You could not--I certainly cannot--guess at the name, seldom at the family, of a single plant.

But I am going on too fast.

What are those sticks of wood which keep the gravel bank up?
Veritable bamboos; and a bamboo-pipe, too, is carrying the trickling cool water into the bath close by.

Surely we are in the Tropics.

You hear a sudden rattle, as of boards and brown paper, overhead, and find that it is the clashing of the huge leaves of a young fan palm, {78a} growing not ten feet from the window.