34 NAPARIMA. 



Louse we were that day, and like some others iii the same 

 ishiiid. 



And through the windows and between the pillars of the 

 gallery, what a blaze of colour and light. The ground-floor 

 was hedged in, a few feet from the walls, with high shrubs, 

 which would have caused unwholesome damp in England, 

 but were needed here for shade. Foreign Crotons, Dracaenas, 

 Cereuses, and a dozen more curious shapes among them a 

 " cup-tree," with concave leaves, each of which would hold 

 water. It was said to come from the East, and was unknown 

 to me. Among them, and over the door, flowering crfeepers 

 tangled and tossed, rich with flowers ; and beyond them a 

 circular lawn (rare in the West Indies), just like an English 

 one, save that the shrubs and trees which bounded it were 

 hot-house plants. A few Carat-palms^ spread their huge 

 fan-leaves among the curious flowering trees; other foreign 

 palms, some of them very rare, beside them ; and on the 

 lawn opposite my bedroom window stood a young Palmiste, 

 which had been planted barely eight years, and was now 

 thirty-eight feet in height, and more than six feet in girth at 

 the butt. Over the roofs of the outhouses rose scarlet Bois 

 immortelles, and tall clumps of Bamboo reflecting blue light 

 from their leaves even under a cloud ; and beyond them and 

 below them to the right, a park just like an English one 



1 Sabal. 



