Mauve, green and grey--the mauve of the Victorian age, the green
of the cowslip, the grey of glistering, weathering granite.
The whole of the rock face is a study. Grasping with greedy white talons
a piece of decaying wood is one of the prettiest of the more common
orchids, DENDROBIUM SMILIAE which produces short spikes of waxy flowers,
pink tipped with green; the creeping, sweet-scented, BULBOPHYLLUM
BAILEYI, with greenish-yellow flowers spotted with purple, and the
commonest of the dendrobiums (UNDULATUM) revel here.
The edge of the precipice looks over a tangle of jungle down upon the
top of a giant milkwood tree (ALSTONIA SCHOLARIS), taken possession of
by a colony of metallic starlings, whose hundreds of brown nests hang in
clusters from the topmost branches. By the perpetual shrieks and calls
of these most lively of birds a straight course may be steered through
the gloomy jungle to the tree, and thence to the beach, as a ship gains
her haven through a fog by the sound of unseen warning horns and
bell-surmounted rocks. On the trunk of this great tree may still be seen
the marks of stone tomahawks of the primitive inhabitants of the island.
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