The lane suddenly opened upon a pasture, but within this a thick hedge of jessamines, forming a circle, barred the view.
In this circle was the house, whose roof only could be seen from without.
Not finding any opening through the jessamines, I parted the leaves with my hands, and looked through. The picture was dream-like; so strange, I could scarcely credit my senses.
On the crest of the little hillock stood a house of rare construction—unique and unlike anything I had ever seen. The sides were formed of bamboos, closely picketed, and laced together by fibres of the pita. The roof—a thatch of palm-leaves—projected far over the eaves, rising to a cone, and terminating in a small wooden cupola with a cross. There were no windows. The walls themselves were translucent; and articles of furniture could be distinguished through the interstices of the bamboos.
A curtain of green barège, supported by a rod and rings, formed the door. This was drawn, discovering an ottoman near the entrance, and an elegant harp.
The whole structure presented the coup-d’oeil of a huge birdcage, with its wires of gold!
The grounds were in keeping with the house. In these, the evidence of neglect, which had been noticed without, existed no longer. Every object appeared to be under the training of a watchful solicitude.
A thick grove of olives, with their gnarled and spreading branches and dark-green leaves, stretched rearward, forming a background to the picture. Right and left grew clumps of orange and lime trees. Golden fruit and flowers of brilliant hues mingled with their yellow leaves; spring and autumn blended upon the same branches!
Rare shrubs—exotics—grew out of large vessels of japanned earthenware, whose brilliant tints added to the voluptuous colouring of the scene.
A jet d’eau, crystalline, rose to the height of twenty feet, and, returning in a shower of prismatic globules, stole away through a bed of water-lilies and other aquatic plants, losing itself in a grove of lofty plantain-trees. These, growing from the cool watery bed, flung out their broad glistening leaves to the length of twenty feet.