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

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The view from the top is worth the climb. On one side a mass of undulating hills sweeps off to the sea; through the intervening pasture land a winding stream threads its way, and here and there a cottage is seen half buried in clumps of palms and bamboos, and with its cane patch or banana grove. The lofty “pitons” form the background. Below us lies the village, and extending westward towards St. Pierre are cane-covered hills, fertile valleys, and a broad cultivated plain, squared like a chess-board by the dividing palm rows. Beyond rises the glittering blue sea far into the sky, white sails catch the sunbeams, and nearer is the dark line of anchored ships. On rare occasions—one of which favoured me—rounded masses of fleecy clouds of intense brilliancy float over land and sea, and pour down such a flood of light that the panorama is illuminated. The white glare is almost painful, but the strong sea-breeze soon drives the wandering rain-heralds back to the mountains, where they wreathe themselves round the higher peaks and lie like snow-drifts in the hollows between the summits. And thus the scene changes from sunshine to shade, from rest to storm, and from light to darkness, each a life-phase typical in itself, but not more significant than the solemn Calvary above us in its bright frame of green trees and flowers.