The enchanting heavens of that privileged region are always serene, and the air is so pure that no gray tint ever appears on the horizon; the mountains, hills, meadows, every remote object indeed, instead of fading away in a dim atmosphere, beam out against a sky of cloudless azure. This is what renders the equatorial nights so resplendent. The astonished eye thinks it beholds a new heavens and new stars. How charming is the moonlight that comes in showers of light through a thousand quivering leaves which murmur in the breath of the perfumed breeze! and when to that is joined the far-off moan of the sea, and the sounds that escape from the ivory keys or resounding chords, which accompany the sweet accents of a Creole voice, we feel as if in one of those islands of bliss which surpass the imagination of the poets. One of the things that travellers have not sufficiently noticed, and which gives us a kind of homesickness for that beautiful region, is the enchanting harmony which results from the noise of the sea and the murmur of the breeze in the different kinds of foliage, a harmony which calms the agitation of the soul as well as the fever of the body. As there is every variety of temperature, so there is a great variety of trees. There is one especially remarkable, namely, the _pandanus_, which resembles both the pine and the weeping willow, Its summit is lost in the blue sky, and its numerous branches, borne by a pliant and elegant stem, support large tassels of leaves, long, cylindrical, and fine as hair; and when the breeze makes them tremble in its breath, they murmur in plaintive melancholy notes that, when once heard, we long to hear again and again. {83} The cocoanut or palm-trees, with their leaves long, hard, and shining like steel, give out a sound like the clash of arms. The gigantic leaves of the banana are the echo of the voice of an overflowing torrent, piercing the air like the vast pipes of an organ. The bamboos, with their tall reeds which moan and grind as they bend, uttering long groans which, mingling with the tones, the wailing, and the murmurs of a thousand other kinds of foliage, with the deep roar of the agitated sea afar off, and the sound of the waves breaking on the shore, form an immense natural orchestra, the varied sounds of which, rising toward heaven, seem to bear with them, in accents without number, all the joys and all the griefs of the world. These trees with their tall, slender stems, and thick foliage, are continually bending in the incessant breeze, In the brilliant light of that climate their shadow looks black; and, as it is continually moving, you would think everything animate, and that sylphs and fairies were issuing forth on all sides.