ove to watch the
gigantic dragon-flies of the tropics creeping from their sheaths, and to
catch them as soon as they spread their gauzy wings, and exhibit their
gem-like bodies to the sunlight. Many a group of cultivators in the
cane-grounds grasped their arms, on hearing the approach of numbers--
taught thus by habitual danger--but swung back the gun across the
shoulder, or tucked the pistol again into the belt, at sight of the
ladies; and then ran to the road-side to remove any fancied obstruction
in the path; or, if they could do no more, to smile a welcome. It was
observable that, in every case, there was an eager glance, in the first
place, of search for L'Ouverture himself; but when it was seen that he
was not there, there was still all the joy that could be shown where he
was not.

The whole country was full of song. As Monsieur Loisir, the architect
from Paris, said to Genifrede, it appeared as if vegetation itself went
on to music. The servants of their own party sang in the rear; Moyse
and Denis, and sometimes Denis' sisters, sang as they rode; and if there
was not song already on the track, it came from behind every flowering
hedge--from the crown of the cocoa-nut tree--from the window of the
cottage. The sweet wild note of the mocking-bird was awakened in its
turn; and from the depths of the tangled woods, where it might defy the
human eye and hand, it sent forth its strain, shrill as the thrush, more
various than the nightingale, and sweeter than the canary. But for the
bird, the Spanish painter, Azua, would have supposed that all this music
was the method of reception of the family by the peasantry; but, on
expressing his surprise to Aimee, she answered that song was as natural
to Saint Domingo, when freed, as the light of sun or stars, when there
were no clouds in the sky. The heart of the negro was, she said, as
naturally charged with music as his native air with fragrance. If you
dam up his mountain-streams, you have, instead of fragrance, poison and
pestilence; and if you chain up the negro's life in slavery, you have,
for music, wailing and curses. Give both free course, and you have an
atmosphere of spicy odours, and a universal spirit of song.

"This last," said Azua, "is as one long, but varied, ode in honour of
your father. Men of some countries would watch him as a magician, after
seeing the wonders he has wrought. Who, looking over this wide level,
on which plenty seems to have empti