Vokantc Mouniain in St. Vincent's. 25 



As loon as we could fee, wc returned to the ridge we left 

 the night before, and began to work with alacrity, as we were 

 idmofl chilled with cold. I pufiied on as fail as pofTible, and 

 about ten o'clock found the woods began to grow thin. 1 

 could not fee the top of the mountain, but had a view of fe- 

 veral ridges that joined it. From the wind falling, and the 

 heat growing inttufc, I thought we mull: then be under the 

 cover of the lummit : I here found i*nan.y new plants. About 

 eleven A.M. I was overjoyed to have a full view of thefummit 

 oi the mountain, nearly a mile diftant from us, and that we 

 were nearly out of the woody region. The top feemed to be 

 compofed of fix or feven different ridges, very much broken in 

 the fides, as if they had fuffered great convulfions of nature ; 

 they were divided by amazing deep ravins, without any water 

 In them. I obferved where the ridges meet the edge of a large 

 excavation, as it feemed to be, on the highefl: part. 1 imagined 

 this might be the mouth of the crater, and directed my courfc 

 to a high peak which overlooked It. I found here a moft 

 beautiful tree which compofed the lafl: wood. After that I en- 

 tered into a thick long grafs, intermixed with fern, which 

 branched and ran in every dire6lion. To break it was Impof- 

 fible, and with great difficulty I could cut it ; {q that in clear- 

 ing our way through this grafs, eight or ten feet high, there was 

 equal difficulty as In the woods, and it feemed to continue 

 very near to the top of the mountain. Being now about noon, I 

 and the negroes were fo fatigued as hardly to be able to ftand ; 

 our thirfl very great, to allay which, as much as poffible, we 

 chewed the leaves of the Begonia obliqua. Two of the negroes 

 returned, and the others faid they would go no" farther with ' 

 me, as they muft perifh for want of water, and it would be 

 impoffible to get to the bottom before night, and they mull: all 



VaL. LXXV. E dift 



