Five Columns Now Arose,
And, Bending In The Direction Of The Wind, They Seemed Placed Against
A Low Ridge Covered With Trees; The Tops Of The Columns At This Distance
Appeared To Mingle With The Clouds.
They were white below, and higher up
became dark, so as to simulate smoke very closely.
The whole scene
was extremely beautiful; the banks and islands dotted over the river
are adorned with sylvan vegetation of great variety of color and form.
At the period of our visit several trees were spangled over with blossoms.
Trees have each their own physiognomy. There, towering over all,
stands the great burly baobab, each of whose enormous arms
would form the trunk of a large tree, beside groups of graceful palms,
which, with their feathery-shaped leaves depicted on the sky,
lend their beauty to the scene. As a hieroglyphic they always mean
"far from home", for one can never get over their foreign air
in a picture or landscape. The silvery mohonono, which in the tropics
is in form like the cedar of Lebanon, stands in pleasing contrast with
the dark color of the motsouri, whose cypress-form is dotted over at present
with its pleasant scarlet fruit. Some trees resemble the great spreading oak,
others assume the character of our own elms and chestnuts; but no one
can imagine the beauty of the view from any thing witnessed in England.
It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely
must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.
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