ng on its surface, and green, yellow, and blue
dragon-flies darting here and there above it. The modest wood-pigeon and
dove, disturbed in their morning ablutions, flew away to the woods. The
gray partridge ran into the vacour, which stood in thick lines on the
brink, impenetrable from its long fibrous leaves, standing out like a
phalanx of lances. The water-hens dived, and the parrots chattered on the
trees, as if they had been peopled with scolding married women; whilst the
sluggish baboon sat, with portly belly, gormandizing with the voracity and
gravity of a monk, regardless of all but the stuffing of his insatiable
maw with bananas."

"We were told that there were, in this lake, prawns as big as lobsters,
and eels of incredible size, from fifteen to twenty feet long. The two
principal rivers took their rise from this plain, augmenting in their
course by the tribute of an infinity of streamlets; till swollen into bulk
and strength, like two rival monarchs, they ran parallel for a awhile,
trying to outvie each other in pomp and velocity, springing over their
rocky beds. After some distance they separated to the right and left, and
passed through their different districts, to pay, in their turn, tribute
to the mightier ocean."

"We left the lake on our right, skirted the base of _Piton du Milieu_,
over a volcanic soil of pulverized cinders, and, by gentle descents,
proceeded towards the south. Again we were among mountains, passing green
lawns, and marshes overgrown with vitti-vert, (which is used for
thatching,) fern, marsh mallows, waving bamboos, and wild tobacco. We saw
plantations of the manioc, (bread-fruit,) maize, sweet potatoes, the
cotton-tree, the sugar-cane, coffee, and cloves. Then we crossed rocky
channels of clear rippling water, hedged by dwarf oaks and the
dusky-coloured olive, underneath which flourished the dark-green fig-tree,
with its strawberry-red marrowy fruit, bared by the bursting of its
emerald-green rind. Here the majestic palmiste towered grandly alone,
crowned with its first, tardy, and only fruit; and when deprived of that
diadem, like earthly monarchs, it perishes. We penetrated the wild native
woods, where grew the iron-wood tree, the oak, the black cinnamon, the
apple, the acacia, the tamarind, and the nutmeg. Our path was arched by
wild vines, jessamine, and a multitude of deep scarlet-blossomed creepers,
so thickly interlaced in their living cordage, that neither sun nor storm
coul