186 THE SEA. 



apples the pulp of which, those who have read "Tom Cringle's Log" will remember, 

 is fancied to have an unpleasant resemblance to brains ; the avocado, or alligator-pears, 

 otherwise called " midshipman's butter," which are eaten with pepper and salt ; scarlet 

 capsicums, green and orange cocoa-nuts, roots of yam, and cush-cush, help to make up 

 baskets as varied in colour as the gaudy gowns and turbans of the women. Neither must 

 the junks of sugar-cane be omitted, which the " coloured " gentlemen and ladies delight 

 to gnaw, walking, sitting, and standing ; increasing thereby the size of their lips, and 

 breaking out, often enough, their upper front teeth. Rude health is in their faces ; their 

 cheeks literally shine with fatness. 



But in this happy archipelago there are drawbacks : in the Guadaloupe earthquake of 

 1843, 5,000 persons lost their lives in the one town of Point-a-Pitre alone. The Souffriere 

 volcano, 5,000 feet high, rears many a peak to the skies, and shows an ugly and uncertain 

 humour, smoking and flaming. The writer so often quoted gives a wonderfully beautiful 

 description of this mountain and its surroundings. "As the sun rose, level lights of 

 golden green streamed round the peak, right and left, over the downs; but only for a 

 while. As the sky-clouds vanished in his blazing rays, earth-clouds rolled up from the 

 valleys behind, wreathed and weltered about the great black teeth of the crater, and then 

 sinking among them and below them, shrouded the whole cone in purple darkness for 

 the day; while in the foreground blazed in the sunshine broad slopes of cane-field; below 

 them again the town (the port of Basse Terre), with handsome houses, and old-fashioned 

 churches and convents, dating possibly from the seventeenth century, embowered in mangoes, 

 tamarinds, and palmistes ; and along the beach, a market beneath a row of trees, with 

 canoes drawn up to be unladen, and gay dresses of every hue. The surf whispered softly 

 on the beach. The cheerful murmur of voices came off the shore, and above it, the tinkling 

 of some little bell, calling good folks to early mass. A cheery, brilliant picture as man 

 could wish to see, but marred by two ugly elements. A mile away on the low northern 

 cliff, marked with many a cross, was the lonely cholera cemetery, a remembrance of the 

 fearful pestilence which, a few years since, swept away thousands of the people : and above 

 frowned that black giant, now asleep : but for how long ? " 



The richness of the verdure which clothes these islands to their highest peaks seems a 

 mere coat of green fur, and yet is often gigantic forest trees. The eye wanders over the 

 green abysses, and strains over the wealth of depths and heights, compared with which 

 fine English parks are mere shrubberies. There is every conceivable green, or rather of 

 hues, ranging from pale yellow through all greens into cobalt; and "as the wind stirs 

 the leaves, and sweeps the lights and shadows over hill and glen, all is ever-changing, 

 iridescent, like a peacock's tail; till the whole island, from peak to shore, seems some 

 glorious jewel an emerald, with tints of sapphire and topaz, hanging between blue sea 

 and white surf below, and blue sky and white cloud above." And yet, over all this beauty, 

 dark shadows hang the shadow of war and the shadow of slavery. These seas have been 

 oft reddened with the blood of gallant sailors, and every other gully holds the skeleton of 

 an Englishman. 



Here it was that Rodney broke De Grasse's line, took and destroyed seven French 

 ships of war, and scattered the rest: saving Jamaica, and, in sooth, the whole West 



