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[224] cattle down to rest, with full bellies, by ten in the morning. Fine but narrow roads wound along among the hills, free almost entirely of stone, and so smooth as to be safe for the most rapid driving, made of their rich, dark, powder-looking soil. Beautiful villages or scattered settlements breaking upon the delighted view, on the meandering way, making the ride a continued scene of excitement and admiration. The air fresh, free, and wholesome; the road almost dead level for miles and miles, among mountains that lay over the land like the great swells of the sea, and looking in the prospect as though there could be no passage.

To this autumnal limning, the following spring picture may be a fitting accompaniment:—

At last Spring is here in full flush. Winter held on tenaciously and mercilessly, but it has let go. The great sun is high on his northern journey, and the vegetation, and the bird-singing, and the loud frog-chorus, the tree budding and blowing, are all upon us; and the glorious grass—superbest of earth's garniture—with its eversatis-fying green. The king-birds have come, and the corn-planter, the scolding bob-o-link. “ Plant your corn, plant your corn,” says he, as he scurries athwart the ploughed ground, hardly lifting his crank wings to a level with his back, so selfimpor-tant is he in his admonitions. The earlier birds have gone to housekeeping, and have disappeared from the spray. There has been brief period for them, this spring, for scarcely has the deep snow gone, but the dark-green grass has come, and first we shall know, the ground will be yellow with dandelions.

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