ISLANDS 47 



In time the St. Kitts doctor arrived, and, as 

 he rowed past, looked at us critically as if he 

 suspected us of infecting the waters of the sea 

 with some of those mysteriously terrible diseases 

 which he is always hoping for on the ship's 

 papers, but never seems to find. 



Walking hastily through the town, we reached 

 the first of the great sugar-cane fields, and skirt- 

 ing these diagonally came ever nearer the slop- 

 ing base of the high land. Ravines are always 

 interesting for they cannot be cultivated, and it 

 was up one of these lava and water-worn gullies 

 that we began to climb Monkey Hill. We went 

 slowly, for there were many absorbing things 

 on the way. Palm swifts swooped about, while 

 noisy kingbirds gleaned as industriously but 

 with shorter flights. Heavy-billed anis wha- 

 leeped and fluttered clumsily ahead of us ; honey 

 creepers squeaked and small black finches 

 watched us anxiously. From a marshy pool 

 half a dozen migrating sandpipers flew up and 

 circled down to the shore. Every shrubby field 

 was alive with butterflies of many kinds and the 

 vigorous shaking of each bush yielded excellent 

 harvests of strange insects which fell into the 

 open umbrella held beneath. In a grove of 



