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THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOUR 



iVriii*, Four Dollars a Year ) 

 P Ten Cents a Copy. 



« moutlit, S2 1 3 months, ! 



Year ) 



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NEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 1879. 



For Forest and Stream and Hod and Chin. 

 THE AMERICAN EAGLE. 



TITO NARCn of tie realms supernal, 

 ■*-" Ranging over laud and sea ; 

 Symbol ol the great Republic, 



Who so noble and ao free ! 

 Thine the bonndlesB fields of ether, 



Heaven's abyss unfathom'd thine, 

 Far beyond our feeble vision, 



On tby bars its sunbeams shine ! 

 Borne on iron-banded pinion, 



On from pole to pole you sweep ; 

 O'er sea islands, craggy mountains, 



O'er t'ae hoarse-resounding deep. 

 Now, thy fanning plumes o'ersbadow 



Northern cliff and ice-berg grim ; 

 Now, o'er southern, soft savannahs, 



With unflagging circuits eklm. 



He that feeds the tender raven 



And the sea bird of the rock, 

 Tempers the Inclement breezes 



To the shorn and bleating flock, 

 Leads thee o'er the wastes of ocean, 



Guides o'er savage flood and wood, 

 And from bounteous nature's store house 



Feeds thy clamoring, hungry brood. 



O'er the mountains of Caucasus; 



Over Appenlne and Alp ; 

 Over Rocky Mounts, Cordilleras ; 



O'er the Andes' lierblees scalp ; 

 High above those snowy summits, 



Where no living thing abides, 

 Ho, that notes the falling sparrow, 



Feeds thee, fosters thee, and guides. 



Teou wingest where a tropic sky 



Bends o'er thee its celestial dome ; 

 Where sparkling waters greet the eye, 



And gentlest breezes fan the foam ; 

 Wliere eplcy breath from groves of palm, 



Laden with aromatic balm, 

 Blows ever, mingled with perfume 



Of luscious fruit and boneyed bloom; 

 Green shores, adorned with drooping woods ; 



Gay grottoes, Island solitudes; 

 SavaunahB, where paimettoes screen 



The Indian's hut with living green, 

 Behold tby pinions as they sweep. 



Careering In the upper deep. 



Isaac MCLellan. 



For Forest and Stream and Hod and Oun. 



payuxl ff<m(tqt[ingg of 

 geverJg. 



THE BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 



A WED CAT— TREE FERNS— MOUNTAIN PALMS— A RAKE 

 HUMMING BIRD — THE VALLEY OP DESOLATION — MISLED 

 BY A BOTTLE — BOILING SPRINGS — HOT STREAMS — SUL- 

 PHUR BATHS — THE SOLFATARA — BCILI&NG THE AJOUPA 

 — COOKING BREAKFAST IN A BOILING SPRING. 



ATROPIO island in a tropic sea ; a mountain forest and 

 a mountain valley opening to the west, descending 

 toward the Caribbean Sea — the island and the forest in which 

 I made my first West Indian camp, and the scene of the fol- 

 lowing adventures : 



An extract from my journal : 



" Laudat, Dominica, March 14, 1877. 



"Temperature — Morning, 67 deg.; noon, 72 deg.; night, 

 09 deg.; showers at intervals ; last night clear and cold; the 

 heavens bright with stars, sparkling as in a Northern Octo- 

 ber night, but with more liquid glow." 



And this might be the record of a month — showery, cool 

 and delightful. On the coast the weather was dry and 

 ten degrees hotter ; but in this elevated valley, 2,000 feet 

 above llie sea, the eastern peaks caught the flying clouds 

 from the " tradeB " and precipitated their burden of moisture. 



For two weeks I had been awaiting a change of the moon 

 that was expected lo bring drier weather, and on that night 

 my friend Jean Baptiste — half Indian, half mulatto — came 

 to my hut with the welcome news—" To-morrow make 

 weddah." As he predicted, the weather cleared. There 

 came to me the sons and nephews of Jean Baptiste (Jour in 

 number), who were laden, and departed one after the other. 

 Francois had a large Oarib pannier filled with yams, coffee 



and eggs, a blanket, his never-absent cutlass and a gun ; 

 Michael took my camera, a bag of provisions, cutlass and 

 gun; Joseph, my dark-box with photographic chemicals, 

 cutlass and gun; Seeyohl, a large sack of yams and plantains, 

 cutlass and gun. They are mighty eaters, these mountaineers. 

 With my game-basket and humming-bird gun, I followed 

 immediately after my guides. We crossed the three streams, 

 hurrying from the mountain lake to the precipice, where they 

 are compressed into two magnificent waterfalls, and climbed 

 the hills beyond up over a path of interlaced roots, from 

 among which the earth had bsen washed, leaving a perfect 

 ladder, which serves us both in ascending and descending. 

