MOUNT PLEASANT AND ORANGE WALK. 45 



clothed with orchids, wild pines, and a perfect garden of 

 parasitic vegetation. Hanging along the stems were nume- 

 rous " lianes," or " withes," here called " tie-ties," looking like the 

 festooned ropes of a ship. 



Here and there we passed a space near the river bank a 

 little more open than others, where mahogany works had once 

 stood, but now lapsing fast into the original jungle. It is said that 

 a mahogany forest can be cut every thirty years ; hence many of 

 these abandoned mahogany works are re-opened after a longer 

 or shorter interval, and become, for a time, at least, once more 

 the scenes of daily toil, and the busy abode of man. Now, 

 however, they were silent and deserted, the mid-day calm being 

 only broken by the titter of bright-plumaged birds, or the soli- 

 tary cry of some wild animal. 



In the course of the afternoon we passed Mount Pleasant, 

 another mahogany bank, in working order, and after crossing a 

 beautifully clear stream, falling over rocks encrusted with lime- 

 stone deposits, and beautifully margined with elegant ferns, we 

 entered the forest in the neighbourhood of Orange Walk, the 

 object of Mr. Williamson's journey. 



Here we met numerous mahogany tracks, all converging 

 on the settlement, and just about dusk we left the forest and 

 entered the savannah, or pasture surrounding the settlement, 

 dotted here and there with the huts of the workpeople ; among 

 these, in an open space, stood Mr. Gillett's house, where we were 

 hospitably entertained for the night. 



Owing to the bad condition of the roads after the late heavy 

 rains, and the unfavourable accounts we received of the creeks 

 and tracks in the neighbourhood of San Pedro, San Jose, Irish 

 Creek, and Indian Church, it was thought impossible to carry 

 out our intended trip to the north, and much to my regret we 

 had to abandon it. Under these circumstances, Mr. Williamson 



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