23O CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 



the great, naked-limbed spider, that every morning 

 caught a cockroach and dragged it to my head- 

 board, where he spent the rest of the day in absorb- 

 ing its juices. The question of convalescence seemed 

 a doubtful one, until, one day, I was startled by the 

 sound of a cheery voice, and my good angel burst 

 into the room like a mountain breeze. 



"What ! down with fever? This won't do; can't 

 get well here ; must go down to my estate." And he 

 literally dragged me forth, assisted me to dress, packed 

 up some clothes and my gun-case, and carried me on 

 board the little steamer at the landing. At his beach 

 a horse was waiting, and he placed me in the saddle 

 and led the way on his own bay mare. Clinging to 

 the saddle, I rode slowly up the cane-covered slopes 

 to the house, perched on a spur commanding the 

 valley, surrounded by bread-fruit and almond trees. 

 There I was taken in charge by my friend's good wife, 

 and established at the house until fully recovered. 



" Rutland Vale," to which my friend had carried 

 me, is a long, narrow valley, extending from the 

 Caribbean Sea to the mountains, nearly two miles. 

 The estate occupies the whole of this valley, and is 

 the best cultivated of any on the Leeward coast, 

 being, in the season at which I visited it, one waving 

 mass of cane, filling the valley and covering the bil- 

 lowy ridges. 



The memory of those sunny days, in which my 

 strength came back to me, is the pleasantest, the 

 brightest, of the many delightful reminiscences of 

 that lovely island. My good host, James Milne, a 

 native of BamfF, in Scotland (celebrated as the home 

 of Tam Edward, the "Scottish naturalist"), had 



