e. How often have I dismounted, while riding along such a
forest, by the side of some running brook, and while my horse was
feeding I have almost fallen asleep under the soothing influence which
such an atmosphere produces upon a traveler, heated by fast riding
under a vertical sun. It is one of those happy sensations that can not
well be described, nor can it be appreciated by those who have not
experienced it. Poets have exhausted their power in painting the
beauties of scenes where all the senses are satiated with enjoyment.
Yet this voluptuous gratification is soon alloyed by the evils that
remind us that Paradise is not to be found upon this earth. Here is
seen the whole animal kingdom busily laboring for the destruction of
its kind. Reptiles prey upon each other; parasitic plants fix
themselves upon trees and suck up the sap of their existence; and man,
while he enjoys to a surfeit these bounties of nature, must watch
narrowly against the venom and the poison that comes to mar his
pleasure, and teach him the wholesome lesson that true happiness is
only found in Heaven. We are now at our journey's end.

CHAPTER IV.

Jalapa.--The extraordinary Beauty and Fertility of this Spot.--Jalap,
Sarsaparilla, Myrtle, Vanilla, Cochineal, and Wood of Tobasco.--The
charming Situation of Jalapa.--Its Flowers and its Fruits.--Magnificent
Views.--The tradition that Jalapa was Paradise.--A speck of War.--The
Marriage of a Heretic.--A gambling Scene in a Convent.

Byron's lines, in the opening of "The Bride of Abydos" are gorgeous
enough:

"Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with perfume,
Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gull in their bloom;
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute."

But the poet would have given them a still more luxuriant coloring had
he ever ascended the table-land of the tropics, and visited Jalapa, the
spot which the natives insist was the site of the original Paradise.
Paradise, jalapa, and myrtle, sound well enough together, and do not
clash with the native tradition in relation to this delightful spot.

PRODUCTIONS OF THE VALLEYS.

We were now more than four thousand feet above the sea, on an extensive
plateau, half-way up the mountain. The beautiful _convolvulus jalapa_
does not flourish here, but is brought from