United States or Antigua and Barbuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


There was one beautiful clump of hollyhocks and sunflowers in the front garden; a corner of the main building was covered with morning-glories; a fence to the left was overgrown with grape-vines, making it look like a hedge; a huge pear tree occupied a spot opposite to the pretty copse of sunflowers and hollyhocks; and the rest of the garden was green, save just round a little "summer-house," in the corner, with its back to the road, near which Sophie had set a palisade of the golden-rod flower.

Likewise Walnut, Birch, Beech, Maple, Ash, Bay, Willow, Alder, and Holly; and in the lowermost Parts innumerable Pines, tall and good for Boards or Masts, growing, for the most part, in barren and sandy, but in some Places up the River, in good Ground, being mixt amongst Oaks and other Timbers. We saw Mulberry-Trees, Multitudes of Grape-Vines, and some Grapes which we eat of.

Wherever we find stagnant water let us avoid the neighboring hillsides, for they would not be congenial to our grape-vines.

In the neighborhood of one o'clock in the morning, when we were heated with fast walking and parched with thirst, Denny exclaimed, "Why, these weeds are grape-vines!" and in five minutes we had a score of bunches of large, white, delicious grapes, and were reaching down for more when a dark shape rose mysteriously up out of the shadows beside us and said "Ho!" And so we left.

Stedman himself made several campaigns, with long intervals of illness, before he came any nearer to the enemy than to burn a deserted village or destroy a rice-field. Sometimes they left the Charon and the Cerberus moored by grape-vines to the pine-trees, and made expeditions into the woods single file.

They saw walnut, chestnut, and wild plum trees, and oaks festooned with grape-vines; herds of deer, and flocks of swans and wild turkeys. The bulwarks of the "Griffin" were plentifully hung with game which the men killed on shore, and among the rest with a number of bears, much commended by Hennepin for their want of ferocity and the excellence of their flesh.

The swinging grape-vines, the grassy nooks and vistas glimpsed as we swept by, the flowering creepers waving their red blossoms from the tops of dead trunks, and all the spendthrift richness of the forest foliage, were wasted and thrown away there.

The entire island was one great palm-grove, with pomegranates, apricots, figs, orange-trees, and grape-vines growing beneath the palms. The grass at the foot of the trees was dotted with blue and pink flowers. Here and there were fields of spring wheat. The water-ditches which irrigated the island were filled by giant water-wheels, thirty to fifty feet in diameter.

Stedman himself made several campaigns, with long intervals of illness, before he came any nearer to the enemy than to burn a deserted village or destroy a rice-field. Sometimes they left the "Charon" and the "Cerberus" moored by grape-vines to the pine-trees, and made expeditions into the woods, single file.

The following morning he put eggs under several hens that wanted to set, trimmed his grape-vines, examined the precious ginseng beds, attended his stock, got breakfast for Belshazzar and himself, and was ready for work when the first carpenter arrived. Laying hewed logs went speedily, and before the Harvester believed it possible the big shingles he had ordered were being nailed on the roof.