The black glossy head of the Balata, almost as high aloft as they, threw off sheets of spangled light, which mingled with the spangles of the waves, and, above the tree tops, as if poised in a blue hazy sky, one tiny white sail danced before the breeze.

The whole scene swam in soft sea air, and such combined grandeur and delicacy of form and of colour I never beheld before.
We rode on and downward, toward a spot where we expected to find water.

Our Negroes had lagged behind with the provisions; and, hungry and thirsty, we tethered our horses to the trees at the bottom of a gully, and went down through the bush toward a low cliff.

As we went, if I recollect, we found on the ground many curious pods, {224} curled two or three times round, something like those of a Medic, and when they split, bright red inside, setting off prettily enough the bright blue seeds.

Some animal or other, however, admired these seeds as much as we; for they had been stripped as soon as they opened, and out of hundreds of pods we only secured one or two beads.
We got to the cliff--a smugglers' crack in the rock, and peered down, with some disgust.