Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/220

Rh With the scanty remains of his wealth, he persevered in his labors; struck on the veta grande, or great vein of La Esperanza, and thereby, a second time, replenished his coffers. From that period, the produce of the mines of Zacatecas rose to near five hundred thousand marks a year, and Laborde, at his death, left three millions of livres. In the meantime, however, he had forced his only daughter into a convent, in order that he might bequeath his immense property unembarrassed to his son; who, in turn, infected like his father with religious bigotry, voluntarily embraced the monastic life, and ended the family's career of avarice and ambition.

During his days of prosperity, Laborde had owned the property on which we are now staying, and embellished it with every adornment that could bring out the beauties of surrounding nature. The dwelling is said to have been magnificent before it was destroyed during the Revolution, but nothing remains now of all the splendor with which the speculator enriched it, except the traces of its beautiful garden. This is situated on the western slope bending toward the glen, and contains near eight acres in its two divisions. These he covered with a succession of gradually descending terraces, filled with the rarest natural and exotic flowers. In the midst of these gardens is still a tank for water-fowl, and over the high western wall rises a mirador or bellevue, from which the eye ranges north, south, and west, to the mountains over the plain, which is cut in its centre by the tangled dell.

The northern division of this garden is reached by a flight of steps from the first, and incloses a luxuriant grove of forest trees, broad-leaved plantains, and a few solitary palms waving over all their fan-like branches. In these dense and delicious shades through which the sun, at noon, can scarcely penetrate, a large basin spreads out into a mimic lake. A flight of fifteen steps descend to it from the bank, and were once filled with jars of flowers. In the centre of this sheet two small gardens are still planted, and the flowers bending over their sides and growing to their very edge, seem floating on the waters. At the extreme end of the grounds, a deep summer-house extends nearly the whole width of the field on arches, and its walls are painted in fresco to resemble a beautiful garden filled with flowers and birds of the rarest plumage. Looking at this from the south end of the little lake, the deception is perfect, and you seem beholding the double of the actual prospect, repeated by some witchery of art.

I would gladly have spent the day in this garden, but we had arranged our journey so as to devote a portion of this morning to visit the adjacent hacienda of Temisco, a sugar plantation, owned by the Del Barrios, of Mexico. Accordingly, after breakfast we mounted, and passing down the steep descents to the east, we struck off into the fields in a southwardly direction.

The beautiful suburbs of Cuernavaca are chiefly inhabited by Indians, whose houses are built along the narrow lanes; and in a country where it is a comfort to be all day long in the open air under the shade of trees,