30 COUNTRY ROUND YORK. 



In the morning Captain Harries landed a party 

 on a small island to cut wood, and we went on 

 shore to see the town and neighbourhood. The 

 view from the superintendant's house is grand 

 and imposing. To the west and south lay the 

 sea, with the Banana Islands and the entrance 

 to the Sherborough river ; and behind the house 

 were mountains rising almost perpendicularly 

 from their base, clothed with forests of immense 

 trees to their very summits. A large tract of 

 cleared and partially cultivated ground extends 

 from the base of the hill, on which the govern- 

 ment house is situated, to the banks of a moun- 

 tain stream which forms the boundary of the 

 settlement. The land did not appear to be very 

 good, being too much washed by the mountain 

 torrents during the rainy season. Ginger 

 seemed to be the principal plant cultivated for 

 export, and of that but a small quantity was in 

 the ground. 



The luxuriance of tropical vegetation has a 

 most imposing effect on a person the first time 

 he beholds it ; while the thought that that very 

 luxuriance, the absence of which is deplored in 

 many countries, forms the bane of this, forcibly 

 reminds him of the impotence of human reason 



