A MIDNIGHT MARCH. 1 53 



down in small baskets made of tough roots. A small 

 cold stream flowed near by ; and thus this rich-poor 

 man had, with the game of the forest, everything he 

 wanted right at hand. 



Returning to the cabin, my attention was called to 

 the logs of which its walls were built. They were 

 solid rosewood, which once grew wild in these for- 

 ests. Could they have been transported to the coast, 

 they would have brought a good price. The cabin was 

 one of those built by some of the Maroons, or runaway 

 slaves, some forty years ago, when they escaped to 

 the mountains and formed so formidable a body that 

 troops were required several years to capture and 

 subdue them. The space we were in was shaped 

 like the bottom of a shallow bowl, surrounded by high 

 hills, the dry crater, probably, of an extinct volcano. 

 There were many evidences of the residence of the 

 runaways, in dismantled cabins, and gardens, and 

 fruit-trees. It is thought that the wild hogs roaming 

 about the surrounding hills were from their stock. 



We were much puzzled to account for the mys- 

 terious visits the old man paid now and then to a 

 gloomy gorge, into which he would not allow us to 

 penetrate. My boys related the story, prevalent some 

 ten years previously, that the old man had a lovely 

 grand-daughter, only survivor of the family he took 

 with him to the woods. They thought she must be, 

 at the present time, about thirty years old ; and they 

 described her as being as beautiful as the old man 

 was ugly, which was saying a good deal. But we 

 did not at that time see this fair Carib, nor did we 

 even obtain conclusive proof of her existence. There 

 was, however, much in the old man's behavior that 



