This season is the longest and the loveliest of the year in
this beautiful country. During the months of September, October, and
November, there ordinarily falls very little rain, and the temperature
is but slightly different. The evolutions of nature are slow and
beneficent, and it seems to be a period especially disposed so that the
husbandman should reap in security the fruits of the year's labor. The
days lag lazily; the atmosphere is serene, and the cerulean, without a
cloud, is deeply blue. The foliage of the forest-trees, so gorgeous and
abundant, gradually loses the intense green of summer, fading and
yellowing so slowly as scarcely to be perceptible, and by such
attenuated degrees accustoming the eye to the change, that none of the
surprise or unpleasantness of sudden change is seen or experienced.
The fields grow golden; the redly-tinged leaves of the cotton-plant
contrast with the chaste pure white of the lint in the bursting pods,
now so abundantly yielding their wealth; the red ripe berries all over
the woods, and the busy squirrels gathering and hoarding these and the
richer forest-nuts; the cawing of the crows as they forage upon the
ungathered corn, feeding and watching with the consciousness of
thieves, and the fat cattle ruminating in the shade, make up a scene of
beauty and loveliness not met with in a less fervid clime.
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