shady mangos were seen everywhere amongst the dwellings, amidst
fragrant blossoming orange, lemon, and many other tropical fruit
trees, some in flower, others in fruit, at varying stages of
ripeness. Here and there, shooting above the more dome-like and
sombre trees, were the smooth columnar stems of palms, bearing
aloft their magnificent crowns of finely-cut fronds. Amongst the
latter the slim assai-palm was especially noticeable, growing in
groups of four or five; its smooth, gently-curving stem, twenty
to thirty feet high, terminating in a head of feathery foliage,
inexpressibly light and elegant in outline. On the boughs of the
taller and more ordinary-looking trees sat tufts of curiously-
leaved parasites. Slender, woody lianas hung in festoons from the
branches, or were suspended in the form of cords and ribbons;
whilst luxuriant creeping plants overran alike tree-trunks, roofs
and walls, or toppled over palings in a copious profusion of
foliage. The superb banana (Musa paradisiaca), of which I had
always read as forming one of the charms of tropical vegetation,
grew here with great luxuriance-- its glossy velvety-green
leaves, twelve feet in length, curving over the roofs of
verandahs in the rear of every house. The shape of the leaves,
the varying shades of green which they present when lightly moved
by the wind, and especially the contrast they afford in colour
and form to the more sombre hues and more rounded outline of the
other trees, are quite sufficient to account for the charm of
this glorious tree.

Strange forms of vegetation drew our attention at almost every
step. Amongst them were the different kinds of Bromelia, or
pineapple plants, with their long, rigid, sword-shaped leaves, in
some species jagged or toothed along their edges. Then there was