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

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It was night before we reached Antigua, but a full moon rendered the coast scene as clear as day, and added romantic effect to the lovely harbour. A bay within a bay, a semi-circle of wooded hills and ravines, a few white houses, lava cliffs which almost meet at the narrow entrance, and a rampart-crowned rock were the principal points in the picture. The basin in which the vessel lay moored by hawsers seemed but another sky, the stars scarcely quivering in the still deep water; and, as the moon’s rays silvered the sharp-leaved aloes, or touched with a bright gleam the angled fort, here softening the rough-edged tufa, and there defining more clearly the outlines of the palm groups, the whole scene wore a delightful aspect of unreality, which was heightened by the extreme quiet, broken only by an occasional plash of oars.

From Antigua we crossed over to Guadeloupe, whose broad and irregular heights were hidden by clouds; as it was night when we coasted along, we saw little except cliffs, green pasture land, and ravines leading up into the heart of the mountains. Next morning we sighted Mariegalante, far away on our port side, and then, in broad daylight, for several hours, beautiful Dominica sat to us for her picture. Up to this time the various island scenes had been pretty, but could not have been called grand, but now the first glance raised our expectations to a high pitch. Nor were we disappointed, for a more lovely island, a finer combination of grandeur and quiet beauty, could hardly be found in the West Indies.