Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 2.djvu/152

128 an All-powerful hand: in such scenes the way-farer feels himself separated from the worldly strife without; even his natural voice sounds drear and changed and the very herbage beneath his feet appears age-stricken and unearthly.

Then how delightful to linger on the borders of a fair tropical grove or forest, where the orange and pomegranate trees shed a luscious and appetizing fragrance upon the air; where the palm and myrtle flourish together, and the huge banana affords a cooling shade; there, too, the citron and mezquite luxuriate, the cotton-tree and agave vie with one another, the tulip-tree spreads its branches, and a hundred delicious fruit-trees bend beneath their juicy load. Birds of brilliant plumage scream and fan themselves from bough to bough; rich painted butterflies flutter about the scene; gorgeous flowers cluster, and honeyed trailing-shrubs spring up, and the air is filled with a hum of music, and all is sunshine and beauty.

One may wander beside a lake or river, noting how the watery expanse spreads out from the lucid foreground, forming a bright flashing mirror midway, and melting into a hazy distance; the waterfowl skim and quaver