62
THE
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on shore. An awning was rigged over the forecastle, and an altar set up under it. The men chanted the prayers. The cannon answered the purpose of music. Broadsides were fired at the first sentence, at the Exaudiat, at the Elevation, at the Benediction, and a fifth at the prayer for the king. The service was wound up by a Vive le Roi! A single small accident only had disturbed the ceremony. One of the pirates, at the Elevation, being of a profane mind, made an indecent gesture. Daniel rebuked him, and, as the offence was repeated, drew a pistol and blew the man's brains out, saying he would do the same to any one who was disrespectful to the Holy Sacrament. The priest being a little startled, Daniel begged him not to be alarmed; he was only chastising a rascal to teach him his duty. At any rate, as Labat observed, he had effectually prevented the rascal from doing anything of the same kind again. Mass being over, the body was thrown overboard, and priest and congregation went their several ways. Kingsley's ‘ At Last’ gave Trinidad an additional inte rest to me, but even he had not prepared me completely for the place which I was to see. It is only when one has seen any object with one's own eyes, that the accounts given by others become recognisable and instructive. Trinidad is the largest, after Jamaica, of the British West Indian Islands, and the hottest absolutely after none of them. It is square-shaped, and, I suppose, was once a part of South America. The Orinoco river and the ocean currents between them have cut a channel between it and the mainland, which has expanded into a vast shallow lake known as the Gulf of Paria. The two en trances by which the gulf is approached are narrow and are called bocas or mouths —one the Dragon's Mouth, the other the Serpent's. When the Orinoco is in flood, the water is brackish, and the brilliant violet blue of the Caribbean Sea is changed to a dirty yellow; but the