perished, as he may well have done, against those awful walls?  At last we turned to re-ascend—­for the tide was rising—­after our leader had congratulated us on being, perhaps, the only white men who had ever seen Ance Biscayen—­a congratulation which was premature; for, as we went to climb up the Matapalo-root ladder, we were stopped by several pairs of legs coming down it, which belonged, it seemed, to a bathing party of pleasant French people, ‘marooning’ (as picnicking is called here) on the island; and after them descended the yellow frock of a Dominican monk, who, when landed, was discovered to be an old friend, now working hard among the Roman Catholic Negroes of Port of Spain.

On the way back to our island paradise we found along the shore two plants worth notice—­one, a low tree, with leaves somewhat like box, but obovate (larger at the tip than at the stalk), and racemes of little white flowers of a delicious honey-scent. {118a} It ought to be, if it be not yet, introduced into England, as a charming addition to the winter hothouse.  As for the other plant, would that it could be introduced likewise, or rather that, if introduced, it would flower in a house; for it is a glorious climber, second only to that which poor Dr. Krueger calls ‘the wonderful Norantea,’ which shall be described in its place.  You see a tree blazing with dark gold, passing into orange, and that to red; and on nearing it find it tiled all over with the flowers of a creeper, {118b} arranged in flat rows of spreading brushes, some foot or two long, and holding each hundreds of flowers, growing on one side only of the twig, and turning their multitudinous golden and orange stamens upright to the sun.  There—­I cannot describe it.  It must be seen first afar off, and then close, to understand the vagaries of splendour in which Nature indulges here.  And yet the Norantea, common in the high woods, is even more splendid, and, in a botanist’s eyes, a stranger vagary still.

On past the whaling quay.  It was deserted; for the whales had not yet come in, and there was no chance of seeing a night scene which is described as horribly beautiful—­the sharks around a whale while flensing is going on, each monster bathed in phosphorescent light, which makes his whole outline, and every fin, even his evil eyes and teeth, visible far under water, as the glittering fiend comes up from below, snaps his lump out of the whale’s side, and is shouldered out of the way by his fellows.  We were unlucky indeed, in the matter of sharks; for, with the exception of a problematical back-fin or two, we saw none in the West Indies, though they were swarming round us.