This might indeed empty itself during the floods of the rainy season; but during the dry season it must remain a stagnant pond, filling gradually with festering vegetable matter from the hills, beer-coloured, and as hideous to look at as it is to smell.

Were there a tide, as in England, of from ten to twenty feet, that swamp would be drained twice a day to nearly that depth; and healthy vegetation, as in England, establish itself down to the very beach.

A tide of a foot or eighteen inches only, as is too common in the West Indies, will only drain the swamp to that depth; and probably, if there be any strong pebble-bearing surf outside, not at all.

So there it all lies, festering in the sun, and cooking poison day and night; while the mangroves and graceful white roseaux {115a} (tall canes) kindly do their best to lessen the mischief, by rooting in the slush, and absorbing the poison with their leaves.

A white man, sleeping one night on the edge of that pestilential little triangle, half an acre in size, would be in danger of catching a fever and ague, which would make a weaker man of him for the rest of his life.