It was immediately after the rains when I visited
it; the grass was luxuriant and newly cut, and the trees, which grew in
detached clumps, were most magnificent. We clambered up into one of
them, a large umbrageous wild cotton--tree, which cast a shadow on the
ground--the sun being, as already mentioned, right overhead--of thirty
paces in diameter; but still it was but a dwarfish plant of its kind,
for I have measured others whose gigantic shadows, at the same hour,
were upwards of one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, and their
trunks, one in particular that overhangs the Spanish Town road, twenty
feet through of solid timber; that is, not including the enormous spurs
that shoot out like buttresses, and end in strong twisted roots, that
strike deep into the earth, and form stays, as it were, to the tree in
all directions.
Our object, however--publish it not in Askalon was, not so much to
admire the charms of nature, as to enjoy the luxury of a real Havannah
cigar, in solitary comfort; and a glorious perch we had selected. The
shade was grateful beyond measure. The fresh breeze was rushing, almost
roaring, through the leaves and groaning branches, and every thing
around was green, and fragrant, and Cool, and delicious; by comparison
that is, for the thermometer would, I daresay, have still vouched for
eighty degrees. The branches overhead were alive with a variety of
beautiful lizards, and birds of the gayest plumage; amongst others, a
score of small chattering green paroquets were hopping close to us, and
playing at bopeep from the lower surfaces of the leaves of the wild
pine, (a sort of Brobdignag parasite, that grows, like the mistletoe, in
the clefts of the larger trees,) to which they clung, as green and
shining as the leaves themselves, and ever and anon popping their little
heads and shoulders over to peer at us; while the red--breasted
woodpecker kept drumming on every hollow part of the bark, for all the
world, like old Kelson, the carpenter of the Torch, tapping along the
top sides for the dry rot.
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