Class l. Book..__^Qj_3_ CopyiightN? COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/campsincaribbees01ober CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES THE ADVENTURES OF A NATURALIST IN THE LESSER ANTILLES. BY FREDERICK A. OBER. 'To-morrow I sail for those cinnamon groves, Where nightly the ghost of the Caribbee roves. : BOSTON LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. pv j LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Receives DEC 21 1907 CLASiA ' xx«. N6. COPY B. Copyright, 1879, by Frederick A. Ober. Copyright, 1907, by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. All rights reserved. Camps in the Caribbees. Nortoonti JDrrss : Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. TO NATHANIEL H. BISHOP, author of "a thousand miles' walk," "voyage of the paper canoe, ETC., (Tins §oofe is pcbitateb BY HIS FRIEND, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. 1»<0 The islands to which reference is made in the fol- lowing chapters are those known as the Caribbees, or Lesser Antilles, extending over eight degrees of latitude, between Porto Rico and Trinidad, connect- ing the Greater Antilles with the continent of South America. This archipelago, containing the loveliest islands in the western hemisphere, with settlements ante-dating Jamestown and Plymouth, with structure and physi- cal features interesting to men of science the world over, has yet remained, as at the period of discovery, almost an unknown field to the naturalist. In 1876, under the auspices of the Smithsonian In- stitution, I undertook the exploration of these islands with the especial view of bringing to light their ornithological treasures. The investigation covered a space of nearly two years, during which time I visited mountains, forests, and people, that few, if any, tourists ever reached before. It was only by leaving the beaten path of travel, and taking to the woods, that I was enabled to accomplish what I did v VI PREFACE. in the way of discovery ; for which the curious reader is referred to the Appendix, and to the various cat- alogues of new birds discovered, published by the National Museum. While around the borders of each island there is a cleared belt of fertile land, sometimes densely popu- lated, and on the coast are often large villages and even cities, the interior is generally one vast forest, covering hills and mountains so wild and forbidding of aspect that few clearings are made in them save the "provision grounds" of the negroes and Indians. Many tourists and writers have visited these islands, have stopped a while in the towns, have interviewed the natives, and then have hastened off to England or the States, and written books about them. Several naturalists of note have likewise visited the shores of these interesting isles, but, like the writers afore- mentioned, have never penetrated beyond the line of civilization. Conjecturing that the public have had enough of descriptions at second hand, from writers who are more ears than eyes, I have hastened away from town and city, and sought an early opportunity for taking my readers to the forest, where everything reposes in nearly the same primitive simplicity and freshness as when discovered by Columbus, nearly four centuries ago. I took my camera with me, and whenever a new bit of scenery presented itself, a beautiful tree, or cas- PREFACE. Vll cade, or a composition peculiarly tropical, I photo- graphed it ; and my publishers have used as subjects for illustration only these photographs from nature, which have never been presented before. As with the illustrations, so with the sketches in type. I have but photographed the scenes I visited and the people I saw and lived among. Now and then, in follow- ing a thread of history that connects these islands and people with an almost forgotten past, I have availed myself of the language of the historian, but in rare instances. My only claim is, that these sketches are original, and fresh from new fields — new, yet old in American history, — and that they are accurate, so far as my power of description extends. They have not, like the engravings, had the benefit of touches from more skillful hands, and they may be crude and unfinished, and lack the delicate shadings and half- tones a more cunning artist could have given them ; but they are, at least, true to nature. Though the voyage to and from these islands was fraught with incident, there was little that did not savor of the ordinary sea-voyage, hence it has been left out, and the narrative begins and ends in the Caribbees. Beside this, there yet remains much material which has not been drawn upon, comprising more of pure adventure, which, should public and publishers pass a favorable verdict upon this, may form a volume for another year. Beverly, Mass., October, 1879. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. DOMINICA. PAGE The Mysterious Ocean Current. — Dominica and Columbus. — Roseau and Anthony Trollope. — A West-Indian Town. — Introduction to Tropical Scenes. — The Mountains. — The First Camp i CHAPTER II. CAMP LIFE IN THE TROPICS. A March Morning. — Matin Music. — Jean Baptiste. — Sonny. — Breakfast in the Mountains. — Queer Customs. — De- lightful Temperature for March. — The Hunt for Birds. — A Day's Duties. — Strange Birds and Scenery. — The "Trem- bleur." — A Precipice. — An Organ-Bird, the "Mountain Whistler." — Bird Notes. — My Chasseurs. — Land Crabs. — Ardent Assistants. — Twilight 12 CHAPTER III. IN AND ABOUT MY FIRST CAMP. The Caribbean Sea, its Deceptive Appearance and Placidity. — My Neighbors, the Mountaineers, their Sayings and Wise Saws. — A French Missionary needed. — The Iguana and its Flesh. — Glimpses of Mrs. Grundy. — A Work of Art. — Cruising for Crustaceans. — The "Grives." — Marie. — Long-Tailed Decapods. — "Where Crabs grow." — "Wait ix X CONTENTS. there, Monsieur." — Astonished. — Shocked. — The River. — Drenched. — A Naiad. — A Victim to Science. — Food for the Gods . 25 CHAPTER IV. THE SUNSET-BIRD. — HUMMING-BIRDS. The Crater-Tarn. — Temporary Camps. — The " Soleil Cou- cher." — "Hear the Sunset." — A Bird possessed of the Devil. — The Capture. — A Species New to the World. — Four Species of Humming-Birds. — The Garnet-Throat and Gilt-Crested. — Dan, the Hunter. — Catching Birds with Bread-Fruit Juice. — In Captivity. — Death. — Their Food. — Methods of Capture. — The Humming-Bird Gun. — The Aerial Dance 40 CHAPTER V. THE BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. A Wild Cat.— Tree-Ferns.— Mountain Palms.— A Rare Hum- ming-Bird. —The Valley of Desolation. — Misled by a Bot- tle. — Boiling Springs. — Hot Streams. — Sulphur Baths. — The Solfatara. — Building the Ajoupa. — Cooking Breakfast in a Boiling Spring 5 2 CHAPTER VI. AMONG THE CARIBS. Their Peaceful Life. — Fruits and Food. —The Second Voyage of Columbus. — Discovery of the Caribs. — Fierce Nature and Intelligence of the "Cannibal Pagans." — Unlike the Natives of the Greater Antilles. — The Carib Reservation in Dominica. — My Camp in Carib Country. — Two Sov- ereigns. — The Village. — The Houses. — Catching a Cook. — A Torchlight Procession. — Lighting a Room with Fire- Flies. — "Look ze Cook." — Labor. — Domestic Relations. — A Drunken Indian. — Wild Men and Naked Children. — Carib Panniers. — The only Art preserved from their An- cestors -73 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER VII. SOCIAL LIFE, APPEARANCE, AND LANGUAGE OF THE CARIBS. Happy Children. — Cleanliness. — Primitive Innocence. —A Modest Maiden. — Dress. — Face and Figure. — Flattening the Forehead. — Ugly Men and Women. — Carib Hospital- ity. — The Basket- Weaver. — Tropic Noontide. — Religion. — The Dying Woman. — A Lost Skeleton. — Burial of the Dead. —The Wake. — St. Vincent Caribs. — Two Dialects. — The Arowaks. — An Agreeable Tongue. — Vocabulary. — Caliban a Carib. and Crusoe's Man Friday. — Cru- soe's Island. — Black Caribs. — Weapons and Utensils of Stone. — '• Thunderbolts." — Carib Sculpture. — A Sacri- ficial Stone. — Whence came They ? — Their Northern Limit. — A Southern Origin. — Their Lost Arts. — A Dying People 90 CHAPTER VIII. HOW I CAPTURED THE IMPERIAL PARROT. Meyong. — My Hut. — A Mixed-up Language. — Departure for the Forest. — Pannier and Cutlass. — Wood-Pigeons. — The Startled Savages. — The Bath. — A Gloomy Gorge. — "Palmiste Montagne." — In the Haunts of the Parrot. — Immense Trees. — Parasites and Lianes. — Wood for Canoes and Gum for Incense. — The " Bois Diable." — Construct- ing the Camp. — Palm-Spathes. — A Bonne Bouche, the Beetle Grub. — Nocturnal Noises. — Comical Frogs. — A Blacksmith in a Tree. — The First Shot. — The Humming- Bird's Nest. — The Parrot. — An Excited Guide. — An Acci- dent. —Wild Hogs. —The " Little Devil." 112 CHAPTER IX. A DAY IN THE DEEP WOODS. The Bee-Tree. — Enveloped in Plants. — Ascending the Giant Tree. — Smoking Out the Bees. — Vegetable Ropes. — Honey ad libitum. — A Bite. — A Howl. — The Bee-Eaters. — Carib Xll CONTENTS. Perversity. — Sweet Content. — How to draw a Bee-Line. — The Palm Troughs. — A Bamboo Cup. — A Stroll and an Alarm. —The Carib Ghost. — Traditions. — The March re- sumed. — An Army of Crabs. — Crabs that Migrate. — Deli- cious Food. — The Mountain Peak. — Hunting the " Dia- blotin." — Is it a Myth ? — Caught in a Storm. — The Carib Castle. — The Captive's Cave. — Vampires. — The Forest Spirit 130 CHAPTER X. A MIDNIGHT MARCH, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. The Apparition. — The Lost Chief. — A Forgotten Language. — The March by Torchlight. — Strange and Distorted Forms. — The Forest Wilderness. — A Mysterious Sound. — "A Tree felled by God." — Virgin, protect Us! — Cook- ing by Steam. — The Rosewood Cabin. — The Chief Dis- appears. — Is it Gold? — A Small Boa Constrictor. — A Carib Basilisk. — The Biggest Bug in the World. — It comes in Search of the Naturalist. — The Hercules Beetle. — Centipedes. — Scorpions. — An Unnamed Palm with Edi- ble Seeds. — A Priestess of Obeah. — African Witchcraft. — Its Stronghold. — Prostrated by the Heat. — Fever . . . 147 CHAPTER XL A CRUISE IN THE HURRICANE SEASON. An Experiment in Coffee Culture. — The Pest of the Cof- fee Plant. — Liberian Coffee versus Mocha. — An African Disease. — Gathering in the Sick. — Down the Caribbean Coast. — The Flame-Tree. — The Orchard of Limes. — Profits of Lime Culture. — The Maroon Party. — The Stam- pede. — Farewell to Dominica. — Coral Islands. — An Im- mense Game Preserve. — "The Doctor." — The Jiggers. — • New Birds. — A Weary Voyage. — Seasons of the Tropics. — Tempests. — Calms. — Provisions Exhausted. — Turkey or Jackass. — Shark. — Odors of Spices. — The Tornado. — Hurricane Birds. — Pitons of St. Lucia. — St. Vincent. — Palm Avenue. — The Spa. — Hospitable People. — Basaltic Cliffs. — Richmond Vale. — Falls of Balleine. — The Water- spout .■...* 163 CONTENTS. Xlll CHAPTER XII. A CAMP IN A CRATER. The Last of the Volcanoes. — The Soufriere of St. Vincent. — The "Invisible Bird." — Ascending the Volcano. — The "Dry River." — Bird's-Eye View of St. Vincent. — The Old Crater. — The New Crater. — The Lake in the Bowels of the Earth. — In the Cave. — Sunset. — Preparing for the Night. — Toby. — Five Days and Nights of Misery. — Fauna of a Mountain-Top. — Exploring the Crater-Brim. — Yuccas and Wild Pines. — Toby in the Cave's Mouth. — A Terror- stricken African. — Jacob's Well. — Snakes and Pitfalls. — Toby's "Stock." — The Soufriere-Bird. — A Mysterious Song- ster. — Unavailing Attempts to Procure it. — Sought for a Century. — A Dream. — Nasal Blasts. — Searching for the Bird. — The Carib Bird-Call. — The Capture. — A New Bird. — A Plunge into Darkness. — Scared by a Snake. — Toby Desperate. — Departure for Carib Country 184 CHAPTER XIII. TRADITIONAL LORE.— A MISADVENTURE. Carib Country. — Sandy Bay. — Captain George. — Captain George's Family. — His Superstitions. — A Carib Romance. — A Love Test. — Courtship and Marriage. — Preparing Cas- sava. — Farine. — An Indian Invention. — The Obeah Charm. — The Carib Wars. — A Brave Coward. — The Caribs Cap- tured. — Sent to Coast of Honduras. — The Survivors. — The Seminoles. — A Parallel. — Carib Song. — Captain George's Treasure. — A Misadventure. — Balliceaux. — A Search for Skulls. — Battowia. — The " Moses Boat." — The Monster Iguana. — The Cave. — The Tortoise. — A Relic of a Fast Age. — Tropic Birds. — Our Boat Smashed. — A Night on the Beach. — The Southern Cross. — Paul and Virginia. — Church Island 208 CHAPTER XIV. A MONTH ON A SUGAR ESTATE. Out of the Forest. — Into a Sick-Bed. — My Good Angel. — Convalescence. — Rutland Vale. — The Happy Valley. — Nocturnal Neighbors. — The Labor Question. — A Plant- XIV CONTENTS. er's Trials. — Coolie Immigration. — The Negro, returning to Savagery. — A Self-appointed Physician. — Government House. — Trees of the Tropics. — Bread-Fruit and Cocoa- Palm. — First Experience with Bread-Fruit. — Its Appear- ance. — Taste. — History of its Introduction. — Abundance in St. Vincent. — The Palms, their Great Beauty and Util- ity. — Cocoa-Palm, Palmiste, Groo-groo and Gris-gris, Areca and Mountain Palms. — The Vine with Perforated Leaves. — The Indian Maiden 229 CHAPTER XV. GRENADA AND THE GRENADINES. Bequia. — Contented Islanders. — The " Bequia Sweet." — Carib Anecdote. — Union Island. — Canouan. — An Ener- getic Patriarch. — Cariacou. — On the Ancient Contiguity of the Lesser Antilles. — The Lost Atlantis. — " What if these Reefs were her Monument?" — A Glance at the Map. — An Isolated Geographical and Zoological Province. — Grenada. — St. George's. — More Craters. — The Carenage. — The Forts. — The Lagoon. — The "Eurydice." — Iguanas. — Their Habits. — Iguana-Shooting. —Oysters growing on Trees. — Columbus and his Pearls. — Lizards. — A Mission- ary's Grief. — Food of the Iguana. — The Mangrove. — Cacao. — Its Discovery. — Present Range. — Its Cultivation. — Cacao River. — Cocoa and Cacao. — The Tree. — The Fruit. — The Flower. — Idle Negroes. — Chocolate. — For- est Rats. — Monkeys. — Their Depredations. — An Insult . 245 CHAPTER XVI. A MONKEY HUNT IN THE MOUNTAINS. Zones of Vegetation. — Naked Negroes. — The Road to the Mountains. — The Grand Etang. — Quadrupeds of the Lesser Antilles, Extinct and Living. —The Alco. — Pec- cary. — Agouti. — Manacou. — Armadillo. — Raccoon. — A Visit to the "Tatouay Traps."— The Forest surrounding the Mountain Lake. — " Haginamah " : Is it a Carib Word? — " Hog-in-armor," not a Carib Word. — " Le Morne des Sauteurs." — The Plantain Swamp. — Signs of Monkeys. — The Monkeys' Ladder. — Habits of Wild Monkeys. — The CONTENTS. XV Mammie Apple. — In Ambush. — Feathered Companions. — The Bete Rouge. — An Aged Monkey. — His Caution. — • Descending the Ladder. — Monkeys, giddy and grave. — Counting his Flock. — The Monkey recognizes a Brother. — "Shoot! Shoot!" — A Free Circus. — A Man, and a Brother. — The Monkey-Mamma. — Her Terror. — An Im- politic Imp 263 CHAPTER XVII. SOME SUMMER DAYS IN MARTINIQUE. From Crusoe's Island, North. — Frowning Cliffs. — Golden Sands. — Birth of a Rainbow. — St. Pierre. — The Volcano. — Our Consul. — "Old Farmer's Almanack." good for any Latitude. — French Breakfasts. — " Long Toms." — The Widow and her Weed. — Patois. — Costumes. — Good Claret. — Poor Calico. — Market- Women and Washer- Women. — Gaudy Garments. — Profusion of Ornaments. — Jardin des Plantes. — The Shrine and the Traveler's Tree. — Creole Dueling-Ground. — Palm Avenues. — The Cascade. — Sago and Areca Palms. — The Lake. — Land-Snails. — Lizards. — Tarantulas. — The Lance-Head Snake. — Venomous and Vengeful. — The Mountain Region. — Hot Springs. — An Extinct Volcano. — A Holy City. — Sabbath in the Coun- try. — Warned of Snakes. — Have Alligator Boots. — The Humble Shrine. — A Shriek. — Narrow Escape. — The Crafty Serpent 280 CHAPTER XVIII. THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. Fort de France. — The Park. — Tamarinds and Mangos. — Statue of Josephine. — The Trois Pitons — .Historic Hills. — Coronation. — Inscription. — An Earthquake. — Terror. — Parents of Josephine. — Her Grandmother. — Alexander de Beauharnais. — A Valuable Document. — Marriage Register of Josephine's Parents. — Bungling Biographers. — Musty Memoirs. — Fort Royal Bay. — The Passage-Boat "John." — Trois-Ilets. — The Boulanger. — A Festive Father. —A Din- ner in Jeopardy. — A Low Couch. — A High Bill. — Church in which Josephine was Baptized. — A Tablet to her Moth- XVI CONTENTS. er's Memory. — La Pagerie, Birthplace of Josephine. — The Hurricane — The Roof that Sheltered an Empress. — Ground her Feet had Pressed. — Youth of Josephine. — Another Shock. — The Negro Barracks. — The Empress' Bath. — One Hundred Years ago ! — The Sibyl. — The Humming-Bird. — In Peril from a Serpent. — A Peaceful Scene. — A Rude Awakening. — The River Comes Down. — Earthquake again. — Rags and Melancholy 298 CHAPTER XIX. ASCENT OF THE GUADELOUPE SOUFRIERE. Point a Pitre. — The Riviere Salee. — Usines. — Earthquake, Fire, and Hurricane. — A Living Bulwark. — The Caravels of Columbus. — Our Lady of Guadeloupe. — The Caribs. — Basse Terre. — Le Pere Lahat. — Orphans. — The Cholera Plague. — A Permis de Chasse. — Mixed. — A Horse with Points. — Government Square. — The Convent. — A Sum- mer Retreat. — Matouba. — My Thatched Hut. — Doctor Colardeau. —The Coolie. — The Coffee Plantation. —First Coffee in the West Indies. — Its Cultivation. — Temperature of the Coffee Region. — Blossoms and Fruit. — Picking and Preparing. — The High-Woods. — Their Grandeur. — Giant Trees. — Huge Buttresses. — Lianas, Ropes, and Cables. — Epiphytes and Parasites. — Aerial Gardens. — The Sulphur Stream.— The Cone.— The Summit. —The Portal.