56 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



and golden, but cannot compare with the chastened 

 sunbeams that reach one standing beneath this queen 

 of the mountain solitudes ; perchance the sun can pen- 

 etrate to it. There are several species, one of which, 

 with unusually prickly stem (the Cyathca Imrayana) , 

 is named for Doctor Imray, a resident botanist of the 

 island. 



Though the ferns replace, in a measure, the palms, in 

 the ascent from coast to mountain-top, yet there is one 

 species that climbs to as high an altitude as the fern, 

 and is found everywhere on the mountain side until 

 the sub-alpine vegetation is reached. This is the 

 mountain palm, the " palmiste montagne," the " moun- 

 tain cabbage," Euterpe montana. Euterpe, goddess 

 of lyric poetry ; no tree of the forest more fitly sym- 

 bolizes the realm of song over which she presides. In 

 every curve and movement is grace and feeling, 

 whether the long leaves wave gently to the mid-day 

 breeze, or whether they beat wildly their sustaining 

 trunks in the violence of the hurricane. It is not tall 

 for a palm, but is slender and has a lovely crown, and 

 ministers to the wants of the mountaineers in many 

 ways, as will be seen farther on. Inhabiting the same 

 region with the tree-fern and loving the same cool, 

 solitary shades, it accompanies it in its march up the 

 mountains, and ceases with it at the upper edge of the 

 high-woods belt. Two such creations were enough 

 to give these forests world-wide fame ; but there are a 

 thousand others which I cannot describe for want of 

 knowledge, nor if I could, for lack of space. 



We passed streams every half-mile large enough to 

 turn a mill in the rainy season, but which were then 

 low. Up their rocky beds the trail pursued its way ; 



