genuine wild
country, and we shall find a river to-morrow. I was half afraid that we
should be coming upon sugar or coffee plantations, or perhaps men
cutting down the great mahogany trees."

I was as delighted as he was, for my mind was full of the
gloriously-plumaged bird we meant to shoot, and there in imagination I
peopled the flower-decked bushes with flashing humming-birds whose
throats