The aspect of the country in the immediate neighbourhood of where the observer has taken his stand will be green in the main, although the unbroken verdure by no means obtains throughout. Here and there the ground is strongly marked by the occasional heaps of stones that come jostling to the surface, and that recline in the fashion of small bleak islands in the midst of the green waves. But, should the time be spring, these latter are themselves flecked frequently almost to the extinction of their own colouring. The great purple bands and patches of the _flor morala_ lie thickly upon the land. These, however, stand apart, since where they glow the serried ranks of blossom permit no others to raise their heads. [Illustration: A PASTORAL SCENE. To face p. 238.] But these, though the boldest of their kind, are by no means the sole occupants of the landscape. Indeed, one of the chief characteristics of the Banda Oriental Campo is the wealth of beautiful and comparatively lowly plants that grow amidst the grasses. They are of the type of English blossoms, peering out shyly from between the green blades, blowing purely and sweetly in their innocence of the heavy sickliness of the tropics. It is where the ground is chiefly dotted with these fresh flowers that the smile of the Campo is most brilliant. So much for the immediate surroundings up to the point where the more intricate markings become merged in the broader tints of the landscape. Down in the hollows are bands of dark, close green formed by the trees that shade the streams. With scarcely a break in the narrow walls of verdure they run from valley to valley, accurately defining the banks of the small rivers whose waters they conceal. Within these leafy lanes lurk the only spots upon the Campo, save for the rare woodland, that do not stare frankly upwards, exposing all their earthly soul to the blue sky. Away in the far distance there is a magic glamour. There the lands are no longer green to the eye. The soft waves, as they rise and dip in an accumulation of folds towards the final horizon line, are bathed in warm purple. The Banda Oriental has been called "the purple land" by one who knew it well, and never was a name better applied. Without the foreground--that is itself strongly purpled by the banks of the _flor morula_--all is purple and mystic. The land has its ordinary mirages as well; but here is one that at all times confronts the traveller--that wonderful land of the horizon that, unattainable, dies farther away as it is approached.