MONTSERRAT.
159
three or four turns up and down my room before my pulse sinks to its usual quiet pitch. Though a jetty or pier might be constructed with a trifling expense by simply rolling a few large blocks of the stone, which abounds on the spot, into the water, yet these provoking people would rather that themselves and every human being, who visits or leaves their island, should get drenched, than stir one step towards erecting it. In fact, they rarely go from the shore themselves, and they are fools enough to be amused with the misadventures of others. And then, like true cre贸les, what they are too indolent to do, they conveniently declare is impossible to be done at all. Here's a pretty thing! They call their island the Montpelier of the West Indies, (in verity no great compliment,) and when invalides, rheumatics, and others, lured by the name, come for relief, to breathe its air, the first thing they have to undergo is a forcible anabaptism in salt water, and then to be converted into drying horses for their clothes, under a tropical sun. I am sure it is a subject of particular thanksgiving with me, that 1 did not for ever lose the use of my shoulders and knees on this occasion. Captain Lawrence had severe rheumatism in his left elbow for a week afterwards. I have been trying to make a beginning to this end of a verse, et inhospita littora Montis Serrati