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ANTIGUA.
coves, some of them running into the centre of the plantations like canals, some swelling into estuaries, and others forming spacious harbours. Beyond these, an infinite variety of islands and islets stud the bosom of the blue sea, and stand out like so many advanced posts of defence against the invading waves. They are of all shapes and sizes, and are given up to the rearing of provisions and the maintenance of a great number of cattle. From the same hill, when the western sky is clear, Guadaloupe, Montserrat, Nevis, and St. Kitt's may all be distinguished by the naked eye. The tortuous descent of Figtree Hill, though not so rich and imposing as the mountains and vallies of Trinidad, is yet a landscape so exquisitely beautiful that no painter or poet, who had once seen it, could ever forget the sight. A prodigious number of forest trees grow on the tops and declivities of the cliffs, and luxuriant festoons and knots and nets of evergreen creepers connect them all together in one great tracery of leaves and branches. The wild pine sparkled on the large limbs of the wayside trees; the dagger-like Spanish n e e d l e , the quilled pimploe † and the maypole aloe++shooting upwards to twenty feet with its yellow flowering crown on high, formed an impenetrable mass of vegetation around the * Bidens pilosa. † Cactus tuna. † Agave Americana.