90 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING 



but in the late fall and early winter the forest is aglow with their 

 kindly little lanterns. 



Jupiter, who may be called the King of the Planets, is just 

 south of the zenith and Venus, who with equal justice might be 

 called The Queen, is just showing in the east, a magnificent pair 

 of planets they are; while the Pleiades glimmer in the early 

 morning light. Here and there around the horizon great masses 

 of soft cumuli, the typical rainy season clouds, are piled up. 

 On their sides nearest the light they show various shades of sil- 

 very gray, pearl, straw color and salmon, while the shaded sides 

 are various tints of lead color, even to blue black. No word de- 

 scription can give the slightest idea of the wonderful beauty and 

 magnificence of the sky and cloud effects during our rainy season. 

 The tourists who come here in the fall and return in early spring 

 wholly miss one of the most glorious of natural phenomena which 

 is a part and parcel of the rainy season only. 



Now broad bars of golden light spring out from the yet hidden 

 sun and shoot over to and beyond the zenith and the blue sky 

 that is between them assumes a greenish tint, while low lying 

 cirro-stratus clouds near the eastern horizon flame into gorgeous 

 red. 



"Pale amber waves of light in billowy floods 



Surge grandly in upon the waking sky, 

 With soft, faint green, like tints of April woods 

 And richest crimson blent exquisitely." 



It is said that there is never a morning in all the year without 

 a cloud lying out over the Gulf Stream and my observation agrees 

 with this. The warm vapor rising from that great ocean river 

 is condensed at daylight by the cooler air into some form of 

 clouds. 



One of the beauties of a midsummer morning is seen in the 

 outline of the vegetation silhouetted against the brightening sky. 

 Standing on my veranda and looking out I see a continually 

 varied and broken line all around me. To the south immedi- 

 ately in front of the house is a group of some thirty species of 

 palms among which two coconuts, taller than the rest, toss up 

 their wonderfully plume-like leaves with infinite grace and 



