eing, perhaps, the only white men
who had ever seen Ance Biscayen--a congratulation which was
premature; for, as we went to climb up the Matapalo-root ladder, we
were stopped by several pairs of legs coming down it, which
belonged, it seemed, to a bathing party of pleasant French people,
'marooning' (as picnicking is called here) on the island; and after
them descended the yellow frock of a Dominican monk, who, when
landed, was discovered to be an old friend, now working hard among
the Roman Catholic Negroes of Port of Spain.

On the way back to our island paradise we found along the shore two
plants worth notice--one, a low tree, with leaves somewhat like box,
but obovate (larger at the tip than at the stalk), and racemes of
little white flowers of a delicious honey-scent. {118a} It ought to
be, if it be not yet, introduced into England, as a charming
addition to the winter hothouse. As for the other plant, would that
it could be introduced likewise, or rather that, if introduced, it
would flower in a house; for it is a glorious climber, second only
to that which poor Dr. Krueger calls 'the wonderful Norantea,' which
shall be described in its place. You see a tree blazing with dark
gold, passing into orange, and that to red; and on nearing it find
it tiled all over with the flowers of a creeper, {118b} arranged in
flat rows of spreading brushes, some foot or two long, and holding
each hundreds of flowers, growing on one side only of the twig, and
turning their multitudinous golden and orange stamens upright to the
sun. There--I cannot describe it. It must be seen first afar off,
and then close, to understand the vagaries of splendour in which
Nature indulges here. And yet the Norantea, common in the high
woods, is even more splendid, and, in a botanist's eyes, a stranger
vagary still.

On past the whaling quay. It was deserted; for the whales had not
yet come in, and there was no chance of seeing a night scene which
is described as horribly beautiful--the sharks around a whale while
flensing is going on, each monster bathed in phosphorescent light,
which makes his whole outline, and every fin, even his evil eyes and
teeth, visible far under water, as the glittering fiend comes up
from below, snaps his lump out of the whale's side, and is
shouldered out of the way by his fellows. We were unlucky indeed,
in the matter of sharks; for, with the exception of a problematical
bac