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feet broad; and this is but a baby, a three years’ old thing.  Surely, again, we are in the Tropics.  Ten feet farther, thrust all awry by the huge palm leaves, grows a young tree, unknown to me, looking like a walnut.  Next to it an orange, covered with long prickles and small green fruit, its roots propped up by a semi-cylindrical balk of timber, furry inside, which would puzzle a Hampshire woodsman; for it is, plainly, a groo-groo or a coco-palm, split down the middle.  Surely, again, we are in the Tropics.  Beyond it, again, blaze great orange and yellow flowers, with long stamens, and pistil curving upwards out of them.  They belong to a twining, scrambling bush, with finely-pinnated mimosa leaves.  That is the ‘Flower-fence,’ 29 so often heard of in past years; and round it hurries to and fro a great orange butterfly, larger seemingly than any English kind.  Next to it is a row of Hibiscus shrubs, with broad crimson flowers; then a row of young Screw-pines, 30 from the East Indian Islands, like spiral pine-apple plants twenty feet high standing on stilts.  Yes: surely we are in the Tropics.  Over the low roof (for the cottage is all of one storey) of purple and brown and white shingles, baking in the sun, rises a tall tree, which looks (as so many do here) like a walnut, but is not one.  It is the ‘Poui’ of the Indians, 31 and will be covered shortly with brilliant saffron flowers.

      I turn my chair and look into the weedy dell.  The ground on the opposite slope (slopes are, you must remember, here as steep as house-roofs, the last spurs of true mountains) is covered with a grass like tall rye-grass, but growing in tufts.  That is the famous Guinea-grass 32 which, introduced from Africa, has spread over the whole West Indies.  Dark lithe coolie prisoners, one a gentle young fellow, with soft beseeching eyes, and ‘Felon’ printed on the back of his shirt, are cutting it for the horses, under the guard of a mulatto turnkey, a tall, steadfast, dignified man; and between us and them are growing along the edge of the gutter, veritable pine-apples in the open air, and a low green tree just like an apple, which is a Guava; and a tall stick, thirty feet high, with a flat top of gigantic curly horse-chestnut leaves, which is a Trumpet-tree. 33  There are hundreds of them in the mountains round: but most of them dead, from the intense drought and fires of last year.  Beyond it, again, is a round-headed tree, looking like a huge Portugal laurel, covered with racemes of purple buds.  That is an ‘Angelim’; 34 when full-grown, one of the finest timbers in the world.  And what are those at the top of the brow, rising out of the rich green scrub?  Verily, again, we are in the Tropics.  They are palms, doubtless, some thirty feet high each, with here and there a young one springing up like a gigantic crown of male-fern.  The old ones have straight gray stems, often prickly enough, and thickened in the middle; gray last year’s leaves hanging down; and feathering round the top, a circular plume of pale green leaves, like those of a coconut.  But these are not cocos.  The last year’s leaves of the coco are rich yellow, and its stem is curved.  These are groo-groos; 35 they stand as fresh proofs that we are indeed in the Tropics, and as ‘a thing of beauty and a joy for ever.’

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      1

      Raleigh’s Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Iles of Azores.

      2

      Chiroteuthi and Onychoteuthi.

      3

      Cocoloba uvifera.

      4

      Plumieria.

      5

      Anona squamosa.

      6

      A. muricata.

      7

      A. chierimolia.

      8

      A. reticulata.

      9

      Persea gratissima.

      10

      Dioscorea.

      11

      Colocasia esculcuta.

      12

      Dr. Davy’s West Indies.

      13

      An account of the Souffrière of Montserrat is given by Dr. Nugent, Geological Society’s Transactions, vol. i., 1811.

      14

      For what is known of these, consult Dr. Nugent’s ‘Memoir on the Geology of Antigua,’ Transactions of Geological Society, vol. v., 1821.  See also Humboldt, Personal Narrative, book v. cap. 14.

      15

      Acrocomia.

      16

      Naval Chronicles, vol. xii. p. 206.

      17

      Craspedocephalus lanceolatus.

      18

      Coluber variabilis.

      19

      Breen’s St. Lucia, p. 295.

      20

      Personal Narrative, book v. cap. 14.

      21

      Dr. Davy.

      22

      Ipomæa Horsfallii.

      23

      Spondias lutea.

      24

      Desmoncus.

      25

      M. Joseph,

1

Raleigh’s Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Iles of Azores.

2

Chiroteuthi and Onychoteuthi.

3

Cocoloba uvifera.

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