They are covered
with a short green sward, dark cedar trees, and low white houses,
which have a pretty and pleasing effect; the harbours are numerous,
but shallow; and though there are many channels into them, there is
but one for large ships into the principal anchorage.
Numerous caverns, whose roofs sparkle with the spars and stalactites
formed by the dripping water, are found in every part of the islands.
They contain springs of delicious coolness, to quench the thirst, or
to bathe in. The sailors have a notion that these islands float, and
that the crust which composes them is so thin as to be broken with
little exertion. One man being confined in the guardhouse for having
got drunk and misbehaved, stamped on the ground, and roared to the
guard, "Let me out, or, d--nour eyes, I'll knock a hole in your
bottom, scuttle your island, and send you all to h---- together."
Rocks and shoals abound in almost every direction, but chiefly on the
north and west sides. They are, however, well known to the native
pilots, and serve as a safeguard from nightly surprise or invasion.
Varieties of fish are found here, beautiful to the eye and delicious
to the taste: of these, the best is the red grouper. When on a calm,
clear day, you glide among these lovely islands, in your boat, you
seem to be sailing over a submarine flower-garden, in which clumps of
trees, shrubs, flowers, and gravel walks, are planted in wild, but
regular confusion.
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