,
from the look of the island, that no large force could hold out long
in a country so destitute of water as those volcanic hills, rusty,
ragged, treeless, almost sad and desolate--if any land could be sad
and desolate with such a blue sea leaping around and such a blue sky
blazing above. Those who wish to know the agricultural capabilities
of Antigua, and to know, too, the good sense and courage, the
justice and humanity, which have enabled the Antiguans to struggle
on and upward through all their difficulties, in spite of drought,
hurricane, and earthquake, till permanent prosperity seems now
become certain, should read Dr. Davy's excellent book, which I
cannot too often recommend. For us, we could only give a hasty look
at its southern volcanic cliffs; while we regretted that we could
not inspect the marine strata of the eastern parts of the island,
with their calcareous marls and limestones, hardened clays and
cherts, and famous silicified trees, which offer important problems
to the geologist, as yet not worked out. {28}

We could well believe, as the steamer ran into English Harbour, that
Antigua was still subject to earthquakes; and had been shaken, with
great loss of property though not of life, in the Guadaloupe
earthquake of 1843, when 5000 lives were lost in the town of Point-
a-Pitre alone. The only well-marked effect which Dr. Davy could
hear of, apart from damage to artificial structures, was the partial
sinking of a causeway leading to Rat Island, in the harbour of St.
John. No wonder: if St. John's harbour be--as from its shape on
the map it probably is--simply an extinct crater, or group of
craters, like English Harbour. A more picturesque or more uncanny
little hole than that latter we had never yet seen: but there are
many such harbours about these islands, which nature, for the time
being at least, has handed over from the dominion of fire to that of
water. Past low cliffs of ash and volcanic boulder, sloping
westward to the sea, which is eating them fast away, the steamer
runs in through a deep crack, a pistol-shot in width. On the east
side a strange section of gray lava and ash is gnawn into caves. On
the right, a bluff rock of black lava dips sheer into water several
fathoms deep; and you anchor at once inside an irregular group of
craters, having passed through a gap in one of their sides, which
has probably been torn out by a lava flow. Whether the