Thus rowing slowly against the stream they came around what appeared to be either a point of land or an islet covered with a thick growth of mangrove-trees; though still no one spoke a single word as to their destination, or what was the business they had in hand.

We grated in, over a shallow bottom of pebbles interspersed with gray lumps of coral pulp, and of Botrylli, azure, crimson, and all the hues of the flower-garden; and landed on the bank of a mangrove swamp, bored everywhere with the holes of land-crabs.

Running down, then, by steamer, some thirty-six miles south from Port of Spain, along a flat mangrove shore, broken only at one spot by the conical hill of San Fernando, we arrived off a peninsula, whose flat top is somewhat higher than the lowland

When pursued, they take great springs, using their tails and fins for the purpose; and if they cannot escape into the sea, they will dive down the burrow of a land-crab, or dash into a bunch of mangrove-roots."

The principal stream of the gulf, which is the west arm, runs under the base of View Hill; three and a half miles farther on it opens into an extensive basin at the bottom of which is some high land; here the basin is contracted in its size, and trends to the westward round a mangrove point, where it was lost to view.

At a little more than two miles we crossed the river between two pools of salt water, subject to the influence of the tides, and proceeded northward over an open grassy flat for two miles further, when the grass gave place to samphire and small mangrove bushes, which gradually thickened to dense mangroves, cut up by deep muddy creeks, which put a stop to proceeding further in that direction.

The shore was found to be generally very sandy, a low flat valley extending from the head of the cove across the isthmus about two miles to Mermaid Strait, where it terminated in a muddy mangrove creek.

Near the anchorage was a small mangrove opening, the entrance of which was blocked up by a dry mud bank.

When they sank, a dark mass with a ragged top cut off the view from the pilot-house, and Kit knew it was a mangrove forest.

Off the bay is a low mangrove island which I had the pleasure to name after the Reverend James W. Burford, of Stratford, Essex, and the bay in which we had anchored was called after W. Aiton, Esquire, of the Royal Gardens at Kew.

The catamarans consisted of five mangrove stems lashed together to a frame of smaller wood, as in Woodcut 2: they are bouyant enough to carry two natives, besides their spears and baskets.

Hercules fastened the boat firmly to a mangrove stump, and all climbed up the steep bank overhung by large trees.

Eastward from it cliffy points separating shoal mangrove bays, formed the character of the coast; whilst in the opposite direction extended a bay, fifteen miles wide, over the western point of which we recognised the sandhills seen on our visit to this part in July, 1840; the shores of this great bay were fronted for some distance by shoal water.

As we descended, the left bank of the river was entirely occupied with cocos; and the contrast between them and the mangroves on the right was made all the more striking by the afternoon sun, which, as it sank behind the forest, left the mangrove wall in black shadow, while it bathed the palm-groves opposite with yellow light.

The shore is fringed with the usual maritime trees and bushes, and an extensive mangrove bed runs out upon the reef in one place.

Behind some very low scattered sandhills that form it, fronting a mangrove flat, we beheld great numbers of dead turtles, that seemed to have repaired thither of their own accord to die.

Let the mangrove foliage be as gay and green as it mayand it is gay and greena mangrove swamp is a sad, ugly, evil place; and so I felt that one to be that day.

There was a small mangrove inlet in the South-East corner of this harbour, over which the land was low, forming a gap in the neighbouring heights.

Captain Wickham and Lieutenant Eden in the gig, and myself, accompanied by Mr. Tarrant, in one of the whaleboats; we reached the mangrove isles at sunset, and spent the night between them and the eastern shore.

But the Manatis usually only come in at night, to put their heads out of water and browse on the lowest mangrove leaves; and the Boas hide themselves so cunningly, either altogether under water, or with only the head above, that we might have passed half a dozen without seeing them.

Such Mangrove-seedlings, looking more like cigars than anything else, float in large numbers about the Reef.

Then on, over slow miles (you must not trot beneath the burning mid- day sun) of sandy stifling flat, between high canes, till we saw with joy, through long vistas of straight traces, the mangrove shrubbery which marked the sea.

" The droll, withered face, suddenly raised, shone with great tears that streaked the mangrove stain.