Imagine my surprise on seeing
at the bottom of one gulch, a grove of good-sized, dark-leaved, very
handsome trees, with an abundance of smooth round green fruit upon
them, and on reaching them finding that they were orange trees,
their great size, far exceeding that of the largest at Valencia,
having prevented me from recognizing them earlier! In another, some
large shrubs with oval, shining, dark leaves, much crimped at the
edges, bright green berries along the stalks, and masses of pure
white flowers lying flat, like snow on evergreens, turned out to be
coffee! The guava with its obtuse smooth leaves, sweet white
blossoms on solitary axillary stalks, and yellow fruit was
universal. The novelty of the fruit, foliage, and vegetation is an
intense delight to me. I should like to see how the rigid aspect of
a coniferous tree, of which there is not one indigenous to the
islands, would look by contrast. We passed through a long thicket
of sumach, an exotic from North America, which still retains its old
habit of shedding its leaves, and its grey, wintry, desolate-looking
branches reminded me that there are less-favoured parts of the
world, and that you are among mist, cold, murk, slush, gales,
leaflessness, and all the dismal concomitants of an English winter.
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