316 A DAY IN THE WOODS OF JAMAICA. 



the air ; and feathery ferns arching out their elegant 

 tracery; and creepers running along the boughs, and 

 what look like tussocks of wiry grass at intervals, but 

 which are small tiny-flowered orchids, and long, long 

 ends of green twine hanging many yards in length, 

 now looped up in a loose bight, now swinging in the 

 wind in mid-air, now almost touching the earth, and 

 dividing at their extremities into three or four smaller 

 threads. 



Here we leave our steeds, and penetrate these lofty 

 woods. How solemnly still is the air ! A subdued 

 green light, like that of an ancient cathedral, is dif- 

 fused, to which our eyes are scarcely yet accustomed. 

 The huge old trunks look like the pillars of the Gothic 

 fane, and from far up in the groined roof come 

 dancing beams of bright light, green and yellow and 

 crimson, where the sun's ray falls on a single leaf or 

 flower, that remind one of the stained glass of lofty 

 windows. The butterflies are gaily flitting about the 

 margin of the forest; for they are children of the 

 sun ; the flowers, too, are there ; the shrubs are tall 

 and close-leafed, and covered with varied blossom ; 

 but neither insects nor flowers venture far within the 

 gloom of these primeval woods, save here and there, 

 where openings in the leafy roof admit the bright 

 sunbeams, and make a little parterre on the floor. 

 But delicately cut Lycopodiums of the tenderest green 

 creep over the ground, like a soft Turkey carpet, 

 thrown over everything ; gnarled roots, out-crops of 

 rugged stone, fallen trunks and branches, the trophies 



