We went up 800 feet of steep hill, to pay a visit on that Morne Fortunee which Moore and Abercrombie took, with terrible loss of life, in May 1796; and wondered at the courage and the tenacity of purpose which could have contrived to invest, and much more to assault, such a stronghold, ’dragging the guns across ravines and up the acclivities of the mountains and rocks,’ and then attacking the works only along one narrow neck of down, which must be fat, to this day, with English blood.

All was peaceful enough now.  The forts were crumbling, the barracks empty, and the ’neat cottages, smiling flower gardens, smooth grass-plats and gravel-walks,’ which were once the pride of the citadel, replaced for the most part with Guava-scrub and sensitive plants.  But nothing can destroy the beauty of the panorama.  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