Vincent. For (so goes the story) during the Carib war of 1795-96,
the savages imported Fer-de-lances from St. Lucia or Martinique, and
turned them loose, in hopes of their destroying the white men: but
they did not breed, dwindled away, and were soon extinct. It is
possible that they, or their eggs, came in floating timber from the
Orinoco: but if so, how is it that they have never been stranded on
the east coast of Trinidad, whither timber without end drifts from
that river? In a word, I have no explanation whatsoever to give; as
I am not minded to fall back on the medieval one, that the devil
must have brought them thither, to plague the inhabitants for their
sins.

Among all these beautiful islands, St. Lucia is, I think, the most
beautiful; not indeed on account of the size or form of its central
mass, which is surpassed by that of several others, but on account
of those two extraordinary mountains at its south-western end,
which, while all conical hills in the French islands are called
Pitons, bear the name of The Pitons par excellence. From most
elevated points in the island their twin peaks may be seen jutting
up over the other hills, like, according to irreverent English
sailors, the tips of a donkey's ears. But, as the steamer runs
southward along the shore, these two peaks open out, and you find
yourself in deep water close to the base of two obelisks, rather
than mountains, which rise sheer out of the sea, one to the height
of 2710, the other to that of 2680 feet, about a mile from each
other. Between them is the loveliest little bay; and behind them
green wooded slopes rise toward the rearward mountain of the
Souffriere. The whole glitters clear and keen in blazing sunshine:
but behind, black depths of cloud and gray sheets of rain shroud all
the central highlands in mystery and sadness. Beyond them, without