54 STUDIES OF NATURE, 



This plantation excepted, they had left the ca-» 

 vity of the rock juft as Nature had adorned it. On 

 it's brown and humid fides, radiated, in green and 

 dufky flars, large plants of maiden-hair, and 

 tufts of the fcolopendra, fufpended like long 

 ribands of a greenifli purple, waved at the plea- 

 fure of the winds. Near to that, grew long ftripes 

 of the periwinkle, the flowers of which nearly re- 

 femble thofe of the red gilly-flower, and pimentos, 

 whofe blood-coloured hufks are brighter than coral. 

 Round about thefe, the plants of balm, with their 

 leaves refembling a heart, and the bafilicons, with 

 a carnation fmell, exhaled the fweeteft of perfumes. 

 From the fummit of the rugged precipices of the 

 mountain hung the lianes, like floating drapery, 

 which formed, on the fides of the rocks, large fef- 

 toons of verdure. The fea-birds, attraded by thefe 

 peaceful retreats, flocked thither to pafs the night. 

 At fun-fet, you might fee the rook and the fea- 

 lark fly along the fliore of the Sea; and, high in 

 air, the black frigat and the white bird of the tro- 

 pics, which abandon, together with the orb of day, 

 the folitudes of the Indian Ocean. 



Virginia delighted to repofe herfelf on the bor- 

 ders of this fountain, decorated with a pomp, at 

 once inagnificent and wild. Thither did flie often 

 refort, to wall) the linen of the family, under tho 



fliade 



