THE TRUMPET-TREE. 89 



fragrance, and fruit, combine in the citron family ; 

 and wherever they will grow they are sure to be 

 favourites. In Jamaica they are planted in profu- 

 sion, and in the winter months refresh the eye and 

 the palate of the wayfarer with their golden fruit. 



We are again in shadow. The open pastures 

 afford no shelter from the sun, except that of their 

 scattered trees ; but now we enter a romantic road of 

 delightful coolness and shade. The sea is at our 

 back ; and as we turn from time to time on the road, 

 now rapidly ascending, we get more and more ex- 

 tended views of it, over the intervening woods, spark- 

 ling and flashing as its clear blue surface is broken 

 up by the awakening sea-breeze. In the woods on 

 our right hand, whose tall mass casts the high road 

 into shade, the Trumpet-tree {Cecropia peltata) is 

 particularly abundant, giving a remarkable character 

 to the scene. It shoots up a slender jointed stem to 

 the height of forty or fifty feet, from the summit of 

 which a few digitate leaves, resembling gigantic horse- 

 chestnut leaves on long footstalks, radiate horizon- 

 tally, with a very palm-like aspect. The stem is 

 hollow between the joints, and composed of light 

 porous wood ; the bark when wounded bleeds a 

 milky fluid, which is said to make good india-rubber. 

 Hundreds of these curious trees are seen in these 

 woods, and on the mountain-side before us, conspi- 

 cuous a long way off", amidst the dense surrounding 

 foliage of the other forest-trees. 



The opposite side of the road is bounded for some 

 distance by a bank fifteen or twenty feet high, out 

 of which the highway has been scarped. Several 



