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CHAPTER XI. Curiosities in Dominica —Nights in the tropics —English and Catholic churches — The market place at Roseau —Fishing extraordinary — A storm — Dominican boatmen — Morning walks — Effects of the Leeward Islands Confederation —An estate cultivated as it ought to be — A moun tain ride — Leave the island —Reflections.
was much to be seen in Dominica of the sort which travellers go in search of. There was the hot sulphur spring in the mountains; there was the hot lake; there was another volcanic crater, a hollow in the centre of the island now filled with water and surrounded with forest; there were the Caribs, some thirty families of them living among thickets, through which paths must be cut before we could reach them. We could undertake nothing till Captain C. could ride again. Distant expeditions can only be attempted on horses. They are bred to the work. They climb like cats, and step out safely where a fall or a twisted ankle would be the probable consequence of at tempting to go on foot. Meanwhile, Roseau itself was to be seen and the immediate neighbourhood, and this I could manage for myself. THERE
My first night was disturbed by unfamiliar noises and strange imaginations. I escaped mosquitoes through the care of the black fairies. But mosquito curtains will not keep out sounds, and when the fireflies had put out their lights there began the singular chorus of tropical midnight. Frogs, lizards, bats, croaked, sang, and hissed with no in termission, careless whether they were in discord or har mony. The palm branches outside my window swayed in the land breeze, and the dry branches rustled crisply as if