CHAPTEE X. 



XAPAEIMA AND MOXTSERRAT. 



I HAD a few days of pleasant wandering in the centre of the 

 island, about the districts which bear the names of Xaparima 

 and Montserrat ; a country of such extraordinary fertility, as 

 well as beauty, that it must surely hereafter become the seat 

 of a high civilization. The soil seems inexhaustibly rich. 

 I say inexhaustibly ; for as fast as the upper layer is im- 

 poverished, it will be swept over by the tropic rains, to 

 mingle with the vegas, or alluvial flats below, and thus 

 enriched again, while a fresh layer of Adrgin soil is exposed 

 above. I have seen, cresting the highest ridges of Mont- 

 serrat, ten feet at least of fat earth, falling clod by clod 

 right and left upon the gardens below. There are, doubtless, 

 comparatively barren tracts of gravel toward the northern 

 mountains ; there are poor sandy lands, likewise, at the 

 southern part of the island, which are said, nevertheless, to 

 l)e specially fitted for the growth of cotton : but from San 



