But, above all, there were more than 7000 young coco- palms doing well, and promising a perpetual source of wealth for the future.

For as the trees grow, and the crops raised between them diminish, the coco-palms will require little or no care, but yield fruit the whole year round without further expense; and the establishment can then be removed elsewhere, to reclaim a fresh sheet of land.
Altogether, the place was a satisfactory specimen of what can be effected in a tropical country by a Government which will govern.

Since then, another source of profitable employment for West Indian convicts has been suggested to me.

Bamboo, it is now found, will supply an admirable material for paper; and I have been assured by paper-makers that those who will plant the West Indian wet lands with bamboo for their use, may realise enormous profits.
We scrambled back into the boat--had, of course, a heap of fruit, bananas, oranges, pine-apples, tossed in after us--and ran back again in the steamer to the famous La Brea.
As we neared the shore, we perceived that the beach was black as pitch; and the breeze being off the land, the asphalt smell (not unpleasant) came off to welcome us.

We rowed in, and saw in front of a little row of wooden houses a tall mulatto, in blue policeman's dress, gesticulating and shouting to us.