The tall cocoa-nut palms, crowned with their feathery tufts; the rich foliage of the various trees; the gorgeous blossoms; the picturesque, gaily-dressed natives in their arrowy canoes, with luscious fruits, or specimens of coral, shells, and other treasures of the deep; the innumerable little bronze figures darting in and out of the water for bits of coin thrown to them from the deck; and, above all, the dear ones, with happy faces and eager, outstretched hands, awaiting, with loving impatience, the moment of our landing, formed a tableau, which, illumined by the soft, glowing, dreamy atmosphere, made a photograph in my memory which time nor distance can ever efface. Our ride through the city, up the Nu-u-an-u valley, was one continued surprise and wonder, a bright vision, from which we surely must awaken to sober reality. We knew that, by the almanac, it was the last day but one of the old year, midwinter, a time of frost and snow, and surely these brilliant oleanders, these great scarlet geraniums, these bright hedges of the many-colored Lantana were but a fairy scene which might vanish any moment and leave the trees bare and the flowers withered. But when we entered the charming grounds about our children's home, where we were to spend some months, resting and gaining health and vigor, we were fain to believe that it was all real, and that we should sit day after day on the broad veranda, and look at the royal palms, the graceful algeroba, the wide-spreading umbrella trees, the truly regal bougainvillia, with its wealth of purple blossoms, the Mexican vine, covered with rose-colored sprays, the soft velvet turf, and the exquisite ferns, and we thanked God that he had brought us, safely and happily, to so beautiful a haven. Everything about us was so charming a suggestion of Paradise, that even now, after the lapse of many years, the memory of the six months spent in that gem of the Pacific, comes to us freighted with a sense of sweetness and peace that savors of the rest of Heaven.