Further up, we came to a beautiful plain of some extent between the hills, which had been at some former time planted for cultivation, for bananas, sweet potatoes, yucca palms, and many other sorts of tropical fruits were growing about in the wildest profusion.
There were the remains, too, of old buildings and broken mill machinery, such as used in the West Indies for crushing the sugar cane, a lot of which was planted in the vicinity; but these were of giant proportions from not having been cut possibly for years, for, stump sprang up on top of stump, until the root clusters covered many square yards—the canes themselves being over twenty-five feet in height and more than fifteen inches in circumference, of a size that would have made a sugar-planter’s mouth water.
“Guess some cuss hez ben a-cultivatin’ hyar,” observed Hiram, looking critically round. “When I wer to hum down Chicopee way—”
“Stow that, bo,” said Tom Bullover, interrupting him, being always afraid of letting the other sail off on the tack of his home recollections, as he was doomed ever to hear the same old yarn, so that he was sick of its repetition. “I don’t think you’ll find your cave here; them old buccaneers wouldn’t be sich fools to lug all their booty up this long way, when they could bury it more comf’able near the shore, and likewise come upon it the easier again when they wanted it.”
“Specs ye air about right, bo,” answered Hiram, taking the interruption kindly, and no ways hurt at having his Chicopee remembrances once more nipped in the bud. “What shall we dew?”
“Why, go down again,” replied Tom. “Here’s a fresh track down to the beach on this side which leads to another bay, I fancy. Let’s make for it and see where it leads to.”
“Fire away; I’m arter ye, bo,” said the other, the two now changing places, and Tom Bullover showing the way. “‘Foller my leader’—thet’s the game, I reckon!”
All of us laughed at this, stepping gingerly in single file after Tom, who found some difficulty at first in pushing through the branches of the trees, which were thickly interwoven overhead and across the path; but the latter was distinctly marked out, being well trodden as if it had been a regular pathway of communication at some previous time.
The bay below, to which this road led, was on the other side of the point of land that stretched past the ship; and as we descended the hill we could see the blue sea peeping through the trees.
Half-way down, the pathway abruptly terminated in front of what seemed a mound of earth, although this was now overgrown with trees, covered with orchilla weed, that enveloped their trunks and gave them quite a venerable aspect.