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

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From Basseterre, the hill chain runs in a south-easterly direction in a series of low ridges covered with scrub mimosa, dwindling away until they reach the “Narrows,” as the two-mile stretch of sea is called which separates Nevis from St. Kitts. A shallow dangerous passage is this, full of shoals and hidden reefs, and almost in its midst rises a sharp triangular rock.

Across the “Narrows,” a long low plain slopes up to a single cone, whose summit for ever sleeps in mist and clouds. Much bush covers the lower lands, but windmills here and there show that some cultivation is carried on, and light-green patches of cane are seen divided by rows of cocoa-nut palms, which, in their blighted state, alas! have more the appearance of feather dusters. A dreamy-looking little island is this Nevis, whose chief interest to a stranger lies in the fact that here Nelson lived after his marriage with Mrs. Nisbet for a few quiet years.

We sped along swiftly past the graceful southern slope of old “Ben”—as the volcanic cone might be called—but he would not deign to lift his fleecy cap to us, the shifty clouds merely paling or growing blacker, until they were lost to view. The steep and picturesque “Redondo” next claimed our attention. It is only a cavernous rock rising out of the waves, and sea-birds are its sole inhabitants. From it the eye wanders off to the more distant island of Montserrat, whose bold headland stands out in relief against the thickly wooded gorges which traverse the broken uplands. In the centre, a three-headed mountain range, like a crouching Cerberus, guards the fruitful lemon groves and plantations that lie far below. How pleasant it would be to spend a few days on each of these West Indian islands! to visit their souffrières, their mountain forests, their wild hills, and their cultivated estates! but, at present, to set one’s foot on land necessitates a two weeks’ sojourn. Such being the case, and with Roraima ever beckoning me on, I had determined to halt only at Martinique and Trinidad before reaching British Guiana, and therefore glimpses—sometimes near and sometimes far—were all I could expect of the Antilles.