212 WEST INDIA SOCIETY. 



some parts verged on the brink of the sea cliff, then crossed savan- 

 nas pierced, like honey-comb, by burrows of the land crab ; with a 

 speed and safety that vied with his fair rider's spirit. I thought 

 she had made a keen huntress in England ; and many^s the young 

 fellow — with Hobson's choice and after the Mostyn pack, — who 

 might risk his neck to keep pace with her. But this soliloquy 

 almost distanced me, and it cost an effort to reach my fair compan- 

 ion as she turned into the pen inclosing her residence. Having 

 effected this, and said — but never mind ; I turned slowly to re- 

 trace my path, musing perchance on the chase of this world, and its 

 one gaol for all living. 



There was a spot near me well calculated to excite reveries of the 

 kind. I should observe that places of sepulture on these islands 

 are chosen indiscriminately on any part of them ; the proprietorship, 

 or in some cases mere fancies of the invalid, directing a preference. 

 The gray cairn where we buried poor Stobo — whose father is a 

 joint surgeon and planter among us, — not long since, might claim 

 interest even from one unconscious of the deposit that hallows it. 

 The rock stands apart from the mountain base near, just enough 

 removed to admit a few cane stalks waving between them; but 

 these keep somewhat aloof from the former, as if they respected the 

 solitude of the dead. There are two, I think not more than two, 

 saplings growing in this area, and which recall the words of Ossian, 

 that " the traveller passed by and wondered why they grew so lone- 

 ly.'' A square mass of stone, time worn and bare, rears its natural 

 mausoleum here over the young book keeper's grave. We found 

 the body rested on a cask in his own sugar house — he had died in 

 a little room adjoining — and thence carried it forth into this, his 

 own, valley of tears. The blaff hill-side, a wilderness of tropic ver- 

 dure, was glancing back the last rays of twilight, lengthening the 

 dusky shadows that attended us ; while far beyond, a faint line of 

 silver played over the drowsy sea reposing within its watch of islets, 

 among them Dead-chest green as the memory of buried affection. 



Our more frequented cemetery lies opposite Road-town, almost 

 on the beach of the lagoon. This, as usual in the West Indies, is 

 reserved exclusively for the white population, who must not be dis- 

 turbed even in death by the proximity of a negro's " slovenly, un- 

 handsome corse." The common way of transfer for our dead 

 hither is by water, in a line of boats ; the sternmost, or hearse ves- 

 sel, being towed by the rest. There appears nothing striking in 

 this grave yard, unless here and there a tomb discovers itself pictur- 

 esquely shaded by the green pall overgrowing it. One of them 



