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It was difficult work making their way on, now descending into a deep ravine, now climbing a rugged slope, now passing along a bare shoulder. There was no pause until day broke, when they descended into a gorge and lay down among some clumps of bushes, one man being sent half a mile down while two others were posted on each side of the ravine.
The country from Havre to Rouen is rich in corn of every description there is nothing particular in the face of it, and yet you would, if awakened from a dream, at once declare you were not in England; in the first place there are no hedges the road was almost one continuous avenue of apple-trees; the timber trees are not planted in hedgerows but in little clumps or groves, sometimes but generally rather removed from the road, and it is amongst these that the villages and cottages are concealed, for it is surprising how few in comparison with England are seen.
After dinner, and before the hour for cards, the Queen, the Princesses, and their ladies, paraded among the clumps of trees, in little carriages, beneath canopies richly embroidered with gold, drawn by men in the King's livery.
There were a few yards of the open park to traverse before he reached her, so that he thought it necessary to relieve her anxiety before they met. He called out to her, "Don't be afraid, it is only me." For a moment more that fine poise lasted, and then she clapped her hands with a peal of laughter that seemed to fill the entire atmosphere and ring back from the clumps of wintry wood.
On the mountain ash the bright red berries dangled in clumps like Christmas bells, and some of the leaves of the elm still clung to their boughs; so that the wide yellow road was dappled like a wild-cat's back with black splotches of shadow.
The white front gate, whose hinges had been so often tried by its being transformed into a sort of merry-go-round; the clumps of laurel bushes which had afforded such good hiding-places in games of "I spy;" even the long-suffering little brass weathercock above the stable roof, which had served as a mark for catapult shooting, these, and a hundred other objects on which his eyes rested, recalled memories which softened his heart, and brought back more vividly than ever the recollection of that faithful friend, whose last request he was about to fulfil.
As he emerged on the side of the apse, his eyes at first plunged into the papal gardens, whose clumps of trees seemed mere bushes almost level with the soil; and he could retrace his recent stroll among them, the broad parterre looking like a faded Smyrna rug, the large wood showing the deep glaucous greenery of a stagnant pool.
When the twilight toned down the hard outlines of the oaks, and made shadowy clumps and formless masses of other bushes, it was quite romantic to sit by the window and inhale the faint, sad odor of the fennel in the walks below. Perhaps this economical pleasure was much enhanced by a picture in my memory, whose faded colors the odor of this humble plant never failed to restore.
And that bright star above the tops of the trees, which seemed to throw a distinct ray of light, must be Venus.... The moon was high enough to cast shadows black distorted. The low clumps of shrubs beyond the carpet of grass looked like strange couched beasts....
A short distance up stream, and midway between the mouth and the big rapids, there is a straggling village, called Ranggul, the houses of which, made of wattled bamboos and thatched with palm leaves, stand on piles, amid the groves of cocoa-nut and areca-nut palms, varied by clumps of smooth-leaved banana trees.
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