GRAND VALE ESTATE. 91 



Bamboo-walk cutting a conspicuous zigzag line upon 

 its dark mass. The ride through this beautiful na- 

 tural amphitheatre, which extends for three or four 

 miles, is for the most part over the short soft turf of 

 expanded pastures, which sustain hundreds of cattle, 

 and are studded with many noble and useful trees. 

 Among these the Star-apple [ChrysopkyUum cainito) 

 is especially worthy of notice ; the golden tint of the 

 under surface of its leaves, moved with the breeze, 

 perpetually interchanging with the deep glossy green 

 of their upper sides. 



Such open pastures as these, intermingled with 

 fields where the valuable, always verdant, Guinea- 

 grass grows in thick tussocks, are the favourite resorts 

 of the Tichicro, a prettily-marked ground sparrow, 

 who calls " tichicro ! chi-chi-tichicro " in a loud tone 

 from his grassy cover, or sits on a large stone and 

 warbles forth a pretty melody, as the traveller is 

 passing. Among the orange and pimento trees, the 

 Wild Canary hops and twitters ; a colony of imported 

 strangers, it is said, which have lost in song, what 

 they have gained in richness of colouring. Thousands 

 of little Teriades and Polyommati (minute yellow 

 and blue Butterflies) with white Pierides and tawny 

 Danaides, flit over the pasture in the bright sun, 

 paying perpetual homage to the blossoms oi Jsclepias, 

 Argemone, Stachytarpha, Cassia, and many other 

 weeds that spring up amidst the pasture grasses. 



To this beautiful estate succeeds another very 

 similar in character, but more uneven in surface, 

 called Grand Vale. It is still cultivated as a sugar 

 estate ; and here only, within a circuit of many miles 



