By tapping the _azequia_ we turned the barren valley into a garden of roses, for in that rainless region water was a veritable magician, whatsoever it touched it vivified.

This done we sent up timber, and built ourselves a cottage, which we called Alta Vista, for the air was superb and the view one of the grandest in the world.
Angela would fain have persuaded the abbe to join us; yet though I made a well-graded road and the journey was neither long nor fatiguing he came but seldom.

He was so thoroughly acclimatized that he preferred the warmth of San Cristobal to the freshness of Alta Vista, and the growing burden of his years indisposed him to exertion, and made movement an effort.

We could all see, and none more clearly than himself, that the end was not far off.

He contemplated it with the fortitude of a philosopher and the faith of a Christian.