i-detached tail wriggling its silly length behind! I could never
scale the heights on which the splendid Ellen perpetually dwells, but
I could sit at the foot of them and admire with all my heart, and
perhaps that attitude, if fully understood, might win her affection.

* * * * *

S.S. Diana, January 28, 1918

At Antigua we anchored and took a steam launch to see the town, where
we visited a very fine sugar-cane factory, watching the whole process
from the cane-field to the market.

We did not land at Guadeloupe, the hour not being favorable and the
stay being too brief to compensate for the effort involved. But this
morning at eight we approached Dominica, the largest of the Leeward
group, the loftiest of the Lesser Antilles, and the loveliest--if one
could or ought to make comparison--the loveliest of the West Indian
Isles. The guidebook calls it "The Caribbean Wonderland," and Dolly
and I were not disposed to quarrel with the phrase, after hanging over
the deck-rail for an hour before breakfast and marveling at the beauty
of the view. Mountains shimmered in the distance like visions seen in
dreams, mountains like towering emeralds springing from a sapphire
sea! We passed tiny hamlets, half-hidden in lime orchards, and
cocoa-groves with yellow patches of cane gleaming here and there
against a background of forest. As we drew nearer we could see white
torrents dashing tempestuously down through green valleys, for
Dominica has a too plenteous water-supply, since in some districts
three hundred inches a year is the average rainfall. It rained seven
times in the three hours that we passed on shore, but the showers were
gentle ones, and we found generous shelter in the wonderful Botanical
Garden, where we spent most of our time.

Nature is sometimes a kindly mother; often she wears a tragic mask,
and now and then she indulges in melodrama; but I never conceived the
possibility of her having a sense of humor until we witnessed her
freakish mood in the Dominica garden. There were the usual varieties
of magnificent palms and brilliant flowering shrubs; but the joy of
joys was the Sausage-Tree, around which we walked in helpless mirth at
the incredible veracity of the imitation. It reached a goodly height,
and had a splendid girth and circumference of shade; but no factory in
Bologna or Frankfort, or any other possible birthplace of the real