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

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Some years previously I had visited a crater colony in beautiful Apolima—one of the South Sea Islands; there the whole of the interior had sunk, and we paddled through a narrow opening into a lovely bay, on whose bank stood the village. But here there was no ingress, save by a rocky staircase leading to the interior. I should much like to have gained an insight into the life of the inhabitants, who may, indeed, be said to “live with a volcano under their feet,” but time and opportunity were wanting, and in a very short time we had lost sight of the green nest in rough and rugged Saba.

Then another volcanic island, St. Eustatius, appeared. The northern end is broken and rocky, with here and there a ravine filled with trees, then a stretch of land leading up to the crater. Unlike its sister isle, it is the outside which is green and cultivated, and houses dot the scene. It is picturesque, and, before we are tired of looking at it, it fades like a dissolving view, and, ere the accompanying music has had time to change from a Dutch to an English tune, we are coasting along St. Kitts.