with gratitude, then the heart is hard indeed, and
the breast but Httle better than a flint.
You say that such a region should teem with ani- mal Hfe, and so it does. You can see there pehcans and sea-gulls fishing together in the bays; seals and soa-lions barking on the islands; wild fowl thickly clustered on lake and tule-marsh ; fish darting amid the waters; and beasts of many several sorts roaming the forests. On the tangled hillside is heard the soft note of the curlew ; you may listen also to the rust- ling of the pheasant, the chirrup of the blackbird, the whistling of the partridge, and the sweet songs of the robin and the lark. And they all rest content ; they are not driven by intense heat or cold to long migrations, their little journeys between valley and mountain being scarcely more than an afternoon's ramble. Nor need they take much thought for the morrow; even the prudent bee often leaves neglected the honey-bearing flower, and fails to lay in a winter's store. To elk and antelope, deer and bear, hill and plain are one, and that whether scorched by summer's sun or freshened by winter's rain. Bounteous nature plants the fields, brings forth the tender verdure, cures the grass, and stores the acorns. Little of frozen winter is here, little of damp, malarious sum- mer ; cool invio-oratino^ nig^hts succeed the warmest days. Ice and snow banished hence sit cold and stolid on distant peaks, whence are reflected the impotent rays of the sun.
Where then is winter ? November drops its gentle rain upon the sun-burned ground, closing the weather- cracks, freshening the Lydian air, and carpeting the late gray hills and vales in green; and this is winter. Spring comes warm and wanton, and nature is clad in holiday garb. Summer, dry and elastic, and trem- bling in amethystine light, is fragrant with the odor of dried grass, cypress, wild bay, and juniper. The heat of summer is seldom enervating:, and the thick sullen fogs that creep in from the ocean are not
