The plain on which this sand desert is located is separated in most places from the sea by low hills. It is very level and was probably once covered with water out of which projected many rocky islands—the limestone hills of to-day. These hills are a very characteristic feature of the country. From an incoming vessel they are plainly seen projecting like saw teeth all along the coast; from an eminence back in the country they appear to have no system or regularity whatever, but stick up anywhere sharp and rugged as though shaken out of a dice box onto a board. Further inland they are closer together with no plain between, though in other respects like those of the coast. It is as though they were eroded when the sea stood lower than it does to-day, perhaps very much lower; then the valleys were filled up during a period when the sea was slightly higher than at present, whence it has receded and left the island of to-day. They are covered with a characteristic jungle, rising conspicuously out of which is the “Llume” palm (_Acria attenuata_) whose graceful stem, only about half a foot thick at the base, attains a height of a hundred feet, tapering till it is only three or four inches thick at the top. It is nearly white and at a distance entirely invisible, so that the crown of leaves looks as though it were floating around in the air above the surrounding vegetation. Further inland the limestone hills give way to others of red clay. The clay, like the limestone, is very deeply eroded. In most places it is so continually washed down that the sides of the hills stand always at the critical angle and are ready to slide from under the feet of the explorer. Indeed it would be impossible to climb them were it not for the numerous bushes everywhere standing ready to lay hold on. Here abound ferns, Melastomaceae and other plants of humid regions. Tree ferns are very common; the largest belong to one species of Cyathia. Its beauty is simply beyond description. Imagine, you who have never seen it, a trunk thirty feet tall surmounted by a crown of a dozen or fifteen great leaves made up of a score or two pinnae of the size and grace of ordinary ferns and you have the components—not the ensemble—of the tree fern. This red clay region is the land of coffee. Everywhere the novice thinks the hillside covered with jungle, which turns out to be only poorly kept coffee plantations. The coffee region is coextensive with the range of several plants. Two or three species of the pepper family, with large peltate or round leaves, are found only here; and with one or two exceptions the Melastomaceae occur only in this wet country. They are a very large group of plants common throughout the tropics, but represented in the northern states by the common Rhexia. Its members may be known anywhere by their three-nerved leaves, many of which are beautifully patterned and marked so that even among other tropical plants they are conspicuous for their beauty.