260 
WANDERINGS IN 
FOURTH 
JOURNEY 
Embarks 
for 
Antigua. 
St. John's. 
embarked for the island of Antigua, with the inten¬ 
tion of calling at the different islands in the Carib¬ 
bean sea, on my way once more towards the wilds 
of Guiana. 
We were thirty days in making Antigua, and 
thanked Providence for ordering us so long a passage. 
A tremendous gale of wind, approaching to a hurri¬ 
cane, had done much damage in the West Indies. 
Had our passage been of ordinary length, we should 
inevitably have been caught in the gale. 
St. John’s is the capital of Antigua. In better 
times it may have had its gaieties and amusements. 
At present, it appears sad and woe-begone. The 
houses, which are chiefly of wood, seem as if they 
have not had a coat of paint for many years; the 
streets are uneven and ill-paved ; and as the stranger 
wanders through them, he might fancy that they 
would afford a congenial promenade to the man who 
is about to take his last leave of surrounding worldly 
misery, before he hangs himself. There had been 
no rain for some time, so that the parched and 
barren pastures near the town might, with great 
truth, be called Rosinante’s own. The mules feed¬ 
ing on them, put you in mind of Ovid’s descrip¬ 
tion of famine:— 
“ Dura cutis, per quam spectari viscera possent.” 
It is somewhat singular, that there is not a single 
river or brook in the whole island of Antigua. In 
this it differs from Tartary in the other world; which, 
according to old writers, has five rivers; viz. Ache¬ 
ron, Phlegeton, Cocytus, Styx, and Lethe. 
