of the cedars and cacti. Some of these plants stood
out on the very brow of the overhanging precipice, and their long
curving blades gave a singular character to the landscape. Along the
face of the dark cliffs all was rough, and gloomy, and picturesque.
How different was the scene below! Here everything looked soft, and
smiling, and beautiful. There were broad stretches of woodland, where
the thick foliage of the trees met and clustered together, so that it
looked like the surface of the earth itself; but we knew it was only
the green leaves, for here and there were spots of brighter green,
that we saw were glades covered with grassy turf. The leaves of the
trees were of different colours, for it was now late in the autumn.
Some were yellow, and some of a deep claret colour: some were
bright-red, and some of a beautiful maroon; and there were green, and
brighter green, and others of a silvery-whitish hue. All these colours
were mingled together, and blended into each other, like the flowers
upon a rich carpet. Near the centre of the valley was a large shining
object, which we knew to be water. It was evidently a lake of crystal
purity, and smooth as a mirror. The sun was now up to meridian height,
and his yellow beams falling upon its surface caused it to gleam like
a sheet of gold. We could not trace the outlines of the water, for the
trees partially hid it from our view, but we saw that the smoke that
had at first attracted us rose up somewhere from the western shore of
the lake.' In this strange oasis they found what appeared to be a snug
farm-house, with stables and outhouses, garden and fields, horses and
cattle. Here they were hospitably entertained by the proprietor, his
wife, and two sons, and served by a faithful negro; and of course it
is the history of the settlers, and their struggles, expedients, and
contrivances which form the staple of the work.

In this history we have the process of building a log-house, and the
usual modes of assembling round the squatter such of the comforts of
life as may be obtained in the desert; but our family Robinson appears
to have been the most ingenious as well as the most fortunate of
adventurers, for there are very few, even of the luxuries of civilised
society, which are beyond his reach. The natural history of the book,
however, is its main feature; and the adventures of the lost family
with the unreasoning denizens of the desert remind us not unfrequently
of the picture