Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/112

Rh root and spring up afresh into green shrubs. On the opposite side of the river rises abruptly, but with a soft, waving outline, Pan de Matanzas, and on our side run sloping upwards the heights of Combre. The rock shoots out on the hill-sides in bold basaltic colonnades, scoops itself into grottos, mysterious porticos, and arches which are alone visited by the birds of heaven. The bold heights are here and there crested with palms, and heavy trails of creeping plants hang around them. Lower down, and at their feet, the vegetation becomes still more luxuriant; it is one rich mass of beautiful trees, shrubs, and flowers, among which I lost myself in delight and ignorance. I know the popular names, however, of some of the flowers. There glows the fever-flower, in gold and flame, indescribably brilliant; there is the wild heliotrope, luxuriant in growth, but as modest in colour and form as our northern hot-house heliotrope; there is the beautiful white blossom of the mangrove, with a chalice half of the convolvulus and half of the lily form, and diffusing a delicious fragrance; and there, along our path, at our very feet, see that little shrub, full of small, splendidly crimson flowers, with hundreds of little mouths or bills gaping on its stalk, upwards when they are young, and downwards towards the earth, upon which they fall, still quite crimson and fresh, as they become older; and see how little velvet green humming-birds flutter around them—how enamoured they are of them, how little afraid of us, how they dip, hovering on the wing, their long bills into the open bills of the flowers—animal life and vegetable life here meet and kiss,—it is most beautiful! This plant, with its crimson, falling flowers, is Cupid's tears, Lacrymos cupido. But Lacrymos cupido are not the pale tears of sorrow. They are the glowing tears of an overflowing, blissful heart. They are wept by the heart of nature, and winged lovers sip their sweetness.

The valley still lies before us, but its extent is hidden.