iles down the islands. Poor Joe tried to
sell us a nest of Curacoa baskets for seven shillings; retired after
a firm refusal; came up again to R-----, after a couple of hours,
and said, in a melancholy and reproachful voice, 'Da--- take dem for
four shillings and sixpence. I give dem you.'

But now--. Would we go on shore? To the town? Not we, who came to
see Nature, not towns. Some went off on honest business; some on
such pleasure as can be found in baking streets, hotel bars, and
billiard-rooms: but the one place on which our eyes were set was a
little cove a quarter of a mile off, under the steep hill, where a
white line of sand shone between blue water and green wood. A few
yards broad of sand, and then impenetrable jungle, among which we
could see, below, the curved yellow stems of the coconuts; and
higher up the straight gray stems and broad fan-leaves of Carat
palms; which I regret to say we did not reach. Oh for a boat to get
into that paradise! There was three-quarters of an hour left,
between dinner and dark; and in three-quarters of an hour what might
not be seen in a world where all was new? The kind chief officer,
bidding us not trust negro boats on such a trip, lent us one of the
ship's, with four honest fellows, thankful enough to escape from
heat and smoke; and away we went with two select companions--the
sportsman and our scientific friend--to land, for the first time, in
the New World.

As we leaped on shore on that white sand, what feelings passed
through the heart of at least one of us, who found the dream of
forty years translated into fact at last, are best, perhaps, left
untold here. But it must be confessed that ere we had stood for two
minutes staring at the green wall opposite us, astonishment soon
swallowed up, for the time, all other emotions. Astonishment, not
at the vast size of anything, for the scrub was not thirty feet
high; nor at the gorgeous colours, for very few plants or trees were
in flower; but at the wonderful wealth of life. The massiveness,
the strangeness, the variety, the very length of the young and still
growing shoots was a wonder. We tried, at first in vain, to fix our
eyes on some one dominant or typical form, while every form was
clamouring, as it were, to be looked at, and a fresh Dryad gazed out
of every bush and with wooing eyes asked to be wooed again. The
first two plants, perhaps, we looked steadily at were the