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

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When we gained the open sea, the north-east trade wind blew fresh and strong, so that by four a.m. next morning we had passed through the narrow reef-passage, and had anchored in a picturesque bay at the fort of Bassin (Christianstœd), the capital of the island. The scene differed widely from that of St. Thomas. From the white beach backwards, acres of sugar-cane extended over the level land and swept up over the undulating hills and across to the mountain background in a waving mass of green, broken here and there by long lines of cocoa-nut palms, windmills, the white buildings of the planters, and the cottages of their labourers.

The town looked antiquated, but clean, and with ample foliage. Originally, the island was covered with forest, but the French burnt it, and now it appears like one vast sugar plantation. But the loss of its forests may prove in time the ruin of the island. Formerly its rain-fall was abundant, and its productiveness enormous. Now years of drought follow in quick succession, and it is said that the barren belt beginning at the sea-beach in parts of the island is annually spreading inland. Ruin is following closely in the path of the forest destroyer.