II 
THE PROCESSION OF THE FLOWERS 
In Cuba there is a blossoming shrub whose 
multitudinous crimson flowers are so seductive 
to the hummingbirds that they hover all day 
around it buried in its blossoms until petal and 
wing seem one. At first upright, the gorgeous 
bells droop downward, and fall unwithered to 
the ground, and are thence called by the Cre- 
oles “Cupid’s Tears.” Fredrika Bremer re- 
lates that daily she brought home handfuls of 
these blossoms to her chamber, and nightly 
they all disappeared. One morning she looked 
toward the wall of the apartment, and there, in 
a long crimson line, the delicate flowers went 
ascending one by one to the ceiling, and passed 
from sight. She found that each was borne 
laboriously onward by a little colorless ant 
much smaller than itself: the bearer was in- 
visible, but the lovely burdens festooned the 
wall with beauty. 
To a watcher from the sky, the march of the 
flowers of any zone across the year would seem 
as beautiful as that West Indian pageant. 
