The roadstead is open, but as the prevailing winds are from the
east the island itself forms a breakwater. Except on the rarest
occasions there is neither surf nor swell there. The land shelves off
rapidly, and a gunshot from shore no cable can find the bottom, but
there is an anchorage in front of the town, and coasting smacks,
American schooners, passing steamers bring up close under the rocks or
alongside of the jetties which are built out from the beach upon piles.

The situation of Roseau is exceedingly beautiful. The sea is, if
possible, a deeper azure even than at St. Lucia; the air more
transparent; the forests of a lovelier green than I ever saw in any
other country. Even the rain, which falls in such abundance, falls often
out of a clear sky as if not to interrupt the sunshine, and a rainbow
almost perpetually hangs its arch over the island. Roseau itself stands
on a shallow promontory. A long terrace of tolerable-looking houses
faces the landing place. At right angles to the terrace, straight
streets strike backwards at intervals, palms and bananas breaking the
lines of roof. At a little distance, you see the towers of the old
French Catholic cathedral, a smaller but not ungraceful-looking Anglican
church, and to the right a fort, or the ruins of one, now used as a
police barrack, over which flies the English flag as the symbol of our
titular dominion. Beyond the fort is a public garden with pretty trees
in it along the brow of a precipitous cliff, at the foot of which, when
we landed, lay at anchor a couple of smart Yankee schooners and half a
dozen coasting cutters, while rounding inwards behind was a long shallow
bay dotted over with the sails of fishing boats. White negro villages
gleamed among the palms along the shore, and wooded mountains rose
immediately above them. It seemed an attractive, innocent, sunny sort of
place, very pleasant to spend a few days in, if the inner side of things
corresponded to the appearance. To a looker-on at that calm scene it
was not easy to realise the desperate battles which had been fought for
the possession of it, the gallant lives which had been laid down under
the walls of that crumbling castle. These cliffs had echoed the roar of
Rodney's guns on the day which saved the British Empire, and the island
I was gazing at was England's Salamis.

The organisation of the place, too, seemed, so far as I could gather
from official books, to have been carefully attended to. Th