Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1911-12-13
ISLAND OF DOMINICA
A. Il. Porter Writes Another Very
Interesting Letter From Lesser
Antilles.
CLIMBING THE WORKMANSHIP.
Entertaining Description of Scenic
Beauties of British West Indies.
Island Near South
America.
st. Johns, Antigua, B. W. l.

November is, 1911.
Day before yesterday we took
eleven carriers and started up six
mile trail to small place called
Landat. Our path led up the valley
along the Roseau river for about
three miles and for the first two
miles it was a pretty good road, but
soon narrowed Gown to small
bride path and gradually became
sleeper and rougher as we assembled
to higher attitudes.
The scenery here is beyond de-
scTiption in these mountains. They
are all of volcanic origin and COW
cred with virgin forests to their sum-
mits, so thick that it is impossible
to penetrate into it at all.
Our men Call black took parcels
of about 60 pounds each and carried
them the six miles up this steep
mountain trail and at the end of
their journey seemed as fresh as
when they started. 1t is wonderful
the powers of endurance these peo-
pie have. l have seen women with
barrel full of lines "a sort of small
lemon) weighing from 200 to $50
pounds, on their heads and am told
they carry these heavy loads for
miles sometimes without stop.
This is without doubt the wettest
place / have ever seen or care to
see. When we left we intended strik-
ing Dominica during the dry season,
that was the reason we left in Sep
TENDER instead of January, as we
first planned. John said he had been
advised that the dry season here was
during October, November and De-
cember, but we find on our arrival
that the dry season starts in Febru-
airy, continuing to April and then
again frora August to the last of Oc-
tober, so we missed it entirely. They
have something over 800 inches of
rain here year, during the six
months of the rainy season, so you
against. / have counted the show
ers for yesterday, and there were no
less than ten, and no small ones at
that When it rains it simply floods
everything and water in the streets
is sometimes from three to five
inches deep, so when one has only
the streets to use for walking, it is
rather damp to say the least.
Well, to get back to our trip up
to Landat. John and / decided to
walk and collect such things as we
could find along the way. We start
ed i'm heavy rain which lasted only
about 20 minutes and then the sun
came out. Our rain coats did very
we'll for about five minutes, then We
began to feel the water coming
through and soon we were soaked to
the skin. After about mile Of this
we became so warm that we took of
our coats, and as soon as the sun
came out we began to steam and
Il
eruption. But before we got dry
another shower gave us another
soaking, and so it was, one shower
after another through the entire
trip. The mountains here are mag
nificent and very steep. 1t would be
impossible to climb many of then
nf
and labor.
Some of the trees are very inter
esting. We saw cocoa groves, the
fruit of which is large eliptica
pod, shaped like a small musk-meloI
and pointed at both ends. The seed!
of these pods are dried and grount
up into powder form, to make ou
cocoa. The pods grow on shor
stems which protrude from the mali
trunk of the tree and one sees then
sometimes a hundred on a Tree, iron
a foot above the ground up into thu
branches, and out on some of tn
larger limbs. The cabbage palm, s.
called from the fact that the larg
terminal hid somewhat, resembles
cabbage and is edible, was seen il
many places. The lime industry i
the main source of wealth Of tn
island, and great groves of this tire
are seen everywhere. Bananas ais
form a considerable source Of In
come m the island as we'll as cocOs
Other fruit trees seen were orange!
calabash. shattuck, planting dat
palms. bread fruit. cassara and som
others that | do not now remembe
the names Of.
On gaining an elevation OF abou