United States or Cayman Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


In the lowest degree of civilization, the sagacity of man is displayed in the stratagems of hunting and fishing: nations who probably never had any communication with each other furnish the most striking analogies in the means they employ in exercising their empire over animals. Three days elapsed before we could emerge from the labyrinth of Jardines and Jardinillos.

"That point astern is Cape Corrientes, the point ahead is Mangle Point, four miles beyond which is Cape Frances, where we shall run in upon the Bank, or shoal, which extends eastward for something like one hundred and sixty miles to the end of the Jardinillos.

Sir John Mandeville had described the province of Mangi as being the richest in Cathay; and of course, thought the Admiral, this must be the place. He went westward past the Gulf of Xagua and got into the shallow sandy waters, now known as the Jardinillos Bank, where the sea was whitened with particles of sand.

The learned engineer, Don Francisco Le Maur, informed me that in the bay of Xagua, half a degree east of the Jardinillos, there issue in the middle of the sea, springs of fresh water, two leagues and a half from the coast. These springs gush up with such force that they cause an agitation of the water often dangerous for small canoes.

In the evening we went on shore at Cayo de Piedras; two rocks connected together by breakers and lying in the direction of north-north-west to south-south-east. On these rocks which form the eastern extremity of the Jardinillos many vessels are lost, and they are almost destitute of shrubs because shipwrecked crews cut them to make fire-signals.