aSz STUDIES OF NATURE. 



appeared to me the moft beautiful portion of it, 

 though the black, free-booters, who take re- 

 fuge there, had cut down, on the fea-fhore, the 

 lataniers with which they fabricate their huts, and 

 on the mountains, the palmettos, whofe tips they 

 ufe as food, and the liannes, of which they make 

 fi(liing-nets. They likewife degrade the banks of 

 the rivulets, by digging out the bulbous roots of 

 the nymphéa, on which they live, and even thofe 

 of the Sea, of which they eat, without exception, 

 every fpecies of the Ihelly tribes, and which they 

 leave here and there on the fhore, in great piles 

 burnt up. Notwithftanding thefe diforders, that 

 part of the ifland had preferved traces of it's an- 

 cient beauty. It is perpetually expofed to the 

 South-eaft wind, which prevents the forefts that 

 cover it from extending quite down to the brink 

 of the Sea ; but a broad felvage of turf, of a beau- 

 tiful fea-green, which furrounds it, facilitates the 

 communication all around, and harmonizes, on 

 the one fide, with the verdure of the woods, and, 

 on the other, with the azure of the billows. 



The view is thus divided into two afpefts, the 

 one prefenting land, the other water. The land- 

 profpedl prefents hills flying behind each other, in 

 the form of an amphitheatre, and whofe contours, 

 covered with trees in pyramids, exhibit a majeftic 

 profile on the vault of Heaven. Over thefe forefl:s 



rifesj 



