Any day might it have been seen, and three times a-day—at morning, noon, and evening—as if the fire had been kindled for the purposes of cooking the three regular meals of breakfast, dinner, and supper.
The diurnal appearance of this smoke proved the presence of a human being within the Duppy’s Hole. One, at least, disregarding the superstitious terror attached to the place, had made it his home.
By exploring the valley, other evidences of human presence might have been found. Under the branches of a large tree, standing by the edge of the lagoon, and from which the silvery tillandsia fell in festoons to the surface of the water, a small canoe of rude construction could be seen, a foot or two of its stem protruding from the moss. A piece of twisted withe, attaching it to the tree, told that it had not drifted there by accident, but was moored by some one who meant to return to it.
From the edge of the lagoon to the upper end of the valley, the ground, as already stated, was covered with a thick growth of forest timber—where the eye of the botanical observer might distinguish, by their forms and foliage, many of those magnificent indigenous trees for which the sylva of Jamaica has long been celebrated.
There stood the gigantic cedrela, and its kindred the bastard cedar, with elm-like leaves; the mountain mahoe; the “tropic birch;” and the world-known mahogany.
Here and there, the lance-like culms of bamboos might be seen shooting up over the tops of the dicotyledons, or forming a fringe along the cliffs above, intermingled with trumpet-trees, with their singular peltate leaves, and tall tree-ferns, whose delicate lace-like fronds formed a netted tracery against the blue background of the sky. In the rich soil of the valley flourished luxuriantly the noble cabbage-palm—the prince of the Jamaica forest—while, by its side, claiming admiration for the massive grandeur of its form, stood the patriarch of West-Indian trees—the grand ceiba; the hoary Spanish moss that drooped from its spreading branches forming an appropriate beard for this venerable giant.
Every tree had its parasites—not a single species, but in hundreds, and of as many grotesque shapes; some twining around the trunks and boughs like huge snakes or cables—some seated upon the limbs or in the forking of the branches; and others hanging suspended from the topmost twigs, like streamers from the rigging of a ship. Many of these, trailing from tree to tree, were loaded with clusters of the most brilliant flowers, thus uniting the forest into one continuous arbour.
Close under the cliff, and near where the cascade came tumbling down from the rocks, stood a tree that deserves particular mention. It was a ceiba of enormous dimensions, with a buttressed trunk, that covered a surface of more than fifty feet in diameter. Its vast bole, rising nearly to the brow of the cliff, extended horizontally over an area on which five hundred men could have conveniently encamped; while the profuse growth of Spanish moss clustering upon its branches, rather than its own sparse foliage, would have shaded them from the sun, completely shutting out the view overhead.
Not from any of these circumstances was the tree distinguished from others of its kind frequently met with in the mountain forests of Jamaica. What rendered it distinct from those around was, that between two of the great spurs extending outwards from its trunk, an object appeared which indicated the presence of man.
This object was a hut constructed in the most simple fashion—having for its side walls the plate-like buttresses already mentioned, while in front a stockade of bamboo stems completed the inclosure. In the centre of the stockade a narrow space had been left open for the entrance—which could be closed, when occasion required, by a door of split bamboos that hung lightly upon its hinges of withe.