The Pool of the Full Moon, as Techeechee had called it, doubtless, from its circular shape, and its diminutive size, was surrounded by a wall of trees as dense as that which enclosed the memorable pond in the garden of Tezcuco. But besides the addition of the stone seats and basin, it was ornamented with banks of the richest flowers, behind which rose a thick setting of shrubbery; and from the branches of the trees hung rich tufts and festoons of that gray moss--the Barba de España, which gives an air of such indescribable solemnity to the forests of the lower Mississippi. A few little birds warbled among the boughs, and the field-cricket chirped in the bushes. In other respects the place was silent and wholly solitary; and as its green walls shut out almost altogether the spectacles disclosed from other places, Juan left it, after seeing that Techeechee maintained his stand on the wall, as if the fleet were still at a distance.
He now perceived that the garden, though very beautiful, was a labyrinth, or rather, as it seemed, a wilderness of groves, glades, and fountains, some of which last burst from mounds of stone, that were the pedestals of rude and fantastic statues, perhaps idols, and some spouted up into the air, from the mouths of porphyry serpents and dragons, as if the science of hydraulics had already begun to dawn upon the minds of the Mexican artisans. The noblest cypresses rose over the humblest vine, and many a convolvulus rolled its cataract of flowers over the tops of lesser trees, and many an aloe, from a vast pyramid of leaves, reared up its lofty pillar, crowned with a yellow canopy of blossoms. All the splendour of the vegetable world known to Anahuac, found its place in this magnificent retreat: and the plants of the lower zones, and even the palms of the coast, had been made to thrive side by side with those productions which were natural to the elevated valley.
Besides these ornaments and a thousand similar, the animal kingdom was made to add a charm, and, as it soon appeared, a horror to the royal garden; for Juan had no sooner left the pool, than he beheld, besides a thousand birds of every dye among the trees, some half dozen deer frisking over the glades, and heard at but a little distance, the roar of fiercer animals, such as came to his ears, while he was yet on the lake.