To the north
and east a wilderness of mountain peaks; to the west the Grand Cul-
de-sac and the Carenage, mapped out in sheets of blue between high
promontories; and, beyond all, the open sea. What a land: and in
what a climate: and all lying well-nigh as it has been since the
making of the world, waiting for man to come and take possession.
But there, as elsewhere, matters are mending steadily; and in
another hundred years St. Lucia may be an honour to the English
race.

We were, of course, anxious to obtain at St. Lucia specimens of that
abominable reptile, the Fer-de-lance, or rat-tailed snake, {38}
which is the pest of this island, as well as of the neighbouring
island of Martinique, and, in Pere Labat's time, of lesser
Martinique in the Grenadines, from which, according to Davy, it
seems to have disappeared. It occurs also in Guadaloupe. In great
Martinique--so the French say--it is dangerous to travel through
certain woodlands on account of the Fer-de-lance, who lies along a
bough, and strikes, without provocation, at horse or man. I suspect
this statement, however, to be an exaggeration. I was assured that
this was not the case in St. Lucia; that the snake attacks no
oftener than other venomous snakes,--that is, when trodden on, or
when his retreat is cut off. At all events, it seems easy enough to
kill him: so easy, that I hope yet it may be possible to catch him
alive, and that the Zoological Gardens may at last possess--what
they have long coveted in vain--hideous attraction of a live Fer-de-
lance. The specimens which we brought home are curious enough, even
from this aesthetic point of view. Why are these poisonous snakes
so repulsive in appearance, some of them at least, and that not in
proportion to their dangerous properties? For no one who puts the
mere dread out of his mind will call the Cobras ugly, even anything
but beautiful; nor, again, the deadly Coral snake of Trinidad, whose
beauty tempts children, and even grown people, to play with it, or
make a necklace of it, sometimes to their own destruction. But who
will call the Puff Adder of the Cape, or this very Fer-de-lance,
anything but ugly and horrible: not only from the brutality
signified, to us at least, by the flat triangular head and the heavy
jaw, but by the look of malevolence and craft signified, to us at
least, by the eye and the lip? 'To us at least,' I say. For it is
an open question