FAR AND NEAR 



another, three or four times repeated, till they 

 finally die down, to remain so till the hour strikes 

 again. The traveler tarrying in Kingston soon 

 comes to wish that the mongoose had made poultry- 

 raising still more difficult than it is. 



And the dogs were not far behind the roosters. 

 But the flea and the tick do not leave much spirit in 

 the Jamaican dog. Poor cur, how wretched and 

 forlorn he looks ! That he can bark at all is a won- 

 der. And it is only in town that he does bark, and 

 in the cool of the night. In the country he looks at 

 you wistfully, or languidly searches his own body 

 for the pests that make his life miserable. 



Everywhere the cocoanut-trees are upon the 

 beach or near it. There seems to be a fringe of 

 them around the whole island. They lean toward 

 the sea as if they loved it ; or does this attitude 

 enable them the better to withstand the gales from 

 the sea ? We saw them upon small islands, — in one 

 case a sohtary tree upon a little coral reef a few 

 yards in extent, still yearning seaward. The wind 

 blows back their long leaves so that they suggest 

 runners with their hair streaming behind them. 



The palms of aU sorts seem less like trees than 

 like gigantic woody plants. They have no branches, 

 — only a stalk with a tuft of leaves at the top. The 

 wood is not wood, but bundles of tough fibres Hke 

 cords and ropes ; and the leaves are not leaves, but 

 more fibres welded together in tin-Hke sheets and 

 260 



