Читать книгу Into the Frozen South онлайн

63 страница из 65

We travelled up into the hills quite a distance, thanks to our donkeys. Joining Mr. Wilkins I went bug-hunting; we successfully pursued butterflies, caterpillars and other creepie-crawlies. Mr. Wilkins added a small lizard to his bag, and seemed delighted; whilst Mr. Douglas contented himself with his own particular hobby: studying the dykes, and hills, and volcanic formations of the island, collecting certain specimens that interested him on the way. Some of the butterflies, which we bagged in considerable numbers, were rarely beautiful, and seemed, in my opinion, to be wasting their time at St. Vincent. There’s a Scots lament called “The Barren Rocks of Aden,” but the man who composed it had never seen St. Vincent, or he’d have decided that Aden was nothing to make a song about.

Coming back, we seemed so much too big for our donkeys as they braved the precipitous slopes that out of sheer humanity—to say nothing of respect for our necks—we dismounted and proceeded afoot along the scorching rocks which seemed to burn through our boot-soles as if we walked across red-hot lava. The impression I received was of a weary plodding through a hopeless desert, and this suggestion was increased by the great swirls of vultures that were everywhere overhead. How they lived on St. Vincent I do not know; maybe, like the Maltese, they took in each other’s washing, or fed on one another.