It was a silk cotton tree.

I made my way through the grass with difficulty to the tree, which by measurement I found to be twenty-five feet in circumference larger than any other tree I ever saw in the island.

Immense branches shot out horizontally about twenty feet from the ground, extending to a distance in every direction from the trunk sixty or eighty feet.

Indeed, the gigantic size of the tree, its rich and luxuriant foliage, and its noble and majestic appearance, were in perfect keeping with the place.

I tarried some time beneath its branches, and gazed with interest on the picturesque scene, regretting that I had no companion to share my admiration, and thinking that as doubtless no human being, unless some wild Carib in days of yore, had ever previously visited that singular spot, so it was likely centuries would pass away before any other individual would chance to behold and admire that beautiful terrace on the mountain side.