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. For the perpendicular rays of the sun in
the Tropics are not so much dreaded as the horizontal ones, which
strike on the forehead, or, still more dangerous, on the back of the
head; and in the West Indies, as in the United States, the early
morning and the latter part of the afternoon are the times for
sunstrokes. Some sort of shade for the back of the head is
necessary for an European, unless (which is not altogether to be
recommended) he adopts the La Platan fashion of wearing the natural,
and therefore surest, sunshade of his own hair hanging down to his
shoulders after the manner of our old cavaliers.

The first islands which we made--The Five Islands, as they are
called--are curious enough. Isolated remnants of limestone, the
biggest perhaps one hundred yards long by one hundred feet high,
channelled and honeycombed into strange shapes by rain and waves
they are covered--that at least on which we landed--almost
exclusively by Matapalos, which seem to have stranded the original
trees and established themselves in every cranny of the rocks,
sending out arms, legs, fingers, ropes, pillars, and what not, of
live holdfasts over every rock and over each other till little but
the ubiquitous Seguine {95a} and Pinguins {95b} find room or
sustenance among them. The island on which we landed is used, from
time to time, as a depot for coolie immigrants when first landed.
There they remain to rest after the voyage till they can be
apportioned by the Government officers to the estates which need