, and enjoyed
an extensive prospect over the island, which presented a totally
different aspect from that under which it is viewed by passing vessels.
The sailor sees only high, black, jagged, and desolate rocks, rising
perpendicularly from the sea, and every where washed by a tremendous
surf, prohibiting all attempts to land except at the single point of St.
James: his eye vainly seeks round the adamant wall, the relief of one
sprig of green; not a trace of vegetation appears, and Nature herself
seems to have destined the spot for a gloomy and infrangible prison.
From these heights, on the contrary, the picturesque and smiling
landscape of the interior forms the most striking contrast to its
external sternness, and suggests the idea of a gifted mind, compelled by
painful experience to shroud its charms under a forbidding veil of
coldness and reserve.

This remark only, however, applies to the western part of the island,
which is protected from the trade-wind. The higher eastern part, where
Napoleon lived, is as dead and barren as its rocky boundary. The
trade-wind to which this district is constantly exposed, brings a
perpetual fog, and drives the clouds in congregated heaps to the summits
of the mountain, where they frequently burst in sudden and violent
showers, often producing inundations, and rendering the air damp and
unwholesome for the greater part of the year. The ground is for this
reason incapable of cultivation; and a species of gum-tree, the only one
to be seen in the neighbourhood of Longwood, by its stunted growth of
hardly six feet, and its universal bend in one direction, proves how
destructive is the effect of the trade-wind to all vegetable life. The
nearer we approached the boundaries of the circle within which alone
the renowned prisoner was permitted to move, the less pleasant became
the country and the more raw the climate, till about a German mile from
the town we found ourselves on the barren spot I have already described.
Here a narrow path leads down an abrupt descent into a small valley, or
basin, surrounded by hills, sheltered from the wind, and offering in its
verdant foliage and cheerful vegetation, a refreshing and agreeable
retreat. "There rest the remains of Napoleon," said the guide given us
by the governor. We dismounted, and proceeded to the grave on foot. An
old invalid who watches it, and lives in a lonely hut in its vicinity,
now came towards us, and conducted us to a flat, tastel