often heard of in past years; and round it hurries to and fro a
great orange butterfly, larger seemingly than any English kind.
Next to it is a row of Hibiscus shrubs, with broad crimson flowers;
then a row of young Screw-pines, {78c} from the East Indian Islands,
like spiral pine-apple plants twenty feet high standing on stilts.
Yes: surely we are in the Tropics. Over the low roof (for the
cottage is all of one storey) of purple and brown and white
shingles, baking in the sun, rises a tall tree, which looks (as so
many do here) like a walnut, but is not one. It is the 'Poui' of
the Indians, {78d} and will be covered shortly with brilliant
saffron flowers.

I turn my chair and look into the weedy dell. The ground on the
opposite slope (slopes are, you must remember, here as steep as
house-roofs, the last spurs of true mountains) is covered with a
grass like tall rye-grass, but growing in tufts. That is the famous
Guinea-grass {78e} which, introduced from Africa, has spread over
the whole West Indies. Dark lithe coolie prisoners, one a gentle
young fellow, with soft beseeching eyes, and 'Felon' printed on the
back of his shirt, are cutting it for the horses, under the guard of
a mulatto turnkey, a tall, steadfast, dignified man; and between us
and them are growing along the edge of the gutter, veritable pine-
apples in the open air, and a low green tree just like an apple,
which is a Guava; and a tall stick, thirty feet high, with a flat
top of gigantic curly horse-chestnut leaves, which is a Trumpet-
tree. {79a} There are hundreds of them in the mountains round: but
most of them dead, from the intense drought and fires of last year.
Beyond it, again, is a round-headed tree, looking like a huge
Portugal laurel, covered with racemes of purple buds. That is an
'Angelim'; {79b} when full-grown, one of the finest timbers in the