102 THE ATLANTIC. [chap. ii. 



of wood fastened together witli cross-pieces, is below the sur- 

 face ; and three or four of those fellows, with their scanty gar- 

 ments — usually reduced to a pair of short drawers — and their 

 smooth dark skins, look oddly, as if they were running about 

 on the water without any support. One of the catamaran men 

 spoke to us in English, and we attached him to us as inter- 

 preter, and told him to go before us to the far landing-place, 

 and then guide us to the governor's quarters. Finding the sea 

 running so high at the landing-j^lace as to be scarcely safe for 

 a ship's boat, we pulled along the shore, and, taking advantage 

 of a lull between the breakers, we ran the boat up on the far 

 beach, and sprung out beyond reach of the surf. The road to 

 the town lay in a hollow beyond the sea -cliff. The road was 

 tolerably good, some part of the way through sand and gravel, 

 with a tangle of bushes, most of them covered with thick masses 

 of the long yellowish stems of the parasitical Cuscuta Afneri- 

 cana. Among them was growing here and there Jatropha 

 urens, one of the most noxious of the island plants, stinging 

 like a nettle, only much more bitterly. On the sides of the 

 road the scrub became very dense — Euphorbias and leguminous 

 plants, covered with a tangle of creepers belonging to many 

 genera of the Circurbitacese, the Convolvulacese, and Legumi- 

 nosag. The flowers of most of these were over, but still some 

 pretty blue tufts of pea-bloom were scattered over the trees, 

 and a little cucumber was abundantly covered with j)ale-yellow 

 flowers and scarlet fruit. 



Near the village the road crosses a ravine, along the sides of 

 which there are some fine banyan-trees. A pretty little dove 

 was in myriads in the woods. They were so tame that they 

 would scarcely rise until we came close up to them ; and if we 

 clapped our hands, they rose in a cloud, hovered in the air for 

 a moment, and then settled down again. 



On the way our guide gave us some information about the 

 place, which we found, on further inquiry, to be correct. Fer- 



