insist that the great orange flowers, the size of cabbages, on the
Brownea trees were artificial, as were the big blue trumpets of the
Morning Glories. He was in reality quite intoxicated with the novelty
and the glamour of his first peep into the tropics. By came
fluttering a great, gorgeous butterfly, the size of a saucer, and
after it rushed the Guardsman, shedding slippers around him as his
long legs bent to their task. He might just as well have attempted to
catch the Scotch Express; but, as he returned to me dripping, he began
to realise what the heat of Jamaica can do. All the remainder of that
day the Guardsman remained under the spell of the entrancing beauty of
his new surroundings, and I was dragged on foot for miles and miles;
along country lanes, through the Hope Botanical Gardens, down into the
deep ravine of the Hope River, then back again, both of us dripping
wet in the fierce heat, in spite of our white drill suits, larding the
ground as we walked, oozing from every pore, but always urged on and
on by my enthusiastic young friend, who, suffering from a paucity of
epithets, kept up monotonous ejaculations of "How absolutely d----d
lovely it all is!" every two minutes.

I had to remain a full hour in the swimming-bath after my exertions;
and the Guardsman had quite determined by night-time to "send in his
papers," and settle down as a coffee-planter in this enchanting
island.

It is curious that although the Spaniards held Jamaica for one hundred
and sixty-one years, no trace of the Spaniard in language, customs, or
architecture is left in the island, for Spain has generally left her
permanent impress on all countries occupied by her, and has planted
her language and her customs definitely in them. The one exception as
regards Jamaica is found in certain place-names such as Ocho Rios, Rio