-you could almost believe each lithe shape animated by a thinking
force,--believe that all are watching you with such passionless
calm as legend lends to beings super-natural.... And I wonder
if some kindred fancy might not have inspired the name given by
the French colonists to the male palmiste,--_angelin_....

[Illustration: AVENUE IN GEORGETOWN, DEMERARA.]

Very wonderful is the botanical garden here. It is new; and
there are no groves, no heavy timber, no shade; but the finely
laid-out grounds,--alternations of lawn and flower-bed,--offer
everywhere surprising sights. You observe curious orange-colored
shrubs; plants speckled with four different colors; plants that
look like wigs of green hair; plants with enormous broad leaves
that seem made of colored crystal; plants that do not look like
natural growths, but like idealizations of plants,--those
beautiful fantasticalities imagined by sculptors. All these we
see in glimpses from a carriage-window,--yellow, indigo, black,
and crimson plants.... We draw rein only to observe in the ponds
the green navies of the Victoria Regia,--the monster among water-
lilies. It covers all the ponds and many of the canals. Close
to shore the leaves are not extraordinarily large; but they
increase in breadth as they float farther out, as if gaining bulk
proportionately to the depth of water. A few yards off, they are
large as soup-plates; farther out, they are broad as dinner-
trays; in the centre of the pond or canal they have surface large
as tea-tables. And all have an up-turned edge, a perpendicular
rim. Here and there you see the imperial flower,--towering above
the leaves.... Perhaps, if your hired driver be a good guide, he
will show you the snake-nut,--the fruit of an extraordinary tree