lf of Paria.

Once clear of the passage--now known as the Boca de Huevos--Dyer trimmed
his yards flat and brought the ship as close to the wind as she would
lay, keenly watching the various points and indentations as they opened
out, one after the other, until at length a group of five small tree-
crowned islets opened out clear of an intervening island, when he rubbed
his hands and chuckled delightedly.

"Ah, ah!" he exclaimed, "there a be, there a be! I was a'most beginnin'
to fear as I'd forgot, or that an earthquake had happened, or somethin'.
But 'tis all right. You see they five little bits of islands away over
yonder, Cap'n? Well, they be my landmarks, and as soon as we've stood
far enough on to fetch 'em we'll go about."

As the ship opened out from under the lee of the weather shore it was
found that the trade-wind was piping up briskly athwart the gulf, but
notwithstanding this it was nearly an hour before the _Nonsuch_ had
reached far enough to the southward to enable her to make the islets on
the next tack, and when at length she was hove about it was another full
hour before she glided close past a low point and rounding-to, let go
her anchor in three fathoms, in a snug little cove that looked as though
it had been specially formed for the careening of ships.

The cove was situated within a bay, and was formed by a hook-like
projection of land high enough not only to hide the ship from the view
of any chance voyager who might happen to enter the gulf for
reconnoitring purposes, but also effectually to protect her in the
unlikely event of the trade-wind dying down and giving place to a gale
from the westward. Moreover, the high land to the eastward so
effectually protected the place from the trade-wind that a perpetual
calm existed in the cove, even when the trade-wind was piping up with
the strength of half a gale a few hundred yards away. The shore was a
narrow strip of sandy beach, completely submerged at high water, beyond
which lay a space of low, flat ground about half a mile in width,
gradually rising as it receded from the shore, and running up in a sort
of tongue for a distance of about two miles between two lofty, steep-
sided hills, densely covered with trees of various kinds, while the
entire shore, for miles in either direction, was thickly fringed with
coconut trees. Strangely enough, for some unknown reason, the ground
between the narrow fringe of coconut trees bounding the shore-line