GARDENS AND BOWERS. 199 



their post whilst the small birds and the indolent vul- 

 tures were at roost, were seen only in small numbers. 

 The sea was of- a greenish-brown hue, as in some of the 

 lakes of Switzerland ; while the air, owing to its extreme 

 purity, had, at the moment the sun appeared above the 

 horizon, a cold tint of pale blue, similar to that which 

 landscape painters observe at the same hour in the south 

 of Italy, and which makes distant objects stand out in 

 strong relief. They sailed E.S.E., taking the passage 

 of Don Cristoval, to reach the rocky island of Cayo de 

 Piedras, and to clear the archipelago, which the Spanish 

 pilots, in the early times of the conquest, designated by 

 the names of Gardens and Bowers. The Queen's Gar- 

 dens, properly so called, were nearer Cape Cruz, and 

 were separated from the archipelago by an open sea 

 thirty-five leagues broad. Columbus gave them the 

 name they bear, in 1494, when, on his second voyage, 

 he struggled during fifty-eight days with the winds and 

 currents between the island of Pinos and the eastern cape 

 of Cuba. He describes the islands of this archipelago as 

 verdant, full of trees and pleasant. 



A part of these so-styled gardens was indeed beautiful ; 

 the voyagers saw the scene change every moment, and the 

 verdure of some of the islands appeared the more lovely 

 from its contrast with chains of rocks, displaying only 

 white and barren sands. The surface of these sands, 

 heated by the rays of the sun, seemed to be undulating 

 like the surface of a liquid. The contact of layers of air 

 of unequal temperature, produced the most varied pheno- 

 mena of suspension and mirage, from ten in the morning 

 till four in the afternoon. Even in these desert places 

 the sun animated the landscape, and gave mobility to the 



