A SEASHORE ONE MILE UP 



We watched the sun vanish — a red ball in grey 

 mist, with the jagged ranges all around, valley 

 after valley closing its doors to the day and draw- 

 ing within its cloak of shadows. 



This very day I had stood in my stirrups and 

 pried loose the shells of huge oysters from their bed 

 in the cliff overhead, and curious bivalved mollusks 

 and the twisted forms of worms and branches of 

 coral which had flourished when Haiti and the 

 world was young. Once then, all this region had 

 been below the level of the sea — first to be thrown 

 up by volcanic outbursts and then built upon and 

 added to, throughout the ages, by the patient 

 labor of corals. Of the fish of these times we shall 

 never know more than the impressions of their 

 bones, but in the failing light of this dying day my 

 imagination worked swiftly and wrought a realistic 

 vision of those early years. 



I looked away toward a distant ridge beyond 

 which lay Mt. Terrible and its tangle of slopes and 

 ridges among which I had flown. Even in the 

 brief glimpse allowed me I had caught sight of 

 dark-mouthed caverns and deep-cut crevices. And 

 I thought of the time, millenniums ago when any 

 evening among these same mountains would echo 

 the call of the giant owls whose bones now lie in 

 the cavern debris. And I visualized these mighty 

 eagle-like owls pouncing upon the equally great 

 rodents who browsed upon the prehistoric foliage; 

 and then came to my mind's eye the strange, 

 unwieldy ground sloths which we know lived here. 



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