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.