one spot, which makes up five-sixths of the island. St. Eustatius
may have been in eruption, though there is no record of it, during
historic times, and looks more unrepentant and capable of
misbehaving itself again than does any other crater-cone in the
Antilles; far more so than the Souffriere in St. Vincent which
exploded in 1812.

But these two are mere rocks. It is not till the traveller arrives
at St. Kitts that he sees what a West Indian island is.

The 'Mother of the Antilles,' as she is called, is worthy of her
name. Everywhere from the shore the land sweeps up, slowly at
first, then rapidly, toward the central mass, the rugged peak
whereof goes by the name of Mount Misery. Only once, and then but
for a moment, did we succeed in getting a sight of the actual
summit, so pertinaciously did the clouds crawl round it. 3700 feet
aloft a pyramid of black lava rises above the broken walls of an
older crater, and is, to judge from its knife-edge, flat top, and
concave eastern side, the last remnant of an inner cone which has
been washed, or more probably blasted, away. Beneath it, according
to the report of an islander to Dr. Davy (and what I heard was to
the same effect), is a deep hollow, longer than it is wide, without
an outlet, walled in by precipices and steep declivities, from
fissures in which steam and the fumes of sulphur are emitted.
Sulphur in crystals abounds, encrusting the rocks and loose stones;
and a stagnant pool of rain-water occupies the bottom of the
Souffriere. A dangerous neighbour--but as long as he keeps his
temper, as he has done for three hundred years at least, a most
beneficent one--is this great hill, which took, in Columbus's
imagination, the form of the giant St. Christopher bearing on his