and blue water beyond. A few clumps of cocoa-nut-trees and
dwarf palms, with bare gaunt stems and tufted tops, stood out here and
there along the rocky slopes, while lesser vegetation of cactus and
mangrove bushes were scattered thickly over the island, cropping out
with jagged edges of rock down to the sandy beaches of the sea-shore. A
deep narrow inlet of blue water lay pure and still near the base of the
rocky height, where, too, was a shelving curve of white sand, sprinkled
about by a few mat sheds, while on the other side the rocks arose to an
elevation of a hundred and fifty feet, forming a precipitous wall to the
water. The inlet here took a sharp turn, scooped out in a secluded
basin, and then narrowing to less than forty yards in width, it wound
and twisted for a good mile in a thin blue channel to the open sea. Half
that distance farther out was a roaring ledge of white breakers, where
the long swell came hammering on it, bursting up in the air in brightish
green masses, and then tumbling over the reef and bubbling smoothly on
toward the shore. On a level with the water no channel could be
discerned through the ledge; but, looking down from the heights around
the inlet, a narrow blue gateway was marked out, skirted on the surface
by frothy crests of dead foam, and near where flocks of cormorants and
gulls were riding placidly on the inner side of the ledge. The island
itself was about two miles broad and seven long; and about midway of its
width the inlet formed a forked strait, one branch finding its way to
the north, between a low succession of sandy hummocks, where the water
was too shallow to float a duck, and the other finding an outlet,
scarcely a biscuit-toss wide, between two bluff rocks. With the trade
wind this passage was safe and accessible; but on the change of the
moon, with a breeze and swell from the south, the sea came bowling in,
in boiling eddies and whirlpools, and it required a nerve of iron to
attempt an entrance. Just within this narrow mouth, on a flat beveled
ledge of rock but a few feet above the water, was a small battery of two
long eighteen-pounders, and two twenty-four pounder carronades mounted
on slides and trucks, with platforms laid on a bed of sand. Near by,
beneath a low shed of tiles and loose stones, were a pile of round shot,
nicely blacked, and some stands of grape and canister in canvas bags and
cases, together with a large copper magazine of cartridges. Seated a
little w