70 
ORANGE GROVES. 
covered with trees, and useful vegetables are cultivated 
without much labour. Oranges, limes, bananas, plantains 
and yams are plentiful at most seasons. Of late years it 
has produced a fair quantity of cochineal. Though not 
long introduced, it is found to answer admirably, and as 
the cactus is everywhere rapidly extending, the insect 
will be a valuable addition to the slender exports of 
the place. 
In the evening, some of the officers took a stroll to 
the neighbouring quintas ; at one of which they had the 
pleasure of passing a few hours in the cool refreshing 
shade of an orange grove, where a Portuguese “ Can- 
tador’^ accompanied by his guitar, sang some very pretty 
and enlivening airs, of which “Donna Maria da Gloria,’’ 
was a frequent theme ; while the beams of the silvery 
goddess of night faintly struggled through the surround- 
ing foliage, giving it so much the character of romance 
as to enable them for a little space to forget the awful 
reality in which they were soon about to be engaged. 
On the south side of the bay, a lime-stone bed was found 
on a cliff about twenty-five feet above the sea, containing 
some very large specimens of Buccinium and Conus, 
Close to the shore were many Asclepias gigantea^ the 
shining coriaceous leaves of which attracted notice even 
from on board ship. The plantation consisted chiefly of 
some sugar-canes, cotton, papaya, citrons, guava, ricinus, 
curcas and figs. Higher up the valley, bananas were 
principally grown, as well as Cassia occidentalism Cocos 
and Capsicums, Amongst the plants on the sandy shore, 
