s
and recross the water, or take short cuts through the forest. This
was fatiguing work; and about three in the afternoon, the sky being
overcast, and thunder in the mountains indicating an approaching storm,
we had to loon out for a camping place, and soon after reached one
of Mr. Rosenberg's old ones. The skeleton of his little sleeping-hut
remained, and my men cut leaves and made a hasty roof just as the
rain commenced. The baggage was covered over with leaves, and the men
sheltered themselves as they could till the storm was over, by which
time a flood came down the river, which effectually stopped our further
march, even had we wished to proceed. We then lighted fires; I made some
coffee, and my men roasted their fish and plantains, and as soon as it
was dark, we made ourselves comfortable for the night.

Starting at six the next morning, we had three hours of the same kind
of walking, during which we crossed the river at least thirty or forty
times, the water being generally knee-deep. This brought us to a place
where the road left the stream, and here we stopped to breakfast. We
then had a long walk over the mountain, by a tolerable path, which
reached an elevation of about fifteen hundred feet above the sea. Here I
noticed one of the smallest and most elegant tree ferns I had ever seen,
the stem being scarcely thicker than my thumb, yet reaching a height
of fifteen or twenty feet. I also caught a new butterfly of the genus
Pieris, and a magnificent female specimen of Papilio gambrisius, of
which I had hitherto only found the males, which are smaller and very
different in colour. Descending the other side of the ridge, by a very
steep path, we reached another river at a spot which is about the centre
of the island, and which was to be our resting place for two or three
days. In a couple of hour my men had built a little sleeping-shed
for me, about eight feet by four, with a bench of split poles, they
themselves occupying two or three smaller ones, which had been put up by
former passengers.

The river here was about twenty yards wide, running over a pebbly and
sometimes a rocky bed, and bordered by steep hills with occasionally
flat swampy spots between their base and the stream. The whole country
was one dense, Unbroken, and very damp and gloomy virgin forest. Just at
our resting-place there was a little bush-covered island in the middle
of the channel, so that the opening in the forest made by the river was
w