FACHIRA FLOWERS. 159 



it pay as a protection; for uo jaguar or tiger-cat, it is to be 

 presumed, would care to meddle with anything so exquisitely 

 nasty, especially when it is all over sharp prickles. 



Once I should know the spot again among a thousand 

 where we scrambled over a stony brook just like one in a 

 Devonshire wood, the boulders and the little pools between 

 them swarmed with things like scarlet and orange fingers, or 

 sticks of sealing-wax, which we recognized, and, looking up, 

 saw a magnificent Bois Chataigne,^ Pachira, as the Indians 

 call it, like a great horse-chestnut, spreading its heavy 

 boughs overhead. And these were the fallen petals of its 

 last-night's crop of flowers, which had opened there, under 

 the moonlight, unseen and alone. Unseen and alone ? How 

 do we know that ? 



Then we emerged upon a beach, the very perfection of 

 typical tropic shore, with little rocky coves, from one to 

 another of which we had to ride throuoh rollinof surf, beneath 

 the w^elcome shade of low shrub-frincred cliffs ; while over 

 the little mangrove-swamp at the mouth of the glen, Tocuche 

 rose sheer, like McGilbicuddy's Eeeks transfigured into one 

 husje emerald. 



We turned inland again, and stopped for luncheon at 

 a clear brook, runnincj through a ^rove of Cacao and 

 Bois Immortelles. We sat beneath the shade of a huge 



^ Caroliiiea insigiiis. 



