up to the stooping forests at the left-hand base of the central mountain. On the reaches of this savanna is space and flowery pasturage for flocks and herds. Llamas may feed there undisturbed by anacondas. No serpent hugs; no scorpion nips; never a mosquito hums over this fair realm. Perpetual spring reigns. If the Arcadians wish perpetual summer, with its pests and its pleasures, they have only to mount a mule and descend; the torrid zone is but a mile below. Life here may be a sweet idyl; and the great mountains at hand will never let its idyllic quiet degenerate into pastoral insipidity.
A sweep of this fair meadow-land, eddying along under steep banks behind the village, bears us unawares up steep acclivities, and we become mountaineers again, climbing the Cordillera.
The Dome was an emblem of permanent and infinite peace: — this central mass of struggling mountain, with a war of light and shade over all its tumultuous surface, represents vigor and toil and perplexity. The great shadow of the picture is opposed in sentiment, as well as in color and form, to the great light.
Begin with the craggy hillock at the centre of the background, behind the village tower. It seems a mere episode of the life of the great mountain above it; but observe how thoroughly, as in all Mr. Church’s work, its story is told. Detail is suggested, and yet suppressed. The
