we saw many a noble specimen of it in our rides.  Its timber is tough, not over heavy, and extensively used already in the island; while its bark is a febrifuge and tonic.  In fact it possesses all those qualities which make its brethren, the Meliaceae, valuable throughout the Tropics.  But it is not the only tree of South America whose bark may be used as a substitute for quinine.  They may be counted possibly by dozens.  A glance at the excellent enumerations of the uses of vegetable products to be found in Lindley’s Vegetable Kingdom (a monument of learning) will show how God provides, how man neglects and wastes.  As a single instance, the Laurels alone are known already to contain several valuable febrifuges, among which the Demerara Greenheart, or Bibiri, {266b} claims perhaps the highest rank.  ‘Dr. Maclagan has shown,’ says Dr. Lindley, ’that sulphate of Bibiri acts with rapid and complete success in arresting ague.’  This tree spreads from Jamaica to the Spanish Main.  It is plentiful in Trinidad; still more plentiful in Guiana; and yet all of it which reaches Europe is a little of its hard beautiful wood for the use of cabinetmakers; while in Demerara, I am assured by an eye-witness, many tons of this precious Greenheart bark are thrown away year by year.  So goes the world; and man meanwhile at once boasts of his civilisation, and complains of the niggardliness of Nature.

But if I once begin on this subject I shall not know where to end.

Our way lay now for miles along a path which justified all that I had fancied about the magnificent possibilities of landscape gardening in the Tropics.  A grass drive, as we should call it in England—­a ‘trace,’ as it is called in the West Indies—­some sixty feet in width, and generally carpeted with short turf, led up hill and down dale; for the land, though low, is much ridged and gullied, and there has been as yet no time to cut down the hills, or to metal the centre of the road.  It led, as the land became richer, through a natural avenue even grander than those which I had already seen.  The light and air, entering the trace, had called into life the undergrowth and lower boughs, till from the very turf to a hundred and fifty feet in height rose one solid green wall, spangled here and there with flowers.  Below was Mamure, Roseau, Timit, Aroumas, and Tulumas, {266c} mixed with Myrtles and Melastomas; then the copper Bois Mulatres among the Cocorite and Jagua palms; above them the heads of enormous broad-leaved trees of I know not how many species; and the lianes festooning all from cope to base.  The crimson masses of Norantea on the highest tree-tops were here most gorgeous; but we had to beware of staring aloft too long, for fear of riding into mud-holes—­for the wet season would not end as yet, though dry weather was due—­or, even worse, into the great Parasol-ant warrens, which threatened, besides a heavy fall, stings innumerable.