XXI. Studying the Country.

The American tourist, approaching the shores of Europe for the first time, will be impressed strangely with the appearance of the land; he will be disappointed, in all probability, and very naturally; the view will want some of the largeness of islands, of hills, and of forests, which his imagination had pictured to him, probably for no reason except that it is Europe; the shores, even the bluffs and highlands, will seem low, partly because of their unappreciated distances, partly on account of the general barrenness or nakedness of the hills, partly by reason of the absence of forests, and partly in that the buildings which may be in sight, if not a city or town, appear low and few in number; in addition to these, the colors of the landscape, especially in summer time, are of fresh, soft, yellowish-greens which evidently have the effect of adding to the notion of lowness and strangeness. Each country has its own characteristics. The Highlands of Scotland are in general high-relief. Although Ben Nevis, the highest point in Great Britain, reaches up only 4,406 feet, the Bens, or 'mountains, rise up in long, bold, naked, green and heather-purple-and-brown colored elevations, sometimes broken into abrupt bluffs more or less rugged, oftener continuous for long miles which are valuable as sheep marches, sometimes losing themselves in muirs or in straths, sometimes suddenly cut in twain by lochs, or by glens which are deepened in solitude by ominous tarns,

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occasionally sloping down and out into vast level acres of fine arable land, as at Inverness.

The mountains in Switzerland are higher; Mont Blanc, lifting its bold, broad, snow-white head sublimely upwards into the misty air nearly sixteen thousand feet; the tops of the mountains are peaks, rough, jagged, standing in the loftiness of their isolated grandeur, holding their everlasting watch over the deep ravines, the rushing cataracts, the roadways as ribbons for narrowness, the shepherd flocks as mere white specks upon the steeps for distance. All these are wards of those noble mountain-tops that listen, amid their eternal solitudes, to the echoes of the shepherd horn as its tones float deviously upward among the clouds amidst which rest the snows, which are ever deepening and yet never satisfying to the ponderous glacier and the crashing avalanche. The Jungfrau, as seen from Berne, sixty miles distant, and Mont Blanc, as seen from Geneva, forty-five miles away, are views that are never to be forgotten for their sublime, though mute language to the sympathetic tourist. The lofty passes, the rushing streams, the embosomed lakes with their crystalclear waters, the steep ascents, all these are so many new revelations to the traveler among the Alps.

Returning again to the Highlands, they may be summed up in this: That the tourist will leave them with the wish that they were higher. The waterfalls seem small, often mere brookletdashes, to an American who has seen our own. The inland lochs are beautiful quiet sheets of water which rest among the hills, reflecting the landscapes as do mirrors. The buildings are few, except at centres. Some of the stations

and landings consist of one long name of sounding import, and one small hotel standing solitary in the mountain loneliness. Quite occasionally the tourist suddenly comes in sight of some ruined castle or palace upon which he brings his glass, half expecting to see some of its ancient heroes looking out over the ruined walis, and he turns him away sorrowful, because he sees them not. He often gazes far up an historic glen, and over the shore-islands, and into the caves, and would not be astonished to behold rushing forth the Fingals, and the the Ossians, and the Clans in full array, or the stag and hound down the glens, or the Lady standing on the shore of the Isle, or the Lords of the Isles leading forth their retainers. Sir Walter Scott has thrown so deep a glamour of romance, interwoven with real history, over his native land that the tourist has hard work to rid himself of the notion of the fiction in the casc; the romantic becomes the more real.

England is one vast farm, as also is the Lowland country of Scotland. In England, the fields are often small, sometimes large; the fences of stone, of wire, of occasional panel, and of abundant hedges, run any and all ways, nearly, except at right angles and parallel to each other; the larger trees growing at indefinite intervals; the cattle, some with horns, and some without; the flocks of sheep; the many horses; the narrow, retiring roads, bordered by hedges; the high state of tillage; the northern, or Lake District, romantic as well as picturesque in its hills, drives, low mountains, placid lakes, old towns, ancient towers, and historic associations; the ruined cathedrals and castles, the quaint thatch roof cottages, the stately mansions

resting amidst the policies; the young forests; all these lend a charm to the English landscape which is often rightly called the garden.

France with her landscape which is inlined by her chalky-white roads, without fences; which includes extensive forests; which is more pronounced in its perspective effects from the frequent rows of tall poplars; which includes hedge-rows for fences, yet not over many of them; which contains strong reliefs of the bordering mountain ranges; which shows hills of chalk, whole acres and miles of it; which presents innumerable fields of vine-clad slopes; France, with all this diversity of scene in her landscape, though highly attractive, is yet monotonous.

Holland has her landscape of lowlands, with the many narrow and few wide canals, which constitute the fences between the fields upon which feed the sheep and cattle-with the small vessels riding up from the ocean in the larger canals, high above the fields, and alongside of the houses situated far inland-with the willows growing upon the banks of the canals, to stay them from being washed away with her hundreds of windmills whose arms make alive the air with weird gnome-like gesticulations-with rows of trees somewhat tall, bordering an occasional road—with beautiful farms without canals, in some of its districts-with beautiful cities here and there, having streets whose centers are canals, bordered on both sides with roadways, which are still widened by narrow sidewalks-in short, with almost everything to emphasize the literal fact that the "Dutch have conquered Holland," with all this level expanse of landscape, yet it is charming and alive with quaint variety.

Without attempting more in detail, it may suffice to say in general, that all the forests in Central Europe are planted, and are hence young, vigorous, and uniform, in the same forest, in the size of the trees-that the immense vine

covered slopes in the Rhine district, and the Rhine itself, with its pontoon bridges and flying-ferries, give a picturesque effect-and that the fields in Germany still show the old custom of rotation of crops which are planted in long narrow strips, situated side by side, with no intervening fences, the divisions simply marked by stone posts at the ends of the lots. The country in Europe is peculiar, as compared to American landscapes, in this, that it is more rich in those elements which enter into the demands of the landscape painter-the colors, the contours, the extents, the decay attending an old civilization, rather than the decay of unsubdued wilderness, the general configuration of the hills and valleys, all these serve Art with an abundance of available materials which the gifted seize and transfer to immortal canvas.

The tourist in traveling the higher mountain lands needs his guide, his supply of food which his guide will carry, his long and strong staff, his Claude Lorraine mirror, his substantial clothing, and an ample stock of appetite, physical endurance, and patience.