IT was one of those beautiful but almost oppressively hot afternoons
that so ripen the fruits, and so try the patience of the inhabitants
of the tropics, that we would have the patient reader follow us on
the main road between Alquezar and Guiness. It is as level as a
parlor floor, and the tall foliage, mostly composed of the lofty
palm, renders the route shaded and agreeable. Every vegetable and
plant are so peculiarly significant of the low latitudes, that we
must pause for a moment to notice them.

The tall, stately palm, the king of the tropical forest, with its
tufted head, like a bunch of ostrich feathers, bending its majestic
form here and there over the verdant and luxuriant undergrowth, the
mahogany tree, the stout lignumvit‘, the banana, the fragrant and
beautiful orange and lemon, and the long, impregnable hedge of the
dagger aloe, all go to show us that we are in the sunny clime of the
tropics.

The fragrance, too, of the atmosphere! How soft to the senses! This
gentle zephyr that only ruffles the white blossoms of the lime
hedges, is off yonder coffee plantation that lies now like a field
of clear snow, in its fragrant milk-white blossoms; and what a
bewitching mingling of heliotrope and wild honeysuckle is combined
in the air! how the gaudy plumed parrot pauses on his perch beneath
the branches of the plantain tree, to inhale the sweets of the hour;
while the chirps of the pedoreva and indigo birds are mingled in
vocal praise that fortune has cast their lot in so lovely a clime.