Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/106

104 blossoms, shining like waxen stars through glossy green leaves, by the side of glowing golden fruit. Immense pineapples are ripening within whorls of spear-like foliage, with a rich musky fragrance. The peasant huts, with conical thatched roofs reaching nearly to the ground, are half hidden in luxurious masses of unknown but beautiful bushes; and the large sculptured leaves of the palmetto emphasize the strangeness that surrounds you. If you are fortunate as we, you will find an olive- skinned group under the overhanging veranda of the overseer's house; the children swinging in palm-leaf hammocks; the withered grandmother crooning to a baby, on the corner of the wide wooden bench; and the graceful matron ready to draw a gourd full of fresh water for you from the scriptural-looking well under the tamarind-tree. In her long white robe, loosely gathered about the waist by a sash, great rings in her small ears, and a triple necklace falling down on the dusky bosom, she was not unlike Rebecca. The whole atmosphere was redolent of a world new, strange, and untried; and the Mexico we had learned to know looked strangely familiar compared with this one. The heat was something terrific, as if it