THE TKUMPET-TREE. 
89 
fragrance, and fruit, combine in the citron family ; 
and wherever they will grow they are sure to he 
favourites. In Jamaica they are planted in profu- 
sion, and in the winter months refresh the eye and 
the palate of the wayfarer with their golden fruit. 
We are again in shadow. The open pastures 
afford no shelter from the sun, except that of their 
scattered trees ; but now we enter a romantic road of 
delightful coolness and shade. The sea is at our 
back ; and as we turn from time to time on the road, 
now rapidly ascending, we get more and more ex- 
tended views of it, over the intervening woods, spark- 
ling and flashing as its clear blue surface is broken 
up by the awakening sea-breeze. In the woods on 
our right hand, whose tall mass casts the high road 
into shade, the Trumpet-tree {Cecropia peltata) is 
particularly abundant, giving a remarkable character 
to the scene. It shoots up a slender jointed stem to 
the height of forty or fifty feet, from the summit of 
which a few digitate leaves, resembling gigantic horse- 
chestnut leaves on long footstalks, radiate horizon- 
tally, with a very palm-like aspect. The stem is 
hollow between the joints, and composed of light 
porous wood ; the bark when wounded bleeds a 
milky fluid, which is said to make good india-rubber. 
Hundreds of these curious trees are seen in these 
woods, and on the mountain-side before us, conspi- 
cuous a long way off*, amidst the dense surrounding 
foliage of the other forest-trees. 
The opposite side of the road is bounded for some 
distance by a bank fifteen or twenty feet high, out 
of which the highway has been scarped. Several 
