56 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
and golden, but cannot compare with the chastened 
sunbeams that reach one standing. beneath this queen 
of the mountain solitudes ; perchance the sun can per- 
etrate toit. There are several species, one of which, 
with unusually prickly stem (the Cyathea Imrayana), 
is named for Doctor Imray, a resident botanist of the 
island. 
Though the ferns replace, in a measure, the palms, in 
the ascent from coast to mountain-top, yet there is one 
species that climbs to as high an altitude as the fern, 
and is found everywhere on the mountain side until 
the sub-alpine vegetation is reached. This is the 
mountain palm, the “ palmiste montagne,” the “ moun- 
tain cabbage,” Euterpe montana. Euterpe, goddess 
of lyric poetry; no tree of the forest more fitly sym- 
bolizes the realm of song over which she presides. In 
every curve and movement is grace and feeling, 
whether the long leaves wave gently to the mid-day 
breeze, or whether they beat wildly their sustaining 
trunks in the violence of the hurricane. It is not tall 
for a palm, but is slender and has a lovely crown, and 
ministers to the wants of the mountaineers in many 
ways, as will be seen farther on. Inhabiting the same 
region with the tree-fern and loving the same cool, 
solitary shades, it accompanies it in its march up the 
mountains, and ceases with it at the upper edge of the 
high-woods belt. Two such creations were enough 
to give these forests world-wide fame; but there area 
thousand others which I cannot describe for want of 
knowledge, nor if I could, for lack of space. 
We passed streams every half-mile large enough to 
turn a mill in the rainy season, but which were then 
low. Up their rocky beds the trail pursued its way ; 
