Butterflies with azure wings of a
surprising spread and lustre, alighted on the flowers, and great birds
of resplendent plumage flashed from grove to grove. A sun, twice the
diameter of ours, blazed in the northern sky, but the intensity of his
rays was tempered by a thin veil of cloud. The atmosphere although warm
and moist, was not oppressive like that of a forcing-house, and the
breeze was balmy with delicious perfume.

As each new marvel came in sight, unstaled by familiar and untarnished
by vulgar associations, fresh from the hand of nature, so to speak, we
were filled as we had never been before with an intoxicating sense of
the divine mystery and miracle of life. For myself I was fairly
dumbfounded with amazement, and my companion, the hard-headed sceptical
astronomer, kept on crying and muttering to himself, "My God! my God!"
as if he had become a drivelling fool.

We travelled league after league of this paradise run wild (I cannot
tell how many) without noticing any change in the character of the
scenery. At length, however, it grew less savage by degrees, and we
entered on a park-like country which gained in loveliness what it lost
in grandeur. Low hills, clad from base to summit in masses of gorgeous
bloom, and mirrored in sequestered lakes fringed with pied water-lilies;
groves of majestic cedars inviting to repose; rambling shrubberies and
evergreen trees festooned with flowering vines; brooks as clear as
crystal, murmuring over their pebbly beds, now hiding under drooping
boughs, now lost in brakes of tall reeds and foliage plants; grassy
meadows gay with crocusses, hyacinths, and tulips, or such-like flowers;
isolated rocks and boulders mantled with vivid moss and lichens; hot
springs falling over basins and terraces of tinted alabaster; clustering
palms and groups of spiry pine-trees; geysers throwing up columns of
spray tinged with rainbows; all these and a thousand other features of
the landscape which must be nameless passed before our view.

Again and again we startled some herd of wild quadrupeds or flock of
gaudy birds unknown to science. Legions of large and burnished insects,
veritable living jewels, might be seen everywhere, and flaunting
butterflies hovered about the car. So far we had not observed the least
sign of human occupation, and yet, as Gazen remarked, the appearance of
the country seemed to betray the influence of art. It had not the wild
and wasteful luxuriance of the earlier tra