Birds. 6927 



remains of a culture now long neglected. The valley is terminated 

 by a line of dark green, the rank vegetation of the swamp. Over this 

 tower the cocoa-nuts, growing on the banks of sea-shingle I have de- 

 scribed ; above these a blue segment of the Caribbean, across which 

 rise the masts of a vessel at anchor in Annotto Bay ; as she swings to 

 the wind these last appear as one, so that the valley must be nearly 

 N.E. and S.W., and down it rushes the fierce sea-breeze the whole day 

 long. But the bright little river is the chief object ; for, what is remark- 

 able in a Jamaica stream, no trees fringe its course, and it is thus visible 

 sparkling over its shallows, or its blue surface ruffled by the sea-breeze, 

 save where its own perpetual windings hide it behind its banks. 



" The valley seems once to have consisted wholly of an alluvium 

 (the morass may have extended up it), a rich valuable soil, and the 

 portion now remaining is covered with waving squares of sugar-cane 

 or rich pastures, sparsely dotted with trees, chiefly the fiddlewood 

 [Citharoxylon) and a beautiful tree called by the negroes 'yoke-wood ;' 

 here it abounds, but I have met with it elsewhere, but where it 

 seemed planted; it is now covered with a profusion of flowers, larger 

 than, but of the colour of, apple-blossoms, succeeded by narrow pods 

 two feet long: itis a Bignonia, and, as I believe B.leucoxylon; I have 

 heard it called also ' Spanish elm,' and it is very like an elm in shape 

 when its growth is undisturbed, but in nothing else, for its foliage is 

 a soft gray-green. This alluvium now occupies only about one-third 

 of the valley — the rest is the Wag Water's own. Close to the base 

 of the shale precipices of the eastern bank is a narrow line of 

 swamp, showing plainly the river once flowed there. Between this 

 and the river lies a tract of shingle. Lower down still the road crosses 

 a crescent-shaped pond, now grown up, all but the fording, with reeds, 

 and much frequented of Rallidae. This was the river-bed only three 

 years ago ; now by a sudden bend it is working away at the bases of 

 the western hills, half a mile off, with what success the prostrate trunk 

 of a huge cotton tree tells plainly. The many acres of land included 

 between these shifting courses is deeply covered with shingle ; the 

 floods bring down the former soil, being completely washed away, to 

 the great detriment of those interested in its cultivation. Where this 

 shingle has been long undisturbed a herbage gradually covers the 

 hungry soil, but not very profitable, it would seem, as pasturage. The 

 limit of the floods is marked by a scanty vegetation of a very peculiar 

 nature, whilst the recently-formed shoals lie bare and gray, a broad 

 margin on which nothing will grow. 



" It is to these two last, forming a tract of varying breadth, but often 



