THE COTTAGE. 93 



good broad road, that leads from Black River to 

 Hampstead and over the Luana-mountains; and here, 

 just round a corner of the zigzag line, is perched 

 the little cottage of Content. 



Why this situation was chosen for the house, I can 

 hardly imagine, unless the wide-extended prospect 

 afforded the inducement, or else the contiguity to the 

 high road. The thin stratum of sloping earth, that 

 originally svipported the forest-trees, has been quite 

 cleared from a small area, leaving only the naked 

 furrowed rock, which has partly been built up with 

 masonry on the lower side, to form a site sufficiently 

 level for the harhican, on which the coffee, pimento, 

 &c. are dried in the sun. Yet a few hundred 

 yards within the forest, on the same plantation, a 

 spacious and fertile level dale exists, which would 

 seem to have offered a spot far more eligible for 

 habitation. 



Above, below, and around, is the primeval forest, 

 scarcely interrupted by the small and widely scattered 

 clearings that here and there occur. From so singular 

 a position, — the tops of the trees immediately be- 

 neath the little space that surrounds the dwelling 

 scarcely reaching to the level of its base, — the eye 

 commands a magnificent prospect, embracing the 

 indented coast from the bold promontory of Pedro 

 Bluff on the east as far as the park-like slopes of 

 Mount Edgecumbe on the west; ranging over the 

 sombre intervening forest, with its cultivated open- 

 ings, and resting on the broad savannahs and flooded 

 meadows that surround Black River ; this town with 

 its bay and shipping in the distance, and the course 



