158 
PHCENIX PAKK. 
A small garden partially surrounds the house, 
filled with ornamental trees and shrubs, some native 
and some exotic. The beautiful Nerium, called the 
South-sea rose, is prominent among the latter, as 
also the gorgeous Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, and the 
Spanish Jasmine, as fragant as it is elegant; and 
the scarlet Belladonna ^lily, and many others add 
to the gaiety of the parterre. In the garden and 
around it are several curious trees. The noble 
Malay apple {Eugenia malaccensis) or, as it is here 
called, the Otaheite Cashew, there erects its conical 
head, covered either with its beautiful flowers, like 
clusters of crimson tassels, or with its close, luxuriant 
richly-green foliage. The Sago Palm, likewise trans- 
ported from farthest India, has found here a climate 
and a soil congenial to its growth, and presents a 
singular object in its stiff bristling leaves, radiating 
in all directions, and its heart covered with a brown 
woolly or mealy substance. Immediately before the 
door is a large arborescent Euphorbia, probably 
E, grandidens, a native of South Africa, with rather 
inconspicuous flowers, but sure to attract the attention 
of a stranger by its long angular leafless branches, 
set with spines, like long Cacti growing from the 
trunk of an ordinary tree. A row of Shaddock trees, 
hung in the season with their golden fruits, as large 
as a child’s head, combines beauty, fragrance, and 
utility ; while Cashew trees. Mangoes, Custard- 
Apples, Sops and Guavas, all valuable fruits, but 
too common to need description, form groves around 
the mansion. 
Having thus introduced my friend’s dwelling to 
