Negroes, men and women, safe and not very much be-coaled ourselves;
and were driven up steep streets of black porous lava, between lava
houses and walls, and past lava gardens, in which jutted up
everywhere, amid the loveliest vegetation, black knots and lumps
scorched by the nether fires. The situation of the house--the
principal one of the island--to which we drove, is beautiful beyond
description. It stands on a knoll some 300 feet in height,
commanded only by a slight rise to the north; and the wind of the
eastern mountains sweeps fresh and cool through a wide hall and
lofty rooms. Outside, a pleasure-ground and garden, with the same
flowers as we plant out in summer at home; and behind, tier on tier
of green wooded hill, with cottages and farms in the hollows, might
have made us fancy ourselves for a moment in some charming country-
house in Wales. But opposite the drawing-room window rose a
Candelabra Cereus, thirty feet high. On the lawn in front great
shrubs of red Frangipani carried rose-coloured flowers which filled
the air with fragrance, at the end of thick and all but leafless
branches. Trees hung over them with smooth greasy stems of bright
copper--which has gained them the name of 'Indian skin,' at least in
Trinidad, where we often saw them wild; another glance showed us
that every tree and shrub around was different from those at home:
and we recollected where we were; and recollected, too, as we looked
at the wealth of flower and fruit and verdure, that it was sharp
winter at home. We admired this and that: especially a most lovely
Convolvulus--I know not whether we have it in our hothouses {52a}--
with purple maroon flowers; and an old hog-plum {52b}--Mombin of the
French--a huge tree, which was striking, not so much from its size
as from its shape. Growing among blocks of lava, it had assumed the
exact shape of an English oak in a poor soil and exposed situation;
globular-headed, gnarled, stunted, and most unlike to its giant