rd of her course and in toward Jamaica without Carera being any
the wiser.

In this exceedingly unsatisfactory manner time progressed--and we with
it--until the sixth morning after our abrupt departure from the Conconil
lagoons; when, as day broke and the sun rose, clearing away a light bank
of grey cloud on the eastern horizon, a soft, delicate purplish hummock-
like protuberance was seen rising out of the sea broad on our larboard
bow, which was at once recognised as _land_, and so reported to Carera.
Courtenay and I were in our berths and asleep at the moment; but the cry
of "_Land ho_!" at once aroused us, and, slipping on our clothes, we
hurried on deck to see what it looked like. We found Carera there,
staring in the utmost perplexity at the small grey shape--only
discernible when the felucca rose on the crest of a sea--and audibly
wondering what on earth it could be. _We_ knew pretty well what it was;
Carera kept his small stock of charts in the after cabin, and always
spread them out on the cabin table to lay off his course and distance
run, so that we had had abundant opportunity to refer, as often as we
pleased, to the particular chart he was using on that trip, and had met
with no difficulty whatever in keeping a private dead-reckoning of our
own, from which we were already aware that we might expect to make
Dolphin Head, the highest point of land at the extreme westernmost end
of Jamaica, on this particular morning. The report that other land had
just become visible about a point further to the southward--and which we
judged to be the lofty hill behind Blewfields Bay--confirmed us in our
belief that our calculations had proved correct. Carera, in his
perplexity, went aloft as far as our stumpy mast-head--a thing we had
never known him do before--to get a clearer view of the land, the
bearings of which were then taken, after which our skipper, accompanied
by Courtenay and me, descended to the cabin to consult the chart. On
reference to this, there was of course only one conclusion to be arrived
at, which was that the land in sight was none other than Jamaica. It
now turned out that he had never visited the island, had never indeed
sighted it from the westward before; hence his difficulty in identifying
it; but whilst we were all three discussing the matter down below Manuel
came to the open sky-light in great trepidation to report shoal water
all round the ship. This of course caused us to rush straight