Early in January, I started with my host and his little suite on an expedition to the islands of the Bocas.

Our object was twofold: to see tropical coast scenery, and to get, if possible, some Guacharo birds (pronounced Huacharo), of whom more hereafter.

Our chance of getting them depended on the sea being calm outside the Bocas, as well as inside.

The calm inside was no proof of the calm out.

Port of Spain is under the lee of the mountains; and the surf might be thundering along the northern shore, tearing out stone after stone from the soft cliffs, and shrouding all the distant points in salt haze, though the gulf along which we were rowing was perfectly smooth, and the shipping and the mangrove scrub and the coco-palms hung double, reflected as in a mirror, not of glass but of mud; and on the swamps of the Caroni the malarious fog hung motionless in long straight lines, waiting for the first blaze of sunrise to sublime it and its invisible poisons into the upper air, where it would be swept off, harmless, by the trade-wind which rushed along half a mile above our heads.
So away we rowed, or rather were rowed by four stalwart Negroes, along the northern shore of the gulf, while the sun leapt up straight astern, and made the awning, or rather the curtains of the awning, needful enough.