position. The sun had just escaped from the folds
of an imprisoning cloud, and was shining full upon the beautiful town
and hill. The unabsorbed moisture on the leaves gave them an additional
lustre. The green peering up every where amidst the whitened walls; the
graceful form of the trees, where their outline could be traced; the
curiously shaped roofs of the old stone churches, with buttresses and
towers; the college of San Francisco, a curiously fashioned pile of
buildings, standing out above all others; the hill behind the town, the
lofty mountain of Perote, on its left flank, on whose top the sky
seemed to rest--all combined to give credibility to that which has been
said of the beauty of Jalapa by an old Spanish author--that Jalapa was
"a piece of heaven let down to earth." This figure was afterward
applied to Naples, and the remark was added--"See Naples, and die." But
the Jalapanos say, "See Jalapa, and pray for immortality, that you may
enjoy it forever." It is the boast of the Indian, that "Jalapa is
Paradise."

One is almost tempted to agree with them; for here grow all plants that
are pleasant to the eye, or good for food. Adam and Eve were not placed
in the garden to plant and to sow, but to prune and dress the plants
that grew of themselves. Here grow an abundance of broad-leaved plants,
and for thread there is the fibre of the _maguey_, or century plant;
while the thorns of the cactus are the needles used among the natives;
so that all the materials were at ready hand for making their garments,
as soon as our first parents had their eyes opened--by taking Jalap, I
suppose--and so discovering that they were naked. It is a curious
conceit, that the sin of Adam, in introducing a parasite into Eden,
entailed a curse on this medicinal plant, which from that day, the
story goes, has for very shame hid its face by day, and only by night
opened its pretty scarlet flowers, which close again as the morning
light appears.

In favor of the notion that Jalapa was the ancient Paradise, the
argument is, that Paradise must have been in the tropics, in a region
elevated far above the baleful heat and malaria of the low lands, in a
climate where plants could grow to the utmost perfection. And there is
no such place in the world except Jalapa. Here, too, when the daily
shower, which is requisite to bring all vegetable nature to perfection,
rendered garments of wool necessary to protect humanity from
rheumatism, nature ha