TWO NIGHTS IN SOUTHEEN MEXICO. 81 



is getting rather thick, to "be sure ; but that's nothing, 

 only the exhalations from the swamp for we are 

 again approaching one of those cursed swamps, and 

 can hear the music of the alligators and bull-frogs. 

 There they are, the beauties ; a couple of them are 

 taking a peep at us, sticking their elegant heads and 

 long delicate snouts out of the slime and mud. The 

 neighbourhood is none of the best ; but luckily the 

 path is firm and good, carefully made, evidently by 

 Indian hands. None but Indians could live and 

 labour and travel habitually in such a pestilential 

 atmosphere. Thank God ! we are out of it at last. 

 Again on firm forest ground, amidst the magnificent 

 monotony of the eternal palms and mahogany-trees. 

 But see there ! 



A new and surpassingly beautiful landscape burst 

 suddenly upon our view, seeming to dance in the 

 transparent atmosphere. On either side mountains, 

 those on the left in deep shadow, those on the right 

 standing forth like colossal figures of light, in a 

 beauty and splendour that seemed really supernatural, 

 every tree, every branch shining in its own vivid and 

 glorious colouring. There lay the valley in its tropi- 

 cal luxuriance and beauty, one sheet of bloom and 

 blossom up to the topmost crown of the palm-trees, 

 that shot up, some of them, a hundred and fifty and 

 a hundred and eighty feet high. Thousands and 

 millions of convolvuluses, paulinias, bignonias, den- 

 drobiums, climbing from the fern to the tree trunks, 



VOL. II. If 



