th the sashes wide open, with the beautiful
French curtains thrown back, I commanded an extended view of the
country.

A gorgeous picture it presented. The pencil of the painter could
scarcely exaggerate its vivid colouring.

My window faces westward, and the great river rolls its yellow flood
before my face, its ripples glittering like gold. On its farther shore
I can see cultivated fields, where wave the tall graceful culms of the
sugar-cane, easily distinguished from the tobacco-plant, of darker hue.
Upon the bank of the river, and nearly opposite, stands a noble mansion,
something in the style of an Italian villa, with green Venetians and
verandah. It is embowered in groves of orange and lemon-trees, whose
frondage of yellowish green glistens gaily in the distance. No
mountains meet the view--there is not a mountain in all Louisiana; but
the tall dark wall of cypress, rising against the western rim of the
sky, produces an effect very similar to a mountain background.

On my own side of the river the view is more gardenesque, as it consists
principally of the enclosed pleasure-ground of the plantation Besancon.
Here I study objects more in detail, and am able to note the species of
trees that form the shrubbery. I observe the _Magnolia_, with large
white wax-like flowers, somewhat resembling the giant _nympha_ of
Guiana. Some of these have already disappeared, and in their stead are
seen the coral-red seed-cones, scarce less ornamental than the flowers
themselves.

Side by side with this western-forest queen, almost rivalling her in
beauty and fragrance, and almost rivalling her in fame, is a lovely
exotic, a native of Orient climes--though here long naturalised. Its
large doubly-pinnate leaves of dark and lighter green,--for both shades
are observed on the same tree; its lavender-coloured flowers hanging in
axillary clusters from the extremities of the shoots; its yellow
cherry-like fruits--some of which are already formed,--all point out its
species. It is one of the _meliaceae_, or honey-trees,--the
"Indian-lilac," or "Pride of China" (_Melia azedarach_). The
nomenclature bestowed upon this fine tree by different nations indicates
the estimation in which it is held. "Tree of Pre-eminence," lays the
poetic Persian, of whose land it is a native; "Tree of Paradise" (_Arbor
de Paraiso_), echoes the Spaniard, of whose land it is an exotic. Such
are its titles.

Many other trees, both natives and exotic