It was night when the gleaming salt-white
jralacc first flashed upon me out of the darkness,
but when I opened my shutters as the dawn was
breaking the next morning, and step|x:d out upon
the wide battlements of the castle, the scene

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BUSSACO

before me was so wonderful as to force from me
an involuntary prayer of praise and thankfulness
to God that so much of beauty should be vouch-
safed to my senses. Below and around me for
miles on all sides stretched the woods, woods such
as I have seen nowhere else in Europe, though
the private gardens and plantations of Cintra and
Monserrat approach them in luxuriant fertility.
Great palms and towering cedars of Lebanon
grow side by side with oaks of giant bulk : oranges
and fig-trees, cork and acacia, maple, birch, and
willow stand beneath the straight eucalyptus,
" tall as the mast of some great admiral " : arau-
carias spread their spiny branches with a luxuri-
ance never seen at home, and mosses, ivy, and
ferns clothe thickly every inch of ground, every
bank, and even the time-worn stones, that all
around testify to the existence of dwelling here
long before the white palace raised its tall tower
over the darkening wood.
