TREES AND FRUITS. 
225 
nate, the Resident made up a party for the purpose 
of visiting the spice plantations. Landing at an 
early hour, we found a walk through the charming 
avenues most enjoyable. The whole surface of 
the land is covered with various kinds of stately 
trees, interspersed here and there with neat little 
inclosures and huts of the natives. It must be re- 
membered that we were in the Tropics, where the 
wild luxuriance of nature runs riot, for the natural 
vegetation of the hedges and hillsides overpowers 
in picturesque effect all the artificial productions of 
man. Wending our way along paths where the line 
of vision is very limited from the dense foliage, we 
occasionally got, on reaching a clearing, alternate 
peeps into wooded valleys and fertile plains, and 
glimpses of the bright blue sea beyond, backed by 
hills and bordered with low, wooded shores, on the 
surface of which were numerous coasting vessels, 
boats, and canoes, whose white sails looked bright in 
the morning sun. Still continuing our walk along 
shady pathways, and admiring each successive view, 
we reached the plantations. Delight itself, however, 
would be but a weak term to express the feelings 
even of the most ordinary observer of nature here. 
The lovely sago-palm, with its great bunches of 
fruit ; the fascinating betel-nut, tall and tapering ; the 
luxuriant profusion of pepper, cinnamon, cocoa, nut- 
meg, and clove trees, with numberless others pro- 
ducing durians, mangustans, lansets, and mangoes, 
