Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/147

Rh the sun to enter, and palms to spring up in those gloomy spaces. I know that beyond the light there still exist gloomy, night-like expanses unknown to myself, or at all events indistinctly known, and which will perhaps remain so through the whole of my earthy life. But then—life's caverns are only imperfectly illumined on earth!

The most definite and the most beautiful formation in these grottoes are the pillars. A drop of water distilling from the roof of the cavern falls upon the earth, and petrifies; from these petrified water-drops, grows up a conical elevation, from above also a similar cone is formed, depending from the roof, and slowly growing from petrifying water-drops; and in the course of centuries these two have met, and now form a column which seems to support the roof, and not unfrequently resembles a petrified palm-tree. Many such palm-trees stood in the vault of the grotto; many others were in process of formation. The power of a water-drop is great!

Monday morning.—I have been wandering about in the inclosed pasture-ground, el-portrero, contemplating parasitic growths and sketching trees. A wood in Cuba is a combined mass of tendrilled and thorny vegetation which it is impossible to penetrate. I have seen in the inclosed pastures some beautiful, tall trees, but many more deformed, from parasites and other causes; the beautiful and the unsightly stand there side by side. I saw to-day also a beautiful convolvulus, with large white flowers twining itself up to the very top of a dead tree, overhung with many heavy parasites. There are many kinds of the convolvulus here, which, with their beautiful flowers, constitute the principal ornament of the quick hedge which they bind together into a dense mass and cover with lovely flowers. There are many species of wild passion-flower, some very large which bear fruit, others very small. One of the most beautiful trees on this plantation is the pomme-rosa tree; it is just now in