Eloquent with books and pictures,
All that luxury can afford;
Warm with statues that Pygmalion
Might have fashioned and adored.
In the forest glades and vistas,
Lovely are the light and gloom:
Fountains sparkle in the gardens,
And exotics breathe perfume.”—Mackay.
The sun shines on no more beautiful and entrancing region than the vale of Pearl river. It is the Elysium of the sunny south, reposing between the rich alluvial lands of the Mississippi, and the fragrant[[1]] pine forests of the Pascagoula. The green land of the valley seems to roll in gentle undulations, like the waves of a calm sea. Between the swelling hills, or rather waves of verdure, flow crystal streams towards the bosom of the Pearl. These lovely hills are capped with groves of the most beautiful and odoriferous of the southern flowering trees. These charming streams are shaded with the most fragrant and delightful of the flowering shrubs and vines. Here nature throws around her riches with an unsparing hand and a wonderful exuberance of luxury. Birds of the most brilliant plumage and enchanting melody fill all the summer groves, at early morn and eve, with their perfect music. Flowers of countless varieties, and most beautiful forms and hues, laden all the air with their ambrosial perfume. The breeze is charged with music and fragrance, as from the spicy groves of Araby the Blest.
[1]. All who have travelled through or near the pine woods of Mississippi know the effect of the southern sun upon these trees, ripening and rarefying from them a most grateful and salubrious fragrance, called the “terebinthine odour.” The effect of the climate is still more obvious upon ornamental trees and flowers. Those that lose much of their luxuriant beauty and fragrance in the North, attain in the South their utmost perfection.