160 TJIE NORTni:/:X M()Ij\\TAJN.S. 



Bamboo clump ; cut ourselves pint-stoups out of the joints ; 

 and then, like great boys, got, some of us at least, very wet 

 in fruitless attempts to catch a huge cray-fish nigh eighteen 

 inches long, blue and grey, and of a shape something between 

 a gnat and a spider, who, with a wife and child, had taken 

 up his abode in a pool among the spurs of a great Bois Im- 

 mortelle. However, he was too nimble for us ; and we went 

 on, and inland once more, luckily not leaving our bamboo 

 stoups behind. 



We descended, I remember, to the sea-shore again, at a 

 certain Maraccas bay, and had a long ride along bright sands, 

 between surf and scrub ; in which ride, by the bye, the 

 civilizer of IMontserrat and I, to avoid the blinding glare oi 

 the sand, rode along the firm sand between the sea and the 

 lagoon, through the low wood of Shore Grape and Mahaut, 

 Pinguin and Swamp Seguine ^ which last is an Arum with 

 a knotted stem, from three to twelve feet high. We brushed 

 our way along with our cutlasses, as we sat on our saddles, 

 enjoying the cool shade ; till my companion's mule found 

 herself jammed tight in scrub, and unable to forge either 

 ahead or astern. Her rider was jammed too, and unable to 

 get off; and the two had to be cut out of the bush by fair 

 hewing, amid much laughter, while the wise old mule, 

 as the cutlasses flashed close to her nose, never moved a 



^ Montrichardia. 



