26 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
roots, you have more oysters than one person can carry. They 
are smaller than European oysters, but equally good. Port Hen- 
derson is the shipping port between Kingston and Spanish 
Town; a wharf and a small inn are the only objects to pre- 
serve its name. Our breakfast consisted of coffee not polluted 
with milk, bread, biscuits and butter; in using the latter, which 
is perfectly liquid from the intense heat, a spoon is substituted 
for the knife. Fish would have been provided, but they 
were not yet caught, and we all exhibited too much impa- 
tience to wait: for this provision we had the pleasure of 
paying three shillings each, and thus ended our breakfast at 
Port Henderson. An arid range of rocky hills, rising ab- 
ruptly about 200 feet from the sea, extends about thirty miles. 
Behind these stretches an extensive plain terminating at the 
base of the central range of Blue Mountains. These hills 
are rarely visited with rain, and the vegetation is consequently 
different from anything 1 had seen, composed chiefly of Cacti, 
which give a very singular appearance. The few shrubs 
interspersed are quite leafless from the intense heat. Two 
very pretty species of Turnera were adorning the rocks with 
their showy yellow flowers. At the Apostle’s Battery, a 
small fort opposite Port Royal and mounting about half a 
dozen guns on a very commanding spot, J met the Captain 
of the fort, Captain Carey, who kindly offered to accompany 
me. The Captain armed himself with his gun, in case we 
should meet with any game, as Wild Goats, Guinea Fowl, 
and Guanos, the latter is a large kind of lizard, and is 
considered a great delicacy, and we proceeded over the 
rocks, for there is no soil on them, through a dense forest 
of Cacti, but confined to a few species, C. repandus, Peru- 
vianus and paniculatus, 20 to 30 feet high, and forming a 
dense green mass, so that 1 found a cutlass I had brought 
with me very useful in effecting a passage. Two species of 
Opuntia (common in our collections) and Melocactus com- 
munis (Pope’s Head), form the under-growth; the latter 
have a very pretty appearance, with their tufts of soft red 
spines, thickly dotted with delicate pink fruit and flowers; 
