Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/399

CH. XXVII.] English park scenery, on a magnificent scale: fine verdant glens, a mile in length and as level as a bowling green, were intersected by lofty undulating hills, round the sides of which the route passed, and the whole ornamented with noble trees: on the tops of some of these eminences were oaks and firs and other trees peculiar to the colder regions, but which flourish the more luxuriantly in a temperate climate: in passing up to the summit of one of these small mountains, there is a deep ravine across which one of these fine trees had fallen, as if to indicate the feasibility of connecting the paths which travellers have to pass along on either side of it, but which now requires a detour of at least two miles, exceedingly steep and craggy, and the journey up which, by the way we were going, took us an hour's hard labour: other fine trees are growing close to the one which is fallen, and, such are the natural facilities which are offered, that twenty men might in one day make a solid and effectual