KILMARNOCK FOREST. 
123 
with clumps of bamboos; and these verdant, plumose 
crowns, expanding their arched heads like gigantic 
tufts of ostrich feathers against the brilliant sky, 
finish the picture. 
After travelling some miles through an open 
country, we entered the forest at Kilmarnock, where 
some new provision gardens had recently been re- 
claimed and planted. The grace and luxuriance of 
the yam-festoons, and other cultivated plants already 
shooting up, nearly concealed the hideousness of the 
blackened stumps that thickly studded the ground. 
Here I saw Brasavola nodosa in full flower, the spikes 
of white blossom large and massy ; and from a huge 
fallen tree by the side of the road, I obtained many 
bulbs of a species of Maxillaria, The woods were 
now high and dense, and presented much of the same 
character as those on the Bluefields Ridge. Pre- 
sently we began to descend, and soon opened the 
beautiful sugar estate of Grand Vale, with its bright 
green cane-fields and pastures spread out below us as 
on a map. The mill-house with its curious conical 
roof ; the boiling and trash-houses, and other offices; 
and, at a little distance, the great house,” beside a 
beautiful sheet of water ; all could be traced from 
our elevated position ; while the groups of busy 
labourers, the teams of working oxen, and the 
pasturing cattle, moved about like ants over the sun- 
lit scene. The dark forest bounded the estate on 
every side, heightening by its sombre contrast the 
cheerfulness of the variegated inclosure ; and beyojttd 
this stretched away the boundless sea, sleeping in 
silvery beauty beneath the noontide sun. 
