The first time I saw Nevis, I didn't really. Looking across the two-mile strait from St. Kitts, the dormant volcano-island was always capped with clouds. In 1493 Christopher Columbus had the same problem; he promptly named the island "Our Lady of the Snows" (in Spanish, nieves---Nevis for short).

I took a ferry across the water this time, determined to see more or less up-close what I had been told was a perfect cone volcano. And every morning I planned my day to allow for looking at the mountaintop.

Looking for a clear peak may have given onward-and-upward inspiration to Alexander Hamilton who was born here in 1757. The old Jewish School where he may have learned the basic arithmetic that led to his becoming first Secretary of the Treasury for the fledgling United States is visible in a still unfinished restoration. Never mind. There's a reconstruction of what may have been his birthplace in Charlestown, and his birthday, January 11, is an official island holiday.

Nevis, an almost-round 36-square-mile island in the Lesser Antilles archipelago, is primarily a wooded mountain - that is, one coy 3,232-foot Mt. Nevis and two lesser hills - ringed with mangrove swamp and coral sand. It's a serene place without casinos or glitz. Beach bars seldom stay open until much past midnight; music is local. The 218-room luxury Four Seasons Resort is the island's second largest employer, and there are private villas for rent as well as plantation inns. Island economy now depends upon offshore financial headquarters (tax havens in the spirit of Bermuda and the Cayman Islands), not tourism. The days of sugar aristocracy when Nevis was "Queen of the Caribbees" are long past.

Events have a down-home Caribbean feel even when they are updated. There is the kite flying contest on Good Friday as well as the Off Road Triathlon in November. Culturama is a seven-day August party in honor of the end of slavery with parades, a beauty pageant, calypso competition and jump-ups (street dancing). Horse races at Indian Castle Beach are frequent and popular.

Thanks to the Nevis Historical & Conservation Society (NHCS), island ecology is not ignored, and cooperation with the Ocean Conservancy is the longest in the Caribbean. The month of October is "Coastal Cleanup" (which extends below the waterline as well) and "Environment Week" falls in January. Children in grades 4-6 receive "Eco News," a newsletter prepared and sent by the NHCS ("Our hope is that adults and policy makers will be influenced by the messages" the editors say). The $20.50 departure tax includes a $1.50 environmental levy.

Scuba divers and snorkelers can prowl pirate caves and the entire former capital of Jamestown sunk by earthquake and tidal wave in 1680. There are bird and insect-watching treks by day (I was told t o look for the "Jack Spaniard," a dark blue and orange spider-eating wasp that inspired the movie "Alien" but never saw one). At night you can join guided tours to view endangered bats, frogs and luminous bugs.

Gardens and small farms produce the breadfruits, yams, pumpkins, pawpaws, mangos and guavas (plus many more I didn't recognize) that fill the Charlestown central market on Fridays and Saturdays. Street vendors sell ginger beer and ladle out the peppery stew called "goat water."

The Upper Round Road of the 1600s was restored as a 9-mile hiking and biking trail (URRT) in the 1990s winning an eco-tourism award from Islands Magazine. It reaches around two thirds of the island from Nisbet Plantation Beach Inn to Golden Rock Plantation Inn. Golden Rock has its own rain forest nature trail complete with green (Vervet) monkeys as well as a honeymoon suite in the old sugar mill.

Driving the main road around the island I paused at viewpoints where I could see all the way to dormant island Saba and volcanically-active island Montserrat. Picnic sites guarded by rusty cannons and forts abandoned two centuries ago afforded endless photo ops. I stopped by Cottle Church (formal name: St. Mark's Chapel of Ease) built in 1824 by Thomas Cottle, the president of Nevis. He wanted a place where his family and slaves could worship together, but ran into a law forbidding slaves to congregate. Fig Tree Church (St. John' Anglican) built in 1838 has on display the marriage certificate of Horatio and Fanny Nelson (he was on one of his first commands; she, a young widow). St. George's Anglican Church overlooks a graveyard where tombstones date back to 1643. A caretaker told me stone churches make excellent hurricane shelters but should be avoided in earthquakes.

Allowing for such distractions, the simple circle can take a whole day, though without once revealing the top of Nevis Peak. (Hikers to the summit report no ghosts hiding in the mist, but they say the term "cloud forest" is as accurate as it is poetic.)

Visible history goes back to archaeological sites of pre-Columbian days, and David Rollinson, curator for the NHCS, leads walking tours. Teams from Brown, Brandeis and Boston University have been uncovering remnants of a 17th century Iberian-Jewish community that once accounted for a quarter of the island's white population. Although thousands of artifacts have been found, hopes of finding the ruins of a great synagogue have not been realized,

Nevis was an English upper-class retreat even before the Treaty of Versailles verified British rule in 1783. When the Empire dissolved it became half of the Associated British State of St. Kitts and Nevis, one of the world's smallest nations. The government is stable, and the 98 percent literacy rate is claimed to be the highest in the Western Hemisphere.

Getting there is just difficult enough to keep it from being over-run by island-hopping tourists. The International Airport has been expanded, but is limited to intra-island flights. The cruise pier, bankrolled by the government of Kuwait, cannot handle large ships.

Walking along the beach my last morning in Nevis, the sun was shining as usual, and the air smelled of salt spray and jasmine. Tiny yellow crabs called "Sally-go-lightly" were ambling along the rocks. I had just passed Nelson's Spring Swamp when I took a last look up - just checking - and there she was, Mt. Nevis, a perfect cone rising above the palm trees.

The only cloud in the sky hung jauntily over the top.