DOMINICA. 7 
of hills, with valleys deep and dark behind, half en- 
circling the town. These hills are broken and ragged, 
seamed and furrowed and scarred, yet are covered 
with a luxuriant vegetation of every shade of green: 
purple of mango and cacao, golden of cane and lime, 
orange and citron. Palms crown their ridges, culti- 
vated grounds infrequently gleam golden-brown on 
their slopes, and dense clouds come pouring over 
their crests from the Atlantic. North and south this 
bulwark of hills ends in huge cliffs plunged into the 
sea. Roseau is seated at the mouth of a valley formed 
by a river. From the centre of this valley there rises 
a hill—a mountain it is called here— Morne Bruce. 
From its smoothly-turfed crown the view of town 
and sea is superb, especially at sunset, when the sun 
sinks beyond the Caribbean Sea, and the cool even- 
ing breeze plays through the trees. From it we look 
upon the town; many palm-trees, few houses, a rush- 
ing, roaring river that meets the sea in a surf-line like 
a northern snowdrift, a picturesque fort, the jail, the 
government house, and the Catholic cathedral—a 
building of stone, with arched windows and door- 
ways, short, though shapely spire — with a palm tall 
and slender, to lend grace and beauty; westward, 
beyond the shore-line, the Caribbean Sea, its bosom, 
which glowed so fierily in the sunlight, now cool and 
inviting in its stillness. 
Looking eastward, one can see far into the Roseau 
Valley, to the wall of mountains, from which dashes 
out a great waterfall, dwindled to a mere silver thread 
in the distance. The Roseau River emerges into a 
plain beneath, a valley filled with cane, containing in 
its centre a planter’s house and buildings palm-sur- 
