Six months in the West-Indies, in 1825

TRINIDAD. feet, and indue the snowy stocking and the colored shoe, or ever they enter the gallant streets of Puerto de Espa単a. Then we rambled on between hedges and trees, now in lanes and now in roads, leaving the little village of San Juan on the right, and crossing many a clear and brawling brook till we arrived, well toasted, at the sweet spot where we were to breakfast.

Antonio Gomez' plantation of cacao is one of the finest in the island. It lies on a very slight declivity at the bottom of a romantic amphitheatre of woody mountains. His house, together with the works of the estate, is situated at the edge of the trees, and a quieter or more lovely spot no hermit ever chose to count his beads in for eternity ! The cacao, which grows from ten to fifteen feet in height, is a delicate plant, and, like a lady, cannot bear exposure to the direct rays of the sun; for this reason a certain portion of the wood is thinned and appropriated, the tall and umbrageous trees are left, and these form with their interwoven branches and evergreen leaves a sunproof skreen, under cover of which the cacao flourishes in luxuriance and preserves her complexion. At a distance the plantation has the appearance of a forest advantageously distinguished by the long bare stems of tropic growth being shrouded with the rich green of the cacaos below, and here and there burning and flashing with the flame-colored foliage of the glorious