214 CAVE. 



summits of the trees, now and then alighting on the 

 lofty leaves. Here and there tall cliffs of rugged 

 rock rise perpendicularly from the road-side, their 

 roughness half-concealed by the multitude of shrubs 

 and slender trees that jut out from the crevices, and 

 by the climbing and trailing plants that throw wild 

 graceful festoons over their sides. Among them 

 grows in profusion the Portlandia grandijlora, having 

 much the aspect of a climber, from its height and 

 slenderness, and from its growing close to the face 

 of the rock ; conspicuous above all for its magnificent 

 trumpet-shaped flowers of purest white, eight inches 

 in length, and its large glossy oval leaves of deepest 

 green. 



We cross a streamlet, which, from some machinery 

 formerly erected here, passes by the name of Water- 

 wheel, and where a rude aqueduct carried out a few 

 hundred yards into the sea enables ships' boats to fill 

 their water-casks without the danger of beaching. 

 Here a deep morass borders the road, inhabited by 

 myriads of Land-crabs [Gecarcinus rioricola), whose 

 burrows riddle the ground so completely that, even 

 by the road-side, it is dangerous for a horse to pass. 

 The morass is covered with trees, among which the 

 Cork-wood or Alligator-apple [Anona palustris), is 

 abundant, displaying its beautiful and fragrant, but 

 noxious, fruit ; which nevertheless affords food to 

 these Crabs, to Morass-Galliwasps {Celestus occiduus), 

 and, as is believed, to the formidable Crocodile. 



The sound of human voices in melody falls now 

 upon the ear, the song of the negroes who have 

 begun to haul in the seine. Rude their music is, 



