United States or Saint Lucia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Strong exhalations rose up from the swampy soil, that teemed and steamed under the hot breath of spring; the pond-like water, once so bare, was smothered under a riot of monstrous marsh-plants and loud with the music of love-sick frogs. Stars were reflected on its surface. Star-gazing, my Star? Would I were Heaven, to gaze on thee with many eyes. Quite the reverse!

Beyond came marshy ground through which they had to pick their way carefully, over stepping-stones this being no other than what is now the Regent's Park, not yet in any degree drained by the New River, but all quaking ground, overgrown with rough grass and marsh-plants, through which Stephen and Ambrose bounded by the help of stout poles with feet and eyes well used to bogs, and knowing where to look for a safe footing, while many a flat-capped London lad floundered about and sank over his yellow ankles or left his shoes behind him, while lapwings shrieked pee- wheet, and almost flapped him with their broad wings, and moorhens dived in the dark pools, and wild ducks rose in long families.

McLennan does not consider that this is conclusive, adding that such a view of the subject, "Does not at all meet the case of the shrubs, creepers, marsh-plants, and weeds that have been worshipped."

Beyond came marshy ground through which they had to pick their way carefully, over stepping-stones this being no other than what is now the Regent's Park, not yet in any degree drained by the New River, but all quaking ground, overgrown with rough grass and marsh-plants, through which Stephen and Ambrose bounded by the help of stout poles with feet and eyes well used to bogs, and knowing where to look for a safe footing, while many a flat-capped London lad floundered about and sank over his yellow ankles or left his shoes behind him, while lapwings shrieked pee- wheet, and almost flapped him with their broad wings, and moorhens dived in the dark pools, and wild ducks rose in long families.

Now it would lie straight between the dense thicket of marsh-plants; again it would follow the winding shores of vast pools, some of which, several versts in length and breadth, deserve the name of lakes.

Natural drainage would soon be obstructed by fallen trees, and the formation of marsh-land would follow; then with the growth of marsh-plants and their successive annual decay, a peaty mass would collect, which would quickly grow in thickness without let or hindrance.