Rarely there comes a break in the solid leagues of forest-wall,--a deep space filled with celestial color, a golden green, the green of orange-groves,--making the wilder tints of nature turn spectral by contrast. These indeed are the veritable Gardens of Hesperides, and theirs the bright fruit of Greek legend,--those Apples of Gold the Demigod sought in mythic islands of the Western Sea,--that Hippomenes, hard-pressed in the race of love, cast before the flying feet of Atalanta. For the orange hath its mythology. Little frogs, metallically bright as the lily-leaves on which they sit, chant in chorus; butterflies flutter on vermilion wing from bank to bank; sometimes the nose of an alligator furrows the river. The palmettos, heretofore rare, begin to multiply; they assemble in troops, in ranks, in legions. And other gracious forms appear,--true palms,--satin-skinned and wonderfully tall. They hold themselves aloof from the cypresses and the oaks; they don no draperies of moss--proudly majestic in the elegance of their naked beauty. They approach the flood, yet shrink from it with feminine timidity; if the treacherous soil yield beneath their feet, still, by some miracle of poise, they save themselves from fall. Then wonderful indeed is the suppleness of their curves; the neck of the ostrich, the body of the serpent, seem less lithely beautiful. Theirs is never the admirable but inflexible stature of the often to lose their strangling hold at last, and fall back in spiral coils. Then also, to right and left, broad bands of translucent green begin to edge the river surface,--the nations of the water-lilies uprearing their perfumed heads,--some whiter than moon-light, some yellower than gold. All start and tremble at our passing, as though suddenly aroused from slumber; and I long watch them nodding in our wake, more and more drowsily, slowly settling down to dream again. Rarely there comes a break in the solid leagues of forest-wall,--a deep space filled with celestial color, a golden green, the green of orange-groves,--making the wilder tints of nature turn spectral by contrast. These indeed are the veritable Gardens of Hesperides, and theirs the bright fruit of Greek legend,--those Apples of Gold the Demigod sought in mythic islands of the Western Sea,--that Hippomenes, hard-pressed in the race of love, cast before the flying feet of Atalanta. For the orange hath its mythology.