A VISIT TO THE WORLD OUTSIDE. I99 



To look through the spectacles of others was 

 never my way ; and, thanking him for liis advice, 

 and for the mule, I accepted the latter, and cantered 

 away, leaving Thomas Ned waving me an adieu from 

 the front veranda. Along the curves of beautiful 

 beaches and through the sweets of a sugar-cane wil- 

 derness I rode all that day, and finally arrived at the 

 only town on the island, called Scarborough. Of itself 

 this town has nothing to interest, but Nature has done 

 the best it could to cover the wounds inflicted by man, 

 and the miserable houses of which it is composed are 

 for the most part hidden in groves of tropic trees."^ 



Having a note of introduction to an officer of the 

 Queen's regiment, quartered on the hill above the 

 town, I was there received with hospitality — for which 

 all English officers are noted throughout the world — 

 and allowed to rest for the night. From the fort 

 above the town the view is superb, for the hills march 

 down from the interior mountains in serried ranks, 

 dipping here and there into dells and hollows, rounded 

 into knolls and mounds, the only sharp outlines being 

 those of the highest against the sky. 



In the landscape spread out before one here copse- 

 wood and cane land hold about equal sway; wind- 

 mills and cocoa palms (most of the former decapi- 

 tated, and the leaves of the latter wildly beating the 

 air in the breeze of afternoon, or hanging motionless 

 in the calm of morning) are the most striking fea- 

 tures in this wilderness of sugar cane. A windmill, 



* See frontispiece. 



