Let us here pause for a moment. What have we done? Where are we? Let us review our mountain work before we go among the groves and flowers of Arcady. We passed first up the misty glen to the left under the purple precipices, — a stern gorge and a terrible, though now it look so fair. We beheld the Dome, and approached it reverently. We climbed its three terraces. We studied its impressive mass. We saw where its foundations were laid deep and broad, — the triumphant peace of its golden curves against the sky, —and found exquisite light in its shadows. We noticed the magnificent rolling line of the Cordillera where it cuts against the sky and meets the snows, — observed its varied color and form, and marked what a cloudy world it upholds on Atlantean shoulders. We have, in short, studied the Andes, Cordillera and Nevado, the region of animated clouds above the one, and the realm of sinless sky above the other. This is what we have done; — what we have gained will appear when we come to review the whole picture.
The woods behind the village are next to be studied. Half-way down, a bench of warm rock breaks the slope abruptly. The same formation of precipice appears that reappears in the walls of the cataract. Below this the woods radiate over the descent toward the hamlet, and forward toward the water. In all this multitudinous forest of the Montaña, there is nothing of the gloom of the impenetrable
