inclined. It is a timepiece which advances very regularly nearly four minutes a day, and no other group of stars affords to the naked eye an observation of time so easily made. How often have we heard our guides exclaim in the savannahs of Venezuela, or in the desert extending from Lima to Truxillo: "Midnight is past, the Cross begins to bend!" How often those words reminded us of that affecting scene where Paul and Virginia, seated near the source of the river Lataniers, conversed together for the last time, and where the old man, at the sight of the Southern Cross, warns them that it is time to `separate. Von Humboldt.

JAMAICA.

THERE is scenery in Jamaica which almost equals that of Switzerland and the Tyrol; and there is also, which is more essential, a temperature among the mountains in which a European can live comfortably.

It is of course known that the sugar-cane is the chief production of Jamaica; but one may travel for days in the island and only see a cane piece here and there. By far the greater portion of the island is covered with wild wood and jungle, what is there called bush. Through this, on an occasional favorable spot, and very frequently on the roadsides, one sees the gardens or provision-grounds of the negroes. These are spots of land cultivated by them, for which they either pay rent, or on which, as is quite as common, they have squatted without payment of any rent.

These provision-grounds are very picturesque. They are not filled, as a peasant's garden in England or in Ireland is filled, with potatoes and cabbages, or other vegetables similarly uninteresting in their growth; but contain cocoa trees, bread-fruit trees, oranges, mangoes, limes, plantains, jack fruits, avocado pears, and a score of others, all of which are luxuriant trees, some of considerable size,

and all of them of great beauty. The bread-fruit tree and the mango are especially lovely, and I know nothing prettier than a grove of oranges in Jamaica. In addition to this they always have the yam, which is with the negro somewhat as the potato is with the Irishman; only that the Irishman has nothing else, whereas the negro generally has either fish or meat, and has also a score of other fruits besides the yam.

The yam, too, is picturesque in its growth. As with the potato, the root alone is eaten, but the upper part is fostered and cared for as a creeper, so that the ground may be unencumbered by its thick tendrils. Support is provided for it as for grapes or peas. Then one sees also in these provision-grounds patches of coffee and arrow-root, and occasionally also patches of sugar-cane.

One of the most remarkable characteristics of Jamaica is the copiousness of its rivers. It is said that its original name, Xaymaca, signifies a country of streams; and it certainly is not undeserved. This copiousness, though it adds to the beauty, as no doubt it does also to its salubrity and fertility, adds something, too, to the difficulty of locomotion. Bridges have not been built, or, sad to say, have been allowed to go to destruction. One hears that this river or that river is " down," whereby it is signified that the waters are swollen; and some of the rivers when so down are certainly not easy of passage.

It was here that I first saw the full effect of tropical vegetation, and I shall never forget it. Perhaps the most graceful of all the woodland productions is the bamboo. It grows either in clusters, like clumps of trees in an English park, or, as is more usual when found in its indigenous state, in long rows by the river sides. The trunk of the bamboo is a huge hollow cane, bearing no leaves except at its head. One such cane alone would be uninteresting enough. But their great height, the peculiarly graceful curve of their growth, and the excessive thickness of the

drooping foliage of hundreds of them clustered together produce an effect which nothing can surpass.

The cotton-tree is almost as beautiful when standing alone. The trunk of this tree grows to a magnificent height, and with magnificent proportions: it is frequently straight; and those which are most beautiful throw out no branches till they have reached a height greater than that of any ordinary tree with us. Nature, in order to sustain so large a mass, supplies it with huge spurs at the foot, which act as buttresses for its support, connecting the roots immediately with the trunk as much as twenty feet above the ground. I measured more than one, which, including the buttresses, were over thirty feet in circumference. Then from its head the branches break forth in most luxurious profusion, covering an enormous extent of ground with their shade.

But the most striking peculiarity of these trees consists in the parasite plants by which they are enveloped, and which hang from their branches down to the ground with tendrils of wonderful strength. These parasites are of various kinds, the fig being the most obdurate with its embraces. It frequently may be seen that the original tree has departed wholly from sight, and I should imagine almost wholly from existence; and then the very name is changed, and the cotton tree is called a fig tree. In others the process of destruction may be observed, and the interior trunk may be seen to be stayed in its growth and stunted in its measure by the creepers which surround it.

But it often happens that the tree has reached its full growth before the parasites have fallen on it, and then, in place of being strangled, it is adorned. Every branch is covered with wondrous growth—with plants of a thousand colors and a thousand sorts. Some droop with long and graceful tendrils from the boughs, and so touch the ground; while others hang in a ball of leaves and flowers, which swings for years. Trollope.

+

RECLUSE LIFE IN THE TROPICS.

AN interesting scene of recluse life is exhibited by many a little pool in tropical America, such as I have seen in Jamaica, and such as I have seen, too, in the parts of the northern continent bordering on the tropics. You penetrate the sombre woods perhaps for miles, and suddenly, in the midst of the most perfect quietude, you see a great light, and upon an area occupied by a green level, which, from indications here and there, you perceive to be water, covered with a coat of vegetation. The lofty trees rise up in closely-serried* ranks all round from the very margin, and their long branches, as if rejoicing in the unwonted room and light, stretch out over the water and dip their twigs into it. The long pendent strings of parasites hang down and lightly touch the surface, whipping the floating duckweed aside when a storm agitates the great trees. From time to time, one and another have been prostrated before the tempest, and, falling into the pond, project their halfdecayed trunks in great snags † from the sluggish surface, or form piers, which stretch away from the banks into the midst of the lake, and precarious bridges across different portions.

If we make our way by the starlight of the early morning to such a forest-pond as this, arriving silently and cautiously at its margin before the light of the advancing dawn has yet struggled into the little enclosure, and take our station behind the shelter of a leafy bush, we shall discern that the spot is instinct with life. A loud clanging cry is uttered, like the note of a child's trumpet, which is immediately taken up in response from the opposite side of the pool. Then a whirring of wings and much splashing of water. More of

*Serried, crowded, compacted.

Snags, rugged stumps (a great obstacle to navigation).

the loud clangors and more splashing; and now the increasing light enables us to discern a dozen or a score of tiny black objects sitting on the surface, or hurrying to and fro. They look like the tiniest ducks, but are jet black; some are sitting on the points of the projecting snags; and by their erect attitude, we readily recognise they are grebes.*

Now it is light enough to see clearly, and the suspicious birds do not seem to be aware of our presence. Yonder, on the branch of a half-submerged tree, is a great dark mass, and a little bird sitting in it; it must surely be her nest. We must examine it.

Yet, stay! What is that serpent-like object that so quietly sits on yonder overhanging bough? It is indeed a black snake, reposing with elevated neck upon the horizontal limb! It moves! It is a bird! Observe the lithe and

slender neck with which it begins to preen and arrange the plumage of a black body, squatted close to the bough. Mark that sudden start! The neck is elevated to the utmost; the head is raised in an attitude of attention; and the bird remains in absolute stillness. It was that leaf that we rustled in the nervousness of our desire to see him more distinctly. He heard it, and is on the watch. Lo, he is gone! He dropped like a stone, for he made no splash; and we are amazed that so large a body could be immersed from so great a distance, and yet produce scarcely a perceptible disturbance of the surface.

The little grebes, too, have taken the warning; they are with the faithful mother on the nest. She yet lingers, but we show ourselves and advance; and now she jumps into the green water and disappears, and all is as still and sombre as if we were gazing on a grave.

Gosse.

Grebes, of the same species as divers and dabchicks.