Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1886-06-02
A Wonderful Mexican Garden.

Cuernavaca is celebrated as the home
of the conqueror Cortez, says a CORE
spondent of the Providence Journal,
and the site of his c~urious palace of
hewn stone. But it is just as cele-
brated for the great Borda Gardens.
The Borda is not what it once was,
when the hand of neglect was lifted
from it's wonderful forest of flowers.
This beautiful garden has been sad ever
since the death of it's imperial lover,
the arch-duke of Austria, MAMMALIAN,
emperor of Mexico. The vegetation is
unkept, and the dishevelled foliage falls
over the trees, till they seem almost
human in their sorrow and resemble
that poor demented woman in the Eu-
ropean castle who still fondly fancies
that the golden rim of Mexico's crown
rests on the head of her husband Maxi
milan. In this mournful garden the
branches OF the trees seem twisted in
paroxysms of pain and flung in.desper-
ate and threatening attitude towards the
sky. The great pond is covered with a
mantle of green, that Grape of waters.
The shaded aisles are deserted. The
only gardeners who water the flowers
are the clouds of heaven; the only
workman who trims the trees is sombre
autumn. Bnt on entering this spot the
sentiment Of admiration is at ono
aroused. The visitor instinctively en-
ters on tiptoe as if he were treading
some enchanted ground. as if he feared
to wake the birds asleep upon the
branches, the dryads hidden in the old
ash trees or the nymphs under the never
rufled water of the ponds. Face to
face with nature in this lonely TRUSTING
place the heart of the tourist is drawn
out towards nature, while love for the
beautiful is led by the hand of fear
through the scented walks of La
Borda.
The silence of solitude rests over the
thousands of acres. The voice of maj
is unheard. But the trees, the bending
flowers, the ripping streams and the
soughing breezes seem to speak. Outside
the garden the tropic sunlight Of the
TERRA Caliente falls like molten lead;
inside the air is refreshing, and the aisles
arched with giant palms are as cool as
the aisles of q great cathedral. The first
feeling experienced is such as is felt
when one enters a great palace. But here
no liveried lackev or armed slave tries to
eject us. The dryads do not issue from
ash or cedar to dismiss us. This great
garden cannot be compared with the
uniform and carefully cultivated gardens
round the City of Mexico. 1t is an i'm
mense forest of flowers and fruits. Even
the dead ponds of unusual proportions.
Macmillan of Austria. prince and artist
as he was, spent there the happiest hours
of his stormy reign in Mexico, but the
angel with the flaming sword drove him
and his brilliant Carlotta out of that para
disc, to enter again. Never again
will that romantic adyenturer tread those
suspended gardens, like the hanging
gardens of Semiramis, poised above the
TERRA Caliente that lies below those
cliffs. The gardens cover some of the
most beautiful mountain slopes in all
the state of Merelos, where they were
first laid out by Count Borda. a Spanish
miner, who became a millionaire by
precious metals he extracted from the
celebrated Tasco mines in the state of
Guerrero. They are desolate and de-
serted now. But some new Mexican or
American millionaire may some day
people with marble statues those deep
forests, and may throw heavens sun
light down through those roofs of fra
GRANGE. Then will disappear that spell
of enchantment. Cortez and his
mistress, Malluche, will then no longer
haunt La Borda, nor the "foot steps of
return" he heard of Macmillan and
Carlotta. Mexico's children of to-
morrow may play in those now
silent shades and under those talismanic
trees.