— Blasts of Hot Air. — Nature's Arcana. — Sulphur Crystals. — Erup- tions. — A Grand View. — Impenetrable Forests. — An Extinct Bird. — Juan Ponce de Leon. — The Fountain of Youth. — The Descent into Gloom 322 ILLUSTRATIONS. Engraved by John Andrew, from the Author's Photographs and Sketches. page The Island of Cocoa Palms Frontispiece. Roseau 9 The First Camp 14 Marie, the Naiad 31 Humming-Bird Hunters 47 Boiling Lake of Dominica 53 The Tropic Stream 59 An Indian Kitchen 81 Carib Girl 86 Ancient Caribs 94 The Sacrificial Stone 107 The Hunter's Bath 117 An "Ajoupa" 121 An Army of Crabs 139 Land Crab 146 The Biggest Bug in the World 155 A Group of Gamins 173 xvii XV111 ILLUSTRATIONS. Volcano and Lava River of St. Vincent 1S4 Toby 206 A Family Group of Indians 211 The Indian Zemi 223 Bread-Fruit and Cocoa-Palm 237 The Groo-groo Palm 242 Saint George's, Capital of Grenada 2S3 The Lake in a Crater 265 Palmiste — Glory of the Mountains 279 Creole Costumes and Head-Dress . 2S6 A Market Woman 287 The Wayside Shrine 289 The Widow and her Weed 295 Birthplace of Josephine 302 The Early Home of an Empress 313 Point a Pitre, Guadeloupe 323 The Guadeloupe Soufriere 341 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. CHAPTER I. DOMINICA. THE MYSTERIOUS OCEAN CURRENT. — DOMINICA AND COLUM- BUS. — ROSEAU AND ANTHONY TROLLOPE. — A WEST-INDIAN TOWN. — INTRODUCTION TO TROPICAL SCENES. — THE MOUN- TAINS. — THE FIRST CAMP. ALONG the entire group of the Caribbee Isles, sweeping their western shores, flows a strange, mysterious current. Not subject, apparently, to the laws that govern the winds and tides of this region, it for years puzzled and baffled the ablest navigators and oldest sailors. Among the northernmost of these islands large ships were often sunk, carried by the force of this unseen and unsuspected stream upon sunken reefs or barren rocks. Even so long ago as when Columbus was making his voyages, we have on record that he was detained by this very current among these same islands. It was not known until a comparatively recent period that it was the outflow of a mighty river — no less than the great Orinoco — that caused all this dis- turbance of waters, and that dependent upon its dif- 2 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. ferent stages was the force of this river through the sea. Though my first experience with this current was in January, when the Orinoco was at its lowest, and the consequent marine flow at its weakest stage, I yet had sufficient proof of its strength to understand how it was that vessels of all sizes were sometimes many days in making ports but few miles apart. We left the port of St. Pierre, Martinique, for that of Roseau, Dominica, the distance being less than thirty- five miles, and the channel separating the islands but twenty in width. Late in the afternoon we hoisted sail, taking a fair land-breeze from the mountains and getting a fresh blow from the trade-winds draw- ing through the channel, and at midnight were close under the southern point of Dominica, with a fair prospect, when I went below, of landing early in the morning. The captain, a good fellow, had given up to me, as the only white man on board the sloop, the only berth the cabin afforded. Into that I crawled, with a lurk- ing fear of centipedes and scorpions, and fell asleep. Soon the wheezy pumps awoke me, and a stream of water trickling through the uncalked deck gave assurance that the water in the hold was being pumped out. As this process was repeated every halt-hour, my sleep was not so sound that I did not frequently visit the deck, and at each succeeding visit note with alarm that the land line grew dimmer. Daylight revealed that we were much farther away from shore than at midnight, surely drifting to the north-west, with sail flapping idly and rudder useless. The sun was late in showing himself, for he had to climb well up the heavens ere he could look over the DOMINICA. 3 crest of the mountain-ridge that showed in the dis- tance cool and misty ; but as day advanced, and the hour of noon arrived, the cool hours of morning were more than compensated for by the intensity of the heat radiated from the glassy sea, — a heat that made itself felt with a glare that caused every one on board to seek earnestly a shady spot. And this was the " tropic sea " on which we were drifting, — the sea so often sung by the poet, the sea we had often contemplated in our fanciful dreaming in more northern climes. Like many an object of the poet's adoration, it is far pleasanter to look upon through his eyes than through visual organs of your own. Though the sun and sea made it painful to look abroad, there was nothing offensively new and glaring about the little sloop, that wearied the eye with bright colors. The prevailing color, in fact, was that of the wood of which it was built, the native wood of the island. The knees were of the natural twist and bend of the native trees ; the deck planking and sheathing were likewise of the native wood ; the mast, the boom, and the bowsprit were of the native woods of the island ; and captain and crew, doubt- less, also from the woods, — natives fresh from the native woods of Dominica. There were more than twenty people of color lounging in various attitudes about the deck. They seemed wholly indifferent to the fact that the vessel was drifting with them away from the island ; and when I suggested to the cap- tain that he utilize this material at the oars, there was a general howl of indignation. The captain also gazed at me like one who had heard informa- tion of a character novel and startling, and informed 4 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. me that what I proposed was not only useless, but impossible. Struggle against the current of the mighty Orinoco ! Attempt to baffle the wiles of a power unseen, that always had acted in just such a manner, and had carried him over the same course every voyage he had made ! It would be preposterous ! At night, the land-breeze would come down from the mountains, and he would claw in-shore without any trouble what- ever. Late in the afternoon, however, we descried a speck dancing on the waves, which speck was, of course, a boat ; and in that boat, when it reached us, I engaged passage for the shore, my unhappy companions drift- ing about until the next afternoon, sometimes in sight, sometimes lost to view for a long time. As we neared shore I had time to examine the character of the scenery of the western coast, as one object after another was unfolded, and the mass of green and blue resolved itself into wooded hills, narrow valleys, and misty mountain-tops that reached the clouds. A planter's house gleamed white in a valley ; a pebbly beach stretched between high bluffs, with a grove of cocoa palms half hiding a village of rude cabins along its border. I was approaching an island of historic interest and scenic beauty, of which the events of one and the elements of the other are little known to the world at large. It is the first island upon which Columbus landed on his second voyage. Having been first seen on Sunday, it was called by him Dominica, and this event 'dates from the 3d of November, 1493. Blest isle of the Sabbath day ! Many changes has it known DOMINICA. 5 since the great navigator first saw its blue mountains and landed upon its fragrant strand. Does it not read like a fairy tale, this second voyage of Columbus? With three ships and fourteen cara- vels, containing fifteen hundred persons, he set sail from Cadiz, touched at the Canary Isles, and then shaped his course for the islands of the Caribs, of whose prowess and fierce nature he had heard many stories from the mild people of Hispaniola. " At the dawn of day, November 3d, a lofty island was descried to the west. As the ships moved gently onward, other islands rose to sight, one after another, covered with forests and enlivened by flights of parrots and other tropical birds, while the whole air was sweetened by -the fragrance of the breezes which passed over them." Dominica is but thirty miles in length by eleven in breadth, yet presents a greater surface and more ob- stacles to travel to the square mile than any island of similar size in the West Indies. Well did Columbus illustrate its crumpled and uneven surface, when, in answer to his queen's inquiry regarding its appear- ance, he crushed a sheet of paper in his hand and threw it upon the table. In no other way could he better convey an idea of the furrowed hills and moun- tains, deeply cut and rent into ravines and hollowed into valleys. "To my mind," says Anthony Trollope, " Dominica, as seen from the sea, is by far the most picturesque of all these islands. Indeed, it would be hard to beat it either in color or grouping. It fills one with an ardent desire to be off and rambling among these mountains — as if one could ramble through such wild 6 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. bush country, or ramble at all with the thermometer at eighty-five degrees. But when one has only to think of such things, without any idea of doing them, neither the bushes nor the thermometer are consid- ered." In this, as in all his sketches, Mr. Trollope is right so far as he goes ; but he does not go far enough. "Filled with an ardent desire," he should have given those woods and mountains the months of camp-life that I did ; then would the world be richer in pictures of forest-life and mountain scenery that my poor pen so feebly tries to portray. As one writer, an intelligent geologist, once remarked: "No island in these seas is bolder in its general aspects, more picturesque and more beautiful in the detail of its scenery — indeed, one might be tempted to say, con- sidering its fortunes, that it has the fatal gift of beauty ! " At five o'clock, the gun in the fort starts off the bell in the cathedral spire. It is an hour before daylight, and even at six the mists of the valleys cover all, even to the mountain-tops. The sun climbs steadily, though it is eight o'clock before he has shown his face to Roseau, and darts over the mountain-tops to windward his scorching rays. It is interesting to watch the changes that come over the mountain sides and valleys as the sun dissipates the morning mists. Lake Mountain, four thousand feet in height, towers black against the sky; five miles it is from town, yet seems so close as to overshadow it. Its head is veiled more than half the time in mist. Stretching away north and south is a long line of hills, an isolated peak jutting up at intervals. Their summits are blue and purple in the distance. Within this line is a cordon DOMINICA. 7 of hills, with valleys deep and dark behind, half en- circling the town. These hills are broken and ragged, seamed and furrowed and scarred, yet are covered with a luxuriant vegetation of every shade of green : purple of mango and cacao, golden of cane and lime, orange and citron. Palms crown their ridges, culti- vated grounds infrequently gleam golden-brown on their slopes, and dense clouds come pouring over their crests from the Atlantic. North and south this bulwark of hills ends in huge cliffs plunged into the sea. Roseau is seated at the mouth of a valley formed by a river. From the centre of this valley there rises a hill — a mountain it is called here — Morne Bruce. From its smoothly-turfed crown the view of town and sea is superb, especially at sunset, when the sun sinks beyond the Caribbean Sea, and the cool even- ing breeze plays through the trees. From it we look upon the town ; many palm-trees, few houses, a rush- ing, roaring river that meets the sea in a surf-line like a northern snowdrift, a picturesque fort, the jail, the government house, and the Catholic cathedral — a building of stone, with arched windows and door- ways, short, though shapely spire — with a palm tall and slender, to lend grace and beauty ; westward, beyond the shore-line, the Caribbean Sea, its bosom, which glowed so fierily in the sunlight, now cool and inviting in its stillness. Looking eastward, one can see far into the Roseau Valley, to the wall of mountains, from which dashes out a great waterfall, dwindled to a mere silver thread in the distance. The Roseau River emerges into a plain beneath, a valley filled with cane, containing in its centre a planter's house and buildings palm-sur- 5 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. rounded, dashes over its rocky bed with a roar that reaches our ears even at this height of several hun- dred feet, and runs at the foot of a high white cliff across another plantation into the sea, peaceful enough at the end. The streets of Roseau are straight, paved with rough stone, and they never echo to the sound of wheels. They cross at right angles and dwindle down to three bridle-paths leading out of the town, one north and one south, along the coast, and one, narrow and tortuous, over the mountains to the eastward. Most of the houses are one-storied boxes of wood, with bonnet roofs, sixteen by twenty feet ; many in a state of de- cay, with tattered sides, bald spaces without shingles, and dragging doors and shutters. Every street, how- ever, is highly picturesque with this rough architect- ure, and with cocoa palms lining and terminating the vistas. The town is green with fruit-trees, and over broken roofs and garden walls of roughest masonry hang many strange fruits. Conspicuous are the mango, orange, lime, pawpaw, plantain, banana, and tamarind. Over all tower the cocoa palms, their long leaves quivering, their dense clusters of gold-green nuts drooping with their weight. From the mountains, from the " Sweet River," comes the purest of water, led in pipes through all the streets, and gushing out in never-ceasing flow from the sea wall on the shore. The market, near the south end of the town, a small square surrounded by stores, is the centre of attraction on Saturdays, when it is dense- ly packed with country people, black and yellow, who come, some of them, from points a dozen miles dis- tant, each with his bunch of plantains, or tray of DOMINICA. 9 bread-fruit. All are chattering, so that there is a very babel of sounds. Little stalls, temporarily erected, contain most villainous salt fish, ancient and vile- smelling, and every few feet is a table, presided over by a contented wench, who has for sale cakes and sweetmeats of her own manufacture. Roseau. Near the market is the fort, a low stone structure, pierced with loopholes, commanding from its high, bluff the roadstead, in which, save the trading-vessels and the weekly steamer, there are seldom any craft besides the sugar-vessels. Near the fort is the Eng- lish church, with a clock in its face, and four magnifi- cent palmistes to guard its entrance. Adjoining is the IO CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. government house in a garden of flowers ; and near, the court-house, of stone, yellow and low. Opposite, on a bluff overlooking the sea, is the public garden, neatly enclosed, tastefully ornamented; a few large trees, many roses, humming-birds, butterflies, and a grand view of the sea. The road leads by a broad green savane, near which is a ruined cemetery, down between long rows of lowly cabins, its bed green and grassy, within a stone's throw of the surf on the pebbly beach. This is Roseau, which I left one March morning for the mountains. Early came the women, who were sent by a kind friend to carry my luggage : heavy boxes and bales they had engaged to carry to the mountains on their heads. It was all the way as- cending, but they faithfully performed their duties, nor once complained. Astride an island colt, the loan of another friend, and accompanied by still another, whom I had met a few days before, I left behind me the town, and set my face to the moun- tains. Down the street, past the jail, across the river over an excellent bridge, under the cliffs of St. Aromant, into the banana and citron groves that lie at the moun- tain's base ; then Up higher and higher, the path grow- ing rocky and slippery, past the lovely valley of Shawford, where the house of my friend Stedman, built upon a small plateau, surrounded by hills, em- bowered in limes and plantains, overlooks a tropical garden. A mile above, we entered a deep ravine, where are the first perfect tree-ferns on the trail ; the gorge is filled with them, and the banks along the path are covered with smaller ones, infinitely beautiful. DOMINICA. II Here I first heard the melody of the " solitaire." Long since, the air of the town, hot and parching, had given place to cool and delicious breezes. We went out under the shade of trees, passing many a trickling stream, until an elevation of nearly two thousand feet was reached, w r hen we heard voices, and suddenly came upon a party of mountaineers (half Carib, half negro), naked to the waist, hatless, and armed each with his machete, or " cutlass," over two feet in length. They saluted us politely, however, and we passed on until near the " high woods," when we turned to the right and rode down a narrow trail under large trees, and reached finally a narrow gate of bars in a tall hedge of oleander. Descending rapidly from the forest was an open space of a hundred acres, perhaps, sloping westward, green as a sw r ard of guinea-grass could make it. Over this were scattered volcanic rocks and clumps of trees. This slope terminated abruptly in a cliff so steep that the people living here could not descend except by a long detour. Over this cliff fell the water- fall we saw in coming up. Deep ravines seamed it at intervals, all trending toward the valley wall, and on all sides but this were nothing but forest and hills. From one of the mountaineers I secured a cabin, one of the seven comprising this little hamlet, and before nightfall had comfortably established myself. My companion then left me alone to what proved but the first of many camps in tropical forests. 