Gum tree, Botanical Garden, Buitenzorg.
Palm trees in the Botanical Garden.
Here and there through gaps in the trees came a sudden glimpse of the distant valley, with the river shining between the light-green rice fields, and beyond the encircling hills. Everywhere, too, the presence of living water made itself felt, in the cool damp air, and in the delicious smell of moist earth, wet stones, and water-plants. And I would suddenly catch the silvery gleams, between the bushes, of a brooklet hurrying past over its pebbly bed, and foaming in small cascades that be-sprinkled the ferns and tall nodding grasses upon the bank with scintillating spray. Here and there, I heard the murmur and tinkle of a fountain; and I passed by quiet ponds and lakelets, dark green in the shadow of overhanging trees. One of these sheets of water—or rather the streamlet into which it narrows at one end—is completely overgrown with white lotus flowers; and a sight more exquisitely beautiful cannot be imagined. It burst upon me suddenly, as I came out of a long, dark avenue; and, at first, I could not make out what that white splendour was. It seemed to float like a luminous summer cloud, like a snowy drift of morning mist. A breath of wind arose, and the even splendour trembled and seemed to break up into hundreds of white flames and sparks, that for an instant all blew one way, and then shot up again, and stood steadily shining. As I came nearer, I discerned the great, round white flowers, radiant in the sunshine. The circular, purplish brown leaves spread all over the surface of the water, covering it from bank to bank. And, out of these heaps of bronze shields, there rose the straight tall stems, like lances, with the white flame of the flower breaking out at the top—sparks of St. Elmo's fire, such as, on that memorable night, tipped the spears of the Roman cohorts, on their march to battle and victory.
A waringin-tree.
A path leading from sunshine into dappled shade and from shade into sunshine again.
A bamboo-grove where was an incessant rustling and waving of foliage though no wind.