. was again able to ride, and we could undertake more extended
expeditions. He provided me with a horse or pony or something between
both, a creature that would climb a stone staircase at an angle of
forty-five, or slide down a clay slope soaked by a tropical shower, with
the same indifference with which it would canter along a meadow. In the
slave times cultivation had been carried up into the mountains. There
were the old tracks through the forest engineered along the edges of
precipices, torrents roaring far down below, and tall green trees
standing in hollows underneath, whose top branches were on a level with
our eyes. We had to ride with mackintosh and umbrella, prepared at any
moment to have the floods descend upon us. The best costume would be
none at all. While the sun is above the horizon the island seems to lie
under the arches of perpetual rainbows. One gets wet and one dries
again, and one is none the worse for the adventure. I had heard that it
was dangerous. It did no harm to me. A very particular object was to
reach the crest of the mountain ridge which divides Dominica down the
middle. We saw the peaks high above us, but it was useless to try the
ascent if one could see nothing when one arrived, and mists and clouds
hung about so persistently that we had to put off our expedition day
after day.

A tolerable morning came at last. We started early. A faithful black
youth ran alongside of the horses to pick us up if we fell, and to carry
the indispensable luncheon basket. We rode through the town, over the
bridge and by the foot of Dr. Nicholls's plantations. We passed through
lime and banana gardens rising slowly along the side of a glen above the
river. The road had been made by the French long ago, and went right
across the island. It had once been carefully paved, but wet and neglect
had loosened the stones and tumbled them out of their places. Trees had
driven their roots through the middle of the track. Mountain streams had
taken advantage of convenient cuttings and scooped them into waterways.
The road commissioner on the official staff seemed a merely ornamental
functionary. We could only travel at a foot pace and in single file.
Happily our horses were used to it. Along this road in 1805 Sir George
Prevost retreated with the English garrison of Roseau, when attacked in
force from Martinique; saved his men and saved the other part of the
island till relief came and the invaders were driven out again