JAMAICA. 187 



ascent, the naturalist was charmed with an unexpected 

 scene on the very brow of the mountain, for this is culti- 

 vated as a garden of allspice, and around each tree a 

 group of negro children were plucking the aromatic twigs 

 in clusters, while flocks of green parrots and parroquets 

 were shooting from bough to bough, and screaming dis- 

 cordantly as they went. The very Peak itself is densely 

 covered with primal forest, "all," as he says, "in the rude 

 luxuriant wildness that it bore in the days when the glories 

 of these Hesperides first broke upon the astonished 

 eyes of Europeans." 



In every direction the neighbourhood of Bluefields 

 proved to be a rich field for zoological investigation. The 

 mountain-forest rose on one hand ; the seashore, with its 

 wall of mangroves, was stretched upon the other ; while 

 close around the house the grove of avocado-pear trees, a 

 dozen acres of open pasture, the low walls festooned with 

 creepers, the valley of the rivulet, the orchid-nurseries on 

 the trunks of the straggling calabash trees, all formed so 

 many happy hunting grounds at the very threshold of 

 home. Gosse's first anxiety was to send something of 

 value back by the Caroline, on her return voyage. Without, 

 therefore, settling down to any very systematic labour, he 

 hastily set about forming a small collection of the Onci- 

 diiuns, Angrceciims, and other orchids which he found 

 growing in the angles of the calabashes, and in gathering 

 land-shells, of which he sent back a cabinet of seven 

 hundred and fifty specimens. These, with the addition of 

 a few birds, sponges, and ferns, being despatched, he had 

 time to turn round and consider himself at home. 



He found himself unable to take the whole trouble of 

 collecting without much loss of time, and therefore, on 

 January i, 1845, he engaged a negro lad of eighteen, 

 Samuel Campbell by baptism and Sam by name, to give 



