The Mountains of the West Indies. 83 
whole interior of the island is covered with vast 
forests of most valuable woods. At almost every step 
one is met by the evidence of volcanic activity, but there 
is no volcano, properly so-called. Instead of this, 
the crust of the earth is literally honeycombed with 
geysers, the strength and activity of which give a fair 
idea of what they would be were the power distributed 
among them focussed into one crater. From what we 
have said, it may be inferred that the interior is but 
little known ; hence it was only recently that the pre- 
sence of a boiling lake amongst the mountains w r as dis- 
covered. This great natural wonder, nearly a square 
mile in extent, continued to boil between, and lash against 
its lava shores, and was the principal point of attrac- 
tion to tourists in the West Indies, until early in the year 
1880, when it suddenly emptied itself. An adjacent forest 
was completely destroyed, the rivers in the vicinity were 
choked for weeks after, and Roseau, the capital, many 
miles distant from the seat of the eruption, was covered 
with darkness for some time, during which a vol- 
canic shower of thin sulphurous mud fell. The scenery 
amongst the mountains is both sublime and lovely. No- 
thing can exceed the bold grandeur with which the peaks 
rise in mighty terraces one above the other to the very 
clouds, which ever hang around their rocky crowns ; or 
the gloomy aspect and the tremendous solitude of the 
apparently bottomless ravines by which they are split, 
down in the unseen depths of which the bellowing tor- 
rents, fed by perpetual mists and frequent rains, ever 
thunder. But whilst this is the general physical 
character of the island, it is by no means entirely 
so, The ravines frequently widen out as they near 
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