leisurely along, admiring those beauties of nature for which my fears had hitherto precluded a relish. [Footnote I: No person thinks of travelling in any part of Cuba unarmed; even the negro wears his machete--and every man of respectability travels with pistols.] Along the narrow winding path there was an endless variety of rich romantic scenery--sometimes I would ascend an elevated piece of ground, where I could view numerous plains as level as the sea, rising here and there in various elevations, teeming with vegetable life, and presenting to the eye a variety of rich colours, separated from each other by irregular and abrupt ridges. Even the wilderness through which I passed, appeared as though the hand of man had been employed to adorn it; for the tall majestic trees that constitute the growth of the Island, were tied together at the tops, by creepers running out from their branches, forming the most graceful festoons, and often peeping over the tops of the trees, as if to exult in their own luxuriance. Night, which had now commenced, added grandeur to the beauty of the scene; for the innumerable brilliant lights of the Cuculla,[J] bespangling the fleecy flowers that crowded the forest, appeared like the stars of heaven glowing among the silver clouds of an autumnal evening. [Footnote J: This is a large species of the Fire-fly, frequent in Cuba.--When fully grown, it is nearly an inch long, and has three powerful lights; one on each side of the head, and a third on the abdomen.--The light afforded by two or three of these insects will enable one to read in the darkest night.] How could I repose amid such a scene as this, without contrasting it with that at the COVE; where I had literally made my escape through the blood[K] of my companions, whose mangled carcasses were now perhaps mouldering on the shore. [Footnote K: While escaping from the Pirates at the Cove, as I passed between the canoes, the water was coloured with blood as far as the shore.]