4 PARA. Cuap. I. 
% 
mouldy air, which seemed to strike from the ground and walls, reminded 
me of the atmosphere of tropical stoves at Kew. In the course of the 
afternoon a heavy shower fell; and in the evening, the atmosphere 
having been cooled by the rain, we walked about a mile out of town 
to the residence of an American gentleman, to whom our host wished 
to introduce us. 
The impressions received during this first walk can never wholly fade 
from my mind. After traversing the few streets of tall, gloomy, convent- 
looking buildings near the port, inhabited chiefly by merchants and 
shopkeepers ; along which idle soldiers, dressed in shabby uniforms, 
carrying their muskets carelessly over their arms, priests, negresses with 
red water-jars on their heads, sad-looking Indian women carrying their 
naked children astride on their hips, and other samples of the motley life 
of the place, were seen ; we passed down a long narrow street leading 
to the suburbs. Beyond this, our road lay across a grassy common into 
a picturesque lane leading to the virgin forest. The long street was 
inhabited by the poorer class of the population. The houses were 
of one story only, and had an irregular and mean appearance. The 
windows were without glass, having, instead, projecting lattice casements. 
The street was unpaved, and inches deep in loose sand. Groups of 
people were cooling themselves outside their doors—people of all shades 
in colour of skin, European, Negro and Indian, but chiefly an uncertain 
mixture of the three. Amongst them were several handsome women, 
dressed in a slovenly manner, barefoot or shod in loose slippers ; but 
wearing richly decorated ear-rings, and around their necks strings of very 
large gold beads. They had dark expressive eyes, and remarkably rich 
heads of hair. It was amere fancy, but I thought the mingled squalor, 
luxuriance and beauty of these women were pointedly in harmony with 
the rest of the scene ; so striking, in the view, was the mixture of natural 
riches and human poverty. The houses were mostly in a dilapidated 
condition, and signs of indolence and neglect were everywhere visible. 
The wooden palings which surrounded the weed-grown gardens were 
strewn about, broken ; and hogs, goats and ill-fed poultry wandered in 
and out through the gaps. But amidst all, and compensating every 
defect, rose the overpowering beauty of the vegetation. The massive 
dark crowns of shady mangoes were seen everywhere amongst the 
dwellings, amidst fragrant blossoming orange, lemon, and many other 
tropical fruit trees ; some in flower, others in fruit at varying stages of 
ripeness. Here and there, shooting above the more dome-like and 
sombre trees, were the smooth columnar stems of palms, bearing aloft 
their magnificent crowns of finely-cut fronds. Amongst the latter the 
slim assai palm was especially noticeable, growing in groups of four or 
five; its smooth, gently-curving stem, twenty to thirty feet high, termi- 
nating in a head of feathery foliage, inexpressibly light and elegant 
in outline. On the boughs of the taller and more ordinary-looking trees 
sat tufts of curiously-leaved parasites. Slender woody lianas hung in 
festoons from the branches, or were suspended in the form of cords and 
ribbons ; whilst luxuriant creeping plants overran alike tree-trunks, roots 
and walls, or toppled over palings in copious profusion of foliage. The 
superb banana (Musa paradisiaca), of which I had always read as 
