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

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BERMUDIAN ROADS—NIGHT BLOOMING CACTUS—A NATURAL CURIOSITY—EXPORTS AND IMPORTS—THE COLOURED NATIVE—HARRINGTON SOUND—DEVIL’S HEAD—NEPTUNE’S GROTTO—A SALT-WATER FOUNTAIN—A DIABOLICAL PLOT—THE CALABASH—MEMENTOES OF TOM MOORE—WALSINGHAM—THE CAUSEWAY—A NEW FEATURE IN CULTIVATION—ST. GEORGE’S.

We have not half exhausted the beauties of the neighbourhood, but, in case your patience should be at an end, please step into the carriage which is to take us to St. George’s, at the other end of the island, whence we are to embark for the West Indies, and let us look about us on the way.

Three roads lead to our destination; we will take the middle one, which joins the ocean drive near Harrington Sound. Splendid roads these are, too! Bermuda may well be proud of them. Altogether there are more than a hundred miles of broad, white, smooth road. Sometimes the road-bed is so deeply hewn out of the white coral rock that Lilliputian canyons are formed with fern-hung walls, and capped with aloe or cactus. Several varieties of the latter plant grow in the islands, and a magnificent specimen of the night-blooming cereus grandiflora is to be seen in the small garden behind the Yacht Club in Hamilton. It runs in wild profusion over trees, walls, and bushes, and when in blossom is covered with hundreds of pale flowers, whose delicious perfume is quite overpowering. It may be inconvenient, perhaps, to visit it at the proper time—midnight—but it is necessary, as in the morning beauty and perfume have gone.