CHAPTEE XL 



THE NORTHEEX MOUNTAINS. 



I HAD heard and read much of the Leauty ot mountain 

 scenery in the Tropics. What I had heard and read is not 

 exaggerated. I saw, it is true, in this little island no Andes, 

 with such a scenerv among them and below them as Hum- 

 boldt alone can describe a type of the great and varied 

 tropical world as utterly difPerent from that of Trinidad as 

 it is from that of Kent or Siberia. I had not even the 

 chance of such a view as that from the Silla of Caraccas 

 described by Humboldt, from which you look down at a 

 height of nearly six thousand feet, through layer after layer 

 of flcating cloud, which increases the seeming distance to an 

 awful depth, upon the blazing shores of the Northern Sea. 



That view our host and his suite had seen themselves the 

 year before ; and they assured me that Humboldt had not 

 overstated its grandeur. The mountains of Trinidad do 

 not much exceed 8,000 feet in height, and I could hope 



