BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. WI 
if I am aware of it. Going homeward, I stretched 
my legs to their utmost, and kept ahead, scrambling 
over rocks and tree-trunks, and swinging myself down 
steep banks by the roots of trees. My trowsers were 
torn into shreds; the perspiration started, legs shook, 
and arms trembled. But I was determined to keep 
out of range of those dreaded guns; and I did, ar- 
riving at my cabin full half an hour ahead of my 
guides, who had supposed me lost and had detailed 
two of their number to look me up. Jean Baptiste, 
my host and forager-for-food, stood in the doorway 
with a candle, and inside there stood a welcome table 
with a good supper—yams and eggs and ‘tender 
mountain cabbage. 
Speaking of my hot bath to Jean Baptiste, that 
jewel instantly exclaimed that he had forgotten to 
show me the best in the island, situated only a gun- 
shot from my hut. Next day we visited it. Beneath 
tall gommier trees stretching down lianes forty feet 
long, shaded by broad-leaved plantains, was a pool 
twenty feet across, made by damming a little brooklet 
with volcanic rock. Its bottom was stone and gravel. 
A tree-trunk had fallen across the stream, on which I 
threw my clothes. The runlet was tepid, the pool a 
little warmer. Suddenly my foot grew hot, as though 
stung by a scorpion, and I became aware that the 
pool was heated from below by small jets of hot water 
forced up through crevices in the rocky crust. How 
thick was that crust? Down the hillside, into the bath, 
trickled warm water. A grotto had been hollowed out 
by the action of these streams, and from this water 
was spouted in hot spray and jets, heating the bath 
for a square yard around. This grotto was lined with 
