In the centre there was a deep basin, hewn roughly, I should rather say ruggedly, out of the solid rock, and filled with the purest and most limpid water. Several large plantain suckers grew on the edge of it, in artificial excavations in the stone, to the height of twenty feet, so that their tops were on a level with the piazza above; and a fountain or jet of water was forced up from the centre of the pool, in a whizzing shower, amongst their broad and jagged leaves, whereon the large drops of moisture rolled about with every motion, like silver balls on green velvet. Beneath the proverbially cool shade of these plantain suckers, a glorious living mosaic of most beautiful flowers, interspersed with myrtle and other evergreens, filled the parterre, which was divided into small lozenges by tiny hedges of young box and lime bushes; while the double jessamine absolutely covered the pillars of the piazza, as I have seen ivy clinging round the columns of a ruined temple, scattering its white leaves like snow-flakes at every gush of the breeze; yet all these glorious plants and flowers grew out of the scanty earth that filled the crevices of the rock, seemingly depending more on the element of water than on the soil. Every thing in the centre of the small square appeared so natural, so devoid of that art, largely employed, yet skilfully masked, that I never would have tired gloating on it. "Now, Master Hudson," quoth Listado, "you have made two" [pronouncing it _tew_] "small mistakes here. First, you have the trees too near the house, which brings the plague of musquittoes upon you; secondly, this fountain, how pretty soever to look at, must make the domicile confoundedly damp, and all your capital New York cheeses prematurely mouldy. I declare," feeling his chin, "I am growing mouldy myself, or half of my beard has been left unreaped by that villanous razor of Brail's there, that I scraped with this morning--shaving I could not call it." "Come, come," said I, "the fountain is beautiful, and don't blame the razor until you have a better of your own." "It is, indeed, beautiful," said Mrs Hudson; "but, alas! that such a paradise should not be fenced against the demon of yellow fever!" The supply of water to the basin of the said fountain, by the way, which came from the neighbouring hill; wras so ample, that it forced the jet from a crater-like aperture in the bottom, without the aid of pipe or tube of any kind, full six feet above the surface in a solid cone, or cube, of two feet in diameter; and the spray some eight feet higher. No one who has lived in such a climate, and witnessed such a scene, can ever forget the delicious rushing, and splashing, and sparkling of the water, and the rustling, or rather pattering, of the plantain leaves, and of the bushes, as the breeze stirred them.