54 NAPARIMA. 



moment to jabber something, usually in Creole French, 

 wliich of course I could not understand. 



He led us well, up and down, and at last over a flat of 

 rich muddy ground, full of huge trees, and of their roots 

 likewise, where there was no path at all. The solitude was 

 awful ; so was the darkness of the shade ; so was the stifling 

 heat ; and right glad we were when we saw an opening in 

 the trees, and the little man quickened his pace, and stopped 

 with an air of triumph not unmixed with awe on the edge of 

 a circular pool of mud and water some two or three acres 

 in extent. 



" Dere de debbil's woodyard," said he, with somewhat bated 

 breath. And no wonder ; for a more doleful, uncanny, half- 

 made spot I never saw. The sad forest ringed it round with 

 a green wall, feathered down to the ugly mud, on which, 

 partly perhaps from its saltness, partly from the changeable- 

 ness of the surface, no plant would grow, save a few herbs and 

 creepers which love the brackish water. Only here and there 

 an Echites had crawled out of the wood and lay along the 

 ground, its long shoots gay with large cream-coloured flowers 

 and pairs of glossy leaves ; and on it, and on some dead 

 brushwood, grew a lovely little parasitic Orchis, an Oncidium, 

 with tiny fans of leaves, and flowers like swarms of yellow 

 butterflies. 



There was no track of man, not even a liunter's footprint ; 



