DOMINICA. 5 



since the great navigator first saw its blue mountains 

 and landed upon its fragrant strand. 



Does it not read like a fairy tale, this second voyage 

 of Columbus? With three ships and fourteen cara- 

 vels, containing fifteen hundred persons, he set sail 

 from Cadiz, touched at the Canary Isles, and then 

 shaped his course for the islands of the Caribs, of 

 whose prowess and fierce nature he had heard many 

 stories from the mild people of Hispaniola. " At the 

 dawn of day, November 3d, a lofty island was descried 

 to the west. As the ships moved gently onward, other 

 islands rose to sight, one after another, covered with 

 forests and enlivened by flights of parrots and other 

 tropical birds, while the whole air was sweetened 

 by the fragrance of the breezes which passed over 

 them." 



Dominica is but thirty miles in length by eleven in 

 breadth, yet presents a greater surface and more ob- 

 stacles to travel to the square mile than any island of 

 similar size in the West Indies. Well did Columbus 

 illustrate its crumpled and uneven surface, when, in 

 answer to his queen's inquiry regarding its appear- 

 ance, he crushed a sheet of paper in his hand and 

 threw it upon the table. In no other way could he 

 better convey an idea of the furrowed hills and moun- 

 tains, deeply cut and rent into ravines and hollowed 

 into valleys. 



"To my mind," says Anthony Trollope, " Dominica, 

 as seen from the sea, is by far the most picturesque 

 of all these islands. Indeed, it would be hard to beat 

 it either in color or grouping. It fills one with an 

 ardent desire to be off and rambling among- these 

 mountains — as if one could ramble through such wild 



