ISLAND WOODS. 



91 



and which, be it noted, sinks like a stone ; bitter plum 

 (Si'tnaruba) ; hog plum (Spondias) ; thatch palm (Coper- 

 nicia), which grew everjnvhere, and was one of the most 

 useful trees on the islands ; for besides making a very 

 convenient thatch for roofs or walls of huts, the negro boys 

 made hats, baskets, and even ropes out of it ; mastics 

 (Bur sera), of which more anon ; and many other species 

 to which we could not pretend to put a name. 



Many of these were quite tall trees ; and one of the 

 first things that strikes one in regard to them is the total 

 absence of damage done as the result of hurricanes. The 

 islanders had never experienced one of these scourges, not 

 even at the time of the bad one which caused such destruc- 

 tion in the Cayman Islands, Cuba and Jamaica, in the year 

 1903. Indeed the " laird " had come to the conclusion, 

 from a twentj^ years' knowledge of the island, that it lay 

 in a zone which was just missed by these terrifying 

 vortices. To walk about the Grand Cayman, as we had 

 done in 1904, and see on every hand dozens of trees lying 

 prone, with their roots torn wholesale from the ground, 

 was a violent contrast to the sight of these well-grown 

 woods, in which one rarely comes acioss even a casual 

 fallen tree. It may be that the trees on Swan Island 

 have a better chance to secure a firmer hold in the soft 

 decomposed limestone on which they grow, than the 

 Grand Cayman Isknd trees, which have to contend 

 against a substratum of coral limestone which is simply 

 adamant : but it seems impossible to imagine a hurricane 

 sweeping over Swan Island without doing an irreparable 

 and obvious amount of harm. 



Another thing one immediately noted in regard to the 

 woods was the extraordinary number of spiders, of many 

 different species, contained in them. Some of these spiders 

 were brightly coloured and very beautiful ; others were 

 characterised b}^ various curiously projecting spines and 

 knobs. 



To me, one of the greatest charms that a small tropical 

 island possesses, is the way in which the trees come right 



