CHAPTER XLI.

GRENADA-GEORGETOWN.

"Grenada is perhaps the most beautiful of the Antilles "her features are soft and noble without being great and awful." Coleridge.

I was never so much delighted with any scenery as with that of the approach to Grenada. All along the coast it was beautiful; the little bays, the evergreen hills, the cultivated valleys, and the pretty town or village of Gouyave, with the merchant ships lying before the estates where they were loading, presented, as we passed them, an appearance far more lovely than I expected; but when the balmy gale of the morning freshened into a lively breeze, and our little sloop scudded into the bay; then the scenery that burst upon our view was such as to defy the powerful skill of the artist, or the vivid imagination of the poet.

George Town, as seen from the bay, appeared more beautiful and well built than any other of the West India towns I had witnessed; it was surrounded on all sides by a hill, and the streets ran regularly up from the bay to its summit. On the right this hill extended towards the sea, where it rose into a round and rocky eminence that fell abruptly off, and formed

a base for the citadel of Fort George, which, with its cannon pointed to the ocean and the signals waving on its staff, formed a strong defence to the entrance of the Carenage. On the left it rose gradually to a more lofty height, on which were erected the fortifications of Hospital Hill, and a long ridge, which falls towards the middle, connects this fort with the Richmond Heights, which form the back ground of the scene, sloping off into a long and irregular line of land that projects far into the sea, and is called Point Saline.

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon when we rounded Fort George, and running into the Carenage, came to anchor close to the wharf, and stepped upon the land, without the trouble of getting into a boat, exactly opposite to the very comfortable residence of the officer in charge of the Commissariat department, with whom I dined and spent the remainder of the day.

Under the hospitable roof of this gentleman I remained until I had suited myself with a dwelling more to my taste than any residence I had before occupied in the West Indies.

The house was built of solid stone, and to the height of three stories above the ground: on the two first dwelt the maker of this little book, while on the ground floor the officers of his Majesty's customs, consisting of Collector, Comptroller, Searchers, Waiters, and Clerks were wont to deposit their seizures and their cash, and to receive the duties on all commodities imported to the flourishing colony of Grenada.

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My natural curiosity did not allow me to remain long in the town without making myself acquainted with every nook and corner, and now my description may enable me to transfer some of the same sort of knowledge to my reader.

For three reasons the little island of Grenada deserves to be distinguished from the other Antilles. Its scenery is essentially its own; its town, to wit, Georgetown, is like no other in the West Indies; and its inhabitants of color form a class as decidedly different from those of the same hue in the other islands as from the fairer or more sable natives of their own. But more of this anon.

If Georgetown be beautiful from the sea it is still more so from many points of the land: its appearance is greatly superior to the generality of West India capitals; its houses are of stone, neatly built, more tasty and European, and therefore more pretty and substantial than those black-looking wooden affairs, with shingled roofs and brick pillars, which commonly disfigure the towns in the tropics. Its streets-but here my praise ceases, and my criticism begins. Verily, if I were his of the lower regions, majesty as, thank Heaven, I am not, I would take the said streets of Georgetown as a model for my purgatorial pavement :-really the stones are more pointed than the personalities of Mr. B-, or the witticisms of Mr. H—, for indeed they are full of point: there is the point celestial, the point terrestrial, and the point direct, and it is this last that proves, above all others, so galling to all classes of pedestrians. Oh,