Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/423

CH. XXIX.] trees which were hanging over the water: about ten o'clock a storm of thunder and lightning came on, which lasted, without intermission, till two in the morning: the peals were terrific and the flashes almost blinding: the heat was most intense, but it was impossible to keep the hatches open, as the little cabin would have been deluged with the rain: Don Francisco and myself had tried the plan of keeping them shut, but found it not to be endured, and we had no other resource but to sit upon deck, exposed to the appalling rigour of the storm. After this miserable night, we weighed anchor, the next day, at five, and came off the Vigia, or Look-out, on our right: a little a-head we observed some long stakes stuck up in the water to show the channel. Here the schooner touched the first shoal for twenty yards over a bar of about five and an half to six feet: this shallow runs across a small bay about three quarters of a mile wide, just after leaving the channel which is not in some parts a quarter of a mile