The Garden in Mid-Winter 



of ground from the fazenda^ and turned 

 them into flower garden ; — here a little lawn 

 with a belt of white datura on either side ; 

 there a walk bordered by cypresses, which 

 serve as frames for exquisite views of sea and 

 mountain ; here a long pergola covered with 

 roses, William Allen Richardson and Marechal 

 Niel ; there a little winding path, bordered 

 with rosemary, among tall shrubs, the many- 

 hued Jcalapha, and the giant Strelitzia with its 

 strangely beaked blossom. This method of 

 proceeding has had the advantage of giving us 

 continued employment, and if we do not use 

 up all our ground too quickly, may be con- 

 tinued almost indefinitely. An old quarry, 

 the floor of which we found a potato field, has 

 become a rich jungle of tree-ferns, various 

 flowering shrubs, arum lilies, cannas, scarlet 

 salvias, and many another ; its walls hung with 

 Bignonia, Bougainville a ^ and white roses. On 

 either side of the entrance drive, which ascends 

 in a curve from the gate to the level of the 

 house, we cleared a broad belt in which palms 

 rise from a carpet of geranium and pelargonium^ 

 and are already asserting their supremacy over 

 lesser trees and shrubs. The iron railing which 



63 



