DOMINICA. 7 



of hills, with valleys deep and dark behind, half en- 

 circling the town. These hills are broken and ragged, 

 seamed and furrowed and scarred, yet are covered 

 with a luxuriant vegetation of every shade of green : 

 purple of mango and cacao, golden of cane and lime, 

 orange and citron. Palms crown their ridges, culti- 

 vated grounds infrequently gleam golden-brown on 

 their slopes, and dense clouds come pouring over 

 their crests from the Atlantic. North and south this 

 bulwark of hills ends in huge cliffs plunged into the 

 sea. Roseau is seated at the mouth of a valley formed 

 by a river. From the centre of this valley there rises 

 a hill — a mountain it is called here — Morne Bruce. 



From its smoothly-turfed crown the view of town 

 and sea is superb, especially at sunset, when the sun 

 sinks beyond the Caribbean Sea, and the cool even- 

 ing breeze plays through the trees. From it we look 

 upon the town ; many palm-trees, few houses, a rush- 

 ing, roaring river that meets the sea in a surf-line like 

 a northern snowdrift, a picturesque fort, the jail, the 

 government house, and the Catholic cathedral — a 

 building of stone, with arched windows and door- 

 ways, short, though shapely spire — with a palm tall 

 and slender, to lend grace and beauty ; westward, 

 beyond the shore-line, the Caribbean Sea, its bosom, 

 which glowed so fierily in the sunlight, now cool and 

 inviting in its stillness. 



Looking eastward, one can see far into the Roseau 

 Valley, to the wall of mountains, from which dashes 

 out a great waterfall, dwindled to a mere silver thread 

 in the distance. The Roseau River emerges into a 

 plain beneath, a valley tilled with cane, containing in 

 its centre a planter's house and buildings palm-sur- 



