ST. HELENA 137 



island abounds with good building-stone. Foundations 

 were dug and walls to the height of a few feet built ; this 

 building was then abandoned, and the unfinished walls 

 surrounded by unused and broken bricks still remain, an 

 eyesore to the community. 



To the south of the central ridge lies an enormous basin 

 called Sandy Bay, measuring about four miles across. This 

 forms part of the huge crater which existed at the volcanic 

 period. 



Thick vegetation, for the most part of indigenous growth, 

 clothes the high central ridge, extending down the sides 

 of the southern slope for about a mile, where suddenly it 

 merges into barren ground, with a few struggling shrubs 

 and thin grass, which gradually disappears, leaving the stretch 

 to the sea a scene of rugged, barren and desolate splendour. 

 To stand on the ridge looking south over Sandy Bay is one 

 of the most enjoyable sights to a pedestrian. The cool trade- 

 winds weeps up the valley over the ridge ; at the edge of the 

 precipice it is strong, almost more than one can stand against, 

 yet a few feet back, only a breath of balmy air is per- 

 ceptible. Of course only a bird's-eye view can be obtained 

 from such a height, but it is a view which never fails to 

 silence the sightseer. 



Brooke, in his history of St. Helena, describes it graphi- 

 cally. He says : 



The hills on the left (i.e. Diana's Peak and Acteon), richly 

 clothed with trees to the very summits, display a wonderful con- 

 trast to the wild and grotesque nakedness that triumphs on the 

 right, where shelving cliffs, surmounted by huge perpendicular or 

 spiral masses of rock, are multiplied under every shape and aspect. 



Another writer says : 



On the right great rugged mountains, black and naked, stretch 

 their craggy peaks heavenward, the rocky summits being split and 

 rent into the most fantastic outline, and seeming in their huge 

 uprising to have shivered the strata through which they forced 

 their way, and sent the boulders rolling into the vast abyss below 

 in all directions. 



The downward view consists of a variety of ridges, 

 eminences, and ravines, converging towards the sea into one 

 common valley. 



