But having once cast
anchor before Yaque the ships of all the world would have had great
difficulty in landing anybody.
Sheer and almost smoothly hewn from the utmost coast of the island
rose to a height of several hundred feet one scarcely deviating wall
of rock; and this apparently impregnable wall extended in either
direction as far as the sight could reach. Above the natural rampart
the land sloped upward still in steep declivities, but cut by
tortuous gorges, and afar inland rose the mountain upon whose summit
the light had been descried. There the glass revealed white towers
and columns rising from a mass of brilliant tropical green, and now
smitten by the late sun; but save these towers and columns not a
sign of life or habitation was discernible. No smoke arose, no
wharf or dock broke the serene outline of the black wall lapped by
the warm sea; and there was no sound save that of strong torrents
afar off. Lonely, inscrutable, the great mass stood, slightly
shelved here and there to harbour rank and blossomy growths of green
and presenting a rugged beauty of outline, but apparently as
uninhabitable as the land of the North Silences.
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