12 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. CHAPTER II. CAMP LIFE IN THE TROPICS. A MARCH MORNING. — MATIN MUSIC. — JEAN BAPTISTE. — SONNY. — BREAKFAST IN THE MOUNTAINS. — QUEER CUSTOMS. — DE- LIGHTFUL TEMPERATURE FOR MARCH. — THE HUNT FOR BIRDS. — A DAY'S DUTIES. — STRANGE BIRDS AND SCENERY. — THE "TREMBLEUR." — A PRECIPICE. — AN ORGAN-BIRD, THE "MOUN- TAIN WHISTLER." — BIRD NOTES. — MY CHASSEURS. — LAND CRABS. — ARDENT ASSISTANTS. — TWILIGHT. IT is a bright March morning. As I throw open the shutters of my shanty and let in the light of early day, I look out upon a scene of loveliness that it were worth many a day's journey to enjoy. From beyond the mountains, east, the sun has climbed a little way until he peers through a defile in the hills, and a rift in the cloud masses, and floods only a narrow pathway down the surrounding hills, their northern slopes, a bit of the gloomy valley miles below, and bursts upon the calm Caribbean Sea with concentrated glory. A sail, floating on that sea, drifted hither and thither by strong, unaccountable currents, — which came, perchance, from Martinique or Bar- bados to the south, or from Guadeloupe or Montserrat to the north, — is ablaze with light, which gives it the appearance of being on fire. No sound comes up from the valley below, nor from the surrounding mountain sides ; even the rain frogs and the nocturnal CAMP LIFE IN THE TROPICS. 1 3 cicada have closed their concerts and have left it to the birds to usher in the matin hour ; and they are singing in low, sweet strains far down in the gloomy ravines below, and in the thickets bordering distant glades. My first duty is to examine my thermometer. It registers sixty-eight degrees. That recorded, I step out and refresh myself with such ablution as can be enjoyed from a small calabash of rain-water. Soon, a little colored maiden appears bearing a tray with my coffee, and perhaps a cup of milk — oftener without. A cup of coffee and a slice of bread or a couple of crackers, is my only refreshment until noon, when I return from my tramp in the forest. When I first came to this mountain valley I brought with me a bright, colored boy as aid, fondly hop- ing he would be of much assistance in preparing my birds, as well as in the culinary line. But, alas ! in either profession he was singularly deficient, and save in the preservation of cooked provisions, — in other words, "to keep food from spoiling," — he was of no use whatever. After three days passed in his society we parted. There was also a question between him and Jean Baptiste (the proprietor of my humble cot), relat- ing to a few small articles that one night disappeared. Now, he was highly incensed that such a thing should happen within the limits of his jurisdiction, and made such a row about it that I concluded that it were best that " Sonny " and I should part, — with no regrets on my part, none expressed on his, — for the laboring class of the West Indies accept stoically whatever fate drops to them as their share. The salary I was pay- ing him was princely, being sixpence a day and" found," while the usual remuneration for such service as he 14 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. afforded me was three pence, and if "found," it was usually after a long search. Baptiste accepted the ex- pression of confidence that this act of mine implied, and took me at once under his protection and care ; hence it is that the little maiden aforesaid appears in the morning with my coffee ; at noon, when I return weary from the hunt, with a dish of eggs fried in oil and yam sauvage, and at dusk with the same, varied with a plate of mountain-cabbage, or salad, from the little wattle-enclosed garden on the hillside. The cabin of Bap- tiste is not far from mine, and my wants are promptly supplied when the hour ar- rives for meals, even almost anticipated. But there are many things connected with the attendance of my little cook and waiter that, in the light of my early education in New England, seem, to say the least, queer. For instance, when the knives and forks require clean- ing, their surplus coating is removed by being brought in close contact with the i ' WSmm The First £amp. skirts of her garment. I say garment, and use the word in the singular advisedly. CAMP LIFE IN THE TROPICS. 15 The spoons also are cleaned in the same way, and were it not that my eyes had beheld the process of polishing, I should not believe, as they nestled inno- cently together on the rough table, but that they had been subjected to the treatment customary in more civil- ized communities. My tin camp-cup, which has accom- panied me in all my camp-life, was often the object of her attention, and at that time it was doubtful to me whether she was washing the cup with her fingers or rinsing her fingers in the cup. At any rate, it shows a laudable desire to have my table furniture in good order, and I do not murmur ; but there is a cake of soap and a towel that I keep concealed from her sharp eyes, that, when not observed, I bring into frequent use on those same objects of her devotion. One day I was incautious enough to peer into the culinary department — a palm-thatched structure, black and grimy with smoke which escaped from the fire on the ground, as best it could, through the roof. Only once ! I did not wish again to view those ancient pots and kettles, the refuse of preceding feasts, nor to fight my way through the drove of hogs that trooped about the open door. Occasionally the thought obtrudes itself, "They do not have things like this in the States." This often makes me sad, but I raise my eyes, perhaps, and look out over the green slope, down upon the valley burst- ing with palms, and beyond the hills to the peaceful sea smiling in sunshine ; and I exult in the thought that these enjoyments far outweigh the little annoy- ances that I have described. And I take down the thermometer and find that it records, if morning, six- ty-eight to seventy degrees; if noon, seventy-six de- grees ; if evening, seventy degrees. And I again l6 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. reflect, " They can't show all these in the States — in March." But effectually to escape the train of thought that these observations might give rise to, I take my gun, ammunition, game-basket and note-book, and plunge into one of the lateral ravines that feed the huge gorge below. It is morning. The bread-fruit, mango, and limes that thickly stud the slope above are glistening with dew, and the low shrubs that line the ravine, as well as the taller trees that darken its recesses, are dropping copious showers. I am following the dry bed of a stream that shows, by huge rocks dislodged and excavated banks, what must have been its size and force in the rainy season. Ferns, lycopodiums, and matted and tangled roots conceal the earth and make every footstep a doubtful one, and the loose stones and rocks, with dark holes beneath and beside them, sug- gest most forcibly the possibility of the presence of snakes. But I am looking for birds (and snakes also, if they come in my way), and do not give them the attention that once I thought I should, when hear- ing tales of their abundance and venomous character in these islands. As this is a search for birds, the snakes shall be left for some future chapter. It is well known that each species of bird has its own peculiar haunt, where it feeds, sings, and sports itself. It has also a different haunt for different por- tions of the day, and the birds of the morning which we find in the ravine may be, in the evening, feeding or singing on the borders of open glades, or higher up the mountain sides. At mid-day you will find all under cover of the densest shade, and silent. It is in the morning that they may be founa in localities char- CAMP LIFE IN THE TROPICS. 17 acteristic of them. The first bird that greets me on the edge of the ravine is the humming-bird, as he dashes here and there from flower to flower, scatter- ing the dew-drops in tiny showers, and reflecting al- most prismatic hues from breast and back. There are three kinds here in this mountain valley, the smallest of which has a lovely crest of metallic green ; the largest, with a length of five inches, and stretch of wing of seven and a half, has a gorgeous garnet throat, purple back and wings, and tail of green, reflecting most delightful hues. The prevailing hue of the other species is green, with a throat sometimes green, some- times blue. I leave the humming-birds to my little chasseurs, who with bird-lime catch for me all I want. Of them more anon ; let us plunge into the ravine. A move- ment in the branches of a tall, slender tree claims at- tention. I look up ; see nothing. The broad, glossy leaves vibrate again, and I discern above the lower branches a bird the size and shape of our brown thrush ; he has a long, stout beak, a yellow eye, and a glossy, brown coat. He hops from twig to twig, feeding upon the coffee-like berries of this strange tree, silent, engaged in the gleaning of his morning meal. But however intent upon securing those white berries, the husks of which he drops almost upon my head, he does not forget to stop every few seconds and shake his wings and jerk his tail in a most comical manner. A hop, a quiver of wings and tail ; a skip, with accompanying shake all over ; a jump, with a convulsive shake, quivering and spasmodic twitching of head, wings, and tail. As I watch this inter- esting bird I am conscious of the presence of an- .9 IO CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. Other, and of several others also, which when they meet go through the most laughable series of bows, quivering of wings and caudatory vibrations. Well has this bird earned the title — universal, I believe, throughout the West Indies — of Trembleur. And now, the trembleurs having been attended to, I push on till I reach the brink of a precipice. A little stream that falls musically over the rocks and stones suddenly loses itself over the brow of this wall of green, on the summit of which I stand. Cautiously clinging to the trunk of a tree, I look down into the valley. The sight nearly makes me dizzy, for there, five hundred feet beneath me, I see tall trees as little shrubs, bananas and plantains as small plants, and huge boulders as pebbles. The roots I am standing on overhang the precipice, and the tree shoots out far over the dizzy height. Above the sighing of the wind in the tree-tops, and the music of the birds, and creak- ing of branches, is a roaring of water falling from im- mense height — a roar that drowns every other noise, and deafens the ear to every other sensation. Wend- ing my way along the brink, clinging to roots and trees, I soon reach a point where I can see, half-way down the perpendicular cliff, a sheet of foam ; a hun- dred yards farther another, falling from a lesser height, yet neither less than one hundred and fifty feet — the higher over two hundred. They are lost in a sea of green, reappearing far- ther on as a united stream, which rushes and roars over rocks, through gorges and at the base of mountains, through gardens of figs and plantains, beneath tower- ing, feathery palms, through green fields of cane, at last to reach the sea. CAMP LIFE IN THE TROPICS. IO, It is while carefully balancing myself on my shak- ing support of matted roots, that a sound comes to my ear through the roar of a waterfall — a sound strange- ly sweet, solemn, and impressive ; a mellow, organ- like note, clearer than any flute-tone, more thrilling than the solemn chant of sacred song in groined cathe- dral. It is repeated. I stand entranced, listening to melody that had never fallen on my ears before. The cause I cannot at first ascertain, for the notes seem ventriloquial ; and indeed they are so, for I search high and low, the leafy branches above my head, the densely clustered ferns at my feet, and the shrubs at my back, for many minutes, before I find the source of this mysterious music. Balanced airily on a lance-like bamboo that shot twenty feet beyond the brink of the cliff, poised in mid-air, with half a thou- sand feet of space between him and solid earth, is a daintily-shaped bird, clad in sober drab, save a dash of rouge beneath his throat, and of white here and there. Unconscious of surrounding things, animate and inanimate, he was devoting his powers to the pro- duction of that wonderful music. In the short space I here allot to myself I cannot describe the different notes ; surely no flute ever produced such mellow, liquid tones. It was music of unearthly sweetness, that, once heard, would never be forgotten — between the notes a long pause, that made them most im- pressive. It was not a song — though I discovered later that the little bird had a song — but simply the utterance of a few notes. Soon it ceased, and the bird flew into the near forest, where I soon discovered it 20 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. busily feeding upon the berries of a tall shrub, to the pendant branches of which it was clinging, now and then dashing at a fugitive bunch, apparently as ab- sorbed in this occupation as in his melodious lay of a few minutes before. Soon he ceased feeding, and commenced preening himself upon a naked limb ; then, after smoothing himself out, as it were, and drawing in and stretching out his neck, he suddenly dashed at a single berry, swallowed it to clear his throat, and recommenced to trill. He had uttered but a few notes when he silently flew to a dead branch ; a few more and he winged his way to a swinging " liane," where he hung suspended above a little ravine, in which is sunk a tiny stream, whose tinkling waters made music, though not so sweet and liquid as his. Then he disappeared in the dark recesses of the forest, where it would be useless to follow him, but whence came at intervals the ventriloquial music that seemed to float over my head and around me, though the bird was afar. This bird is called by my mountaineer friends, who have a name, and an applicable one, for everything in the forest, the ' ' Sifficur Montague" or "Mountain Whistler." I afterwards had one in captivity for several weeks, and notes on his behavior, song, and food would fill a column that my readers might think could be put to better use, but which would be val- uable to the ornithologist as the first records of an intimate acquaintance with this species. But let us go on. I will leave the deep valley be- hind me, with the roar of the waterfall gradually fall- ing, 'first to a monotonous hum, then ceasing entirely, and climb the bed of another water-course, now dry, CAMP LIFE IN THE TROPICS. 21 waiting for the summer rains. Soon I emerge into a grassy glade, surrounded by mango, coffee-trees, and trees resembling- the live-oak. The mangos are bris- tling with spikes of blossoms — white with thern — but not a bird nor a butterfly is hovering above them, though the surrounding trees and shrubs are alive with them. This is a fact I have long noticed, that the mango is ever deserted, though adjacent trees may be vocal with bird-music. But, flitting across this green glade, now bright under the rays of an ever-brightening sun, are many birds ; that is, many for this island, for it is not abundant in species, nor in numbers either, save of the humming-bird. There is a tree full of warblers of strange species — of Sucrier, or sugar-bird — a bird resembling our yellow warbler ; several of the more strictly fly-catching birds, and a few sparrows, grosbecs, and blackbirds. The three species of humming-bird are well represented, and dash hither and thither seeking their favorite food, indulging in mimic battles and amorous caresses. I push on, after an hour's stop, perhaps, over a rugged trail made by the half-wild cattle as they travel from glade to glade, and crossing another stream, climbing a hill, and descending into a ravine, I climb the steep slopes of the hill on which my cabin is perched. Every- thing is as I left it five hours before. The door, which is merely kept fastened by a stick braced against it, has not been opened ; but I find on the floor a clus- ter of oranges, a branch of fragrant lime-flowers for ray humming-birds, and a tastefully arranged bunch of roses from one of the girls. While I am putting the finishing touches to my bird- notes, the girl comes in with my lunch, and my little 22 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. chasseurs arrive with their collection of humming-birds. They only hunt at certain times of the day, when I can be near to attend to the little captives, according to my instructions, for they have a cruel way of tying them together if they keep them long. They are find- ing some new things every day, and as they have got the idea that I am collecting everything in shape of bird, beast, insect, and reptile, they bring me the result of each da}/'s "find." Sometimes it is a snail, a fat caterpillar hideous in its slimy skin, a butterfly, a beetle, or a spider. At one time, from an incautious remark that I made to the effect that I would like a specimen of the curious land-crab which abounds in the ravines and rivulet banks, they conceived the idea of supplying me with the crustacean just mentioned. Each boy and girl on the place resolved to be the first to furnish me with the coveted crab. The consequence was that my place was soon overrun with shell-fish — ugly red and yellow crabs — as large as a man's hand, and from that to the most diminutive. One of the girls in a mischievous mood brought in a crab with a family of little ones, over a hundred, just large enough to be seen, and let them loose on the floor. Through some open window, while I was absent, some giant crab would be dropped on the floor to await my arrival. This was not done in a spirit of mischief, but from an earnest desire to aid me in my labors. For a week alter I could not stir without coming in contact with a shelly creature. I could not put my foot out of bed without a shudder of apprehension. Of nights I would be awakened by a rattling of ale-bottles, and 'arising would discover that some crab had got thirsty during the night, and had inserted a claw which CAMP LIFE IN THE TROPICS. 