Meanwhile, I saw the wise mule led up into the bush; and, on asking its owner why, was told that she was to be fed--on what, I could not see.

But, much to my amusement, he cut down a quantity of the young leaves of the Cocorite palm; and she began to eat them greedily, as did my police-horse.

And, when the bamboo stoups were brought out, and three-quarters of a pint of good soup was served round--not forgetting the Negroes, one of whom, after sucking it down, rubbed his stomach, and declared, with a grin, that it was very good Obeah- -the oddness of the scene came over me.

The blazing beach, the misty mountains, the hot trade-wind, the fantastic leaves overhead, the black limbs and faces, the horses eating palm-leaves, and we sitting on logs among the strange ungainly Montrichardias, drinking 'Ramornie' out of bamboo, washing it down with milk from green coconuts--was this, too, a scene in a pantomime?
Would it, too, vanish if one only shut one's eyes and shook one's head?
We turned up into the loveliest green trace, where, I know not how, the mountain vegetation had, some of it, come down to the sea-level.

Nowhere did I see the Melastomas more luxuriant; and among them, arching over our heads like parasols of green lace, between us and the sky, were tall tree-ferns, as fine as those on the mountain slopes.
In front of us opened a flat meadow of a few acres; and beyond it, spur upon spur, rose a noble mountain, in so steep a wall that it was difficult to see how we were to ascend.
Ere we got to the mountain foot, some of our party had nigh come to grief.