FAR AND NEAR 



houses Many swifts — the palm swift — diving in 

 the air, — smaller and more nimble of wing than 

 our swift. The low gray shingle roofs of the houses 

 visible on all hands ; women constantly passing in 

 the streets with trays or baskets on their heads 

 loaded with fruit, or yams, or cooked food, or other 

 wares, and sounding their shrill, wild street cries. 

 Can't understand one of them. Now a yellow man 

 with a push-cart with some cooling drink goes by. 

 It seems as if a large percentage of the population 

 must be on the street peddling, — all negroes. Then 

 comes the familiar hum and grind of the trolley 

 cars. Fleet-footed lizards dart here and there in the 

 shrubbery, or on the garden wall. A large green 

 one with a purple tail. The Blue Mountains back 

 of New Castle stand up against the sky, their tops 

 muffled in clouds. Occasionally a mass of cloud 

 drifts out toward the plain below and lets down thin 

 sheets of rain, but does not come far. The arid plain 

 seems to dissipate it or drive it back." 



To escape from the tourist-infested portion of the 

 island and to get a taste of its wilder interior, we 

 engaged a carriage and driver, and set out early one 

 morning along the superb road that leads to Spanish 

 Town and thence on to Bog Walk and Ewarton. 



The road was smooth and hard but dusty, and 

 the vegetation on either side — vines, bushes, trees, 

 often forming a solid impenetrable wall — was pow- 

 dered with dust as in midsummer at home. The 



22S 



