MARTIN RATTLER. 63

resplendent that it seemed to them the realization of
a fairy tale. Plants and shrubs and flowers were
there of the most curious and brilliant description,
and of which they neither knew the uses nor the
names. Majestic trees were there with foliage of
every shape and size and hue—some with stems twenty
feet in circumference, others more slender in form,
straight and tall, and some twisted in a bunch to-
gether and rising upwards like fluted pillars; a few
had buttresses, or natural planks, several feet broad,
ranged all round their trunks, as if to support them ;
while many bent gracefully beneath the load of their
clustering fruit and heavy foliage. Orange-trees with
their ripe fruit shone in the sunbeams like gold.
Stately palms rose above the surrounding trees and
waved their feathery plumes in the air, and bananas
with broad enormous leaves rustled in the breeze and
cast a cool shadow on the ground.

Well might they gaze in great surprise, for all
these curious and beautiful trees were surrounded by
and entwined in the embrace of luxuriant and re-
markable climbing-plants. The parasitic vanilla with
its star-like blossoms crept up their trunks and along
their branches, where it hung in graceful festoons, or
drooped back again almost to the ground. So rich

and numerous were these creepers that in many cases