 Past one of the little "provision grounds," where, far among 

 fallen and decaying trees, were growing lusty plantains, 

 bananas, yams and tanniera ; across another stream and up 

 further to the crown of theridge, where the path led through 

 cool and open "high woods," where the sun " don't come," 

 and where perdrix, or mountain doves, sprang up from all 

 about us, and ramiers, or wood pigeons, dashed in and out 

 of the tall tree-crowns. At eleven o'cock we reached "La 

 Riviere Dejeuner," where we breakfasted upon boiled eggs, 

 and yams, with clear cold water for drink. 



Our dogs (we had four) curs trained^to hunt the agouti, 

 left us in the middle of our meal and darted into the forest 

 with loud yelps. Francois followed them, encouraging 

 them with peculiar cries ; for these mountaineers have a 

 sympathetic understanding with all animate objects about 

 them, and can guide, hie on and recall their dogs simply by 

 varying their voice. Francois urged them on, but in a few 

 minutes they came to a stand-still, and their excited yelps 

 assured us that whatever they were pursuing was brought to 

 bay. We thought they had an agouti— & small ani- 

 mal in size between a rabbit and a woodchuck— but the exe- 

 crations of Francois a little later, which preceded his appear- 

 ance from the deep shade, prepared us for the unwonted 

 sight, in these wilds, of a wild cat. It was not a wild cat in 

 the true sense of the word— not a Lynx rufus—bamg only a 

 " chat rnaron " — a cat of the domesticated species run wild. 

 It was gray in color, striped with black, and larger and more 

 strongly made than the cats of the coast, who do not have 

 to forage for a living, showing how, in time, a new species 

 might be possibly the result of this change of life. It lives 

 in the deep woods, preying upon small birds, lizards and 

 crabs, and is as savage and untamable as any specimen of 

 the genus to be found in American back-woods. My men 

 skinned it at my request and wrapped the skin in a plantain 

 leaf, to be hung up until our return. The most weird thing 

 about this animal was the eye ; the iris yellow, changing- to 

 green, but seen glowering from darkness it was red — blood- 

 red— red as fire ; that glaring, glassy red which I have seen 

 in the panther, and which makes the wild fetidm so terrible 

 to face in their lairs. My guides also brought me a small 

 frog, like a rain frog, that in the night makes the air tremu- 

 lous with a wailing cry. 



We had here to climb the sides of a steep gorge, the walls' 

 of which were almost perpendicular, where slippery roots 

 and hanging lianas only enabled us to accomplish the ascent. 

 One portion of our route was through a bowl-shaped de- 

 pression containing a few acres, in which seemed concen- 

 trated all the glorious vegetation indigenous to these tropi- 

 cal forests. Hundreds and thousands of plants of strange 

 and beautiful shape were massed together in prodical con- 

 fusion. Conspicuous among them was the grand tree-fern. 

 Those who have seen in glaas-house or garden of acclimati- 

 zation only the stunted specimens of this plant, can form 

 hardly a conception of the grandeur of these arborescent 

 ferns in their native homes. They are rarely found in per- 

 fect development at a lesser altitude than one thousand feet 

 above the sea, and it is in the " high woods " helt alone that 

 they attain their greatest height and perfect symmetry. 

 They love cool and moist situations, revel in shade and de- 

 light in solitude. "If," says Humboldt, "they descend 

 toward the sea coast, it is only under cover of thick shade." 

 I have seen them in these mountains, in the vegetable zone 

 most favorable for their growth— that between 1,500 and 

 2,500 feet above the sea— of a height of thirty or thirty-five 

 feet. Then, truly, were they impressive in their combina- 

 tion of delicately-traced leaves and slender stems, essentially 

 children of the tropics. There is sublimity in their expres- 

 sion. I may have already alluded to it, but cannot refrain 

 repeating that there is a suggestiveness of a henediction in 

 those lace-like leaves, which are spread above the head of 

 the observer like outstretched hands, and which only move 

 gently and tremulously, ever pulsating to the slightest breath 

 of air. 



The light that filters through the cocoa-palm leaves is 

 wonderfully lambent and golden, but cannot compare with 

 the chastened sunbeams that reach one standing beneath 

 this queen of the mountain solitudes; perchance the sun 

 can penetrate to it. There are several species, one of which, 

 with unusually piickly stem (the Cyathea Tmrayana), is 

 named for Doctor Iraruy, a resident botanist of the island. 

 Though the ferns replace in a measure the palms in the as- 

 cent from coast to mountain-top, yet there is one species 

 that climbs to as high an altitude as the fern, and is found 

 everywhere on the mountain side until the sub-alpine vege- 

 tation is reached. This is the mountam palm, the "palmiste 

 montagne," the "mountain cabbage" — Euterpe, inontana. 

 Euterpe, goddess of lyric poetry ; no tree of the forest more 

 fitly symbolizes the realm of song over which she presides. 



In every curve and movement is grace and feeling, whether 

 the long leaves wave gently to the mid-day breeze, or 

 whether they beat wildly their sustaining trunks in the vio- 

 lence of the hurricane. It is not tall for a palm, but is slen- 

 der and has a lovely crown, and ministers to the wants of 

 the mountaineers in many ways, as will be seen further on. 

