9"4 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



zapotes, then the bright green of the sugar-canes, 

 lower down the darker green of the nopal-trees, lower 

 still the white and green and gold and bright yellow 

 of the orange and citron groves, and lowest of all, the 

 stately fan-palms, and date-palms, and bananas, all 

 glittering with millions of dewdrops, that covered 

 them like a gauze veil embroidered with diamonds 

 and rubies. And still in the very next valley all was 

 utter darkness. 



We sat silent and motionless, gazing at this scene 

 of enchantment. 



Presently the sun rose higher, and a flood of light 

 illumined the whole valley, which lay some few hun- 

 dred feet below us a perfect garden, such as no 

 northern imagination could picture forth ; a garden of 

 sugar-canes, cotton, and nopal-trees, intermixed with 

 thickets of pomegranate and strawberry trees, and 

 groves of orange, fig, and lemon, giants of their kind, 

 shooting up to a far greater height than the oak at- 

 tains in the States every tree a perfect hothouse, a 

 pyramid of flowers, covered with bloom and blossom 

 to its topmost spray. All was light and freshness 

 and beauty ; every object seemed to dance and rejoice 

 in the clear, elastic, golden atmosphere. It was tin 

 earthly paradise, fresh from the hand of its Creator, 

 and at first we could discover no sign of man or his 

 works. Presently, however, we discerned the village 

 lying almost at our feet, the small stone houses over- 

 grown with flowers and embedded in trees : so that 



