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The oval table, the low lamps, the clusters of candles under coloured shades, the great Oriental bowl of wild flowers eglantine, honeysuckle, foxglove, all the sweet hedge flowers of midsummer, made a central mass of colour and brightness against the subdued and even sombre tones of walls and curtains. The room was old, the furniture old.

The hands were summoned up by the shrill pipe of the boatswain and his mates; but it was quite unnecessary, as the men had already crowded on deck upon the first report which had been communicated below, and were in clusters on the forecastle and gangways.

Large fields, the joint property of the community, were cultivated with pine-apples in close rows, now just ripening; and bananas, with broad leaves and heavy clusters of fruit, were growing in the little garden belonging to each hut. The inhabitants stared at us sulkily, and gave short answers to our questions.

This road, which lies along the Arno, is very good; and the country is delightful, variegated with hill and vale, wood and water, meadows and corn-fields, planted and inclosed like the counties of Middlesex and Hampshire; with this difference, however, that all the trees in this tract were covered with vines, and the ripe clusters black and white, hung down from every bough in a most luxuriant and romantic abundance.

Zebra, rhinoceros and giraffe seem to be especially good hosts. The loathsome creatures fasten themselves in clusters wherever they can grip their fangs. Thus in a tick country a zebra's ears, the lids and corners of his eyes, his nostrils and lips, the soft skin between his legs and body, and between his hind legs, and under his tail are always crusted with ticks as thick as they can cling.

Along the whole course of this rivulet, as far as the eye could trace it, searchers for gold were at work on both banks, while their white tents, and rude wooden shanties, were scattered, singly or in clusters of various extent, upon the wooded slopes, in every pleasant and suitable position.

It is the trunk of the prima philosophia then which puts forth these new and wondrous boughs, into all the fields of human speculation and practice, filling all our outdoor, penetrating all our indoor life, with their beauty and fragrance; overhanging every roof, stooping to every door, with their rich curtains and clusters of ornament and delight, with their ripe underhanging clusters of axioms of practice brought down to particulars, ready for use with their dispersed directions overhanging every path, with their aphorisms made out of the pith and heart of sciences, 'representing a broken knowledge, and, therefore, inviting the men of speculation to inquire farther.

Small green oaks, with round tops, innumerable green shrubs, and myriads of gillyflowers cling to the various projections, nestle in the hollows, and deck its crest with their yellow clusters. All these murmur in the breeze, and the birds are singing in the midst of the imposing silence....

Or he would lie on the banks, gazing at the clusters of dog-violets, or up in the dead bracken, fingering the pink, transparent buds of the dewberry, while the cuckoos called and yafes laughed, or a lark, from very high, dripped its beads of song. It was certainly different from any spring he had ever known, for spring was within him, not without.

Before he was fast asleep the two marionettes had slipped off his knee and lay in the deep grass looking up at the sky. They had never seen so beautiful a sight before, for never had they spent a night in the sweet open air till now. Over their heads swung dusky clusters of blossom, that would look white by day; and over them the moon went kissing its way from star to star.