132 BLUEFIELDS RIDGE. 



BLUEFIELDS RIDGE. 



The road which leads from the shore to the sum- 

 mit of Bluefields mountain, branches off right and 

 left at a point just beyond the Tree-ferns, formerly 

 described ; or rather abuts upon another road run- 

 ning at right angles to it along the ridge. We will 

 first pursue the right-hand branch, which, at the 

 distance of about three miles, leads us to Rother- 

 wood, a coffee plantation. The intervening space, 

 for the most part, consists of the primitive woods ; 

 and the road is nothing more than a narrow rocky 

 bridle-path, just wide enough for two persons to pass 

 each other. The negroes of the lowlands have little 

 gardens or provision-grounds embosomed in these 

 woods, where they rear various kinds of produce ; on 

 Fridays they resort hither, early in the morning, to 

 perform the little tillage that is required, and to col- 

 lect the fruits and roots which, on the next day, they 

 carry to the market at Savanna le Mar. With the 

 exception of the Friday in every week, however, 

 when the woods re-echo the voices of men, women, 

 and children, and the sounds of the axe and the hoe, 

 this path is almost an unbroken solitude, where the 

 voices of the mountain birds by day, and of the 

 strange reptiles that are vocal by night, and the 

 sighing of the breeze in the upper foliage of the 

 forest, are the only sounds that break the solemn 

 silence. The vegetation here is totally different from 

 that of the lowlands ; more luxuriant, more close 

 and matted, the parasitical plants are more numerous 

 and varied, the air is more humid, and the whole 



