Author: Henry Alexander Wickham

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2017-07-19

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9780282438869

Excerpt from Rough Notes of a Journey Through the Wilderness, From Trinidad to Para, Brazil, by Way of the Great Cataracts of the Orinoco, Atabapo, and Rio Negro New year's eve, 1869, we lay at St. Thomas's and witnessed a curious effect in the sky a rainbow at night, caused by the moon-rays falling on a rain cloud. On New Year's morning we steamed from the harbour, the shore of which and the neighbo ing cays were still strewn with the hulks, wrecks, and other debris of the previous year's hurricane and earthquake, although now all seemed bathed in an atmosphere of undisturbed tranquillity. The Royal West India Mail ships in these latitudes are manned by blacks; it appeared quite natural to be again on the deck of the old Tamar, watching the dusky forms of the crew as they lounged or romped about the forecastle, like so many monkeys. Leaving the island of Santa Cruz on our star board quarter, we sped along against a head wind. Some time after I had turned in, I was aroused by the report of the signal-gun, fired right over the port of my cabin jumping into my Slippers, I found we had arrived Off St. Kitt's. A good many vessels lay in the roadstead and what appeared to be a town, Slept on the lowland betwixt the water and the mountainous backbone of the island, over which rolled heavy manes ofmoon-lit cloud. The night was marked by a very beautiful, but here, not uncommon phenomenon; the top of each fleecy cloud was tinged with prismatic colours as it passed the disc of the moon. Next morning the sea-girt rock called Rodonda met our View; then Montserrat; and we coasted Antigua until we came to in the lovely cove like entrance to the English harbour, with its crys talline water; there we landed mails. In the after noon, looming suddenly through a mist of luke-warm rain, we saw the forest-covered coast of Guadaloupe, and I managed, as usual, to take a few rough Sketches at any point of interest. The scenery was truly magnificent. Leaving at midnight, we proceeded to land mails at the Island of Dominica, from whence the gentle land-breeze wafted us that delightful fiagrance peculiar to the tropical forests. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.