202 THE OCEAN. 



tlie bold cliffs and black precipices of a larger island 

 announce a very different formation. Now and then 

 we open a small but deep and beautiful bay. " A 

 pretty little village or plantation appears at the 

 bottom of the cove : the sandy beach stretches like 

 a line of silver round the blue water, and the cane- 

 fields form a broad belt of vivid green in the back- 

 ground. Behind this, the mountains rise in the most 

 fantastic shapes, here cloven into deep chasms, there 

 darting into arrowy points, and everywhere shrouded 

 and swathed, as it were, in wood, which the hand of 

 man will probably never lay low. The clouds, which 

 within the tropics are infallibly attracted by any 

 woody eminences, contribute greatly to the wildness 

 of the scene ; sometimes they are so dense as to bury 

 the mountains in darkness, at other times they float 

 transparently like a silken veil ; frequently the flaws 

 from the guUeys perforate the vapours, and make 

 windows in the smoky mass ; and then, again, the 

 wind and the sun will cause the whole to be drawn 

 upwards majestically, like the curtain of a gorgeous 

 theatre." 



Around these islands the water is frequently shal- 

 low, a fact made sufficiently obvious by its colour : 

 instead of the deep-blue tint which marks the un- 

 fathomed Ocean, the water on these shoals becomes 

 of a bright pea-green, caused by the nearness of the 

 yellow sands at the bottom ; and, the shallower the 

 water, the paler is the tint. The light thrown up- 

 wards by reflection u]jou the under part of the 

 swollen sails, transfers the same hue to them, giving 

 them a singular aspect ; but once I observed a still 



