We were fortunate enough to see it unshrouded in
clouds, with its snow-clad peak shining like burnished
silver in the morning sun, strongly in contrast with the
brown-black of the hill below the peak, rent with black
chasms, with the green vineyards extending in a line
along its base, dotted with little towns and villages.
The brown ridge of the mountain is 7000 feet high,
the cone about 5000 feet. The former seemed, at ten
miles off, to be split through its edge in various places;
the peak itself rising probably two or three miles more
inland from the summit of the brown and rugged hill.
It presented a remarkable sight, so unlike anything
else. Its top is seldom seen, as it is almost always
enveloped in clouds.
In passing it, you do not realise its vast height. It is not until you go 1o a distance, that the top of the peak alone seems standing up in the vault of heaven, apparently detached from the rest of the mountains, and surrounded by the blue ether above and below.
We next reached St.Vincent Island, the coaling station for all the steamers going this way. It is a volcanic island, and remarkable for having no trees nor herbage, being nothing but cinders and sand: fruit and vege- tables are imported from a neighbouring island. It is extensive, and has many pointed chills, some nearly 4000 feet high,but all barren, and the whole island is a desert. The people are blacks, speaking Portuguese, evidently with much negro blood in them. We walked a mile inland, and every place was in a state of deso- lation; big, black children running about in bare skin, and evidently not ashamed of appearing in nature’s garb.
