lmonds
which were no relations to peaches, and gum trees as unlike eucalypti as
one tree can be unlike another. Again, you saw forms which you seemed to
recognise till some unexpected anomaly startled you out of your mistake.
A gigantic Portugal laurel, or what I took for such, was throwing out a
flower direct from the stem like a cactus. Grandest among them all, and
happily in full bloom, was the sacred tree of Burmah, the _Amherstia
nobilis_, at a distance like a splendid horse-chestnut, with crimson
blossoms in pendant bunches, each separate flower in the convolution of
its parts exactly counterfeiting a large orchid, with which it has not
the faintest affinity, the Amherstia being leguminous like the rest.

Underneath, and dispersed among the imperial beauties, were spice trees,
orange trees, coffee plants and cocoa, or again, shrubs with special
virtues or vices. We had to be careful what we were about, for fruits of
fairest appearance were tempting us all round. My companion was
preparing to eat something to encourage me to do the same. A gardener
stopped him in time. It was nux vomica. I was straying along a less
frequented path, conscious of a heavy vaporous odour, in which I might
have fainted had I remained exposed to it. I was close to a manchineel
tree.

Prettiest and freshest were the nutmegs, which had a glen all to
themselves and perfumed the surrounding air. In Trinidad and in Grenada
I believe the nutmegs are the largest that are known, being from thirty
to forty feet high; leaves brilliant green, something like the leaves of
an orange, but extremely delicate and thin, folded one over the other,
the lowest branches sweeping to the ground till the whole tree forms a
natural bower, which is proof against a tropical shower. The fragrance
attracts moths and flies; not mosquitoes, who prefer a ranker
atmosphere. I saw a pair of butterflies the match of which I do not
remember even in any museum, dark blue shot with green like a peacock's
neck, and the size of English bats. I asked a black boy to catch me one.
'That sort no let catchee, massa,' he said; and I was penitently glad to
hear it.

Among the wonders of the gardens are the vines as they call them, that
is, the creepers of various kinds that climb about the other trees.
Standing in an open space there was what once had been a mighty 'cedar.'
It was now dead, only the trunk and dead branches remaining, and had
been murdered by a 'fig' vine which had