184 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



young naturalist took advantage of this fact to make every 

 day a fresh excursion inland with his net. A planter, Mr. 

 Haffenden, of New Forest, hearing of the arrival of an 

 English savant, hospitably invited him to dine and sleep 

 at his house, and sent a horse for him. The estate was 

 some miles up the valley, and the house one in the most 

 splendid colonial style. The balcony offered a view of 

 great breadth and magnificence ; the eye roamed over 

 many miles of open savannah. " But the most striking 

 feature was an enormous mountain rising immediately in 

 front of the house, covered to the summit with dark woods ; 

 so steep and towering that, as I lay in bed in a lofty room, 

 I could but just see a little portion of the sky in the upper 

 corner of the window." The top of this mountain was Mr. 

 Haffenden's coffee-plantation. While Gosse was staying 

 at New Forest, he occupied himself in collecting specimen 

 blossoms of the various exquisite orchids, especially 

 Broughtonia and Brasavola, which grew about the rocks in 

 the forest. The negro groom who had been sent to 

 accompany him was bewildered at this behaviour, and 

 afterwards confided to Mr. Haffenden that the " strange 

 buckra had taken the trouble to get parcels of bush ! " 



The Caroline had landed her mails and principal pas- 

 sengers for Kingston at Port Royal, and was now very 

 leisurely, chiefly at night, creeping from port to port round 

 the south-western coast of Jamaica. It was not until 

 December 19 that she reached the point at which Philip 

 Gosse had determined to leave her, that port of Savannah- 

 le-Mar which lives in literature in a most brilliant and 

 paradoxical fragment of De Quincey. In entering the 

 harbour, the ship suddenly struck upon the reef that 

 divides the former from the expanse of Bluefields Bay. 

 This might have proved a fatal accident, but she did not 

 strike heavily, and, after two hours' arduous exertion, the 



