their attacks.

The Isle of Pines used to be the favourite resort of the pirates of the
Spanish main; indeed there were no other inhabitants. The creeks and
rivers being lined with the densest vegetation, a few yards up the
winding course of such a creek, they were lost in the forest, and a
cruiser might pass within a few yards of their lurking-place, and see
no traces of them. Captain Kyd often came here, and stories of his
buried treasures are still told among the inhabitants. Now the island
serves a double purpose; it is a place of resort for the Cubans, who
come to rusticate and bathe, and it serves as a settlement for those
free black inhabitants of Florida who chose to leave that country when
it was given up to the United States. One of these Floridanos
accompanied us as our guide next day to the Baños de Santa Fé.

When we left the village we passed near the mangrove trees, which were
growing not only near the water but in it, and like to spread their
roots among the thick black slime which accumulates so fast in this
country of rapid vegetable growth, and as rapid decomposition. In Cuba,
the mangoe is the abomination of the planters, for they supply the
runaway slaves with food, upon which they have been known to subsist
for months, whilst the mangroves give them shelter. A little further
inland we found the guava, a thick-spreading tree, with smooth green
leaves. From its fruit is made guava-jelly, but as yet it was not ripe
enough to eat.

In the middle of the island we came upon marble-quarries. They are
hardly worked now; but when they were first established, a number of
emancipados were employed there. What emancipados are, it is worth
while to explain. They are Africans taken from captured slavers, and