Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/105

away a few miles beyond, for the pleasure of picking more. It is a feast of flowers. We go on through a series of enchanting valleys, where small cottages, with enormous sloping cone-shaped roofs of thatch, nestle in the midst of lavish beauty, and fields where every product of the temperate zone alternates with every product of the tropics. We pass fields of yellow squash blossoms and tomato plants, of pease, beans, corn, lettuce, and radishes, side by side with mamae and pawpaw, limes and pomegranates. The mountains change from bare summits, stained with rare mineral dyes, to masses of luxuriant green from base to crown; a wealth of rich color and fragrance spreads over field and height; a luscious, rank magnificence of growth, which bewilders while it charms. And before noontime of that same frosty morning you will probably be walking about a coffee plantation; the beautiful plants or trees, from ten to fifteen feet in height, covered with small, shiny leaves, dark and burnished like holly, with bright red fruit similar to our cranberry both in color and size. All around the garden the long, banner-like leaf of the banana is waving above great clusters of fruit. The air is heavy with odors of orange-