42 The Beginning of British Honduras
the vast quantities of Venetian glassware and looking glasses
were then used by the traders to barter with the Indians of
America and to obtain slaves on the West Coast of Africa.
This black coral was also obtained near "The Bugles" or
Bajo del Convoy at Old Providence, and Alabaster Island in
the Bahamas supplied her variety. Pearls were then also
found in the waters opposite the Sittee or Pearl River.
 Their knowledge of the intricate natural channels of their
Bay plantations and trading stands was the result of a pains-
taking survey of the reef. Near the beach they almost exter-
minated the abundance of silk grass that grew in shady parts
under the forest trees, some of which they planted in the
Bahamas and Virginia. Six servants to each planter, perhaps
indentured, seemed a general rule with them. Many other
Puritan geographic names which had then existed here have
long since disappeared, but these pioneers in empire build-
ing are not dead-they still live in the names they left behind,
names that indicate their contribution to an experimental
phase in colonization from which lessons were deduced in
London serviceable to the leaders of an empire which began
to expand elsewhere.
 The company in England, in their letters, never ceased
enjoining on the colonists the necessity of forts. Captain Axe
was in command of the fortifications, and the "Company's
Men of War," as they were called manned the forts and can-
nons. The gunners were well-paid and expressly sent out
from England. Like the mouth of the Belize River, Stand
Creek has no stone easily available for fortifications, and to
this fact we can attribute the absence of remains at Men of
War Town where the "Company's Men of War" were sta-
tioned for several years. The very good cannons, wherever
they must have been protecting the Stand, were carried away
for privateering on the seas by Axe, Blewfield, Colson, and
some were acquired by Captain Willis for his fort.
 Walls of about seven feet high and seven feet thick were
made of earth, palisades and logs. Emplacements for the can-