oung tree, unknown to me, looking like a walnut.
Next to it an orange, covered with long prickles and small green
fruit, its roots propped up by a semi-cylindrical balk of timber,
furry inside, which would puzzle a Hampshire woodsman; for it is,
plainly, a groo-groo or a coco-palm, split down the middle. Surely,
again, we are in the Tropics. Beyond it, again, blaze great orange
and yellow flowers, with long stamens, and pistil curving upwards
out of them. They belong to a twining, scrambling bush, with
finely-pinnated mimosa leaves. That is the 'Flower-fence,' {78b} so
often heard of in past years; and round it hurries to and fro a
great orange butterfly, larger seemingly than any English kind.
Next to it is a row of Hibiscus shrubs, with broad crimson flowers;
then a row of young Screw-pines, {78c} from the East Indian Islands,
like spiral pine-apple plants twenty feet high standing on stilts.
Yes: surely we are in the Tropics. Over the low roof (for the
cottage is all of one storey) of purple and brown and white
shingles, baking in the sun, rises a tall tree, which looks (as so
many do here) like a walnut, but is not one. It is the 'Poui' of
the Indians, {78d} and will be covered shortly with brilliant
saffron flowers.

I turn my chair and look into the weedy dell. The ground on the
opposite slope (slopes are, you must remember, here as steep as
house-roofs, the last spurs of true mountains) is covered with a
grass like tall rye-grass, but growing in tufts. That is the famous
Guinea-grass {78e} which, introduced from Africa, has spread over
the whole West Indies. Dark lithe coolie prisoners, one a gentle
young fellow, with soft beseeching eyes, and 'Felon' printed on the
back of his shirt, are cutting it for the horses, under the guard of
a mulatto turnkey, a tall, steadfast, dignified man; and between us
and them are growing along the edge of the gutter, veritable pine-
apples in the open air, and a low green tree just like an apple,
which is a Guava; and a tall stick, thirty feet high, with a flat
top of gigantic curly horse-chestnut leaves, which is a Trumpet-
tree. {79a} There are hundreds of them in the mountains round: but
most of them dead, from the intense drought and fires of last year.
Beyond it, again, is a round-headed tree, looking like a huge
Portugal laurel, covered with racemes of purple buds. That is an
'Angelim'; {79b} when full-grown, one of the fi