THE JUNGLED COAST OF ROATAN

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 98, 27 April 1935, Page 25

THE JUNGLED COAST OF ROATAN

nP^HE coast line of Roatah is beautiful beyond description, JL (writes Jane Harvey-Houlston in her latest book), This morning the greeny-blue sea was unruffled, heaving with just a slight swell. From the lonely beaches where the coconuts stood erect or bent to watch their reflections, the undulating hills rose in every shade of green from the dark olive of the palms along the shore-to'the sun-splashedj lighter tints of the forests clothing the peaks. At intervals the reaches of white sand, were intercepted by masses of "mangrove growing from the. water; continually the land bent inward forming tiny bays or wider lagoons enclosed in coral reef upon which broke rollers of snowy foam. Little wooden shacks ,r tood here and there between the trees above the beaches—the isolated homes of a few remote natives. .... ' One little reef-locked bay especially intrigued me with its beauty. There were no huts here, no signs of habitation. A stretch of dazzling white sand lay at the foot of thickly growing trees and low bush, and the colouring of the water was like an impossible and extravagant painting. Where it touched the beach it was a- brilliant emerald shot with bars of gold and platinum; further from the shore it shaded miraculously into peacock-blue and then to cobalt. Sparkling lines of foam cut through where the coral barrier lay, marking the dividing-line where the splash of pure azure began. One could see the. rocky bottom and misshapen blobs of coral as through coloured glass. Here and there the serene sandy beaches were broken by piled-up lumps of dark rock—ancient volcanic lava; and these, clothed in masses of air-plants and "orchids, added to the wild beauty of the coast. . . . An hour's run along the jungled coast of Roatan brought us to the entrance of the harbour—l think the loveliest natural harbour I have ever seen—known as Port Royal. It was one of those indescribable, brilliant mornings that only the tropics can produce, with a.delightful breeze; tlie sea was bluer than it seemed possible for any blue to be. / We entered a deep natural channel .which seemed as if it must have been artificially cut through the coral. At the entrance lay a beautiful little coral island known as Lime Cay, upon which lived one man in his solitary shack built on piles over a swamp ihick with; mangroves. ~. . The lone inhabitant accompanied us around the island and took us to a point on the shore where he had found pieces of pottery and, glass under the sand." The pottery we found to be more or less v modern, and had undoubtedly been left there by the buccaneers; and we discovered the neck of a bottle evidently of the days of Henry Morgan.. At this spot also were artificially built foundations . made obviously for mounting cannon. • The water here, broken by long coral reefs, lay in, distinct lines of heavenly shimmering colours; sheer, living, lime-green, ; translucent peacock-blue, pale sky-blue, deep . warm sapphire.