to its plaintive little song as it flitted among the shrubbery in the garden, wondering what manner of bird it might be. One day a Mexican residing in the western part of the city, who gains a livelihood by trapping canaries and linnets, offered me a pair of these little beauties for two dollars, apologizing for the high price by saying that they were very rare and caught with difficulty. Struck by their beauty and delicate brilliancy of plumage, I asked him if they ever sang. "Oh, yes, señor; but only in the night. You must remember the story of the bird which sang all night before the tomb in which lay the body of the Saviour of the world"—touching his hat respectfully—"after the crucifixion? Well, señor, these birds are of the same!"
Then the story of the Easter-night singer of far-off Palestine, as I had heard it told in other lands, came back me; and going home I read with fresh interest the beautiful lines by Fitzjames O'Brien:
"You have heard, my boy, of the One who died,
Crowned with keen thorns and crucified;
And how Joseph the wealthy—whom God reward—
Cared for the corpse of the martyred Lord,
And piously tombed it within the rock,
And closed the gate with a mighty block.
"Now, close by the tomb, a fair tree grew,
With pendulous leaves and blossoms of blue;
And deep in the green tree's shadowy breast
A beautiful singing-bird on her nest,
Which was bordered with mosses like malachite
And held four eggs of an ivory white.
"Now, when the bird from her dim recess
Beheld the Lord in his burial dress,
And looked on the heavenly face so pale,
And the dear feet pierced with the cruel nail,
Her heart now broke with a sudden pang
And out of the depth of her sorrow she sang.
"All night long, till the moon was up,
She sat and sang in her moss-wreathed cup
A song of sorrow, as wild and shrill
As the homeless wind when it ioams the hill;
So full of tears, so loud and long,
That the grief of the world seemed turned to song.
"But soon there came, through the weeping night,
A glimmering angel clothed in white;
And he rolled the stone from the tomb away,
Where the Lord of the earth and the heavens lay;
And Christ arose in the cavern's gloom,
And in living lustre came from the tomb.
"Now the bird that sat in the heart of the tree
Beheld the celestial mystery,
And its heart was filled with a sweet delight,
And it poured a song on the throbbing night;
Notes climbing notes, still higher, higher,
They shoot to heaven like spears of fire.
"When the glittering, white-robed angel heard
The sorrowing song of that grieving bird,
And heard the following chant of mirth,
That hailed Christ, risen from the earth,
He said, 'Sweet bird, be forever blest;
Thyself, thy eggs, and thy moss-wreathed nest.'
"And ever, my child, since that blessed night,
When death bowed down to the Lord of light,
The eggs of that sweet bird change their hue,
And burn with red, and gold, and blue ;
Reminding mankind, in their simple way,
Of the holy marvel of Easter-day."
I know that in a little time the march of reason will sweep this old tradition, as it has already swept away others which were once regarded as essentials of the Christian faith ; nevertheless I envied the simple, uneducated bird-catcher his childlike, unquestioning belief, and the song of the sweet night-singer of California will ever henceforth fall upon my ear more gratefully for its pleasant association with that story of holy marvel, which, although some of us may doubt, we must surely all alike admire.
The sun was high in the heavens, next day, when I said good-by to Albert at Crystal Springs, and rode away into the Sierra Morena Mountains. It was a California autumn morning,—and, in saying that, I have left nothing unsaid in the way of description. Turning southwestward, the road, one of the finest I have ever ridden over, winds round and round, in and out, along the steep sides of a deep, rocky cafion, for miles, ascending by regular and easy grades the dividing ridge between the Bay of San Francisco and the Pacific Ocean. When nearly at the summit I paused to rest my panting horse and look back upon the scene below. And such a scene! It was a variation of that described in the story of my paseár, but, if possible, even more entrancingly beautiful. Eastward, the Bay of San Francisco, cairn, unruffled, and blue, glittered in the sun. The ocean mists rolling in through the Golden Gate half hid the towns which skirt the bay. The hills of Alameda, high and etherealized, rested like great straw-colored and purple clouds against the horizon; while Mount Diablo, monarch of the inland country, reared his dark head into the blue sky, above the mists and the lower mountains, like some great rocky island, seen from the shores of an unknown sea. Southward, between the hills of San Mateo and the Sierra Morena, stretching away for miles toward the redwood-covered heights of Santa Clara, lay the ever-beautiful Cañada del Reymundo. Live-oak groves are scattered through it, and near its centre rests a quiet little lake, with an island of green tules in the middle. All around the sides of the valley, among the groves in the little cañons, nestle quiet farm-houses, and in the centre, upon an elevated mesa, stands the last relic of the old semi-feudal Spanish-American times. This is an adobe house of one story, with broad veranda, formed by the wide roof being carried out all around. No garden, no grain-fields, not a single fruit-tree flourishes near it. The ranchero who built it and dwelt here among his herds, and paid tribute to the Holy Mother Church and the Most Catholic monarch, Don Carlos "of Spain, and India King," some eighty years ago, thought the country capable of no higher improvement, and dreamed not of the paradise it was to become when he and his should give place to the stranger who dwelt beyond the great Sierra Nevada somewhere. He built no roads, planted no trees, and left behind only his low-roofed jaical, and the musical Spanish name which he gave to the valley.
On again. One of those curious bue-and-brown birds, with peaked cap and tail as disproportionately long as that of a peacock, called here a "Road Runner," and in Mexico "El Correro del Camino"—the
