Away lumbered the volante, and away we pranced after it. For the first two miles the scenery was tame enough; but after that, the gently swelling eminences on each side of the road rose abruptly into rugged mountains; and the dell between them, which had hitherto been verdant with waving guinea grass, became covered with large trees, under the dark shade of which we lost sight of the sun, and the contrast made every thing around us for a time almost undistinguishable. The forest continued to overshadow the high-road for two miles further, only broken by a small cleared patch now and then, where the sharp-spiked limestone rocks shot up like minarets, and the fire scathed stumps of the felled trees stood out amongst the rotten earth in the crevices, from which, however, sprang yams and cocoas, and peas of all kinds, and granadillos, and a profusion of herbs and roots, with the greatest luxuriance. At length we came suddenly upon a cleared space; a most beautiful spot of ground, where, in the centre of a green plot of velvet grass, intersected with numberless small walks, gravelled from a neighbouring rivulet, stood a large one-story wooden edifice, built in the form of a square, with a court-yard in the centre. From the moistness of the atmosphere, the outside of the unpainted weatherboarding had a green damp appearance, and so far as the house itself was concerned, there was an air of great discomfort about the place. A large open balcony ran round the whole house on the outside; and fronting us there was a clumsy wooden porch supported on pillars, with the open door yawning behind it. The hills on both sides were cleared, and planted with most luxuriant coffee-bushes, and provision grounds, while the house was shaded by several splendid star-apple and kennip-trees, and there was a border of rich flowering shrubs surrounding it on all sides. The hand of woman had been there! A few half-naked negroes were lounging about, and on hearing our approach they immediately came up and stared wildly at us. “All fresh from the ship these,” quoth Bang. “Can’t be,” said Transom. “Try and see.” I spoke some of the commonest Spanish expressions to them, but they neither understood them, nor could they answer me. But Bang was more successful in Eboe and Mandingo, both of which he spoke fluently accomplishments which I ought to have expected, by the by, when I declared he was little skilled in any tongue but English.