Читать книгу Roraima and British Guiana, With a Glance at Bermuda, the West Indies, and the Spanish Main онлайн

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“Pleasant it was when the woods were green,

And the winds were soft and low,

To lie amid some sylvan scene,

Where the long drooping boughs between,

Shadows dark and sunlight sheen

Alternate come and go.”

LONGFELLOW.

When you first look out of your window over the town, you imagine that there has been a slight snow-storm, so gleaming white are the roofs of all the houses. But you soon learn that, owing to the absence of springs and streams, the roofs are white-washed, and kept scrupulously clean, as the rain-water is thence conducted into cisterns, from which it is drawn for use.

The roads are white, the houses are whiter, and the roofs are whitest; but what would otherwise be an unpleasant glare is modified by the foliage, which half conceals the houses, and by the green Venetian blinds, which shade all the windows.

Nearly every house has a garden, and passion-flowers, morning glory, and other vines creep up the pillars and over the piazzas in great profusion and brilliancy. “Pride of India” trees border the sides of the streets, but these fail to give the delicious shade which is obtained under the cedar avenue which lies on one side of the small public gardens. Here you can stroll in the heat of the day, protected from the sun by a green roof, and surrounded by roses,[1] heliotropes, lilies, great beds of geraniums, pomegranates, gorgeous blossoms of hybiscus, gladioli, and all sorts of lovely creepers. Then when the sun’s rays have lost some of their power, you can prolong your walk along the winding road, past the pretty country church of Pembroke, and leaving Mount Langton (Government House) on your right, behold at the bottom of a shady lane spreadeth a golden network, like a veil of gauze, stretching far and wide. That is the sea, and in a short half-hour you have crossed this part of the island.