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

3 страница из 101

The following rough record of my journey is but a poor return for the many attentions shown me, but it may add its mite in attracting the notice of travellers to a country not often visited for pleasure.

J.W.B.W.

RORAIMA.

ssss1

OUTWARD BOUND—THE ‘CANIMA’—A ROUGH VOYAGE—FIRST VIEW OF BERMUDA—COASTING—IRELAND ISLE—COMMISSIONERS’ HOUSE—THE SOUND—HAMILTON—LANDING—AN INDIA-RUBBER TREE—A BILL OF FARE—THE REGISTER—HAMILTON HOTEL—PAPAWS—A SUGGESTION.

“Under the eaves of a southern sky,

Where the cloud roof bends to the ocean floor

Hid in lonely seas, the Bermoothes lie—

An emerald cluster that Neptune bore

Away from the covetous earth god’s sight,

And placed in a setting of sapphire light.”

“Well, if we are going to a warmer temperature than this, few of us will return,” was the remark made by one of the passengers on board the little steamer ‘Canima,’ which was rolling heavily in a perfectly smooth sea, past Staten Island on her way from New York to Bermuda. It was the month of November, but the sun was as hot and the sky as brassy as though it had been August. On shore we could see preparations being made for cricket, lawn-tennis, and archery; and there were we bound for a semi-tropical climate. It was one of those days with which the clerk of the weather favours New York in early spring, and sometimes even when the Indian summer is supposed to have ended.