search of herbage.

At length, after a wearisome ride of several hours, we descended
suddenly into the most fertile and luxuriant valley I ever beheld,
and which seemed to extend a distance of some miles. A mountain
brook flowed down the midst, on the banks of which numerous scattered
and picturesque cottages appeared. On either side the ground was
covered with the green carpet of Nature in the spring of the year.
Everywhere, except in this smiling valley, we saw nothing but the
aridity of summer, and the desolation caused by a scorching tropical
sun. But here -- how very different! How sudden, how magical was
the change! Every species of vegetable grew here in finest
luxuriance. Melons of every variety, pine-apples, sweet potatoes,
plantains, and bananas, with their broad and drooping leaves of
freshest green and rich purple flower, and ripe yellow fruit.
Orange-trees, cocoa-nut trees, limes -- the fig, the vine, the
citron, the pomegranate, and numerous others, grateful to the weary
sight, and bearing precious stores amid their branches, combined to
give the appearance of wealth and plenty to this happy valley. It
was not, however, destined to be entered by us without a fierce
combat for precedence between two of our steeds. The animal whom it
was the evil lot of Meliboeus to bestride, suddenly threw back its
ears, and darted madly upon the doctor's quadruped, which, on its
side, manifested no reluctance to the fight.

Dreadful was the scene; the furious donkeys nearing and striking with
their fore-feet, and biting each other about the head and neck
without the smallest feeling of compunction or remorse; the two
guides shrieking and swearing in Portuguese at the donkeys and each
other, and striking right and left with their long staves, perfectly