ver be the same again!' No, it can never be the
same again. The bright colours of the kaleidoscope do not form the
same mosaic a second time. But Nature has got over her grief, for all
that. For see! All up these tortured and angular valleys the great
evergreen bush is growing in luxurious profusion. Every slope is
densely clothed with a glorious tangle of magnificent forestry. From
the branches that wave triumphantly from the dizzy heights above, to
those that mingle with the delicate mosses in the valley, the verdure
nowhere knows a break. Even on the steep rocky faces the persistent
vegetation somehow finds for itself a precarious foothold; and where
the trees fear to venture the lichen atones for their absence. Up
through every crack and cranny the ferns are pushing their graceful
fronds. It is a marvellous recovery. Indeed, the landscape is really
better worth seeing to-day than in those tranquil days, centuries ago,
before the Titans lost their temper, and began to splinter the summits.

Travellers in South America frequently comment upon the same
phenomenon. Prescott tells us how Cortes, on his historic march to
Mexico, passed through regions that had once gleamed with volcanic
fires. The whole country had been swept by the flames, and torn by the
fury of these frightful eruptions. As the traveller presses on, his
road passes along vast tracts of lava, bristling in the innumerable
fantastic forms into which the fiery torrent has been thrown by the
obstacles in its career. But as he casts his eye down some steep
slope, or almost unfathomable ravine, on the margin of the road, he
sees their depths glowing with the rich blooms and enamelled vegetation
of the tropics. His vision sweeps across plains of exuberant
fertility, almost impervious from thickets of aromatic shrubs and wild
flowers, in the midst of which tower up trees of that magnificent
growth which is found only in these latitudes. It is an intoxicating
panorama of brilliant colour and sweetest perfume. Kingsley and
Wallace, too, remark upon these great volcanic rents and gashes that
have been healed by verdure of rare magnificence and orchids of
surpassing loveliness. 'Even the gardens of England were a desert in
comparison! All around them were orange- and lemon-trees, the fruit of
which, in that strange coloured light of the fireflies, flashed in
their eyes like balls of burnished gold and emerald; while great white
tassels, swinging