BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 71 



if I am aware of it. Going homeward, I stretched 

 my legs to their utmost, and kept ahead, scrambling 

 over rocks and tree-trunks, and swinging myself down 

 steep banks by the roots of trees. My browsers were 

 torn into shreds ; the perspiration started, legs shook, 

 and arms trembled. But I was determined to keep 

 out of range of those dreaded guns ; and I did, ar- 

 riving at my cabin full half an hour ahead of my 

 guides, who had supposed me lost and had detailed 

 two of their number to look me up. Jean Baptiste, 

 my host and forager-for-food, stood in the doorway 

 with a candle, and inside there stood a welcome table 

 with a good supper — yams and eggs and tender 

 mountain cabbage. 



Speaking of my hot bath to Jean Baptiste, that 

 jewel instantly exclaimed that he had forgotten to 

 show me the best in the island, situated only a gun- 

 shot from my hut. Next day we visited it. Beneath 

 tall gommier trees stretching down lianes forty feet 

 long, shaded by broad-leaved plantains, was a pool 

 twenty feet across, made by damming a little brooklet 

 with volcanic rock. Its bottom was stone and gravel. 

 A tree-trunk had fallen across the stream, on which I 

 threw my clothes. The runlet was tepid, the pool a 

 little warmer. Suddenly my foot grew hot, as though 

 stung by a scorpion, and I became aware that the 

 pool was heated from below by small jets of hot water 

 forced up through crevices in the rocky crust. How 

 thick was that crust? Down the hillside, into the bath, 

 trickled warm water. A grotto had been hollowed out 

 by the action of these streams, and from this water 

 was spouted in hot spray and jets, heating the bath 

 for a square yard around. This grotto was lined with 



