46 



a physiognomy ; the lofty mountains, that bound 

 the horizon on everv side, contribute to it also 

 by their form, and the nature of their vegeta- 

 tion. These mountains are in general but se- 

 ven or eight hundred feet in height above the 

 surrounding plains. Their summit is rounded, 

 as for the most part in granitic mountains, and 

 covered with a thick forest of the laurel-tribe. 

 Clusters of palm-trees*, the leaves of which, 

 curled like feathers, rise majestically at an angle 

 of seventy degrees, are dispersed amid trees 

 with horizontal branches ; and their bare 

 trunks, like columns of a hundred, or a hun- 

 dred and twenty feet high, shoot up into the 

 air, and appearing distinctly against the azure 

 vault of the sky, " resemble a forest planted 

 upon another forest." When, as the moon was 

 going down behind the mountains of Uniana, 

 her reddish disk was hidden behind the pinnated 

 foliage of the palm trees, and again appeared in 

 the aerial zone, that separates the two forests, I 

 thought myself transported for a few moments 

 to the hermitage of the old man, which Mr. 

 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre has described as one 

 of the most delicious scenes of the Isle of Bour- 

 bon, and I felt how much the mien of the plants 

 and their groupings resembled each other in the 

 two worlds. In describing a small spot of land 



El cucurito. 



