Flowers bloom in this terrestrial paradise, once beautiful and verdant with waving trees; singing birds enchant the ear; the turtle-dove soothes with its soft note; the crested lark sends up its song toward heaven, and the grave and stately stork inspires the mind with thought, and leads it on to meditation and repose.

Life here was once idyllic, charming; here were once no rich, no poor, no high, no low.

It was a world of ease, simplicity, and beauty; now it is a scene of desolation and misery." This is not an ingenious picture.

It is the worst I ever saw.

It describes in elaborate detail what it terms a "terrestrial paradise," and closes with the startling information that this paradise is "a scene of desolation and misery." I have given two fair, average specimens of the character of the testimony offered by the majority of the writers who visit this region.
One says, "Of the beauty of the scene I can not say enough," and then proceeds to cover up with a woof of glittering sentences a thing which, when stripped for inspection, proves to be only an unobtrusive basin of water, some mountainous desolation, and one tree.