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You are in for a seven mile heat at least of cross country roads, axletree deep, rain pour-in' straight up and down like Niagara, high hedges, deep ditches full of water, dark as Egypt; ain't room to pass nothin' if you meet it, and don't feel jist altogether easy about them cussed alligators and navigators, critters that work on rail-roads all day, and on houses and travellers by night.

The argan is more or less tropical: though a tree has been known to live against a south wall in England, it was killed by the first severe winter. Among the argans, little oxen were ploughing the red rich soil of the vale through which we rode; it was watered by a brook, and real hedges of pomegranate, out in brilliant flower, divided the fields.

The road led almost straight across the level between quickset hedges in white bloom. But when we reached the long steep hill which ascends to San Marino, the inevitable oxen were called out, and we toiled upwards leisurely through cornfields bright with red anemones and sweet narcissus. At this point pomegranate hedges replaced the May-thorns of the plain.

But oh, my daughter, how I loves him! "'The blessing of an old gipsy woman on your young head, I says. 'Fair be the skies under which you wanders, and shady the spots in which you rests! "'May the water be clear and the wood dry where you camps! "'What is the patteran? he asks. "'It is a secret, I says, looking somewhat sternly at him. 'The roads keeps it, and the hedges keeps it

As on some narrow path in Eastern lands, with high, prickly-pear hedges on either side, and vineyards stretching beyond them, with luscious grapes in abundance, a traveller has to keep on the road, within the prickly fences, dusty though it may be, and though his thirsty lips may be cracking.

With the words the gayety passed suddenly from the army, and it moved slowly with the dispirited tread of beaten men. The enemy lay to the north, and it was marching to the south and home. As it passed through the fragrant streets of Winchester, women, with startled eyes, ran from open doors into the deep old gardens, and watched it over the honeysuckle hedges.

We left Bagamoyo the attraction of all the curious, with much eclat, and defiled up a narrow lane shaded almost to twilight by the dense umbrage of two parallel hedges of mimosas. We were all in the highest spirits.

I slept at night at a very comfortable inn at Emu ferry, thirty-five miles from Sydney, and near the ascent of the Blue Mountains. This line of road is the most frequented, and has been the longest inhabited of any in the colony. The whole land is enclosed with high railings, for the farmers have not succeeded in rearing hedges.

The glowing green of everything strikes me: green hedges in place of our rail-fences, always ugly, and our rude stone-walls, which are not wanting in a certain look of fitness approaching to comeliness, and are really picturesque when lichen-coated, but poor features of landscape as compared to these universal hedges. I am disappointed in the trees, so far; I have not seen one large tree as yet.

The boys had a way of plunging out into the road in front of the school-villa when afternoon school was over; it was a pleasant rural road lined with high hedges and shadowed by elm-trees. Here, especially towards the summer twilight, they used to linger and play vague games, swooping and whirling in the declining sunshine, and I was glad to join these bat-like sports.