The site we selected was an ambitious one; too much so, as we were afterwards to discover. From the first Old Colonial objected to it. It was too far from the river, he said, and would necessitate such an amount of "humping." Bosh about humping! returned the majority. It was only a temporary affair; in a year or two we should be having a regular frame-house. Old Colonial gave way, for he perceived that, as our acknowledged boss, he would have but little of the humping to do himself. And the chosen site was central for the first proposed clearings of our future farm. The selected spot was a rising ground in the centre of a broad basin, nearly a mile across. Steep ranges surround this basin, and the whole was then covered with light bush. Half a mile in front is a mangrove swamp, beyond which flows the river--the mangroves filling up a space that without them would have been an open bay. The prospect in this direction is bounded by the forest-clothed ranges on the opposite side of the river, which is here about a mile in breadth. The land within the basin is nothing like level, and English farmers might be frightened at its ruggedness. To colonial eyes, however, it seems all that could be desired. Knolls and terraces gradually lead up to the ranges, which sweep away to run together into a high hill called Marahemo, about three miles behind us. The little eminence, on which stands the shanty, slopes down on the left to a flat, where originally flax and rushes did most abound. Through this flat a small creek has channelled a number of little ponds and branches on its way to the river beyond. On the right the bank is steeper, and upon it stand a number of cabbage-tree palms. Down below is a little rocky, rugged gully, with a brawling stream rushing through it. Just abreast of the shanty this stream forms a cascade, tumbling into a pool that beyond is still and clear and gravelly. It is a most romantically beautiful spot, shaded and shut in completely by fern-covered rocks and overhanging trees. This is our lavatory. Here we bathe, wash our shirts, and draw our supplies of water. This creek flows down through the mangrove swamp to the river; and, at high-water, we can bring our boats up its channel to a point about a quarter of a mile below the shanty.