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Terrific thunderstorms, violent winds, and earthquakes. This city has also been wiped out about five times. In fact, all the entertainments which little Salvador provides, but without that attractive family party homeliness. This city is too big for that, but it can be interesting in other ways.

One night, when we drove into the town to attend the New Year's ball, we found that a revolution was in progress. Soldiers with loaded rifles manned the streets, lying across the road on their stomachs. The revolution was successful, and the Presidency changed hands without further ado. There were four or five dead bodies in the streets that night, but from what I could gather they were described as nonentities which could be easily spared. A President in these countries has a very uncertain tenure of office. His life is uncertain, and his death is even more so, for he may at any moment languish in prison at the will of his successor, and thus it is that revolutions breed revolutions, the hydra-headed serpent. You cut off one head, and two grow in its place.

And so we marked time in this city until the news arrived that our schooner would be ready for service within a few days. We then made our final purchases there are always those final purchases, but choosing tinned meats is a distracting pastime. There's this brand and that, and then there's the brand you want, which, of

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course, they haven't got, but they will have some in after you have gone, they assure you blandly, and, oh yes, you mustn't forget just those few luxuries to tickle the palate when your luck is down. Ah, and something for the Indians. Money's no use to them; there's nothing they can buy with it. Salt and tobacco for the men, and beads for the girls. Then there was something else, but we couldn't remember what it was-something vitally important. "Liquid refreshments? No, we had already provided for that. We will ask the owner of the store; he's sure to know. And so we approach that opulent person. He, of course, suggested everything from pickled herrings to stewed apricots. Curse him-I knew he'd mention my pet abomination, and, sure enough, "stewed pears" he ejaculated triumphantly.

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"Don't," I cried, "don't do it. Every man in every tropical country in the world has them at every meal.” I could see them sitting there smugly in Mr Everyman's bungalow, Mr Everyman in his shirt sleeves, his wife ladling them out with a huge spoon, and the children with their napkins tucked half-way down their necks. Of course, I'm not a family man, but if I were those pears would cause a separation. But wait! I knew it was something beastly we wanted, and those pears have given me given me the clue. I feel squeamish already. Why, of course, sea-sickness tablets!

X. THE MOLINERO.

I have learnt never to trust Fate. It's really too reckless. I merely tolerate it. My philosophy is just to go on till something hits you. You will not be disappointed. It will, but you may have lots of fun before it does.

I heard the hollow clanking sound. We were crossing over the second highest bridge in the world. Some philosopher I then remembered once said, "Life goes headlong." I thought it very easily might, and was glad when that great yawning cavern disappeared behind us.

A bewildering maze of rocks which jutted out impudently almost to the windows of the carriage. These deep declivities always ended in the black obscurity of a tunnel, from which we emerged once again into the blazing sunlight, and then zigzagged down the mountain side. The hours passed, and every now and again you caught glimpses of a silver streak far below you:

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their humid contents here and there. The wind was rising rapidly, and as we slowly steamed out of the last tunnel into Puerto Barrios, we realised that a violent storm was in progress.

Our hotel faced the sea, which even in that sheltered bay was foaming with white horses. This boded ill for our journey, and made me feel more like a land-lubber than ever.

The gale continued for days, and every morning Chatsworth and I would anxiously study what Hafiz described as "that tiresome old roof of heaven," and look with trepidation on that angry sea. However, it abated at last, and left us with sunshine and a dead calm.

I have no liking for schooners. I hate the medley of ropes, marling-spikes, barrels, tanks, and such-like with which in these unfamiliar surroundings the likes of me come into violent contact at every turn.

She was 250 tons, and named The Molinero. I saw nothing appropriate in calling a schooner The Miller, but everything concerned with the sea is always a mass of incongruities. They were loading her with bags of sugar, the arrangement being that after the discharge of this cargo at Puerto Cortez, our first port of call, the vessel would be exclusively at our disposal.

A German captain, a super

cargo in charge of the sugar, running into one of the fruit also a German, Chatsworth, company's steamers, after Valdo, and myself, together which effort we remained in with a crew of ragtags and the same place for about two bobtails, were to be incarcer- hours. ated in the belly of this Miller for goodness knows how long.

After completing an inspection, we walked away from the wharf and returned to the hotel. We were to embark on the morrow.

Chatsworth and I were putting the final touches to our packing when a little native boy announced that a Mr Landor from Washington urgently desired to see us, as he had a proposition to make. Americans always have propositions. We bade him enter. A big man then appeared in the doorway and introduced himself.

"Gentlemen, I am the Consul-General for Central America, sent by Washington, U.S.A. You Englishmen, I understand, are making an expedition along the coast of Spanish Honduras. Now I have to visit the ports along that coast, and should therefore be ver-ry much obliged if you would let me just crack along with you."

