314 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
its walls are very thick, at least two feet, and it is 
covered with the durable brown tiles so in harmony 
with the landscape. In the eastern half are, or were, 
two large chambers extending two-thirds the length 
of the building, which is above one hundred feet long 
and fifty wide. The roof is fallen in at one place, 
and you can look into the interior of one of the cham- 
bers in which Josephine and her parents lived during 
her youth. © 
Ah, if those massive walls could speak! Through 
these low windows how many times has the youthful 
empress looked out upon a landscape that once pos- 
sessed all the beauties of the tropics! Through the 
wide doorway on the southern side how many times 
has she descended to indulge in the gambols which 
she loved so well! 
I climbed to the great rafters, from which the floor- 
ing had been many years removed, and looked through 
those windows, and stood in the same doorway in which 
the happy Josephine had so often stood — a doorway 
bordered by blocksof granite, connecting the two cham- 
bers. But there was nothing there to recall her who 
had once illumined these walls by her presence, and 
who had now been absent a hundred years. Above, 
the roof was black with bats clustered in noisy groups, 
hanging from the tiles; beneath, the rafters; and be- 
low, the ground. ‘The sun sank low behind the hills 
that ringed this lovely valley round, and fell with fee- 
ble glare through the rent in the roof that once had 
sheltered an empress. Nothing could be evoked from 
empty space; I could merely say that I had seen the 
home which once was hers, and had trodden ground 
her feet had pressed. 
