MOUNTAIN GARDENS. 
153 
weeds, we shall see exclusively devoted to those useful 
and closely allied 'plants, the Arrow-root and Ginger ; 
each consisting of succulent green shoots formed by 
the sheathing leaves, and the former displaying hand- 
some heads of scaly flowers. The rootstocks of Ginger 
remain long in the ground after cultivation has ceased^ 
and continue to increase and to throw up their verdant 
shoots. We often used to dig them up in the neglected 
bush of second growth on Bluefields ridge. 
After a few years, the first energy of the virgin 
soil being somewhat diminished, the ground is 
thrown up, and allowed to resume its native wild- 
ness. Another plot is then selected from the forest, 
and rented in like manner ; the same process of 
clearing and cultivation is pursued as before, and 
after a few years this also is relinquished; no at- 
tempt being ever made to maintain the fertility of 
the soil by manure. 
No house is attached to these gardens, their owners 
dwelling, as already said, around Bluefields ; a slight 
hut of logs, however, is sometimes erected, a lodge 
in’a garden of cucumbers,” as a shelter to creep into 
during the brief, but deluging, torrents that descend 
in the afternoons of the rainy season ; and the floor 
is strewn with twigs of trees, or ‘‘ trOjsJi,'' that is, the 
dried leaves of the Plantain, as a rude couch on 
which the negro may take his customary siesta. 
The whole, however, would be incomplete, at least 
in the opinion of those old negroes, few now in 
number, who are of African birth, without one plant 
of little beauty, and of no use, except the imaginary 
one for which it is planted. It is the Horse-eye 
H 5 
