FAR AND NEAR 



were there to draw and delight the eye with the 

 rugged and the subUme. We could see the steam- 

 ers far at sea, coming round the point of the island 

 and making for our harbor. Late one afternoon 

 I watched a steamer leaving for South Africa, slant- 

 ing slowly away from the island into the Caribbean 

 and fading from view, — going down behind the 

 rim of the great ocean-girdled world. What a speck, 

 creeping slowly down and around, over the shining 

 surface of the great sphere toward that far-off land ! 



Here, where we only expected to stop over night 

 on our way to Manchioneal, we tarried for a week, 

 and gave ourselves up to the mood or the whim 

 of the moment, sitting for hours on the cottage 

 porches, gazing upon the strange scenes, drinking 

 in tropical nature through all our senses, our 

 eyes following the calmly, majestically sailing tur- 

 key buzzards that were everywhere in evidence, 

 then resting on the long line of cocoanut palms 

 where the surf was breaking upon the coral reefs 

 two miles away. Glancing over the broad sweep of 

 palms near at hand, rustling and glinting in the sun, 

 our eyes plunged down into the green waters of the 

 bay below us on the west, then darted away to the 

 mountains where Cima Cuna Pass invited us to 

 continue our journey to Manchioneal, or alighted on 

 the changing cloud drapery that hid Blue Moun- 

 tain Peak. 



One day we took a leisurely drive to the Hot 

 270 



