Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/435

CH. XXXI.]

When the English first came to the Honduras shore to cut logwood and mahogany, the wants of the settlers at Belize were so few that the ships generally came out in ballast, which they used to throw out promiscuously in the mouth of the river, so as to increase the bar and impede the navigation: it was afterwards decreed that all ballast should be discharged at a certain spot about half a mile from the right shore; where, being accumulated by time, and increased by marine substances, it had formed the island on which the fort was built:—this island is therefore genuine British soil.

The town is situated on each side of the river's mouth, and connected by a wooden bridge. At the southern extremity is the