a Highland one in most
things, want of neatness included, save that huge spotted Trochi
were scattered before the door, instead of buckies or periwinkles;
and in the midst of the yard grew, side by side, the common
accompaniment of a West India kitchen door, the magic trees, whose
leaves rubbed on the toughest meat make it tender on the spot, and
whose fruit makes the best of sauce or pickle to be eaten therewith-
-namely, a male and female Papaw (Carica Papaya), their stems some
fifteen feet high, with a flat crown of mallow-like leaves, just
beneath which, in the male, grew clusters of fragrant flowerets, in
the female, clusters of unripe fruit. On through the farmyard,
picking fresh flowers at every step, and down to a shady cove (for
the sun, even at eight o'clock in December, was becoming
uncomfortably fierce), and again into the shore-grape wood. We had
already discovered, to our pain, that almost everything in the bush
had prickles, of all imaginable shapes and sizes; and now, touching
a low tree, one of our party was seized as by a briar, through
clothes and into skin, and, in escaping, found on the tree
(Guilandina, Bonducella) rounded prickly pods, which, being opened,
proved to contain the gray horse-nicker-beads of our childhood.

Up and down the white sand we wandered, collecting shells, as did
the sailors, gladly enough, and then rowed back, over a bottom of
white sand, bedded here and there with the short manati-grass
(Thalassia Testudinum), one of the few flowering plants which, like
our Zostera, or grass-wrack, grows at the bottom of the sea. But,
wherever the bottom was stony, we could see huge prickly sea-
urchins, huger brainstone corals, round and gray, and branching
corals likewise, such as, when cleaned, may be seen in any curiosity
shop. These, and a flock of brown and gray pelicans sailing over
our head, were fresh tokens to us of where we were.

As we were displaying our nosegay on deck, on our return, to some
who had stayed stifling on board, and who were inclined (as West
Indians are) at once to envy and to pooh-pooh the superfluous energy
of newcome Europeans, R----- drew out a large and lovely flower,
pale yellow, with a tiny green apple or two, and leaves like those
of an Oleander. The brown lady, who was again at her post on deck,
walked up to her in silence, uninvited, and with a commanding air
waved the thing away. 'Dat manchineel. Dat poison.