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Waving palms clash their fronds in the sea-breeze; avenues of feathery tamarind and bending waringen trees surround Weltevreden with depths of green shadow; the scarlet hybiscus flames amid tangled foliage, where the orange chalices of the flowering Amherstia glisten from sombre branches, and hang like fairy goblets from the interwoven roofs of tropical tunnels, pierced by broad red roads.
The old buildings matted with roses, honeysuckles, and jessamines, broken only by the pretty out-door room which Lucy called her greenhouse; the pile of variously tinted geraniums in front of that prettiest room; the wall garlanded, covered, hidden with interwoven myrtles, fuschias, passion-flowers, clematis, and the silky blossoms of the grandiflora pea; the beds filled with dahlias, salvias, calceolarias, and carnations of every hue, with the rich purple and the pure white petunia, with the many-coloured marvel of Peru, with the enamelled blue of the Siberian larkspur, with the richly scented changeable lupine, with the glowing lavatera, the dark-eyed hybiscus, the pure and alabaster cup of the white Oenothera, the lilac clusters of the phlox, and the delicate blossom of the yellow sultan, most elegant amongst flowers; all these, with a hundred other plants too long to name, and all their various greens, and the pet weed mignionette growing like grass in a meadow, and mingling its aromatic odour amongst the general fragrance all this sweetness and beauty glowing in the evening sun, and breathing of freshness and of cool air, came with such a thrill of delight upon the poor village maiden, who, in spite of her admiration of London, had languished in its heat and noise and dirt, for the calm and quiet, the green leaves and the bright flowers of her country home, that, from the very fulness of her heart, from joy and gratitude and tenderness and anxiety, she flung her arms round her brother's neck and burst into tears.
The dark machineel with its deadly fruit, the trailing vines on the tamarind trees, the monkeys leaping, chattering with terror, through flaming hybiscus and masses of orchid, the white volcanic rock, the long torn leaves of the banana tree, the abrupt declines, crimson with wild strawberries, the loud boom of the sunset gun from Brimstone Hill Rachael never forgot a detail of that last walk with her old friend.
The newly-planted park, with a lake fringed by a vivid growth of allemanda and hybiscus, stands below the purple heights of a long mountain chain, but Taiping offers few inducements to a prolonged stay, and after a hurried glimpse of terrific beasts and snakes of the jungle, preserved in the local museum, we return to the station, the kindly chef-de-gare disturbing his wife from her siesta in the adjacent bungalow, to feast us on tea and bananas.
Lilac plumbago, red hybiscus, and golden allemanda mingle with pink and purple lantana, yellow daisies, and hedges of scarlet tassels, enclosing wicker huts in patches of banana and cocoanut.
Higher up the hill, Caravan, Hybiscus, Benedict, Mahometan, Phosphorus, Michel Fell, and Rat-trap are with the grey, forming a front rank, and at the new ground the pace has told its tale, for half a dozen are already out of the race.
Vincent with its smoking volcanoes and rich plantations; Martinique, that bit of old France, with its almost perpendicular flights of street-steps cut in the rock, lined with ancient houses; beautiful honey-coloured women always passing up and down with tall jars or baskets on their stately heads; Dominica, with its rugged mountains, roaring cataracts, and brilliant verdure; Trinidad, with its terrible cliffs, infinitely coloured valleys, mountain masses; its groves of citron, and hedges of scarlet hybiscus and white hydrangea, towns set in the green amphitheatres of gentle hills, impenetrable forests, and lakes of boiling pitch: Warner and Anne lingered on all of them, climbed to the summit of volcanoes hidden in the clouds and gazed into awful craters evil of smell and resounding with the menace of deep, imprisoned, persistent tides; sailed on the quiet lake in the crater of Mt.
Oh, Dick! Dick, you've lost such a chance." She stood with her hands behind her back regarding him mockingly, as Eve in the first orchard must have regarded Adam when he was more dull and masculine than usual when, for instance, she had attired herself in hybiscus flowers which he took for the hum-drum, everyday fig-leaves. "I'm a born duffer," said Dick pathetically.
The Great House, with its spacious open galleries and verandahs, was surrounded with stone terraces, overflowing with the intense red and orange of the hybiscus and croton bush, the golden browns and softer yellows of less ambitious plants, the sensuous tints of the orchid, the high and glittering beauties of the palm and cocoanut.
Here the favourite himself is hors de combat, as well as Dardanelles, and a crowd of lesser celebrities. There are now but four left in the race, and of these, two, Hybiscus and Mahometan, are some lengths behind. Now it is neck and neck between Caravan and Phosphorus.
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