of cacti. All is old-fashioned and quiet and queer and small.
Even the palms are diminutive,--slim and delicate; there is a
something in their poise and slenderness like the charm of young
girls who have not yet ceased to be children, though soon to
become women....

There is a glorious sunset,--a fervid orange splendor, shading
starward into delicate roses and greens. Then black boatmen come
astern and quarrel furiously for the privilege of carrying one
passenger ashore; and as they scream and gesticulate, half naked,
their silhouettes against the sunset seem forms of great black apes.

... Under steam and sail we are making south again, with a warm
wind blowing south-east,--a wind very moist, very powerful, and
soporific. Facing it, one feels almost cool; but the moment one
is sheltered from it profuse perspiration bursts out. The ship
rocks over immense swells; night falls very black; and there are
surprising displays of phosphorescence.



XI.


... Morning. A gold sunrise over an indigo sea. The wind is a
great warm caress; the sky a spotless blue. We are steaming on
Dominica,--the loftiest of the lesser Antilles. While the
silhouette is yet all violet in distance nothing more solemnly
beautiful can well be imagined: a vast cathedral shape, whose
spires are mountain peaks, towering in the horizon, sheer up from