After some little discussion we agreed to take him as far as Puerto Cortez, and the following day about 5 P.M. we all got aboard. The bay of Puerto Barrios is almost enclosed. It was a dead calm -hardly a breath of wind. The sails were raised, and we slowly drifted away from the quay. Then a big puff of wind, and we narrowly escaped

The officers on the liner watched us with some amusement, and wondered what would happen when we really got going in the great ocean outside, for our craft was not being skilfully handled.

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Well, a breeze sprang up at last, and we sailed boldly past the pier and out into the bay. It was now quite dark, and we were constantly scanning the coast. Through the mouth, and now out into that vale of darkness, the open sea. Nothing but the oily heaving ocean all round us, and not a coast light to be seen. We sailed along the coast, keeping a few miles from the shore in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Guatemala's last lighthouse, but in vain. The lighthousekeeper was no doubt busily engaged in imbibing whiteeye," for there was no light of any sort to be seen. Making a rough calculation of our whereabouts, we decided, to our dismay, that we were sailing gaily over a bed of shoal which stretched for miles in this vicinity. Hastily we turned The Molinero more seawards. The breeze freshened, and we were scudding along bravely. But where to, heaven only knows! Perhaps "to the dawn of nothing, O make haste, and we did, for the wind began to moan in the rigging. We were now under full canvas,

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and the ship heeled over at a most unpleasant angle as it hissed and sizzled through the white capped waves. That hateful corkscrew motion started, and the vessel began to squirm its way through the sea. Why didn't they call her the Sea Serpent, I wondered. She wriggled like one. In spite of our sea-sickness tablets, Chatsworth and I felt desperately ill, lying there looking squeamishly at those hideous black spectres which constantly rose up all round us, and disappeared in dots of seething foam.

A heavy gust of wind, and over she went to starboard at a most precarious angle, the green seas washing aboard and chasing all and sundry round the hatches and other obstructions. Our black cat took the opportunity to disappear down the hatch. He was wise, for He was wise, for the next second over to port, and everything, including ourselves, came scuttling back. "Haul down the topsail !" the captain shouted. Easier said than done, I thought.

"Hang on to the boom!" Chatsworth yelled to me, whilst black forms scurried up the rigging. I did. Never again, though, for I nearly went overboard, but mercifully landed on my back on something hard and projecting. I don't know what sailors would call it, but I found a name for it all right. The topsail would not budge an inch; wrongly rigged, I suppose, and the gaff was bending alarmingly under the

pressure of the wind. For'ard our jibsails looked like kites. I heard afterwards that they had been wrongly hoisted. I can quite believe it. They might have been somebody's laundry on a windy day for all the use they were. All of a sudden another heavy gust, and away they went. A terrific crack-the gaff had gone, and the topsail poised for a moment like some flying pendant, and then hurtled away swirling and eddying into the angry waves.

"Cut down the mainsail," suggested Chatsworth, and the captain, who had been making futile efforts to lower it, readily acquiesced.

Scurrying black forms, which looked like so many nimble monkeys, attacked the offending sail with hatchets and other implements, but with no success until, I suppose, somebody touched a vital spot, and the huge sail then descended slowly.

I was completely enveloped. Where the others were, I don't know, but, needless to say, this accursed piece of canvas, now free, instantly started to execute a war dance. One moment it was like a huge bellying monster, and the next as flat as a pancake. I clambered out from underneath it, and we all made a rush to get the sail under control, for if it had once started the kite business, it would, we knew, have taken us all overboard with it. We succeeded at last in holding it down, fixing it firmly and neatly. Helplessly the

schooner now drifted, but the wind was dropping; the squall, for that was all it was, had nearly passed. We tossed about aimlessly until most of us, exhausted by sea-sickness and our efforts, fell asleep; whilst the captain and a few of the crew kept watch in the inky darkness.

What a wonderful thing sleep is, that comparative oblivion into which we mortals are permitted to escape. And as I lay there, damp and cold, I was thankful at least for the stillness. There was no banging of doors, bells, or the burring sound of lifts or noisy people, but just that wistful companionship which nature at times gives to those who commune with her. I felt restful in that semi-conscious state, not a star overhead and only a slight undulation as if the sea were breathing. I thought of the whole tangled events of life, great cities, home, the present absurd predicament, and wondered what the morning light would bring with it.

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"British Honduras ! I repeated.

"Yes," he admitted; "the squall has driven us northward."

And so we slowly drifted towards the coast, and when the sun was well in the sky, we could see the green trees, dense undergrowth, and those peculiarly humpy hills which are so characteristic of that tiny isolated strip of the British Empire.

A rattle of chains, and we dropped anchor, but barely had we done this when a

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