256 CRUSOE'S ISLAND. 



the town of Port Louis [now Scarborough] the country 

 became hilly, and as you farther advance the hills rise 

 into mountains, not broken and rugged as the convulsed 

 [volcanic] country of St. Vincent, but regular although 

 steep, and on an enlarged scale of ascent and descent. 

 The scene of Nature is on an extensive scale, and gives 

 the idea of a continent rather than an island. It is not 

 alone the vicinity to the Spanish Main that suggests this 

 idea ; the appearance of the island fully warrants the as- 

 sumption, and the contiguity of South America only more 

 fully marks its being torn from there, and of its being, in 

 old times, the southern point or promontory of the vast 

 Bay of Mexico." 



Here we find the substance of Humboldt's and Kings- 

 ley's statements, before either of them ever looked upon 

 the West Indies. Tobago lies in N. latitude 11° 0\ longi- 

 tude W. 60° 46'. It expands nearly northeast and south- 

 west ; taking a line drawn through its center longitudi- 

 nally, as an index of its bearing, it is thirty-two miles long 

 and from six to nine broad. " With the exception of seven 

 miles of level land, now covered with wood, Tobago shows 

 generally a surface broken and rumpled by alternate 

 stretches of steep hills and deep and narrow ravines, shoot- 

 ing direct or winding from the main or dorsal ridge of the 

 mountain, and from these branches, as though torn off, 

 stand occasionally aloof beautiful mounds of isolated hills. 

 Utmost height of the mountain range computed at eighteen 

 hundred feet. The island is well watered by rivulets and 

 streams. A belt of cultivation extends halfway round its 

 southern, eastern, and western sides." 



