TOUR IN TEE UNITED STATES. 207 



After breakfast, I wandered to the beach to see what I could 

 pick up. I had gone but a few steps when I involuntarily 

 exclaimed (no one fortunately within hearing), " glorious ! 

 this world is full of beautiful things." And what do you think 

 excited my ecstacy ? It was neither a snail nor a seaweed, 

 nor even a moss — it was a fine young grove of cocoa-nut 

 trees, waving in a strong breeze. You have no idea, from see- 

 ing them in hothouses, what palm-trees are under the open sky. 

 They are as different as an eagle on its eyrie from the same 

 bird in a cage. The plumy leaves, shaking to and fro and 

 rustling in the wind, are lordly, as well as unutterably beautiful. 

 Truly the palms are the princes of the vegetable world. It 

 never struck me till I heard the sound through their leaves, 

 how beneficent of Providence to place such huge fan and feather 

 leaves in the hot climates, where they catch the slightest air, 

 and play backwards and forwards on their long leaf-stalks, 

 cooling all around them, and comforting the air with their aspen 

 music. 



Passing the cocoa-nuts, I got to the beach, and wandering on 

 here, found another sort of paradise — a paradise of seaweeds. 

 I was without my collecting-box, but could not bring myself 

 to turn back, and went on gathering for two hours — new and 

 beautiful forms — one after another ; till at last, fearing lest I 

 should lose any of my pickings, I thought it prudent to return 

 home, having filled my handkerchief as well as two large cup- 

 sponges which I picked up on the beach. I then sat in my room 

 for six hours, arranging what I had collected, and, in the end, 

 after putting up a hundred specimens, I had to throw away the 

 remainder for lack of time and daylight. 



This island is about ten miles long, and is formed of a sort of 

 modern oolitic limestone ; viz., oolite in the process of forma- 

 tion. The surface is flat and sandy, and covered with low shrubs 

 and poor-looking trees. The cocoa-nuts have all been planted 

 by the settlers, as well as the other ornamental trees which are 

 scattered here and there. A large convolvulus (C. Pescaprse), 

 spreads itself all along the shore. It resembles C. Soldanella 

 on a large scale, which you may remember on the sandhills at 

 Youghal. There were also large patches of a plant like helio- 

 trope, with many other characteristic tropical shore-plants 

 which I knew well enough as dried specimens, and have, there- 



