e to another, or
depending from the branches towards the ground. The noble Agave, or what
we in England call the American Aloe, here throws out its broad, fleshy,
spine-edged leaves, and lifts its tall flower-stalk loaded with the
candelabra-like branches of bloom; and numerous thick _Cacti_, some
erect and massive, others whip-like, long and trailing, give a peculiar
aspect to the vegetation. Great tufts of _Orchide{oe}_,--the lovely
_Broughtonia_, with its thick ovate leaves, and racemes of elegant
crimson flowers, the _Brasavola_, with long leaves resembling
porcupine-quills in form, and blossoms of virgin white, the _Oncidium_,
with its yellow and red flowers, like a score of painted butterflies
dancing in every breath, and many others,--crowd the forks or droop from
the twisted boughs of the trees.

This formation of honeycombed limestone is full of caverns, many of
which lead into one another in chains, and which have invested the
region with a sort of superstitious mystery. Runaway slaves and outlaws
have availed themselves of the facilities which its ravines and
inaccessible fastnesses afford, to defy capture; and during the
rebellion of the Maroons, it attained a considerable notoriety. There is
one estate about eight miles from Kingston, in the immediate vicinity of
which the famous hero, Three-fingered Jack, made his head-quarters. It
is a district of wild torrents and waterfalls of the most romantic
character; "the imagination of no painter of theatrical spectacles can
surpass the wild wonders of the mountain-hold of the _real_
Three-fingered Jack. Part of the road by which you ascend the falls is a
subterranean passage; and caverns are entered by simple crevices which
seem mere chinks in the irregular surface of the rock, all which natural
peculiarities account for the mysterious disappearances which the
mountain hero was enabled to enact from his pursuers."

It was at this spot I first heard reliable tidings of the strange
Crested Snake. A medical gentleman of reputation informed me that he had
seen, in 1829, a serpent of about four feet in length, but of unwonted
thickness, dull ochry in colour with well-defined dark spots, having on
its head a sort of pyramidal helmet, somewhat lobed at the summit, of a
pale red hue. The animal, however, was dead, and decomposition was
already setting in. He informed me that the negroes of the district were
well acquainted with it; and that they represented it as making