23 had caught in the neck of a bottle. Or, as one other night, when my slumbers were broken by a mysterious rattling, and I awoke (thinking that, as Jean Baptiste had prophesied, the "jumbies " had come for me, as they come for everybody who sleeps alone in a strange house), to. find another crab vexing his soul in vain en- deavors to shin the broom-handle. It may be surmised that I soon informed my corps of naturalists that I could dispense with their services, and now I am again a lone investigator dependent upon his sole endeavors. In the afternoon I sit down by the loophole that serves as window, (where by raising my eyes I can at any time look off upon the peaceful Caribbean Sea,) gather my birds about me, and, after noting their measurements and other data necessary to aid in their identification, proceed to skin and preserve them pre- paratory to their long journey to the" States." It is near sunset when this is finished, and after supper I climb into my hammock, or sit on my threshold, watching the sun go down behind the mountains. If I were a little further to the north I could see him down clear to the sea ; and, in fact, I often climb a spur of a near hill, where are buried the ancestors of the present res- idents of Laudat, and watch the sun as he dips below the sea, just gilding with his parting rays the rude crosses that mark the last resting-place of those buried beneath them. But what I have been most disappointed in as the sun sets, is the absence of that prolonged twilight, which makes our evenings of early summer in the north so delightful ; when, after the sun goes down, there re- mains that blissful lingering of day with night, when the softened light fades so gradually away that we 24 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. cannot tell at what precise moment, or how, it left us ; and when the song of the robin fills the air with mel- ody that many other of our birds keep up in the fields and orchards till late at night. There is none of that here. More than once I have said to myself, as the sun hid his face behind the dark ridge of mountain, leaving the trees sharply outlined against the clear sky — more than once I have repeated, "Now I will sit in the doorway and enjoy the twilight." But I had scarcely found and filled my pipe, and settled myself comfortably in doorway or hammock, when twilight was gone, and the fast-gathering darkness had hid the valleys, and was climbing the western slopes of the mountains. The stars, already out, shine with a liquid brilliancy that causes you to forget the absence of dusk, and you give yourself up to the contempla- tion of the lighted heavens, losing yourself in thought, wandering perhaps in meditation back to the land you have left, over which the same sky stretches and stars gleam ; but not with the clearness of the one, nor the soft brilliancy of the other — at least not at this present season. MY FIRST CAMP. 25 CHAPTER III. IN AND ABOUT MY FIRST CAMP. THE CARIBBEAN SEA, ITS DECEPTIVE APPEARANCE AND PLA- CIDITY. — MY NEIGHBORS, THE MOUNTAINEERS, THEIR SAY- INGS AND WISE SAWS. — A FRENCH MISSIONARY NEEDED. — THE IGUANA AND ITS FLESH. — GLIMPSES OF MRS. GRUNDY. — A WORK OF ART. — CRUISING FOR CRUSTACEANS. — THE "GRIVES." — MARIE. — LONG-TAILED DECAPODS. — " WHERE CRABS GROW." — "WAIT THERE, MONSIEUR." — ASTONISHED. — SHOCKED. — THE RIVER. — DRENCHED. — A NAIAD. — A VIC- TIM TO SCIENCE. — FOOD FOR THE GODS. THE pictures seen from my cabin door are beau- tiful, but all suggest alike the sea. Detached peaks rise to the eastward and southward, connected by a continuous chain of hills to the sea. Their line is irregular, and very shapely are those mountain- peaks, clothed with verdure to their summits. The broken slope in front of my cabin slants rapidly to the precipice that borders the valley containing the river which hastens to the sea. Outlined against its silvery. surface are dark green mountains; a loosely branched tree stands out against it as against the sky ; palms, with gracefully spreading foliage, show dark against it. It spreads so far and wide, and seems to climb so high to meet the sky, that it is hardly pos- sible to tell where sea leaves off and sky begins. Every day I am puzzled to ascertain the horizon line. 26 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. Every day it blends into sky so softly that all seems sky, or all maybe sea. Is the sky blue, so is the sea; is it smoky pearl, the sea is dim, and hides its face beneath a hazy cloud. A cloudy day, with the sun shining on the water from behind the clouds, turning the sea to burnished and glistening silver, is as puz- zling as a day with sky of clearest ether, for the sun, reflected from the glowing surface of the sea, dissipates the line of demarkation in the glare of the reflection. There are times when the sea does not rise up to meet the sky, but spreads out miles and miles, until I almost fancy I can see to Aves Island — that solitary island far west in the Caribbean Sea, where a colony of birds breed on the sands. The best view is ob- tained at sunset; then, whether the bright orb dis- appears behind the mountains without a cloud, or whether he leaves a threatening array, clad in armor of gold and silver, the horizon line is well defined. At moonlight also, when mountains and valleys are but gradations in depth of shadow, the sea reposes peacefully beneath moon and stars, content to rest itself as a sea, and claiming no affinity with the vault above. It seems to me that it changes every time I look upon it — pearl-blue, silver shot with gold, hazy depths, from which no light is shown, and again a sea of deepest ether. It has never been otherwise than calm and placid, though the fierce winds that some- times sweep down from these mountains and dive into the valleys are enough to ruffle the tranquillity of any sea. Indeed, it is a well-known fact that vessels are often becalmed under the lee of these Caribbee islands for days together, and there is not even a swell to MY FIRST CAMP. 2*J break the monotony of existence on board. I can see white sails, sails of sloops, of schooners, of ships, drifting lazily over the placid sea. Sometimes the morning will reveal the sail of the evening before — the sail that I watched as I swung listlessly in my hammock. It is one of the pleasures of existence here that I can at any time have within my view the still, dreamy, beautiful sea of the Antilles. It is not always so peaceful. In the " hurricane season," when the tempests devastate these islands, it rises in its wrath — not like the miserable Atlantic, though, always in commotion ; it is disturbed only by a hurri- cane — nothing less. A century ago or thereabouts, there came to this mountain retreat, then unbroken wilderness, (as now it is, save this little clearing) that sanguine French- man, Jean Baptiste Laudat. Tradition says he came from his native isle of Martinique or Guadeloupe, and here looked about him for a wife. It is more proba- ble, though, that he brought her with him as a slave, and that she was black ; and that there afterwards got admixed a soupfon of Carib blood is manifest in the color of these, his descendants. They are not yellow, or bright olive like the Carib, but of a rich brown, with long hair, black and wavy. That the air of these mountains is conducive to health, their size, plumpness and activity prove. There are but five families, ruled over by the present Jean Baptiste, who inherits his power from his deceased grandfather, as eldest son. With him lives his mother, a yellow-skinned old lady of eighty, who hobbles about with a cane, and is a fre- quent visitor at the door of my hut. Now, this old 28 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. lady and her Jean can speak what they flatter them- selves passes for English, but their native tongue is the perverted French of their white ancestor. To a Parisian, their perversion of the French verb faire would be sufficient to drive him crazy. For instance, the old lady strives to make intelligible the number of her grandchildren and their respective parents: "My zon, Jean, he make ze enfans seex ; Ma fille, he make huit, and tout les enfans make seexty." She passed my door one afternoon as I was busy preparing my collections for preservation, and told me confidently that she was going to " make petit walk," but a wail from the house of her eldest son caused her to hurry her old limbs to soothe the child " zat make ze cry." " Me make my sleep," is a com- mon expression. Jean B. is full of wise sayings, and gives vent to some very strange expressions. One day I returned from a long hunt in a heavy rain, and my worthy friend was greatly exercised that I did not immediate- ly change my clothing. " Who drink ze watah," said he. " It is youselfs feet ; " meaning that the moisture had been absorbed into my system. "White man next to God (ze Mon Dieu)" "White man not like colored, he no eat ze bones of ze poule." " I tank ze Mon Dieu ef I speaks ze Engleesh." He exercised a sort of paternal sovereignty over me, as the first white man who had honored his little hamlet with his pres- ence, and many a day has he staid from his labor in the mountains to procure something for my table, or some new bird. One day he brought to my door an iguana, nearly five feet in length, and very ugly. He had seen it MY FIRST CAMP. 20, basking on a limb beneath the cliff and had pinned it with a long bamboo, while his brother secured it with a noose made from a liane. I expressed a desire to obtain its skin, and hastened to do so, but a woman was already scorching the scales, which she afterward scraped off in water. It looked quite repulsive, but a piece which they later sent me I ate, finding it sweet, tender, and white, not unlike chicken. This is the season (March and April) when the iguana leaves the rocks and precipices, and takes to the trees. He lives on grass and leaves, principally, if not solely, and only frequents the trees, they say, during the dry season ; then he is hunted. During the wet season he lives in his hole, or if he comes out he is hard to find. The dogs of Laudat are trained to hunt this lizard. I always held that for darning, pure and simple, our good old grandmothers f the good old times held rank -par excellence. This was conclusively proven one day, when, having made a long rent in the leg of an old pair of trowsers, I took them to Mrs. Jean Bap- tiste to be repaired. As I turned to go I was arrested by an exclamation, and looking back found her at- tentively examining them. Now, they were very old ; how they got mixed up with the rest of my wardrobe I do not know ; but as they were there I made use of them in the woods, intending to leave them there, peradventure they survived. Years before they had been patched by my grand- mother ; that maternal relative had a passion for darn- ing perfectly unaccountable. Like Alexander, she would shed tears when there were no more conquests to make in her world of darning, and a new pair of pantaloons, or a coat without a rent, was to her a 30 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. source of grief. How eagerly she would seize upon a garment that showed signs of dissolution ! Jabbering a few hurried words in patois to a gargon who quickly departed, Mrs. Jean Baptiste sat down with the garment in her hands to await the arrival, as I soon found, of the adult female population of Laudat. When they had all arrived she arose and displayed to their united view the broadest part of my inoffensive nether habiliments. At first they were speechless with admiration, but soon broke forth into a chorus of Mon Dieus ! each one reaching forward for a closer inspec- tion. The simple explanation of this is, they recognized the work of a master-hand. Had some connoisseur of paintings found in a garret — as some one is con- stantly finding in a garret — a painting that, the dust being removed, disclosed a Murillo or a Van Dyke, he could not have been more delighted and surprised. I say delighted, but sober reflection convinced them that such handiwork should not be shown their lords and masters ; and they grew troubled lest they should see this masterpiece, and becoming dissatisfied with their spouses' needlework, eventually sue for divorce on grounds of incompetency, or some kindred cause. Then they desired I should teach them ; but I pro- tested that I never had taken lessons in that science, and that unless they could puzzle it out for themselves, the art, as an art, must be a lost one to them. Mine host heard of it, however, and to him I gave the garment. And it is said that he has caused to be preserved (by framing or some other way) that design in darning, and, having lopped off the legs for his youngest son, regards the remainder as an art treasure of the highest MY FIRST CAMP. 31 yVlARIE. value. If his wife gets refractory he has but to point with warning gesture at that specimen of needlework, and she at once subsides. Even in this wild island, in the depths of the deepest forest, there exists that fear of Mrs. Grundy that smoul- ders in the human breast in town and city. Though the young people of the mountains go about for days and weeks with nothing on but a single gown or rag- ged shirt, when the time comes for going to town they must carry with them all they possess in the way of a wardrobe ; and they will carry on tneir neads a large 32 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. Indian pannier, or basket, with nothing in it but their best clothes. When they reach the banks of the last stream nearest town they don their finery, and cram their unwilling feet into unaccustomed shoes, and then limp painfully into the metropolis, conscious that they are objects of envy and admiration. They are really prettier in the more becoming cos- tume of the mountains — a simple dress gathered about the hips, reaching to the knees ; and men and boys handsomer in merely cotton pants, with broad breast and muscular arms exposed. I have seen the policemen, when in secluded country districts, walk- ing with their shoes held carefully under their arm. Though improvident of time, these people are very careful of their clothing. Jean Baptiste came in one day with a bunch of " grives," or large thrushes, which are excellent eating and desirable specimens. At my request he went down into the woods and showed me the tree on which, morning and afternoon, they could be found feeding. It was then noon, and I could not find any ; but next morning I started out with the intention of bagging a few. Heavy showers came down every half-hour, but I donned my rubber poncho, and waded on through the wet forest, with my gun securely covered. My course lay down the south ravine. On the hill to the right was a tall figuier tree, the fruit of which is liked by the birds. This fruit resembles in shape, size and color, a cranberry, and is attached to the twigs in clusters of two and three. Now, I could have sworn to the exact position of that tree ; yet, having tramped doggedly through the rain for more than half an hour without seeing any MY FIRST CAMP. 33 familiar tree or shrub, I began to look about me sharply. Though I had noted the direction in my mind's eye when shown the tree, I overshot it in my search and got farther down. A group of tree-ferns I remembered ; farther on, across a brook, was a large rock — all right; but where was the ants' nest in a dead tree that I had especially noted? To understand why all my landmarks were small and insignificant, the reader must be informed that in these woods the trees are so large and shoot up so high that their crowns afford no means of identi- fying them ; and all their trunks are so much alike, enveloped in masses of vines and ferns, that other ob- jects must be chosen to guide the hunter in his rambles here. Under thick foliage I went, until the roar of the large waterfall came up to me, and I knew I must retrace my steps, as the tree was on the ridge between the two streams. At once I was stopped by seeing on the ground be- fore me scattered shreds of jlguier fruit, and looking up, saw the tree above me. As I had approached from the side opposite to that of my first visit, its sur- roundings had seemed changed. The rain came down in torrents, but glanced harmlessly from my poncho. It was tiresome waiting, but I secured all I wanted of the grives and went back to the main trail leading to the Boiling Lake, and sat down on a rock in a more open part of the forest, to try to secure a few humming-birds. The rain had ceased, and the sun was shining outside. Yielding to the overpowering influence of silence and solitude, I was indulging in a day-dream, when a voice awoke me : 3 34 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. " Bon jour, monsieur I " I looked up, and saw two brown-skinned maidens. One was a little mulattress, about ten years old ; the other was Marie — light-hearted, sunny Marie — in whose veins flowed the blood of three races. The blood of the African showed in her wavy hair and full lips, and told what was the original stock with which that of the Carib was mingled ; and that of the jovial Frenchman, who had wandered to these wilds years and years ago, gave the roundness and suppleness of limb, the quick merry eye, the oval cheek, and little hands and feet. " Bon jour ', Mademoiselle Marie: where are you going?" " Pour chercher les ecrevisse " — To look for cray- fish. Crayfish ! Why, just what I wanted ; for I had promised one of the professors in Washington to make collections of these very animals. I glanced up through a hole in the leafy roof above me and judged it was about ten o'clock, unless the sun's rays were refracted in coming through. " Have you anything for me to eat, Marie?" "Yes, monsieur." " Then I will go with you." " It gives me much plaisir, monsieur." "Well, lead the way." Reader, if you look in a work on natural history for information regarding the crayfish, you will find it there given as a " long-tailed decapod ; " and, pur- suing the subject still farther, you will see that it is also crustacean — a " decapod crustacean." And thus you might follow the author up to the branch articu' MY FIRST CAMP. 35 lata, and back again through all its divisions and ramifications, and all you will know about it will be that it is a long-tailed decapod, and inhabits fresh- water streams. Long-tailed decapod, forsooth ! Come with me, reader, and I will show you more of crayfish and their ways than you can learn in a week of books. Follow in my wake, or, as the path is slippery, take good hold of my hand. The way leads up hill and over rocks, wet and smooth, for perhaps a mile. Don't mind the wet leaves that continually flap in your face, or the vines and creeping ferns that vex your feet. Take a good grip and come along. In the language of the immortal bard (who, by the way, never knew of crayfish like these) : " I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow." We may have completed a mile, when Marie stopped : " Stay here, monsieur." I staid, while she went behind a large rock and removed her shoes. Then I was allowed to follow on until the path was left, and we entered the deeper woods to descend to the river. Opposite another huge rock she stopped again. "Wait there, monsieur." Behind this rock she darted with her little companion, and shortly re- appeared. Satyrs and wood-nymphs ! I thought these girls about as thinly clad as possible when they disap- peared behind the rock, but I declare in all serious- ness, they had left a large bundle of clothes behind. What a mysterious combination is woman ! And there they stood, laughing and blushing, in a single dress each, loosely gathered at the shoulders, and at 36 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. the waist by a girdle. This was becoming serious. If there were any more rocks in our path, I felt morally certain they would dodge behind them. And then how would they appear? My hair began to bristle. I was resolved to stop it at all hazards. " Look here, Marie ! " " Yes, monsieur." " Don't do that any more." "What, monsieur?" "Don't go behind any more rocks; don't take off any more garments." " Why no, monsieur ; it is impossible !" No amount of italicizing or exclamation-points can render the astonishment in her tone as she thus as- sured me ; and feeling that I could then safely proceed, I gave the order to go on. We reached the river — the stream that flows out of the mountain lake — broad and with gravelly beach, with immense bowlders as islands, and a wall of vegetation on either side that rose straight up a hundred feet. Here my guides left me to my own devices and waded into the stream in search of crayfish. I saw a bird I had not seen before, and pursued it along the shore until stopped by a cascade. It was within shot, however, and at the report of my gun it fell into a little pool. The rocks were smooth as glass, and my great boots, though good protection from the vines and thorns, were but poor aids in clambering over these rocks. The result was that I unexpectedly sat down upon a rock, and very sud- denly I came down, too. There was a stream of water rushing over that rock six inches in depth, so that my fall did not hurt me ; but the rapid-flowing sheet struck my back with great force, and climbed MY FIRST CAMP. 37 up over my coat-collar so rapidly that I was im- mediately as bloated as a bull-frog. The rain had long ago drenched me, but, though wet before, I did not care to get wet behind. My half-smothered yells brought Marie to my as- sistance, and she rescued me and the bird, and then suggested I could wade better with my boots off. Happy thought ! The boots were removed. I need not detail, to any one who has had the experience, the pleasure of wading barefoot over stones and rocks for .the first time in years. A little torture was enough for me, and in half an hour I was quietly seated, dry- ing in the sun, watching 1 the girls at their work. The stream was broad, with deep pools, and in these pools the crayfish lurked, looking like miniature lobsters through the clear water. I could see only the small ones, but Marie assured me there were large ones out of sight beneath the cascades. I was glad of that, for several severe nips from these small ones had given me enough of crayfish, and I did not care whether my friends in America ever got a specimen. Erect upon the rock she stood a moment, then plunged head-foremost into a foaming pool, disap- pearing from sight. A moment later, rising bubbles preceded a round little head, from which hung long, limp tresses ; a pair of shoulders brown and bare, and round arms and little hands reaching out for a support. She had a crayfish in each hand, and another, with wriggling legs, in her mouth. These she handed to the little girl on the rock near me, and then climbed out and stood erect, with heaving bosom and parted lips, and nonchalantly gathered up her dripping skirts and wrung from them the water. Outlined 38 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. against that wonderful background of tropical leaves, with its depths of shade and gleams of light, with the water dashing against the rock upon which she stood, and parting in sheets of foam, what a charming naiad she appeared ! Naiad she may have been, but she could hardly have been called a Dry-ad, as the water had caused her garment to cling closely to her shapely figure, and was pouring from it. Once, breathless and excited, she arose, and came to me with an ugly water scorpion between her fingers, one of which was red and swollen, where the venom- ous thing had bitten it. Thus we went on up the stream until near the mountain lake, when our way was stopped by a jam of broken limbs. Then we turned down again until halted by a series of wells, worn from the rock by the action of the water, twenty feet deep, into which the flood plunged wildly, ever descending, on its way to the grand leap of two hundred feet into the valley below. While my companions searched a side stream I remained on the banks by the trail. Daylight waned and they came not ; the gathering gloom urged me to be up and on my way home ; but the trail was obscured, and I was not sure of reaching my hut in the dark without a guide, So I waited, perforce. Everything living seemed to have left the river's banks, and the only companion to my solitude was a gayly-colored lizard, which lay upon a branch and watched me. In the interest of science — but against my better feelings — I held a bottle before his nose, and he walked into it. Then I put in the cork, and later he was having his fill of rum ; not the first victim of the bottle — and of science. Voices reached me not long after, and none too MY FIRST CAMP. 39 soon, for we had hardly light enough to reach the main path. Late as it was, however, Marie prepared some of the fish when she reached her mother's house, and sent them to me with some fragrant limes and a spicy pepper. The delicate flesh as far surpasses that of the coarse, garbage-feeding lobster in flavor, as a " saddle-rock " does a coon oyster. With a drip- ping of lime-juice and a dash of West India pepper, some Peak & Freans' biscuit and a bottle of Tennant's pale ale, I supped so delightfully that all my mishaps were forgotten. I even queried whether crayfish- hunting, with a dusky maiden of sixteen, who ex- tended a helping hand when you slipped, laughed merrily when you fell, talked musical patois as she pattered along, were not better than hunting through musty books. 4-0 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. CHAPTER IV. THE SUNSET-BIRD. — HUMMING-BIRDS. THE CRATER-TARN. — TEMPORARY CAMPS. — THE " SOLEIL COU- CHER." — "HEAR THE SUNSET." — A BIRD POSSESSED OF THE DEVIL. — THE CAPTURE. — A SPECIES NEW TO THE WORLD. — FOUR SPECIES OF HUMMING-BIRDS. — THE GARNET-THROAT AND GILT-CRESTED. — DAN, THE HUNTER. — CATCHING BIRDS WITH BREAD-FRUIT JUICE. — IN CAPTIVITY. — DEATH. — THEIR FOOD. — METHODS OF CAPTURE. — THE HUMMING-BIRD GUN. — THE AERIAL DANCE. IN all the Caribbee Islands there are volcanoes, many of them still at work, ejecting, not lava, but steam and sulphur fumes. In the mountains one finds numerous tarns of clear, cold water, filling these ex- tinct craters to the brim, and pouring their surplus flood down the mountain sides to form rivers in the valleys below. How came they there, these lakes of unknown depth? Are they fed by subterranean streams, or have the craters become choked, and, in- stead of vomiting forth water, and gases generated in the center of the earth, become merely receptacles for the drainage of surrounding mountains? Who knows? We only know that we cannot sound their depths with plummet-line, and that the water is pure and tasteless. Ages and ages have they existed here, and he must be more than geologist, and acquainted with the plans of a great Creator, who would answer these questions. THE SUNSET-BIRD. 41 Such an one was the little lake above my first camp in the mountains. Twenty-three hundred feet above the sea, right in the crest of the mountain-ridge, sur- rounded by the most wonderful vegetation ever be- held by man, it reposed in solitude. On all sides but one the hills rose above it, dipping toward it and forming' a hollow through which rushed the trade- winds from the Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea. The trail leading from sea to ocean passed near it, and a cave, hollowed from a clayey bank, gave shelter from rains to the passers-by and to the people from the coast who sometimes came marooning here. A tree-fern, between path and lake, arose above the matted carpet of wild plants beneath. From my permanent camp I frequently went out into the forest for days, taking with me a young Indian as porter and guide. Leaving this mountain lake, one day, we took a little-used trail along the ridge to the northward. Late in the afternoon we came to another solitary lake, ringed round with giant trees. To my surprise, my guide at once made prepa- rations for a camp, or an ajoupa, as he called the primitive structure hastily erected every night to shel- ter us from the damp. Darkness settles swiftly in these tropic forests. No sooner is the sun down than night is upon you ; con- sequently we always camped as soon as the sun had set, for traveling after dark in these wilds is a thing impossible. I objected to camping then, thinking we had at least another hour of daylight, though I could not tell, the forest was so dense, when he quickly de- manded : "What ! vou no hear the sunset?" 42 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. I was astonished. "Hear the sunset ! No, cer- tainly not ! " "Ah, monsieur, me no mean the great sun, I e grand soleil, but the bird called the c Sunset-bird,' *Le Soleil Couchcr.'' " Here was a mystery, an object worthy of investi- gation — a bird that acted as the forester's clock, that told him the time to go to bed. At once I proposed to go in search of it ; but my guide piteously pro- tested, declaring that it was a " jumbie-bird," — a bird possessed of the devil, — and that to kill it would not only endanger my life, but bring death to the settle- ment. Half an hour before sunset it utters its pecu- liar cry, and half an hour before sunrise ; during the day it is silent. " Listen ! " said my guide. In a few minutes there rang through the forest a cry weird and mournful, yet having in its notes a resemblance to the words soleil couchcr — the equivalent in patois for sunset. It was repeated by another bird and another, all around the lake, one answering another. In less than half an hour darkness had covered us, and the cries had ceased. Grand old trees towered above me, their branches matted together and hung with cable-like vines. In the morning, I listened eagerly for a repetition of the sounds of the night before, and was out and away down to the lake-border with my gun, before my guide was awake, or daylight had made it safe to walk abroad. I was rewarded — "soleil coucher!" right over my head. Eagerly I gazed, but saw noth- ing. The sound was repeated, and by other birds. In the darkness it was impossible to distinguish any- thing, though never so near. THE SUNSET-BIRD. 43 Impatiently I awaited the coming of dawn, which with its first indications rewarded my search. I saw a dusky body, a bird so small that I concluded it could not be the author of so loud a cry. But in a few minutes I noted it in the very act ; and almost before it had finished its note, and while the final cadence was quavering on the air, the sound of my gun announced to my guide that the deed was done, and it was now too late to avert the vengeance of the evil spirits. Regardless of his lamentations, I stood absorbed in the contemplation of the bird now in my hand. That it was a new bird I felt certain, and im- mediately — as soon as my agitation had subsided — I wrote a description of it. In shape and size it resembles the "king-bird," so familiar to dwellers of the north ; it is eight and one-half inches in length ; its upper plumage is dark brown : quills brownish-black; under the wings pale yellow ; throat and upper parts of breast and sides clear bluish-gray; portion of breast and under parts pale yellow; bill broad and thin, and black like the feet.* Six months later this bird reposed in the Museum at Washington, and I received from the ornithologists (as I was then at work in a distant island) a notifi- cation to the effect that it was a neiv species, and had been named the Myiarchus Oberi. Though I after- ward discovered many new birds, there was not one with which it would have given me greater satisfac- tion to have my name identified. * The reader is referred, for farther information upon the birds captured by the author, to the list of Birds of the Lesser Antilles, in the Appendix. 44 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. Standing there by that silent lake, the morning mist enshrouding me, that strange bird in my hand, I fell at once into a train of musing suggested by the thought that this might prove a species new to the world. There is something in such a thought inexpressibly thrilling : to feel that to you alone has been vouchsafed the first glance at a being that has existed for ages undiscov- ered and unknown ; has lived and breathed and sung, generation after generation of the same type ; and that you, who now hold its breathless form in your hand, are the first to look upon it ! At this age of the world, when man has searched the remotest confines of the globe, to find an animal so high in the scale as this — that has heart and lungs, and in whose veins the blood courses warm and red — is considered an event worthy of chronicling in annals that endure for more than a single generation. Like these were my reflections that morning, — meditations that caused me to ignore the superstition of my ignorant friend, whose uneasiness regarding the lives of those whom he considered I had placed in jeopardy, was not soon allayed. Four species of humming-birds greeted me in my first camp in the tropics. They fairly lit up the val- ley with their gleaming coats ; not a bush or tree in flower that did not have one or more hovering above it from morning till night. Until the New World was discovered, the humming- bird was not known to Europe. Though roaming from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic, it is ever American, and never extends its migrations beyond the limits of the Western continents. Of all the creations of bird-life HUMMING-BIRDS. 45 this is the most beautiful, the most minute. Depend- ing upon no single feature for attraction, — upon no one plume or tuft of feathers, like the bird of para- dise, upon no broad-spread, glaring colors, like the parrot, — it is, in fact, the gem of the feathered world. So often have poet and naturalist compared it, in the brilliance of its flashing colors, to the gems of the min- eral kingdom, that they have left little to be said, and I can but repeat that it is now a topaz, now an em- erald, a turquoise, or a ruby. East of the Mississippi and north of Florida there is but one species that can be called a regular visitor ; this is the well-known ruby-throated humming-bird of the North. As we go 'south we find them increasing, both in species and in number, until the region of greatest abundance is reached near the Equator. In Dominica, half-way down the Antilles, and six- teen degrees north of the Equator, I found four spe- cies to replace the single one visiting the North, the smallest of which were as large as the ruby-throat, and the largest two inches longer. This latter is called the garnet-throated hummer, and is five and one-half inches in length, and seven in stretch of wing. It is the most abundant, as well as the most beautiful, and loves the mountain valleys, where are gardens of plantains and fragrant flowers. Its bill and feet are black ; a brilliant gorget of garnet extends from beak to breast, each feather of which is semicircular, and of the deepest crimson with gold reflections. It should be seen poised in air hovering above a flower, or preening itself upon a dry branch, with the full blaze of a tropic sunshine glancing from its throat, for one to form an adequate conception of 46 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. its beauty. The back is black with a blue shade, like blue-black velvet ; wing and tail-coverts rich green with bronze reflections ; all the feathers, be it noticed, changing with every light that falls upon them. There are two species that measure an inch less in length, that have the crimson or garnet throat replaced by metallic green and violet, and with backs of green instead of blue-black. The fourth, and smallest, is a little fellow, found everywhere, from coast to mountain- top, in the gardens of the town and over the barren hills. From his eccentric motions, he is called the "fou-fou? or crazy-crazy, for he darts hither, thither, up, down, round and round, with seemingly aimless purpose. He is sober in hue, and has only a little pointed crest to give him beauty. But this little hel- met of metallic green, now shining golden, now pur- ple even, and steel-blue, flashes every ray of the sun from its bright surface. His head is generally carried with the beak pointing downward, so that the crest is always seen 'to the best advantage. There were three little chasseurs who used to sup- ply me with every bug and bird within their reach. It takes a boy, especially a boy of the woods, to find out the haunts of the denizens of the forest ; and but for these little collectors, my specimens would have been fewer in number. Let us follow little Dan, the eldest and sharpest of the humming-bird hunters, as he goes out for birds. First he goes to a tree called the mountain palm, which replaces the cocoa palm in the mountains, the latter growing only along the coast. Beneath the tree are some fallen leaves, fif- teen feet in length ; these he seizes and strips, leav- ing the mid-rib bare, a long, slender stem, tapering HUMMING-BIRDS. 