"THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE" - читать интересную книгу автора (Darwin Charles)

conical hills, and the horizon is bounded by an irregular
chain of more lofty mountains. The scene, as beheld through
the hazy atmosphere of this climate, is one of great interest;
if, indeed, a person, fresh from sea, and who has just
walked, for the first time, in a grove of cocoa-nut trees, can
be a judge of anything but his own happiness. The island
would generally be considered as very uninteresting, but to
anyone accustomed only to an English landscape, the novel
aspect of an utterly sterile land possesses a grandeur which
more vegetation might spoil. A single green leaf can
scarcely be discovered over wide tracts of the lava plains;
yet flocks of goats, together with a few cows, contrive to
exist. It rains very seldom, but during a short portion of
the year heavy torrents fall, and immediately afterwards a
light vegetation springs out of every crevice. This soon
withers; and upon such naturally formed hay the animals
live. It had not now rained for an entire year. When the
island was discovered, the immediate neighbourhood of
Porto Praya was clothed with trees, [1] the reckless
destruction of which has caused here, as at St. Helena, and
at some of the Canary islands, almost entire sterility. The
broad, flat-bottomed valleys, many of which serve during a
few days only in the season as water-courses, are clothed
with thickets of leafless bushes. Few living creatures inhabit
these valleys. The commonest bird is a kingfisher (Dacelo
Iagoensis), which tamely sits on the branches of the castor-
oil plant, and thence darts on grasshoppers and lizards. It
is brightly coloured, but not so beautiful as the European
species: in its flight, manners, and place of habitation,
which is generally in the driest valley, there is also a wide
difference.

One day, two of the officers and myself rode to Ribeira
Grande, a village a few miles eastward of Porto Praya. Until
we reached the valley of St. Martin, the country presented
its usual dull brown appearance; but here, a very small rill
of water produces a most refreshing margin of luxuriant
vegetation. In the course of an hour we arrived at Ribeira
Grande, and were surprised at the sight of a large ruined
fort and cathedral. This little town, before its harbour was
filled up, was the principal place in the island: it now
presents a melancholy, but very picturesque appearance. Having
procured a black Padre for a guide, and a Spaniard who
had served in the Peninsular war as an interpreter, we visited
a collection of buildings, of which an ancient church
formed the principal part. It is here the governors and
captain-generals of the islands have been buried. Some of
the tombstones recorded dates of the sixteenth century. [2]

The heraldic ornaments were the only things in this retired