200 CRUSOE'S ISLAND. 



the tower a truncate cone of stone, spread its four 

 great arras, like a Greek cross, above a smooth, green, 

 and luxuriant field. Wide-spreading tamarinds of 

 finest green, broad, round-headed mangos of deeper 

 green, grow out of the fields, and suggest coolness 

 and shade, despite tlie tropic heat. 



But the most conspicuous tree, as it is the most 

 graceful, is the cocoa palm, which lines the roads and 

 lanes, springing up singly and in groups all over this 

 fair landscape. Its columns sweep along the beach 

 below, the grandest curve imaginable, stretching from 

 the base of the hill on which the town is built to the 

 extreme point of coral rock many miles away. Above 

 the beach the palms lean in every direction, crossing 

 and recrossing the coast road, and hang above the yel- 

 low sand in such profusion that only now and then 

 can be obtained glimpses of the humble huts that 

 cluster beneath their shade. 



The outlines of Trinidad can here be seen, stretch- 

 ing along the southwestern horizon ; some days it is 

 green, with tlje colors of the cane fields distinctly visi- 

 ble ; at which time, when it shows so clearly, there is 

 reason to fear the coming of rain, for when it is clear 

 to leeward, it is generally misty to windward, and as 

 a consequence rainy. 



This island is visible from the heights above Scar- 

 borough, as Crusoe himself describes : " And the 

 Land which I perceived to the West and West South- 

 west, was the great Island of Trinidad, on the North 

 Point of the Mouth of the River Oroonoque." 



The curve of the bay is at the right of the town. 



