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

62 страница из 101

So we sail on. Still the same fair scenery; mountains gathered up “like a woven garment, and shaken into deep falling folds,” here a velvet slope, there a gigantic rib, sharp but forest-covered, or a bare perpendicular cliff with its feet bathed by the sea. Now a farm nestling in some winding glen, overshadowed by brown-red rocks tipped with cane, and again a narrow fissure feathered with evergreen foliage, and opening into a deep bowl full of close and thick vegetation. Clouds rest on the mountain sides, or hanging above cast fitful shadows on upland and valley; a hundred varying shades give colour to the landscape, and, over all, the blue sky, in perfect harmony with the green tints of earth, blends with the sparkling sea into one bright frame for the beautiful island.

The land ends abruptly in a mass of grey rock, sparsely clad, which juts out into the sea. On its summit stands a cross. Passing this corner, we see palm-covered slopes and gentle depressions, then a high needle-like cone with perpendicular sides rising from the ocean, and, beyond, the southern extremity of the central mountain range. Soon after, Dominica fades from us in mist and rain.