Page:Life in Mexico vol 1.djvu/165

Rh Together with the maguey, grows another immense production of nature, the organos, which resembles the barrels or pipes of an organ, and being covered with prickles, the plants growing close together, and about six feet high, makes the strongest natural fence imaginable, besides being covered with beautiful flowers. There is also another species of cactus, the nopal which bears the tuna, a most refreshing fruit, but not ripe at this season. The plant looks like a series of flat green pincushions fastened together, and stuck full of diminutive needles.

But though the environs of Mexico are flat, though there are few trees, little cultivation, uninhabited haciendas and ruined churches in all directions, still, with its beautiful climate and ever-smiling sky, the profusion of roses and sweet-pease in the deserted gardens, the occasional clumps of fine trees, particularly the graceful Arbol de Peru (schinum molle, the Peruvian pepper-tree), its bending branches loaded with bunches of coral-colored berries, the old orchards with their blossoming fruit-trees, the conviction that everything necessary for the use of man can be produced with scarcely any labor, all contributes to render the landscape one which it is impossible to pass through with indifference.

A magnificent ash tree (the Mexican fresno), the pride of Tacubaya, which throws out its luxuriant branches, covering a large space of ground, was pointed out to us as having a tradition attached to it. It had nearly withered away, when the Ylustrisimo Señor Fonti, the last of the Spanish Archbishops, gave it his solemn benediction, and prayed that its vigor