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“...TRINIDAD
143
Indian model, from designs by Mr. Ferguson, at
a cost of ^45,000. Its surroundings are very
attractive, for it stands in the world-famous
Botanical Gardens, to which Charles Kingsley Botanical
devoted so many pages of glowing description
in “At Last.” When Kingsley visited Trinidad
in 1869 the old Government House had been
destroyed, and the Governor, Sir Arthur Gordon
—the present Lord Stanmore—with whom he
stayed, lived in a cottage just outside the gardens.
The huge umbrella-shaped tree at the comer of
Government House is a saman tree (Inga saman).
Its branches give footholc^^^^nnumerable plants
(Epiphytes), which live on air, and consequently do
not sap the energy of their host. Orchids which
would be considered rare at home grow in pro-
fusion, and a variety of grasses and lianes hang
from the giant limbs of this monster, which also
affords sanctuary to all sorts of creeping and
crawling things, from the manicou, a kind of
opossum, to the hairy...”
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