the negro cottages, here and there, rise groups of the cocoanut palms,
giving, more than anything else, a tropical character to the landscape.
On a distant eminence may perhaps be seen a lofty ceiba or cotton tree,
its white trunk rising sixty or seventy feet from the ground without a
limb, and then putting out huge, scraggy arms, loaded with parasites.
Every lesser feature is swamped in verdure, except that here and there
the whitewashed walls of a negro cottage of the better sort gleam
pleasantly forth from embowering hedges and fruit trees. I do not know
how Wordsworth's advice to make country houses as much as possible of
the color of the surrounding country may apply among the gray hills of
Westmoreland; but among the green hills of Jamaica, the white which he
deprecates forms a welcome relief to the splendid monotony of glowing
emerald. It is not amiss to call it emerald, for there are so many
plants here with glossy leaves, that under the brilliant sunlight the
lustre of the green is almost more than the eye can bear. To the
southward of Oberlin station, formerly belonging to our mission, rises a
range of verdant hills, which in some lights has so much the pure,
continuous color of a gem, as almost to realize Arabian fables to the
eye. Indeed, I have gazed at it sometimes with such a feeling as Aladdin
had when the magician had left him confined in the Hall of Jewels, and
have almost wished for an earthquake to cleave its oppressive superbness
and give a refreshing sight of the blue sea beyond.

But on descending to the plains, where there is less moisture, and where
vegetation therefore is scantier, we find the unwonted forms of growth
more distinct, and have the full sense of being in a southern land. Here
the thorn palms, the cactus hedges, the penguin fences, resembling huge
pineapple plants, and various trees and shrubs, being seen more
isolated, make a stronger impression of the peculiarities of tropical
forms. Here too we meet in greater abundance with the cocoanut tree,
occasionally forming long avenues of lofty palms on the estates. And
here we see more frequently the huge squares of many acres, heavy with
the luxuriant wealth of the cane, and thronged by dusky laborers. The
heat, which in the uplands is pleasant, though rather too steady in the
plains, becomes oppressive and enervating. The distinction between the
wet and dry seasons, also, is much more distinctly marked, and, in
short, everything corr