6 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



bush country, or ramble at all with the thermometer 

 at eighty-five degrees. But when one has only to 

 think of such things, without any idea of doing them, 

 neither the bushes nor the thermometer are consid- 

 ered." In this, as in all his sketches, Mr. Trollope 

 is right so far as he goes ; but he does not go far 

 enough. "Filled with an ardent desire," he should 

 have given those woods and mountains the months of 

 camp-life that I did ; then would the world be richer 

 in pictures of forest-life and mountain scenery that my 

 poor pen so feebly tries to portray. As one writer, 

 an intelligent geologist, once remarked : " No island 

 in these seas is bolder in its general aspects, more 

 picturesque and more beautiful in the detail of its 

 scenery indeed, one might be tempted to say, con- 

 sidering its fortunes, that it has the fatal gift of 

 beauty I " 



At five o'clock, the gun in the fort starts ofF the bell 

 in the cathedral spire. It is an hour before daylight, 

 and even at six the mists of the valleys cover all, 

 even to the mountain-tops. The sun climbs steadily, 

 though it is eight o'clock before he has shown his 

 face to Roseau, and darts over the mountain-tops to 

 windward his scorching rays. It is interesting to 

 watch the changes that come over the mountain sides 

 and valleys as the sun dissipates the morning mists. 

 Lake Mountain, -four thousand feet in height, towers 

 black against the sky ; five miles it is from town, yet 

 seems so close as to overshadow it. Its head is veiled 

 more than half the time in mist. Stretching away 

 north and south is a long line of hills, an isolated peak 

 jutting up at intervals. Their summits are blue and 

 purple in the distance. Within this line is a cordon 



