of choice, from all that one associates with the deepest tropics to fair 
rolling English downs with wonderful dark individual Mango Trees 
in place of the sterner Oak. These create a very different impression 
from the thick wooded ravines in the eastern end of the Island which 
are a mass of flowering trees, Tree Ferns, and bunches of feathery 
Bamboo, inhabited by double-fork- tailed humming-birds and chame- 
leons. 
Again, nothing suggests the tropics of Columbus, and Paul and 
Virginia more than the flat white coral beaches fringed with lacerated 
and curved Cocoanut Palms, the turquoise and sapphire sea seen be- 
tween their stems breaking in a white fringe across the shallow bars. 
The Government Gardens at Castleton and the Hope Gardens at 
Kingston have interesting collections, especially the former, in its 
picturesque situation up among the hills, but it is the cottage garden 
of Jamaica which I would rather recall. The idea of any formal plant- 
ing or arrangement does not exist. In fact the lack of interest in gar- 
dening among the English inhabitants strikes one as strange, especially 
us from the North, where every little success is only the result of con- 
tinuous struggle and care. But perhaps the' lazy life of the tropics 
doesn't conduce to even the little effort needed. But where every- 
thing will grow, it is heartrending to see what little effort is made to 
beautify their houses. At Mandeville, where is the largest permanent 
English colony, a few of the places have some nice arrangements, but 
others ruin their opportunities by planting Sunflowers and Zinnias — to 
remind them of England, I suppose. The effects that could be made 
with the lovely Plumbago which grows in great shrubby masses, and 
the beautiful Alamander, here also of shrubby growth instead of our 
frail trailing vine, and the gorgeous Beaumontia grandiflora with its 
superb foliage and great white bell blossoms would be too lovely. Also 
the Roses which bloom ceaselessly and, in consequence, have no odor, 
sometimes reach the height of great shrubs, as do also the brilliant 
Poinsettias, certainly six to seven feet high, with their long straggling 
branches. 
There are several (with us) tenderly nurtured plants that, in 
Jamaica, fringe every roadside bank; one of these is the bright, merry 
little Lantana which looks so much prettier in its wild state than in a 
greenhouse and also the clear red AmarylHs Lilies which crop out of the 
roughest roadside. The beautiful Eucharist Lily, to my mind the 
loveliest of all, grows in rampant profusion with no care; and there 
are quantities of the loveliest wild flowers, of which one could write 
volumes. 
The roads are generally banked on either side, especially those 
running through the mountain regions, and are a mass of exquisite 
ferns and vines and wee plants and mosses, the envy and despair of 
all rock gardeners, for the porous tufa rock is full of holes which the 
