t faults some
of them have, proceed mainly from a not dishonourable ambition,
mixed with uncertainty of their own position. Let them be made to
feel that they are now not a class; to forget, if possible, that
they ever were one. Let any allusion to the painful past be
treated, not merely as an offence against good manners, but as what
it practically is, an offence against the British Government; and
that Government will find in them, I believe, loyal citizens and
able servants.

But to go back to the forest. I sauntered forth with cutlass and
collecting-box, careless whither I went, and careless of what I saw;
for everything that I could see would be worth seeing. I know not
that I found many rare or new things that day. I recollect, amid
the endless variety of objects, Film-ferns of various delicate
species, some growing in the moss tree-trunks, some clasping the
trunk itself by horizontal lateral fronds, while the main rachis
climbed straight up many feet, thus embracing the stem in a network
of semi-transparent green Guipure lace. I recollect, too, a coarse
low fern {245} on stream-gravel which was remarkable, because its
stem was set with thick green prickles. I recollect, too, a dead
giant tree, the ruins of which struck me with awe. The stump stood
some thirty feet high, crumbling into tinder and dust, though its
death was so recent that the creepers and parasites had not yet had
time to lay hold of it, and around its great spur-roots lay what had
been its trunk and head, piled in stacks of rotten wood, over which
I scrambled with some caution, for fear my leg, on breaking through,
might be saluted from the inside by some deadly snake. The only
sign of animal life, however, I found about the tree, save a few
millipedes and land snails, were some lizard-eggs in a crack, about
the size of those of a humming-bird.

I scrambled down on gravelly beaches, and gazed up the green avenues
of the brooks. I sat amid the Balisiers and Aroumas, above still
blue pools, bridged by huge fallen trunks, or with wild Pines of
half a dozen kinds set in rows: I watched the shoals of fish play
in and out of the black logs at the bottom: I gave myself up to the
simple enjoyment of looking, careless of what I looked at, or what I
thought about it all. There are times when the mind, like the body,
had best feed, gorge if you will, and leave the digestion of its
food to the unconscious al