de Acosta, was the only white man who ever came there. How the cattle got there will never be known; but it is to be supposed that they had strayed from the Spanish settlements, and multiplied, and at last swum across to the islands at low water.
During the first ten years of the reign of Charles II a buccaneer ship, cruising far to "leeward," discovered the Lagoon, and explored its shores. Her seamen found several belts of logwood near the salt creeks, and took some stacks of the timber to Port Royal, where they sold it at a good price. After that, several ships (both merchant ships and buccaneer cruisers) went thither yearly to load logwood for Jamaica. The wood, which was then much used for dyeing, sold for from £15 to £70 a ton in the English markets. It could be had for the cutting all about the Lagoon of Tides, while the great plenty of fruit and cattle thereabouts made the business inexpensive. Perhaps no people since the beginning of time have shown so evident a fondness for free quarters and large profits as the buccaneers displayed at this period of their history. The business of logwood cutting suited them very well, for it did not necessarily interfere
