But a turn in the garden is more agreeable, among birds, and flowers, and aromatic trees. Here is a mignonette tree, forty feet high, and every part is full and fragrant with flowers, as is the little mignonette in our flower-pots. There is the allspice, a large tree, each leaf strong enough to flavor a dish. Here is the tamarind tree: I must sit under it, for the sake of the old song. My young friend joins me, and points out, on the allspice tree, a chameleon. It is about six inches long, and of a pea-green color. He thinks its changes of color, which are no fable, depend on the will or on the sensations, and not on the color of the object the animal rests upon. This one, though on a black trunk, remained pale green. When they take the color of the tree they rest on, it may be to elude their enemies, to whom their slow motions make them an easy prey. At the corner of the house stands a pomegranate tree, full of fruit, which is not yet entirely ripe; but we find enough to give a fair taste of its rich flavor. Then there are sweet oranges, and sour oranges, and limes, and coconuts, and pineapples, the latter not entirely ripe, but in the condition in which they are usually plucked for our market, an abundance of fuchsias, and Cape jasmines, and the highly prized night-blooming cereus.
The most frequent shade-tree here is the mango. It is a large, dense tree, with a general resemblance, in form and size, to our lime or linden. Three noble trees stand before the door, in front of the house. One is a Tahiti almond, another a mango, and the third a cedar. And in the distance is a majestic tree, of incredible size, which is, I believe, a ceiba. When this estate was a cafetal, the house stood at the junction of four avenues, from the four points of the compass: one of the sweet orange, one of the sour orange, one of palms, and one of mangoes. Many of these trees fell in the hurricanes of 1843 and '45. The avenue which leads from the road, and part of that leading towards the sugar-house, are preserved. The rest have fallen a sacrifice to the sugar-cane; but the garden, the trees about the house, and what remains of the avenues, give still a delightful appearance of shelter and repose.