On one side of the narrow road billows of monstrous grain undulated to
the crest of the low hills, that looked like larger undulations of the
soil, furrowed by bosky canadas or shining arroyos. Banks was startled
into a burst of professional admiration.
"There's enough grain there to feed a thousand Todos Santos; and raised,
too, with tools like that," he continued, pointing to a primitive plow
that lay on the wayside, formed by a single forked root. A passing
ox-cart, whose creaking wheels were made of a solid circle of wood,
apparently sawn from an ordinary log, again plunged him into cogitation.
Here and there little areas of the rudest cultivation broke into a
luxuriousness of orange, lime, and fig trees. The joyous earth at the
slightest provocation seemed to smile and dimple with fruit and flowers.
Everywhere the rare beatitudes of Todos Santos revealed and repeated
its simple story. The fructifying influence of earth and sky; the
intervention of a vaporous veil between a fiery sun and fiery soil; the
combination of heat and moisture, purified of feverish exhalations, and
made sweet and wholesome by the saline breath of the mighty sea,
had been the beneficent legacy of their isolation, the munificent
compensation of their oblivion.
Pages:
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155