40 
BLUEFIELDS. 
dense and tangled mass of second-growth, chiefly 
logwood, interspersed with calabashes, breadnuts, 
and cotton trees, and with the usual fruit-trees of a 
plantation, the avocada-pear, the akee, a recent in- 
troduction from Africa, oranges and limes, cocoa-nuts, 
mangoes, guavas, papaws, sops, and custard apples. 
There is not a day in the year in which fruit from 
some or other of these may not be plucked. The 
fences consist of dry- wall,” that is, a low wall built 
up of loose stones without cement ; which, when the 
stones are skilfully arranged, so as to bind each other, 
is sufiiciently firm and durable. It is easy, however, 
to guess that such walls afibrd a prolific harbour for 
vermin; and, in truth, spiders and scorpions, great 
biting ants, centipedes, and all the kinds of lizards 
and snakes, find refuge in their crevices. Over these 
walls sprawl multitudes of creeping plants, covering 
their tops and sides with a festooned drapery of ver- 
dure and blossom ; various kinds of Cereus, Aristo- 
lochia, AroidecB, and beautiful Convolvuli, Ipomece, 
and Echites, are abundant; w'hile at their bases 
spring up numberless bushes of Lantana, of several 
species, (always covered with their bunches of cheer- 
ful blossom, and clusters of berries), Cleome penta- 
phylla, Solanecc, and many papilionaceous and other 
flowering plants, both herbaceous and shrubby; many 
of the latter overspread with the tangled leafless stems 
of Dodder (Cuscuta Americana), like a great yellow 
spider’s web thrown over them. A beautiful rivulet 
runs through the estate in a winding course to the 
sea. The soil is a friable whitish marl ; the highest 
