again divided. I tried the nearest turn. I found a trench across it
three feet deep, which had been cut by a torrent. This was altogether
beyond the capacity of our unfortunate animal, so I took the other
boldly, prepared, if it proved wrong, to bivouac till morning with my
"nigger," and go on with my argument.

Happily there was no need; we came again on a gate which led into a
field. There was a drive across it and wire fences. Finally lights began
to glimmer and dogs to bark: we were at the real Cherry Garden at last,
and found the whole household alarmed for what had become of us.

I could not punish my misleader by stinting his fare, for I knew that I
had only myself to blame. He was an honest fellow after all. In the
disturbance of my mind I left a rather valuable umbrella in his buggy.
He discovered it after he had gone, and had grace enough to see that it
was returned to me. My entertainers were much amused at the cause of the
misadventure, perhaps unique of its kind: to address homilies to the
black people on the treatment of their wives not being the fashion in
those parts.

THE HIGH WOODS OF TRINIDAD.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

[The skilled and popular novelist to whom we owe our present
selection seems to have entertained for years a vivid wish to
see the glory of the tropics, the achievement of which desire
is put upon record in "At Last," the work from which we quote.
In his "Westward Ho" he had years before given a
warmly-delineated imaginary picture of the tropics, but waited
for years afterwards to see these scenes in their picturesque
reality. He tells well the story of the tropical "High Woods."]

And now we set ourselves to walk to the depot, where the government
timber was being felled, and the real "High Woods" to be seen at last.
Our path lay along the half-finished tramway, through the first cacao
plantation I had ever seen, though, I am happy to say, not the last by
many a one.

Imagine an orchard of nut-trees, with very large, long leaves. Each tree
is trained to a single stem. Among them, especially near the path, grow
plants of the common hot-house Datura, its long white flowers perfuming
all the air. They have been planted as landmarks, to prevent the young
cacao-trees being cut over when the weeds are cleared. Among them, too,
at some twenty yards apart, are the stems of a tree looking much like an
ash, save that it is inclined to throw out b