47 ilf|f r to a point. Upon this tip he places a lump of bird-lime, to make which he had collected the inspissated juice of the bread-fruit, and chewed J-iuMMiNG-BiRD j-IuNTER.s. it to the consistency of soft wax. Scattered over the savanna are many clumps of flowering bushes, over whose crimson and snowy blossoms humming- birds are dashing, inserting their beaks in the hon- eyed corollas ; after active forays, resting upon some bare twig, pruning and preening their feathers. Cau- tiously creeping toward a bush upon which one of these little beauties is resting, the hunter extends the palm-rib, with its treacherous coating of gum. The bird eyes it curiously, but fearlessly, as it approaches his resting-place, even pecking at it ; but the next mo- ment he is dangling helplessly, beating the air with 48 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. buzzing wings in vain efforts to escape the clutches of that tenacious gum. The humming-birds brought me alive, I would place in a large gauze-covered box ; but they seldom sur- vived many days, notwithstanding great care. If exposed to the light, they kept up a constant flutter- ing until the muscles of their wings became so stiff they could not close them, and they expired with wings wide outstretched. Some would take their cap- tivity quietly, and though flitting now and then to the front of the box when light was admitted, would sit upright upon the perch, giving an occasional chirp, and dressing their feathers as serenely as if in the open air. They would seem happy and cheerful ; but the fact is, they are creatures of light and sun- shine, and cannot exist without it. You may give them their favorite food of honey and insects, fresh flowers every day, with the morning dew yet drip- ping from them, and yet, despite your tenderest care, they will droop and die. It is touching to witness the death of one of these innocent beings. Though I have caused more than one to lose its life, I never did it without a pang, as though I were committing a great wrong. To shoot a bird at a distance, and have him fall at a distance without a struggle, is not the same as to see him die in your hand. To watch the feeble fluttering of the stiffening wings, the expiring glance of the fast-dim- ming eye, the painful pulsations of the gentle heart, the last quiver when all is over, — ah! how often has my conscience reproached me when looking upon such a scene. Again and again I have almost re- solved never to kill another bird, and only the thought HUMMING-BIRDS. 49 that I was doing this work in the interest of science kept me to my purpose. The little crested sprite bears confinement less easily than the others, and rarely survives two or three days. Ever}'' morning I would introduce a bough of fragrant lime-blossoms, at which they would all dash instantly, diving into the flowers with great eagerness. Sugar dissolved in water, and diluted honey, was their favor- ite food, and they would sip it greedily. Holding them by their feet, I would place their beaks in a bottle of syrup, when they would rapidly eject their tongues and withdraw them, repeating this operation until satisfied. The long slender tube, at that time, looks like the tongue of a serpent, it is so deeply cleft, or bifurcated. They never displayed fear, but would readily alight on my finger and glance fearlessly up at me, watching an opportunity, however, for escape. In some of the islands, Martinique especially, the boys shoot the small birds with pellets of clay or hard, round seeds, through hollow canes lined with zinc or glass. They kill a great many in this way. The week before leaving America for the West Indies I was the guest of a friend, who one day came in with an odd-looking cane in his hand, and said : "This is a gun I am going to give you to use in the West Indies. It is for shooting humming-birds. And you will value it all the more highly when I tell you that it once belonged to Dr. Bryant, who used it in his numerous excursions in the Bahamas." Dr. Bryant, a naturalist of note, and donor to the Boston Society of Natural History of the unsurpassed La Fresnaye collection of birds, spent many years in the West Indies previous to his death, and contributed much 4 50 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. to our knowledge of the ornithology of those islands. The gun looked, as I said, like a cane. The bar- rel was slender, and painted to resemble a stick of mahogany ; the stock unscrewed, and could be put in the pocket; and as the ramrod went inside the barrel, where it was secured by a tompion, and hammer and trigger shut down out of sight, this gun made a very convenient walking-stick. Doubly valued by me on account of having belonged to my friend and to a natu- ralist whom all the world knew, this gun accompanied me in all my wanderings. It was an excellent arm, and I have shot more than five hundred birds with it alone. Not only on humming-birds, but on larger game, did I try its shooting qualities. For hummers it needed but a taste of powder and a thimbleful of dust shot. Not for the collecting of specimens merely was my mission ; I was to obtain all the information possible of the habits of the birds — of their home life. It was in this study of them in their forest retreats that I took keen delight, and considered the shooting of them as a necessary evil to procure their identification. In one of my daily rambles for this purpose, I en- tered a gloomy glen in the deep forest. Soon as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I espied a humming-bird dancing in the air. There was not a flower in sight, and he did not fly as when in pur- suit of nectar-bearing flowers, but hovered more on suspended wing, darting sidewise, backward and for- ward, with the body in an almost erect position. If through the deep shade a sunbeam slanted athwart the glen, his throat gleamed like a ruby. Now, this fantastic dance was not for pleasure, but for food. I ascertained that at such times they are in pursuit of HUMMING-BIRDS. 51 insects ; have seen the insect swarms, and so long as there remain any in sight — and even long after they have disappeared from my view — the bird darts hither and thither, snapping them up with great rapid- ity. At such times he does not content himself with a sip here and there and then alight upon some twig or liane, as when gathering honey, but evidently con- siders the fleeting nature of the prey he is pursuing, and shoots from one hunting-ground to another till he has obtained his fill. Beneath me, lining the walls of a deep gorge in whose depths a little rivulet tinkled, was a broad area of the plant called by the natives balisier, or wild plantain. The leaves of this plant are about six feet in length, broad and green, like the leaves of a banana. From the bases of these leaves shoot up long spikes of crimson and yellow cups, arranged like the flowers of the gladiolus. They are boat- shaped and about three inches in length, and their bright colors lighted up this shady spot like sunshine. Above their broad silken leaves Garnet-throat hov- ered a moment to scan the interior of these flowers, perchance he might see an insect for him there. A sudden desire came oy,er me to possess the bird, and quick as the thought was formed my gun was at my shoulder, and its sharp report echoed through the silent woods. High and low I searched, but could not rind him, until, looking down upon the spot for a final glance, I caught sight of his gleaming throat which a stray sunbeam had lighted on. He lay en- shrined in one of those golden caskets, leg uplifted and wings loose spread, eclipsing even those bright tints of orange and crimson in the vivid glow of his gorget. 52 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. CHAPTER V. THE BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. A WILD CAT. — TREE-FERNS. — MOUNTAIN PALMS. — A RARE HUMMING-BIRD. — THE VALLEY OF DESOLATION. — MISLED BY A BOTTLE. — BOILING SPRINGS. — ■ HOT STREAMS. — SULPHUR BATHS. — THE SOLFATARA.— BUILDING THE AJOUPA. — COOK- ING BREAKFAST IN A BOILING SPRING. Dominica's fire-cleft summits Rise from bluest of blue oceans ; Dominica's palms and plantains Feel the trade-wind's mighty motions, Swaying with impetuous stress The West Indian wilderness. Dominica's crater-caldron Seethes against its lava-beaches ; Boils in misty desolation ; — Seldom foot its border reaches ; Seldom any traveler's eye Penetrates its barriers high. Lucy Larcom. THE record of the weather for a month : showery, cool and delightful. On the coast it was ten degrees hotter ; but in this elevated valley, two thou- sand .feet above the sea, the eastern peaks caught the flying clouds from the " trades " and precipitated their burden of moisture. The Boiling Lake BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 53 For two weeks I had been awaiting a change of the moon that was expected to bring a drier season, and one night my friend Jean Baptiste came to my hut with the welcome news, "To-morrow make weddah." As he predicted, the weather cleared. There came to me the sons and nephews of Jean Baptiste (four in num- ber), who were laden, and departed one after the other. Francois had a large Carib pannier filled with yams, coffee and eggs, a blanket, his never- absent cutlass, and a gun ; Michael took my camera, a bag of provisions, cutlass and gun ; Joseph, my dark box with photographic chemicals, cutlass and gun; Seeyohl, a large sack of yams and plantains, cut- lass and gun. With my game-basket and humming- bird gun, I followed immediately after my guides. We crossed the three streams hurrying from the mountain to the precipice, where they are compressed into two magnificent waterfalls, and climbed the hills beyond, over a path of interlaced roots, from among which the earth had been washed, leaving a perfect ladder, which served us both in ascending and de- scending. Past one of the little " provision grounds," where, among fallen and decayed trees, were growing lusty plantains, bananas, yams and tanniers ; across another stream and up farther to the crown of the ridge, where the path led through cool and open " high woods," where the sun " can't come," and where -pcr- dri.\\ or mountain doves, sprang up from all about us, and ramicrs, or wood-pigeons, dashed in and out of the tall tree-crowns. At eleven o'clock we reached "La Riviere Dejeuner," where we breakfasted upon boiled eggs and yams, with clear cold water for drink. Our dogs (we had four curs trained to hunt the 54 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. agouti) left us in the middle of our meal and darted into the forest with loud yelps. Francois followed them, encouraging them with peculiar cries ; for these mountaineers have a sympathetic understanding with all animate objects about them, and can guide, hie on and recall their dogs simply by varying their voice. Frangois urged them on, but in a few minutes they came to a stand-still, and their excited yelps assured us that whatever they were pursuing was brought to bay. We thought they had an agouti — a small ani- mal, in size between a rabbit and a woodchuck — but the execrations of Francois a little later, which pre- ceded his appearance from the deep shade, prepared us for the unwonted sight, in these wilds, of a wild cat. It was not a wild cat in the true sense of the word — not a Lynx rufus — being only a " chat mar on " — a cat of the domesticated species run wild. It was gray in color, striped with black, and larger and more strongly made than the cats of the coast, who do not have to forage for a living ; showing how, in time, a new species might be possibly the result of this change of life. It lives in the deep woods, preying upon small birds, lizards and crabs, and is as savage and untamable as any specimen of the genus to be found in American back-woods. My men skinned it at my request and wrapped the skin in a plantain leaf, to be hung up until our return. The most weird thing about this animal was the eye ; the iris yellow, chang- ing to green, but seen glowering from darkness it was red — blood-red — red as fire, that glaring, glassy red which I have seen in the panther, and which makes the wild felidce so terrible to face in their lairs. We had here to climb the sides of a steep gorge, the BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 55 walls of which were almost perpendicular, where slip- pery roots and hanging lianes only, enabled us to accomplish the ascent. One portion of our route was through a bowl-shaped depression containing a few acres, in which seemed concentrated all the glorious vegetation indigenous to these tropical forests. Hun- dreds and thousands of plants of strange and beauti- ful shapes were massed together in prodigal confusion. Conspicuous among them was the grand tree-fern. Those who have seen in glass-house or garden of acclimatization, only, the stunted specimens of this plant, can form hardly a conception of the grandeur of these arborescent ferns in their rrative homes. They are rarely found in perfect development at a lesser al- titude than one thousand feet above the sea, and it is in the " high-woods " belt alone that they attain their greatest height and perfect symmetry. They love cool and moist situations, revel in shade and delight in solitude. " If," says Humboldt, " they descend to- ward the sea coast, it is only under cover of thick shade." I have seen them in these mountains, in the vegetable zone most favorable for their growth — that between fifteen hundred and twenty-five hundred feet above the sea — of a height of thirty or thirty-five feet. Then, truly, were they impressive in their combination of delicately traced leaves and slender stems ; essential- ly children of the tropics. There is sublimity in their expression. There is a suggestiveness of a benedic- tion in those lace-like leaves, which are spread above the head of the observer like outstretched hands, and which only move gently and tremulously, ever pulsat- ing to the slightest breath of air. The light that fillers through the cocoa-palm leaves is wonderfully lambent 56 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. and golden, but cannot compare with the chastened sunbeams that reach one standing beneath this queen of the mountain solitudes ; perchance the sun can pen- etrate to it. There are several species, one of which, with unusually prickly stem (the Cyathca Imrayana) , is named for Doctor Imray, a resident botanist of the island. Though the ferns replace, in a measure, the palms, in the ascent from coast to mountain-top, yet there is one species that climbs to as high an altitude as the fern, and is found everywhere on the mountain side until the sub-alpine vegetation is reached. This is the mountain palm, the " palmiste montagne," the "moun- tain cabbage," Euterpe montana. Euterpe, goddess of lyric poetry ; no tree of the forest more fitly sym- bolizes the realm of song over which she presides. In every curve and movement is grace and feeling, whether the long leaves wave gently to the mid-day breeze, or whether they beat wildly their sustaining trunks in the violence of the hurricane. It is not tall for a palm, but is slender and has a lovely crown, and ministers to the wants of the mountaineers in many ways, as will be seen farther on. Inhabiting the same region with the tree-fern and loving the same cool, solitary shades, it accompanies it in its march up the mountains, and ceases with it at the upper edge of the high-woods belt. Two such creations were enough to give these forests world-wide fame ; but there are a thousand others which I cannot describe for want of knowledge, nor if I could, for lack of space. We passed streams every half-mile large enough to turn a mill in the rainy season, but which were then low. Up their rocky beds the trail pursued its way ; BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 57 rou^h, slippery work it was, with many watery escapades and some falls — waterfalls. Through dense groups of callas, and other water plants, we were obliged to force our way. At a jam of trees which I was painfully climbing, I saw a humming- bird poised above a flower. I had been sufficiently long in these mountains, I thought, to procure every species ; but this was different from any I had shot, and consequently he was at once added to my other victims, and was picked up below by one of my guides, as he floated like a golden leaf upon the stream. ' It proved to be a rare species, found heretofore only at the mouth of the Amazon, and rare even there, (the Thalurania wagleri) ; and it now rests in Washing- ton, one of the many types of West Indian birds I had the pleasure of sending to our National Museum. Leaving the stream, we climbed another steep hill- side, and traveled along a ridge, on either side of which are valleys leading to the sea and