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

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Continuing our drive round the Sound, we are more and more impressed with its attractions; the apple-green water below us, the rocky inlets with white sandy edges, here and there a stretch of shingle or a wooden promontory, and, beyond, the blue sea with the foam on its distant reefs, form a lovely picture, and we are sorry when a turn in the road has shut us out from such a wealth of colour.

Our next halting-place is at a farm house, near which stands Moore’s “calabash tree,”[4] beneath whose shade the poet composed his verses, and wove his amatory couplets addressed to “Nea, the Rose of the Isles.” The tree lives still, in spite of the severe hacking it has received from tourists, whose carved names are continually blurred out by time and the hands of their successors. Even the seat under it is the object of much curiosity, and as each new one is placed in its proper position it is carried off piecemeal by enthusiastic admirers, who must have a bit of the chair the poet sat in. I never see the ravages made by relic hunters, or the desecration of historical places, without thinking of a certain tourist to whom an Italian monk was showing a consecrated lamp, which had never gone out during five centuries. Giving the flame a decisive puff, he remarked, with cool complacency, “Well, I guess it’s out now.” A few gourds are still left hanging from the topmost boughs of the tree, but the sable attendant will not allow any of these to be knocked down, so you must be satisfied with the one presented to you by the proprietor of the land at your departure. It may come from Moore’s tree, but gourds are deceptive and much alike.