178 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
several heavy squalls that careened our vessel alarm- 
ingly. 
At daylight I awoke, dreaming of coffee and lime 
groves, for I recognized in the land-breeze that came 
to us the odor of spices and the freshness of earth, 
and knew that we were under the lee of Dominica. 
We were off Prince Rupert’s Bay —a secure harbor 
for a fleet — with the town of Prince Rupert’s, hidden 
in cocoa palms, lying in a fever-stricken valley. We 
were again becalmed, and night found us just entering 
the bay of Roseau, with a sea dashing over the sea- 
wall and jetty too violently to allow us to land. 
“We expect you at your old quarters,” wrote my 
good friend William Stedman; and one of his do- 
mestics shouldered my trunk and conveyed it to his 
hospitable mansion. 
What a delight it was to be back among these gen- 
erous people! Whatever the characteristics of English 
or Scotch at home, they soon acquire, in the West 
Indies, a feeling for a stranger fellow-man that is 
wondrous kind. It seemed like getting home again, 
this return to Dominica after a few months’ absence, 
and I would gladly have remained among my friends 
of the coast; I was soon in the mountains, however, 
searching for some birds of which I had heard, and 
was rewarded by the discovery of several new varieties. 
Returning to the coast after ten days’ absence, I 
-was caught in a thunder-gust, the rain coming from 
three ways at once, out of three converging gorges; 
the path was flooded in a few minutes, and the river 
roaring loudly and seething like a caldron. The 
storm passed and hurried on over the town, drench- 
ing it, and swept out over the sea, where it remained 
