92 A RIDE TO CONTENT. 



of Bluefields, may yet be seen the luxuriant beauty 

 of the majestic Sugar-cane, the busy scenes of in- 

 dustry of which it is the subject, and all the varied 

 processes by which it is converted into sugar and 

 rum. The hum of many voices, the cheerful song, 

 the merry horse-laugh, the shrill notes of the women 

 and children, with the creaking of ungreased wheels, — 

 all tell pleasantly of industry and happiness, in a 

 country where certainly a stranger is apt to be pain- 

 fully struck with the prevalence of silence and neglect, 

 and of that sort of decay which consists in the too 

 successful efforts of wild nature to reconquer from 

 man the possessions which he had once wrested from 

 her sway. 



At length the quiet smiling valley of Peter's Vale, 

 and the busy laughing one of Grand Vale, are both at 

 our back, and we enter the Cotta-wood, a dense but 

 low coppice, and begin to ascend, by a narrow path, 

 the steep mountain-side. The rock projects in many 

 parts in huge tabular shelves, forming rude steps, 

 up and down which it is terrific to ride, though I 

 have done both, trusting to the surefootedness of the 

 horses bred in the mountains, which are used to these 

 precipitous paths. Long, tough, spinous stems trail 

 in every direction through these woods, tangling them 

 beyond all description, and making it a most laborious 

 and painful task to penetrate them. Birds abound in 

 them, especially various species of terrestrial Pigeons, 

 the White-belly, the Partridge, and the Ground- 

 Dove : and many fine and curious insects, I have 

 exclusively found here. At length we suddenly 

 break through the bushes, and find ourselves on a 