 Inhabiting the same region with the tree-fern and loving the 

 same cool, solitary shades, it accompanies it in its march up 

 the mountains and ceases with it at the upper edge of the 

 high-woods belt. Two such creations were enough to give 

 these forests world-wide fame; but there are a thousand 

 others which I cannot describe for want of knowledge, nor 

 if I could, for lack of space. 



We passed streams every half mile large enough to turn 

 a mill in the rainy season, but which were now low. Up 

 their rocky beds the trail pursued its way ; rough, slippery 

 work it was, with many watery escapades and some falls — 

 waterfalls. Through dense groups of callas and other water 

 plants I do not know we were obliged to force our way. At 

 a jam of trees which I was painfully climbing I saw a 

 humming-bird poised above a flower. I had been sufficiently 

 long in these mountains, I thought, to procure every species; 

 but this was different from any I had shot, and consequent- 

 ly I at once added him to my other victims, and he was 

 picked up below me by one of my guides as he floated like 

 a golden leaf upon the turbulent stream. It proved to be a 

 rare species, found heretofore only at the mouth of the 

 Amazon, and rare even there (the Thalurania wagleri), and 

 it now rests in Washington, one of the many types of West 

 Indian birds I had the pleasure of sending to our National 

 Museum. 



Leaving the stream, we climbed another steep hill-side 

 and traveled along a ridge, on either side of which are valleys 

 leading to the sea and ocean. Perdrix and grives, or thrushes, 

 start up at intervals. The " siffleur montagne " (the "moun- 

 tain whistler"; sends up liquid melody from every ravine; 

 warblers are few, and humming-birds the only ones abund- 

 ant. These, and even insects, grow rare and finally cease 

 entirely as the lake valley is reached, and the sulphur fumes, 

 ever increasing in volume, are borne to us in dense clouds. 

 We joined the stream again, make a detour and again take 

 the stream, now lessened to a trickliDg run, where every- 

 thing is decaying, reeking with moisture, and slippery with 

 confervoid growth. No snakes appear now, not even a 

 lizard; animal life is absent in this approach to the infernal 

 regions. The trail is barricaded by fallen trees, detached 

 rocks, tangled lianas ; flowers are few, the crimson cups of 

 the wild plantain are alone conspicuous. After three hours 

 of hard scrambling we were rewarded by a view of the first 

 sulphur valley containing the "petite souffriere," from 

 which steam ascended in clouds. It is a basin several hun- 

 dred feet deep, one side of which is broken down, ringed 

 round by steep hills, the valley walls of which are mostly 

 denuded by land-slides, covered elsewhere by a sparse 

 growth of vegetation. Seeing an opening in the trees, I 

 prepared to descend, though the trail was faint and appeared 

 old. But, being in advance and impatient to get at the 

 wonder below, I ventured alone, and had proceeded hut a 

 few rods when I was assured by the sight of a familiar ob- 

 ject—a bottle on a stick. I am not sure it was not a sight 

 of it that caused me to depart from the beaten path ; at any 

 rate, I was diverted, though the bottle was in-verted. A shout 

 from above halted me just as I had reached the brick of a 

 precipitous bank, the earth of which was beginning to 

 crumble beneath my feel. Dejectedly I retraced my steps, 

 my faith in the goodness of mankind somewhat shaken. 

 Months later, while conversing with a good friend — Dr. 

 Nicholls, o: Roseau— it came out that he was the culprit ; 

 that he had placed the bottle there in the kindness of his 

 heart, which is a big one, as the good Indian is said to have 

 set up a stake in every bog he got bemired in, as a warning 

 toothers. A warning! In this thirsty land a bottle is as ne- 

 cessary to ODe's existence as a loaf of bread ; and I have met 

 with those who held it more directly essential to tbe preser- 

 vation of life than the generally recognized " staff." The 

 Doctor added that, had he known of my projected excursion, 

 he would have cached a dozen of "Bass' best " in the spot 

 where I was to camp. And that he would have done so I 

 am certain, for he was the greatest-hearted man I met in 

 these islands, where an excessive development of that organ 

 is a peculiarity of the white residents. 



Nearly half an hour's careful work was necessary to de- 

 scend that steep wall, clinging to roots and stems of small 

 trees, at the end of which we reached a gentle slope covered 

 with trees of goodly size, facing south. "Here were the re- 

 mains of an old encampment, empty bottles and sulphur 

 specimens. A stream trickled near by, which we followed 

 to the sulphur basin, whence sulphuretted fumes ascended 

 that would choke out the stench of a thousand rotten eggs. 

 This was but the beginning of tbe valley of wonders, the 

 portal to the enchanted land of mysteries'. The basin was 

 covered with rocks and earth, white and yellow, perforated 

 like the bottom of a colander with holes, whence issued 

 steam and vapor and sulphur fumes, hot air and fetid gases. 

 There was a full head of steam on, puffing through these 

 vents with the noise of a dozen engines. There were spout- 

 ing springs of hot water ; some were boiling over the sur- 

 face, some sending up a hot spray, some puffing like high- 

 pressure steamers. Clouds of steam drifted across this small 

 valley, now obscuring every rock and hole, now lifting a 



