BEAUTIFUL GROVES. 259 



foliage, and much variety of light and shadow. The 

 under growth, however, is no less pleasing. The 

 lively tender green of the Plantains and Bananas 

 planted in regular avenues, the light tracery of the 

 Yams, the Cho-chos, the Melons and Gourds, the 

 numerous sorts of Peas, and other climbers, among 

 which several species of Passion-flower throw their 

 elegant foliage, magnificent blossoms, and grateful 

 acid fruits over the branches of the trees, — the 

 delicate forms of the Castor-oil tree and the Cassavas ; 

 the noble flower of the esculent Hibiscus or Okra — 

 these are the ordinary, almost I might say universal, 

 features of a Jamaican negro-garden ; and when I add 

 to these fine Convolvuli and Ipomese of rainbow hues, 

 the pride of our conservatories, and large white and 

 yellow species of Echites, that, altogether unsought, 

 trail in wild luxuriance about the fences, — I shall 

 be justified in pronouncing the scene one of more 

 than common loveliness, even in the grandeur and 

 beauty of a tropical land. 



THE COCOA-NUT PALM. 



A grove of Cocoa-nut Palms is a very interesting 

 scene to an European. The radiating tuft of fronds 

 which surmounts the tall stem like a crown, is so un- 

 like any other object, that even a single Cocoa-nut 

 tree stands out conspicuously from the surrounding 

 vegetation, (on a hill side for example, where it is 

 backed by the common forest,) so as to catch the 

 eye at a great distance. There is such a grove behind 

 Bluefields, halfway up the dark mountain. It is 



