America, is it?" said I,
looking across to the big map of the world. "Is it very beautiful, too?"

The school-master's eyes contracted as if he were short-sighted, or
looking at something inside his own head. But he smiled as he answered--

"The poet says,

'A pleasing land of drowsy-head it is,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
For ever flushing round a summer sky.'"

"But are there any curious beasts and plants and that sort of thing?" I
asked.

"I believe there were no native animals originally," said the
school-master. "I mean inland ones. But the fowls of the air and the
fishes of the sea are of all lovely forms and colours. And such corals
and sponges, and sea-anemones, blooming like flowers in the transparent
pools of the warm blue water that washes the coral reefs and fills the
little creeks and bays!"

I gasped--and he went on. "The commonest trees, I think, are palms and
cedars. Lots of the old houses were built of cedar, and I've heard of
old cedar furniture to be picked up here and there, as some people buy
old oak out of English farm-houses. It is very durable and deliriously
scented. People used to make cedar bonfires when the small-pox was
about, to keep away infection. The gardens will grow anything, and plots
of land are divided by oleander hedges of many colours."

"Oh--h!" ejaculated I, in long-drawn notes of admiration. The
school-master's eyes twinkled.

"Not only," continued he, "do very gaudy lobsters and quaint cray-fish
and crabs with lanky legs dispute your attention on the shore with the
shell-fish of the loveliest hues; there is no lack of remarkable
creatures indoors. Monstrous spiders, whose bite is very unpleasant,
drop from the roof; tarantulas and scorpions get into your boots, and
cockroaches, hideous to behold and disgusting to smell, invade every
place from your bed to your store-cupboard. If you possess anything,
from food and clothing to books and boxes, the ants will find it and
devour it, and if you possess a garden the mosquitoes will find you and
devour you."

"Oh--h!" I exclaimed once more, but this time in a different tone.

Mr. Wood laughed heartily. "Tropical loveliness has its drawbacks, Jack.
Perhaps some day when your clothes are moulded, and your brain feels
mouldy too with damp heat, and you can neither work in the sun nor be
at peace in the shade, you may wish you were sitting o