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

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The meeting of the steamers at St. Thomas brings together a varied company, and those on board the ‘Tiber’ formed no exception to the rule, clergymen, colonial officials, military officers, planters, engineers, commercial travellers, tourists, only a few of each denomination certainly, but those few all the more prepared to enjoy sea-life by having superior cabin accommodation.

Passengers just from England were of course well-acquainted with one another after a two weeks’ voyage, and of the others even the most frigid had thawed out before we passed Saba. Strange little island! only a volcanic cone rising directly from the water. We glided by so close that we seemed to hear the lap of the waves as they gently kissed its rocky base, but no harbour, no habitation was visible. It must be an active volcano, for near the summit a faint blue smoke curled upwards and joined the floating clouds. No; that smoke is raised by human hands, for the crater out of which it ascends is the home of a small colony. A mixed population of Dutch and negroes live there, raise fruit and vegetables, and build boats it is said, though timber must be getting scarce in spite of the trees that we see edging the crater’s rim.