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some low trees 12 or 15ft high 5 or 6 nests were found.  The birds were very tame & allowed one to approach within a few yards.  Then they would frequently flounder off & fall to the ground where they would run along in a clumsy way among the thicket until an open place on the slope would give a chance to take wing.  Sooty & noddy terns on the cliffs at one end of Is.  This Is. is of volcanic scoral & lava & has a crater-like hollow in the middle with a briny lagoon in the bottom.  The Is. is 150ft. high & much eroded by the sea.  It was evidently much larger at one time.  Our water ran short on the 23rd so we watched for high tide & a little after [[strikethrough]] no of [[/strikethrough]] noon crossed the reeef & started for San Blas with a favoring breeze.  All night we kept on & at sunrise the next morning (24th) entered the harbor & landed.  The bar at the mouth of the lagoon of San Blas was quiet but our boatsmen said that it is very dangerous crossing it during a heavy sea & that several men are drowned there every year while going out or in to vessels lying in the open roadstead that forms the outer harbor where lies the anchorage.  A couple of rocks whitened by sea fowl lie just off the harbor.

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