ocean. Per- drix and grivcs, or thrushes, started up at intervals. The ' r siffle nr montagne" (the " mountain whistler ") sent up liquid melody from every ravine ; warblers were few, and humming-birds the only ones abundant. These, and even insects, grew rare and finally ceased entirely as the lake valley was reached, and the sul- phur fumes, ever increasing in volume, were borne to us in dense clouds. We made a detour and again took the stream, now lessened to a trickling run, where everything was decaying, reeking with moisture, and slippery with confervoid growth. No snakes appeared now, not even a lizard ; animal life was absent in this approach to the infernal regions. The trail was bar- ricaded by fallen trees, detached rocks, tangled lia- 58 £AMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. nas; flowers were few, the crimson cups of the wild plantain were alone conspicuous. After three hours of hard scrambling we were re- warded by a view of the first sulphur valley contain- ing the "-petite soufriere" from which steam ascended in clouds. It is a basin several hundred feet deep, one side of which is broken down, surrounded by steep hills, the valley walls of which, mostly denuded by land-slides, are covered elsewhere by a sparse growth of vegetation. Seeing an opening in the trees, I prepared to descend, though the trail was faint and appeared old. But, being in advance and impatient to get at the wonder below, I ventured alone, and had proceeded but a few rods when I was assured by the sight of a familiar object — a bottle — on a stick. I am not sure but that a sight of it caused me to depart from the beaten path ; at any rate, I was di- verted, though the bottle was in-verted. A shout from above halted me just as I had reached the brink of a precipitous bank, the earth of which was beginning to crumble beneath my feet. Dejectedly I retraced my steps, my faith in the goodness of mankind some- what shaken. Months later, while conversing with a good friend — Dr. Nicholls, of Roseau — it came out that he was the culprit ; that he had placed the bottle there in the kindness of his heart, as the good Indian is said to have set up a stake in every bog in which he got bemired, as a warning to others. A warning ! In this thirsty land a bottle is as necessary to one's existence as a loaf of bread ; and I 'have met with those who held it more directly essential to the preservation of life than the generally recog- nized "staff." BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 59 The Tropic Stream. Nearly half an hour's careful work was necessary to descend that steep wall, clinging to roots and stems of small trees, at the end of which we reached a gentle slope facing south, covered with trees of goodly size. Here were the remains of an old encamp- ment, empty bottles and sulphur specimens. A stream trickled near by, which we followed to the sulphur basin, whence sulphuretted fumes ascended that would have choked out the stench of a thousand rotten eggs. This was but the beginning of the valley of wonders, the portal to the enchanted land of mysteries. The 60 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. basin was covered with rocks and earth, white and yellow, perforated like the bottom of a colander, whence issued steam and vapor and sulphur fumes, hot air and fetid gases. There was a full head of steam on, puffing through these vents with the noise of a dozen engines. There were spouting springs of hot water ; some were boiling over the surface, some sending up a hot spray, some puffing like high-pressure steamers. Clouds of steam drifted across this small valley, now obscuring every rock and hole, now lifting a few feet, only to settle again. The silver in my pockets and the brass mountings of my camera were soon discolored to a blue-black hue. Several streams ran out and down, uniting in a com- mon torrent : streams hot, impregnated with sulphur ; streams cold, clear and sparkling, only a yard apart ; water of all colors, from blue and green to yellow and milk-white. The heat of a West Indian noon was made tenfold oppressive by the hot, moisture-laden atmosphere. My foot slipped, as we groped our way through the clouds of vapor, and got slightly scalded by breaking through the thin crust that covered the boiling caldron beneath. We descended between nuge white rocks and bleached and dying trees to a stream of marvelous beauty, pick- ing our way among volcanic bowlders. At once the scene changed ; we entered a ravine through which flowed the streams from above, now mingled in one tepid torrent, along whose banks grew, rank and lux- uriant, plants of such tropic loveliness as made me hold my breath in delight and surprise. Everywhere plashed and tinkled musical waterfalls and cascades ; from all sides little streams came pouring in their trib- BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 6l ute ; here a cold and sparkling stream, there another boiling hot, its track betokened by a wreath of steam. There were tree-ferns, wild plantains, palms, orchids and wild pines, tropical vines, lianas, strange flowers, gay epiphytes. Up and down and across stretched the lianas, forming a net-work which my guides were obliged to sever repeatedly with their great cutlasses. Along the bank of this stream and through the water we walked in delight — at least I did — for it seemed a very tropical Eden. And yet on all sides of us was barrenness and desolation ; these beautiful forms were all created by the action of hot water upon the scanty soil. Climbing, slipping, scrambling, we at last reached a steep hill-side, where trees of different kinds were growing ; and here we rested, for here was the spot selected for our camp. But there yet remained the Lake, to which all these strange sights were but preparatory scenes. It was but a twenty -minutes' walk, or climb, to the basin. We could hear it roaring behind the hill. Leaving superfluous luggage, and two men to make camp, I started on again with nothing but gun and photo- graphic apparatus. We reached another river, which was tumbling noisily over blanched tree-trunks and sulphur-encrusted rocks, and came out of a large mound of scoria? and pumice white as snow. Its water was milk-white from the quantity of magnesia held in solution, and steaming hot. Into it poured minor streams of every shade, from white to ochreous, and one black as ink. Up over large rocks, covered with soft sphagnum, green and white in color ; up, over and through rapids and around falls, passing feeding streamlets of hot, 62 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. cold, mineral and pure water by turns, into a basin (at the immediate base of a high mountain), with heaps of sulphur-stones scattered over a smooth floor of bi- tumen, with a jet of steam escaping here and there from a hole or fissure in its quaking crust ; up the banks of a little stream of sulphur water, subterranean at times, leaving the rivers behind us, and having a steep bank before us, which we quickly scaled, and there revealed to our gaze, lay the Lake. My first feeling was that of disappointment, for the surface of the lake, usually so turbulent, was placid, save in the center a slight movement — more from the escape of gas than from ebullition — disturbed it, and sent ever-expanding wavelets to the shore. It is sunk in a huge basin, which it has hollowed out for itself. Undoubtedly, it was onCe a spring, or geyser, which, by the volume and violence of its flow, increased and deepened the aperture through which it escaped, until it reached its present dimensions. The height of its surrounding walls I estimate at from eighty to one hundred feet, and its di- ameter at from three hundred to four hundred. As there have been no accurate measurements — indeed, the total number of white men who have looked upon it is not a score — its area will long be a matter of speculation only. The banks are of ferruginous earth, with stones and rocks imbedded, as nearly perpendic- ular as their consistency will allow, and constantly caving and falling in. Two streams of cold water fall into the lake on the north, above which rise high hills. Down the bed of one of these we found a place to leap. My apparatus was passed down, and I at once proceeded to secure a BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 63 picture of the lake. It was then four o'clock, and the sun had dropped very near the margin of the western hills, and just lingered sufficiently to allow me to secure the first photograph ever made in these moun- tains. Well for me the lake was in a state of qui- escence. Well for the success of my picture that the water was not in a wild fury of ebullition, and that its basin was not filled with steam, as it had ever been found before. . Directly opposite the stream in which I stood was the rent in the wall through which flowed the overflow from the lake, when it was at its work, through which at such times poured a stream of sulphur-water that formed a torrent and descended to the coast below. Through this gap I could look away south, across and over green mountains to the shores of Martinique gleaming through the mist in the waning sunlight, twenty miles away, yet seemingly within an hour's row of yonder ridge. This rent is from thirty to forty feet in width at the top, and perhaps fifty in depth. I descended to the lake margin. The rim of recent subsidence was clearly defined : a belt of black, yellow and gray deposit, some three feet wide. It was narrower on the second day, and the ebullition had much increased, showing that, though I was the first to discover it in repose, it must be intermittent in character, and was then preparing to boil forth again. For this effect I waited long, much desiring to see it in that state, but was not gratified, though the dis- turbance and noises continued to increase and the water to rise. The temperature of the water, as far out as I could reach my thermometer, was ninety-six degrees ; of 64 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. the air at the same time, sixty-seven degrees ; of the streams falling into the lake, sixty-five degrees, Fahr- enheit. Some months previously, Dr. Nicholls, one of the original exploring party who discovered this lake, found it at a temperature of one hundred and ninety-six degrees ; and Mr. Prestoe, of the Botanic Gardens of Trinidad, recorded from one hundred and eighty to one hundred and ninety degrees. They also found it fiercely boiling, the whole crater filled with steam, and could obtain only occasionally a glimpse of the water and surrounding walls. They found no bottom with a line one hundred and ninety- five feet long, ten feet from the water's edge. With Mr. Prestoe, I conclude that this solfatara, by widen- ing and deepening its outlet, will eventually lose its lake character and become merely a geyser. From the high bank above the lake, near the gap through which the waters find egress, is a fine view of the whole northern wall, with the streams falling down from the background of mountain, the hollows and miniature valleys and peaks beyond. The river-bed below is dry and yellow ; but huge rocks, tons in weight, that the waters have moved from their beds, attest the force of the current when the lake is at its height. From the north, coming down into another desolate valley, are small streams — yellow, white, green, blue. A spring boils up through a hole three feet across, overtopping the surface eight inches or more. The main volume of hot water comes from higher up the mountains, and there is, I think, another source as large as this, which at present is unknown. The mountains around are green with low shrubs, and from the bank above the lake I secured a giant BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 65 lycopodium, which is not found elsewhere in any abundance. We retraced our steps about an hour before sun- set, and found on the hillside a comfortable camp, constructed by Francois and Joseph during our ab- sence. The ajoufia, or camp constructed in haste, is a peculiarity of these forests. Regarding the etymology of the word, I am in doubt. Humboldt speaks of the ajufias,' or kings' houses, among the Caribs of South America, which were used as houses of enter- tainment for travelers. Whatever the origin of the term, it is now fixed in the patois of the mountain- eers to designate a hut thrown up hastily for tem- porarv occupation — what we, in America, would call a " camp." Mv men first constructed a framework of light poles, tied together with roots and vines, and covered it with the broad leaves of the balisier, or wild plantain {Hcliconia bchia). This plant, which grows everywhere in shade and moisture, is one of the attractive features of the vegetation here. Its leaf is like an elongated banana-leaf, but not so wide, and with greater strength and toughness. Like the palm, this plant serves a great variety of uses. Its root is boiled and fed to hogs, I believe ; the mid-rib of the leaf is stripped and split and woven into baskets ; the leaves are used for the thatching of huts, as substitutes for table-cloths and plates in the woods, as envelopes in which to wrap anything of soft nature, as butter or honey, — in fact, as wrap- ping for everything portable, the tissue is so fine and flexible. The voung leaves are our substitute for drinking-cups ; and it is more convenient to twist off an overhanging leaf and throw it away when done, 5 66 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. than to bear about with you a clumsy cup. Its utility, then, is second only to that of the cocoa palm. They had brought up huge bundles of the leaves from the river below. Slicing the under side of the mid-rib half-way through with a diagonal cut, leaving a barb by which to attach it to the cross-pole, Fran- cois handed the leaves to Joseph, who rapidly placed them in position, attached to the pole and kept in place by the projecting point, one row overlapping the other. In a short time they had made a thick roof, completely impervious to water, which was good for a week, so long as the leaves remained green and were not split and shrunken by the sun. A raised platform of poles, all cut with the cutlass, was covered with a good layer of leaves, and upon this I spread my blanket and reposed quietly all night, my faithful boys stretched upon the ground, lulled to sleep by the rushing of the waterfalls. "La belle," the firefly, illumined our camp in the evening, and an odorous fire of the gum of the flam- beau-tree gave both light and fragrant incense. Over this, Joseph, in his French patois and broken Eng- lish, told the story of the discovery of the lake by Mr. Watt, the one who first surmised its existence, in 1875. This gentleman, a magistrate in the colony, was prone to wander in the mountains in search of adventure. One day he had penetrated farther than usual, by following a valley that led up into the inte- rior, and noticed in the air distinct and powerful sul- phur fumes. Later, he set out to ascertain the cause, taking with him two negroes as guides, but, through the pusillanimity of his men, who abandoned him, was lost in the forest for several days. Let Joseph tell the story : BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 67 "Monsieur Watt he walk, walk, walk, pour tree day ; he lose hees clo's, hees pant cut oft", he make nozing pour manger but root; no knife, no nozing ; hees guide was neegah [the mountaineers, though some of them negroes themselves, have great con- tempt for town negroes] ; zey was town neegah, and leab him and loss him. He come to black man's house in ze wood, and ze black man zink he jombie, and he run ; when he come back wiz some mo' men, .for look for jombie , Monsieur Watt he make coople of sign, he have to lost hees voice and was not speak, and zey deescover heem." At daybreak we were stirring. I descended the bank and waded up the stream to take my morning bath. There were two streams, one hot, one cold, which ran in near channels, meeting below. Fol- lowing the warm one, stepping from pool to pool, I reached a fall about twelve feet in height, surrounded by a wealth of tropical plants, from the depths of which it suddenly appeared. And it was hot — or just as hot as skin could bear — as I sidled under it, first a hand, then an arm, then a shoulder, until the whole volume of warm water fell squarely upon my head. Ah ! it was the perfection of luxurious sensa- tions. I essayed to shout aloud in my delight, but the falling water drowned my voice, and I paddled in the pool in silent ecstasy, drawing in long breaths, and allowing the rushing of the water, the delicious warmth of the bath, the flying spray, to lull me to repose. I think I should have fallen asleep had I not been warned, by slipping from the rock on which I sat, that I was becoming unconscious. It was too blissful to leave, too soothing, and I stepped from un- 68 CAMPS IN THE CAR.IBBEES. der the warm douche only to return again and again. Reaching out my hand, I placed it in a stream of cold water, sulphur water at that, while I sat in this tepid bath. What benefits might be derived by those unfor- tunates afflicted with rheumatism and kindred com- plaints, from a dip in these healing waters ! They would need a balloon, though, as means of convey- ance, for only travel-toughened backs and sturdy limbs can accomplish this journey at present. My guides boiled coffee, and, that imbibed, we shouldered our traps and marched back on the home- ward trail. We reached the first Soufriere — the val- ley of desolation — and halted, to allow me to take a few photographs, and to cook our breakfast. The sulphur fumes were so strong as to form a coating of sulphide of silver on my negatives, but not to an ex- tent to injure them. The largest boiling spring is five feet across. As some of these seemingly boiling springs are not in complete ebullition, but have their waters agitated from escape of