SOME SUMMER DAYS IN MARTINIQUE. 291 



roses, honeysuckles, and a hundred other plants, may 

 here be found. 



The gem of the garden is the lake in its center, 

 surrounded by great trees ; tall palms pierce the 

 leaves above it; a broken stream, tumbling down 

 from the hill, half screening some fern-covered grolto 

 as it falls, plunges into it. It is a small pond, but 

 contains vegetable wonders on its three small islets 

 that at home would be priceless. One island is com- 

 pletely covered with a mound of vines wound about 

 a screw-pine and frangipanni — a tangled mass of 

 jessamine and wild vines of the tropics, spangled with 

 white, red, and yellow flowers. Another, a mere 

 foothold for the tree, contains a " traveler's tree," its 

 magnificent leaves reflected in the lake. The other 

 islet contains more rare plants, wild plantains with 

 golden cups, ferns and flowers, and is further graced 

 by two very slender areca-palms, exquisitely grace- 

 ful, shooting upward with stems not larger than one's 

 wrist, and forty feet in height. Their delicate leaves 

 droop above dense clusters of nuts — the famous nuts 

 with which the betel is mixed and chewed by the 

 natives of the East. 



The low bushes are covered with land-snails, and 

 lizards dart out from every crevice, from under every 

 rock and dead limb, and run up the trunks of trees 

 by scores — lizards of all sorts, sizes, and colors ; and 

 they are sluggish, too, and it is easy to catch them. 

 But in searching for snails, I encountered an insect 

 not very agreeable, whose bite is certain fever, some- 

 times death. Horribly gay is this spider, the Taran- 

 tula, in the long hair that covers body and legs, which 

 serves well to conceal it while waiting for its prey, 



