any time on shore at St. Lucia, and as I might not have another opportunity of visiting the island, I determined to make the best of my acquaintance with Captain Sulivan; and to gain from him as much information as I could respecting it. That gentleman, who had been many years a resident there, very politely gave me a description of the place, and related one or two interesting anecdotes relative to its natural history. As we drew nearer, I had myself an opportunity of surveying the scenery all along the coast, until we arrived in the harbour, where we cast anchor about six o'clock in the evening. As we had been all day off the Island, I did not fail to note all that struck me as being remarkable, and I now landed with the other passengers.--I remained that night and nearly all the next day at St. Lucia, a space of time that did not afford much room for adventure; however, I made the best of it; and as I have interwoven my own notes and observations with the little narrative given me by Captain Sulivan, I trust, the "tout ensemble" may not prove uninteresting to the reader. ST. LUCIA. In sailing along the coast of the Island of St. Lucia, one of its most striking features is its variety of scenery. There is the grand, the harsh, the mountainous, the soft, and the sublime. No contrast could be greater than that between this Island and Barbados; there was a flat and level country, every where cultivated, and wearing a fertile and domestic appearance; here were cloudtopped mountains, enveloped in a thick forest of trees, that promised to remain as long as time, huge rocks, cataracts, precipices, chasms, and foliage covered hills. The only cultivation visible was along shore; and here the cane fields appeared doubly beautiful, from being placed in contrast with the wildness of the other scenery. If we now and then caught a glimpse of the interior cultivation, it was only between the hills as we passed, where an opening displayed something of the background. The woodymountains that backed the whole scene appeared to attract the wandering clouds to their summits. We gazed on these, and saw the black masses of vapour bursting into a torrent of rain. We looked below; there was no rain there: the graceful canes were waving in the rays of a glorious and brilliant sun. As we passed along the shore, a little village, or an estate, with a proprietor's house, mill works, negro huts, and even negroes themselves, as they laboured in the fields, would sometimes catch our view. These, however, appeared but seldom; and in the romantic wildness of that scene where there was so much of nature, and so little of art, they were the more lovely and welcome. They seemed like the fair springs that gladden the eye of a traveller in the dreary desert, or like the occasional glimmering of hopes that remain, the only consolation of a lone and blighted heart. The mountainous rocks, or rocky mountains, call them which you will, that rise majestically from the sea, and form, as it were, standing towers at the entrance of Gross Islet Bay, are covered, from the summit to the base, with the richest evergreens, and are commonly termed sugar loaves, from their resemblance to that article. The natives declare the highest of these sugar loaves to be inaccessible, owing to the immense number of venomous snakes and serpents that inhabit it. They tell this to an Englishman with a prophetic countenance, and commonly illustrate the truth of their assertion with an anecdote of the fate of three British sailors, who determined to ascend it, because, as aforesaid, it was inaccessible. This, however, is an old story; and, as I am not sure that it is a true one, I shall not trouble myself to repeat it. There can be no doubt, however, either of the prodigious quantity of serpents in the island of Saint Lucia, or St. Lucie, as it is sometimes called, or of the very dangerous consequences of their bites, which not unfrequently prove mortal. An anecdote, more modern and more authentic than the one I have spoken of above, deserves to be related here. regiment of foot An officer of his Majesty's having been ordered to join a detachment in this island, repaired thither, though not without the greatest dread of the serpents, and, indeed, with an almost superstitious fear of becoming their victim. On the first night of his arrival, fearful of sleeping on the floor of the barrack, he slung his hammock across the room; and being somewhat fatigued, and satisfied that no reptile could reach him in his secure position, he soon fell into a sound sleep. His precaution, however, did not preserve him. It happened that one of these venomous animals was actually concealed in the chamber; and, having succeeded in getting up the wall, it coiled itself round the rope, slid down into the hammock, where it gave the unfortunate officer a bite of which he expired the following day. Here I will bring this chapter to a conclusion, convinced, as I am, that my readers, like all good huntsmen, will be satisfied with being in at the death. CHAPTER XIX. ISLAND OF ST. LUCIA. "He gives a brief description of the place, CASTRIES, which is the capital of St. Lucia, is one of the dirtiest looking holes I ever witnessed; my short stay did not permit me to see, and therefore I cannot describe the houses of public note therein contained. I landed on the wharf, and those along the Carenage presented the general appearance of West India buildings. My first ride was to the garrison, an excursion which, under the favor of heaven, I will never repeat. It is a jaunt only fit for such as love to risk their bones, and even their important necks, where there is no reasonable motive for so doing. Don Quixote himself would have paused ere he ascended that mountain, even to the assistance of a damsel in distress. Therefore, reader, unto the respectable and sure footed horse, belonging to some good-natured individual, whose name I wis not, that carried me in safety to the top, and brought me in safety to the bottom of the said steep declivity of zigzag memory, I did render my most hearty thanks, M |