A LOST FEBRUARY 



lines, we would pause with delight, and let our eyes 

 go, like falcons loosed for the quarry. From these 

 altitudes we often saw hawks wheeling and heard 

 them screaming far below or above us, just as in 

 summer we are wont to see them from our native 

 mountains, and apparently they were the same 

 species, the red-tailed. 



On the summit, which was free of trees, we 

 found our white clover in bloom and the butter- 

 cup and wild strawberries. I was more surprised, 

 however, to find the Scotch gorse blooming here. 

 It can hardly be a native of the island. It was 

 probably brought and planted there by British sol- 

 diers whose summer camp we had just left. It told 

 the story of Tommy Atkins longing for his native 

 hills. He had tried with fair success to create a bit 

 of Scotland there on Katherine's Peak. 



From this vantage-ground we could look down 

 upon the coffee plantations tilted up against the 

 mountain-side beneath us. To our eyes they looked 

 like bushy, neglected fields. Here and there we 

 could see what is called a barbecue, — a broad 

 cement platform where the coffee is dried. The 

 superb military road wound leisurely up from 

 the deep valley, — how plainly we could see it, — a 

 yellow ribbon amid the green, looping and loop- 

 ing endlessly. Towards Kingston, vivid emerald 

 squares of sugar-cane held the eye, and suggested 

 fields of Indian corn. They grow our com in Ja- 

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