152 BLUEFIELDS. 



broad leaves expand themselves, and touching each 

 other form a surface of the most beautiful green hue, 

 which conceals the earth and every thing upon it. 

 The English reader may form a very correct idea of 

 this useful plant from the Cuckoo-pint, or " Lords 

 and ladies " of our hedges, only magnifying the leaves 

 to two feet in diameter, and all the rest of the plant 

 in proportion. From the midst of this sea of great 

 green leaves rise many young Plantain trees in rows, 

 already putting forth the great spike of blossom, 

 which will soon be thickly studded with whorls of 

 close-set fruit. The leaves, five or six feet in length, 

 and a foot wide, are noble objects when entire ; 

 especially as they are then of a very brilliant light 

 green hue ; but each plant rarely can show more than 

 a single leaf in this condition, the action of the wind 

 soon tearing them up into lateral strips, in the 

 direction of the transverse veins. 



In another part of the ground we are reminded of 

 the hop-fields of Kent, or the vineyards of France ; 

 for the graceful Yam, a plant not inferior in beauty 

 to either, twines its slender stems up tall poles, and 

 stretches from one to another, making wild natural 

 arbours ; while various sorts of pumpkins and melons 

 trail over the ground at their feet. Perhaps a little 

 patcli of Sugar-cane occupies one corner; a few 

 bushes of the Castor-oil plant, or of the Cassava, 

 another ; with two or three Cotton-trees, not the 

 lowland giant of that name, but the Malvaceous shrub 

 that throws out its snowy bunches of genuine cotton, 

 capable of being manufactured into calico ; — but 

 a small tract, carefully cultivated and kept free from 



