SEA-SHELLS AND URCHINS. 309 



formed by the coral reef, on which the Wrasses and 

 Parrot-fishes, glittering in green and azure and scarlet, 

 are playing and nibbling, and the little butterfly-like 

 Chaatodons, banded with black on golden-yellow, are 

 shooting to and fro. As we sit in the stern-sheets of 

 the gig in which we are pulled ashore, the brilliantly 

 transparent water reveals these and multitudes of other 

 things, enjoying themselves beneath us. Those noble 

 Cassides and Conch shells, which are the ornaments of 

 our sideboards at home, are seen gliding on the sand; 

 great purple urchins with enormously long spines, and 

 others with curiously broad flattened pegs of alternate 

 colours ; sponges, of forms imitative of umbrellas, and 

 cups, and goblets, and trees, from the size of a dining- 

 table downward ; gorgeous sea-slugs crawling on the 

 grass-wrack ; madrepores and corals clothed with their 

 bright-hued anemones ; snatches and glimpses of these 

 and hundreds of other strange creatures, nourished in 

 the steaming sea beneath a vertical sun, we catch, as 

 the boat shoots rapidly over the glassy wave ; and now 

 her keel gently grates upon the glistening beach of 

 coral sand, and we are ashore on Jamaica, the gem of 

 the Caribbean Sea. 



The great south road here skirts the shore ; and at 

 this little wayside inn we procure horses and a negro 

 attendant for our mountain excursion ; for we cannot 

 walk far in this climate with enjoyment. While the 

 steeds are saddling we stretch ourselves on the sand 

 under the shadow of this sea-grape, whose round, 

 shield-like leaves are veined with richest crimson, and 



