A LEGEND OF THE SAVANNAH.
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her ; and consequently their feelings of dislike were mutual. She knew he hated her ; and he felt that in her heart she despised him. Still, she loved Bridget—for who could not love that mild, fair girl ?—loved her with an intensity of fervour, unknown to the inhabitants of colder climes—and would have shed for her her heart's best blood ; for love and hatred were to Zulmiera all-absorbing passions. Yet there was another who held the first place in Zulmiera's heart,— one that was to the half-instructed, half-Indian girl—her "idol god." But to return to the movements of the trio. Having left the concealment of the shrubbery, the whole party paused, and with different feelings gazed upon the landscape stretched before them. The slight declivity upon the brow of which they were standing, had been cleared, and was now planted with tobacco, whose broad green leaves, and delicate trumpet flowers, attracted the attention of numerous gorgeous insects. This plantation stretched to the end of a wild copse, where every native shrub and brushwood grew together with the loftier trees, and formed an almost impervious thicket. Beyond this copse, the waters of a .beautiful creek, which ran a short way inland, glittered like gold in the beams of the setting sun ; while on every side rose undulating hills, begirt with many an infant plantation, belonging to some of the earlier settlers. Further off, the broad ocean stretched its interminable waves, its billows sleeping in calmness ; except in one part, where a long ridge of shelving rocks fretted them into motion, and caused them to send forth their angry roar.* At the bottom of the hill upon which they were standing ran a bridle-path, which, winding in and out, branched off in two directions ; one passing through the populous town of Falmouth, the other extending to the shores of a beautiful harbour, † where some industrious settlers were cultivating the adjoining country. Along this path a single horseman was * Now called the Memora's. VOL. I.
† Now called English Harbour. O