across a gully gave an uncertain foothold, and paused, under damp rocks covered with white and pink Begonias and ferns of innumerable forms, to drink the clear mountain water out of cups extemporised from a Calathea leaf; and then struggled up again over roots and ledges, and round the next spur, in cool green darkness on which it seemed the sun had never shone, and in a silence which when our own voices ceased, was saddening, all but appalling.

At last, striking into a broader trace which came from the westward, we found ourselves some six or eight hundred feet above the sea, in scenery still like a magnified Clovelly, but amid a vegetation which—­how can I describe?  Suffice it to say, that right and left of the path, and arching together over head, rose a natural avenue of Cocorite palms, beneath whose shade I rode for miles, enjoying the fresh trade wind, the perfume of the Vanilla flowers, and last, but not least, the conversation of one who used his high post to acquaint himself thoroughly with the beauties, the productions, the capabilities of the island which he governed, and his high culture to make such journeys as this a continuous stream of instruction and pleasure to those who accompanied him.  Under his guidance we stopped at one point, silent with delight and awe.

Through an arch of Cocorite boughs—­ah that English painters would go to paint such pictures, set in such natural frames—­we saw, nearly a thousand feet below us, the little bay of Fillette.  The height of the horizon line told us how high we were ourselves, for the blue of the Caribbean Sea rose far above a point which stretched out on our right, covered with noble wood, while the dark olive cliffs along its base were gnawed by snowy surf.  On our left, the nearer mountain woods rushed into the sea, cutting off the view, and under our very feet, in the centre of an amphitheatre of wood, as the eye of the whole picture, was a group—­such as I cannot hope to see again.  Out of a group of scarlet Bois Immortelles rose three Palmistes, and close to them a single Balata, whose height I hardly dare to estimate.  So tall they were, that though they were perhaps a thousand feet below us, they stood out against the blue sea, far up toward the horizon line, the central palm a hundred and fifty feet at least, the two others, as we guessed, a hundred and twenty feet or more.  Their stems were perfectly straight and motionless, while their dark crowns, even at that distance, could be seen to toss and rage impatiently before the rush of the strong trade wind.  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.