112 THE yollTlJERN MOUNTAINS. 



them as I liad never .seen before. A hundred or more, 

 averaging at least a liundred feet in lieight, stood motionless 

 in the full cut of the strong trade-wind. One would have 

 expected thorn, when the wood round was felled, to feel the 

 sudden nakedness. One would have expected the inrush of 

 salt air and foam to liave injured their foliage. But, seem- 

 ingly, it was not so. They stood utterly unharmed ; save ' 

 some half-dozen who had had their tops snapped off by a 

 gale there are no hurricanes in Trinidad and remained as 

 enormous unmeaning pikes, or posts, fifty to eighty feet 

 high, transformed, by that one blast, from one of the loveliest 

 to one of the ugliest natural objects. 



Through the Palmiste pillars; through the usual Black 

 Eoseau scrub ; then under tangled boughs down a steep 

 stony bank ; and w^e w^ere on a long beach of deep sand and 

 quartz gravel. On our right the Shore-grapes with their 

 green bunches of fruit, the Mahauts ^ with their poplar-like 

 leaves and great yellow flowers, and the ubiquitous Matapalos, 

 frinsjed the shore. On our left weltered a broad waste of 

 plunging foam ; in front green mountains were piled on moun- 

 tains, blazing in suidight, yet softened and shrouded by an air 

 saturated with steam and salt. AVe waded our horses over 

 the mouth of the little Yarra, which hurried down through 

 the sand, brown and foul from the lagoon above. We sat 



^ Paritium and Thespesia. 



