I have not before been so much impressed by the exquisite contrast of palms and bamboo-trees growing together. The strange, sombre palm, with its erect, uncompromising trunk, its long, straight, dark leaves, looking so doric, so rich in individuality, and then, nestled quite under its very shadow, you often see a clump of the slender willowy, delicate bamboo, its pale green leaves, so soft and fine and feathery. It is the vegetable masculine and feminine attraction. Or it is not unlikely that a stern warrior, and an ethereal post would be drawn together by the same contrasts.
As the path narrows and the forest thickens, these dull things are obscured by densely woven vines, which everywhere hover over these trees, making the forests at times so dense, that it must be a very small bird or breeze to get through them: as for a man, he might as well attempt to wedge his way into the future before the present has cut a way for him.
But we do not care to have night shading these shadows with her black crayons, and so, at the first opening, turn our horses’ heads, and amble homeward, beneath the thrillings of those great ardent hearts up in the blue bosom of the sky; those stars so large and fair that we need no astronomer to suggest that it is only distance which keeps them from being suns.
_Saturday, 24th._--When we had drunk the delicious coffee and milk, or, more accurately, milk and coffee, which our landlady brings so soon as we are awake, or should be, we hurried off for the early ride.
What can be more fresh and innocent, more externally young, than this tropical nature! She is a robust Titaness, it is true, but always out of her strong comes forth sweetness, and no riddle either. How readily she justifies the taste which decks her in these early mornings with all her jewels! And then she is so tender, so peaceful, so serene. Her tears, thank heaven, like those of infants, are not tears of sorrow. Her tempests, tornadoes, and straits of passion have been studiously kept from us. It is true one misses that “sense of promise everywhere” with which our Northern springs console their sweet virgin hearts, for nature is always here in her fruition of beauty; “her every future is already in her every present.” “The world,” says Plato (and he knows), “is God’s epistle to mankind.” Here the manuscript is written in a large, generous hand; the ink flowed freely; the thoughts are largely outlined.