ugh mangrove bushes from the interior
swamps.

But there is one startlingly pleasant river, curiously out of place in
its desolate surroundings, which, after running through several miles of
marl swamps, enters upon an oasis of fresher foliage and even such
stately timber as mahogany, lignum vitae, and horseflesh; and it was in
this oasis, at the close of the third day out, we found ourselves. Here,
a short distance from the bank, on some slightly ascending rocky ground,
under the spreading shade of something like a stretch of woodland,
Charlie, several years ago, had built a rough log shanty for his
camp--one of two or three camps he had thus scattered for himself up and
down the "out islands," where nearly all the land is no man's, and so
every man's, land. The particular camp at which we had now arrived he
had not visited for a long time.

"Last time I was here," said Charlie, laughing, as, having dropped
anchor, we rowed ashore, "I thought of what seemed to me an infallible
test of the loneliness of the place. Let's see how it has worked."

The log shanty stood before us, doorless, comfortably tucked in under an
umbrella-headed tamarind tree. There was no furniture in it but a rough
table. On the table was a bottle, fallen over on its side. This Charlie
snatched up, with a cry of satisfaction.

"What do you think of this?" he said. "Not a soul has been here but the
turkey-buzzards. The beggars knocked this over, but otherwise it is just
as I left it. Do you want better proof than this?"--and he held out the
bottle for me to look at.

It was a quart of Scotch whisky, corked and sealed as it had left the
distillery. And it had been there for two years! The more the reader
ponders this striking fact, the better will he be able to realise the
depth of the solitude in which we now found ourselves. While the boys
slung the beds, and Tom busied himself with dinner, we sat and smoked,
and savoured together our satisfaction in our complete and grandiose
isolation.

"It might well be weeks before any one could find us!" said my friend,
eager as a boy lapping up horrors from his favourite author. "Yes,
weeks!" And then he added: "It was creeks like this the old pirates used
to hide in."

And so we talked of pirates and buried treasure, while the sun set like
a flight of flamingoes over a scene that was indeed like a picture torn
from a Boy's Own Book of Adventure.

Then Tom brought us our dinner, and the dark began t