gases, I took care to plunge my ther- mometer into all. Several registered two hundred and eight degrees — the lake is more than two thou- sand feet above sea-level — and many one hundred and forty and one hundred and sixty degrees. One unfortunate experimenter, later in the season, plunged a " store " thermometer into one of these springs, and burst it, as its capacity was not equal to such high temperature. Perforating the broad fields of calcined stones are little holes, whence issue steam and hot air ; very few are inactive. Some, on the hillside, are large BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA 69 as an open grate, and have that shape. Into these you can look deep down into black holes, sulphur crystals in beautiful golden needles lining throat and flue. It required great care not to break through the crust in many places. My guide was constantly warning me : " Have attention where you make you feets ! " While I was preparing chemicals and collecting minerals, my boys were busily cooking our break- fast; and they prepared it without fire, too, and so expeditiously as to cause me wonder. In the forest they had found some wild yams ; Francois had shot a few giant thrushes ; there were a few eggs remain- ing of those we had brought with us. Curiously I watched them at their work. Tying the yams in a bit of cloth, and tying that to the end of a stick, Joseph thrust them into the large boiling spring. A few minutes later — I do not know just how many — he drew them out completely boiled. The eggs were treated in like manner, and lastly the birds. Then we withdrew to the shade of a near clump of balisiers, on the bank of a clear spring, plucked a few leaves for plates, for cups, for napkins, for protection from the damp earth as we sat down, sprinkled our curiously-cooked food with pepper and salt, and feasted merrily, though half strangled by the sulphur fumes. In watching this cooking process, I could not but think of our own wonderful geysers in the Yellowstone, where explorers caught trout in a stream and cooked them in a boiling spring, without removing the fish from the hook or changing their own positions. Then we turned our backs upon this valley of won- 70 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. ders — this collection of craters within a crater long^ ago inactive. My guides placed their loads upon their heads, and we climbed the hills, keeping time to the rhythmic pulsations of a steam-vent, which ejected its vapor with regular puffs, the din of which rang through the forest. I cannot but feel how poor and meagre is this description of that wonderful Boiling Lake, hid in the bosom of those solitary mountains in that tropical island. The time may come — and it will be better for Americans if it were speedily to come — when the great attractions of these islands will be better known, and I may not be able to say, as I say now with truth, I am the only American who has seen Dominica's Boiling Lake. We reached Riviere Dejeuner just at dark. I was ahead. And here let me explain how I acquired a reputation as a pedestrian, and why, if you speak of the writer to one of these mountaineers, he will shrug his shoulders and exclaim, "Ah! Monsieur Fred, he walk like ze debbil !" Here is a statement of the reason ; and I leave it to any sane person if he would not have done the same under similar cir- stances : Each member of our party had a gun — my four men and myself. In going up and down those cliffs, the guns carried by my guides were sure to point at me, no matter how I would try to dodge them. If I lagged behind, I was confronted by a black muzzle ; if I went ahead, two or more pointed at my exposed back. Now, I have carried a gun ever since I could well use one, and for two years have had one constantly by my side ; but I never allow one to be pointed at me, BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 7 1 if I am aware of it. Going homeward, I stretched my legs to their utmost, and kept ahead, scrambling over rocks and tree-trunks, and swinging myself down steep banks by the roots of trees. My trowsers were torn into shreds ; the perspiration started, legs shook, and arms trembled. But I was determined to keep out of range of those dreaded guns ; and I did, ar- riving at my cabin full half an hour ahead of my guides, who had supposed me lost and had detailed two of their number to look me up. Jean Baptiste, my host and forager-for-food, stood in the doorway with a candle, and inside there stood a welcome table with a good supper — yams and eggs and tender mountain cabbage. Speaking of my hot bath to Jean Baptiste, that jewel instantly exclaimed that he had forgotten to show me the best in the island, situated only a gun- shot from my hut. Next day we visited it. Beneath tall gommier trees stretching down lianes forty feet long, shaded by broad-leaved plantains, was a pool twenty feet across, made by damming a little brooklet with volcanic rock. Its bottom was stone and gravel. A tree-trunk had fallen across the stream, on which I threw my clothes. The runlet was tepid, the pool a little warmer. Suddenly my foot grew hot, as though stung by a scorpion, and I became aware that the pool was heated from below by small jets of hot water forced up through crevices in the rocky crust. How thick was that crust? Down the hillside, into the bath, trickled warm water. A grotto had been hollowed out by the action of these streams, and from this water was spouted in hot spray and jets, heating the bath for a square yard around. This grotto was lined with 72 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. crystals of sulphur, lime, and magnesia, and in places was green like chalcedony — a most beautiful minia- ture of some cave I have seen, where stalagmites of every shape were colored by salts of iron. Floating in this healing pool, in an element delight- fully warm, I resigned myself to the unalloyed delight that dripping water, tropical plants, and trees, and balmy atmosphere, all contribute to induce. Floating thus in dreamy sensuousness, I wondered vaguely why this free life of the forest, untrammeled by care or desire of gain, could not always exist for me. It was too irksome to even think an answer ; impossible to give it utterance ; and it remains unanswered to this day. AMONG THE CARIBS. 73 CHAPTER VI. AMONG THE CARIBS. THEIR PEACEFUL LIFE. — FRUITS AND FOOD. — THE SECOND VOY- AGE OF COLUMBUS. — DISCOVERY OF THE CARIBS. ■ — FIERCE NATURE AND INTELLIGENCE OF THE "CANNIBAL PAGANS." — UNLIKE THE NATIVES OF THE GREATER ANTILLES. — THE CARIB RESERVATION IN DOMINICA. — MY CAMP IN CARIB COUNTRY. — TWO SOVEREIGNS. — THE VILLAGE. — THE HOUSES. — CATCHING A COOK. — A TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION. — LIGHT- ING A ROOM WITH FIRE-FLIES. — '"LOOK ZE COOK." — LABOR. — DOMESTIC RELATIONS. — A DRUNKEN INDIAN. — WILD MEN AND NAKED CHILDREN. — CARIB PANNIERS. — THE ONLY ART PRESERVED FROM THEIR ANCESTORS. IN two of the smaller islands of the Caribbean Sea lives a vestige of a once powerful people. A people with a history ; an unwritten and forgotten history, running back unnumbered ages, farther than we can trace it ; but beginning to be known to civil- ized man when the existence of America was first be- coming evident to his awakened senses. Peaceful and gentle, singularly mild and affectionate, they dwell happily in their rude houses of thatch, draw- ing their sustenance from mother earth with occasional forays upon the sea. Bananas, plantains, yams, and tanniers are the crops they cultivate, and altogether relv upon. The bread-fruit grows about their cabins, and the mango 74 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. and cocoa palm, embowering their dwellings in per- petual shade ; and the calabash (furnishing nearly all their vessels for culinary use) spreads its gnarled branches, with a wealth of useful products, at their doors. Guavas grow wild, and the berries and buds of the mountain palm, with many other fruits and nuts of the forest, furnish them with food. The many rivers yield to them delicious crayfish, water snails, and limpets. If they can get rum, now and then, they drink it and are happy — they are happy any way, even without this occasional luxury. In a land that is theirs by right ; beneath a sky ever genial, though not always smiling ; able to satisfy hunger by little toil in the garden, or exertion upon the sea, or in the river, it is not strange that they should be content with the bounties of the present, nor care to question the precarious prospects of the future. In the morning the coolness of the bath provokes one to linger, and later the warmth of the sun seems to warn one from much exertion, while the heat of mid-day positively forbids it. The increased coolness of the afternoon, when the sun dips down behind the mountain ridge, leaving two good hours of dreamy shadow, tempts one to give one's self over to the enjoy- ment of mere existence. Thus the days pass away in this delightful clime. And now, that you, reader, may better understand who are these people whom I would describe in the following pages, allow me to go back a few centuries ; let me turn, in fact, to the first page in American history, and let the same great navi- gator who opened the way for the discovery of our continent, relate the story of the finding of the Caribs. Columbus sailed away from Cadiz, on his second AMONG THE CARIES. 75 voyage, with a large fleet, fully equipped, September 25, 1493. On the second day of November he first sighted land, and in exploring the shores of the island — Guadeloupe — he found the people of whom he was in search. " Here the Spaniards first saw the anana, or pine-apple, the flavor and fragrance of which astonished and delighted them. But what struck them with horror was the sight of human bones, vestiges, as they supposed, of unnatural repasts, and skulls apparently used as vases and other household utensils. These dismal objects convinced them that they were now in the abodes of the Cannibals, or Caribs, whose predatory expeditions and ruthless char- acter rendered them the terror of these seas. "In several hamlets they met with proofs of the cannibal propensities of the natives. Human limbs were suspended to the beams of the houses as if curing for provisions; the head of a young man, recently killed, was yet bleeding ; some parts of his body were roasting before the lire, others boiling with the flesh of geese and parrots." On the following day the boats landed and suc- ceeded in taking and bringing off a boy and several women. From them Columbus learned that the in- habitants of this island were in league with two neigh- boring islands, but made war upon all the rest. They even went on predatory enterprises, in canoes made from the hollowed trunks of trees, to the distance of one hundred and fifty leagues. Their arms were bows and arrows, pointed with the bones of fishes or shells of tortoise, and poisoned with the juice of a certain herb. They made descents upon the islands, ravaged the villages, carried off the 76 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. youngest and handsomest of the women, and made prisoners of the men, to be killed and eaten. "The admiral learned from them that most of the men of the island were absent, the king having sailed some time before, with ten canoes and three hundred war- riors, on a cruise in quest of prisoners and booty. When the men went forth on these expeditions, the women remained to defend their shores from inva- sion." This island of Guadeloupe was their northernmost stronghold. Continuing his cruise northward, to- ward Haspaniola, and coasting the islands, Columbus discovered the last resident Caribs at Santa Cruz. Here a boat's crew of Spaniards attacked an Indian canoe containing several men and women. The fight was long and desperate. Even after the canoe was overturned the Indians fought in the water, "discharg- ing their arrows while swimming, as dexterously as though they had been upon firm land ; and the women fought as fiercely as the men." "The hair of these savages was long and coarse; their eyes were encircled with paint, so as to give them a hideous expression ; and bands of cotton were bound firmly above and below the muscular parts of the arms and legs, so as to cause them to swell to a disproportioned size." Humboldt makes mention of this custom, in vogue among the Caribs of South America, in the early part of the present century. " The warlike and unyielding character of these people, so different from that of the pusillanimous nations around them, and the wide scope of their en- terprises and wanderings, like those of the nomad tribes of the Old World, entitle them to distinguished AMONG THE CARIBS. 77 attention. They were trained to war from their in- fancy. As soon as they could walk, their intrepid mothers put in their hands the bow and arrow, and prepared them to take an early part in the hardy enterprises of their fathers. Their distant roamings by sea made them observant and intelligent. The natives of the other islands only knew how to divide time by day and night, by the sun and moon ; whereas these had acquired some knowledge of the stars, by .which to calculate the times and seasons." This is the account, drawn mainly from Irving, of the discovery and condition of the first cannibals ever beheld by white men. This second voyage of Colum- bus commenced under flattering auspices : to find at the outset a new people, a new fruit; to add to the language at least two new words — Carib and Can- nibal, — this were enough to satisfy any explorer. But Columbus was in search of gold. He could not brook delay in a country where the precious metal did not exist ; and though the forests were filled with countless trees possessing spicy gums and rare virtues, he could not stop to put them to the test. He sailed away north after capturing some women and children. The mind of the great admiral was keenly alive to any opportunity for serving his sovereigns and himself. Finding no gold, he looked about for some means of making it. He sent the captive Caribs home to Spain to be sold as slaves. And this is how the great and good Columbus proposed to reimburse his sovereigns for their outlay, and to furnish the colony with live- stock. " In this way the peaceful islanders would be freed from warlike and inhuman neighbors ; the royal revenue would be greatly enriched, and a vast number 78 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. of souls would be snatched from perdition, and carried, as it were, by main force to heaven." Though the gentle and humane Isabella would not listen to this monstrous scheme, there is little likeli- hood that it would have succeeded with the Caribs ; for those old conquistador es, though valiant inquisi- tors, rarely measured swords with these antagonists who loved to fight. Although, a matter of history, the followers of Columbus murdered more than a mil- lion of the peaceful inhabitants of the larger islands — Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Porto Rico — -who were dis- covered in a state of happiness and innocence, they always evaded encounters with the "Pagan Cannibals." Thus to the prowess of their ancestors are the Caribs of the present day indebted for their existence, when not a vestige remains of the more numerous but peace- ful tribes north of them. But I did not intend, in digressing, to follow the voyages of Columbus ; to describe how he converted these fair islands, teeming with happy life, into hells Of misery, and left behind him and his monsters a trail of blood and fire. It was merely to begin at the be- ginning, to bring before you the Carib as he was when found, nearly four centuries ago, and to show, by con- trast with his present life, how he has been almost civilized out of existence. I had been a month in the interior of Dominica, living in the woods, hunting new birds, and enjoying the novel experiences of camp life in tropical moun- tains. From time to time came reports from the Carib country, that only strengthened the determination I had formed of penetrating to their stronghold. That they lived secluded from the world, held no intercourse AMONG THE CARIBS. 79 with other people ; naked they wandered at will in the forest ; without houses, they slept on the ground on beds of leaves. Sending my collections of birds to the coast and ordering thence a fresh supply of provis- ions and ammunition, I left the Caribbean side of the island and marched over the mountains toward the Atlantic, with three stout girls and a man laden with my effects. The journey was to occupy two days, as the rivers were swollen. They had " come down," in the language of the country ; but when a river is "down" in the West Indies it is up — having rushed down from the mountains, swollen by some heavy rain, and flooded the lowlands. The Carib reservation in Dominica extends from Mahoe River to Q-ayfish River, a distance of about three miles along the Atlantic coast, and away back into the mountains as far as they please to cultivate. Though each family has a little garden adjacent to the dwelling, any individual can select an un- occupied piece of ground on the neighboring hills, or mountain sides, for cultivation. All their provision grounds (as are called the mountain gardens where the staple fruits and vegetables* are grown) are at a distance from the house, some even two miles away, solitary openings made in the depths of the high woods. As the soil in general is very thin, and does not support a crop for many successive years, these gardens are being constantly made afresh. As I rode along, every house seemed deserted ; no face appeared, and I met no one save the ancient * These are, the Yam {Diosco?-ea saliva and D. alata) ; the Sweet Potato {Batatas edulis); the Cassava (Jatropha manihot and J. janipha) ; Banana {Musa paradisiaca) ; Plantain {Musa sapienttun), and Tannier (Caladium sagitt