d descending by a series of terraces to which
art has but little contributed, are a number of flower-plots, whose
delicious odors float over the still water, while in every gorgeous hue
are seen the camellia, the oleander, and the cactus, with the tulip, the
ranunculus, and the carnation,--all flourishing in a luxuriance which
care and the favored aspect of this sheltered nook combine to
effect. Behind and around, on either side, the dark-leaved holly, the
laurustinus, and the arbutus are seen in all the profusion of leaf and
blossom a mild, moist air secures, and forming a framework in which
stands the cottage itself, its deep thatched eave, and porch of
rustic-work trellised and festooned with creeping plants, almost
blending its color with the surrounding foliage. Through the open
windows a peep within displays the handsomely disposed rooms, abounding
in all the evidences of cultivated taste and refinement. Books in
several of the modern languages are scattered on the table, music,
drawings of the surrounding scenery, in water-color or pencil,--all that
can betoken minds carefully trained and exercised, and by their very
diversity showing in what a world of self-stored resources their
possessors must live; the easel, the embroidery-frame, the chess-board,
the half-finished manuscript, the newly copied music, the very sprig of
fern which marks the page in the little volume on botany,--slight things
in themselves, but revealing so much of daily life!

If the cottage be an almost ideal representation of rustic elegance and
simplicity, its situation is still more remarkable for beauty; for while
Art has developed all the resources of the ground, Nature, in her own
boundless profusion, has assembled here almost every ingredient of
the picturesque, and as if to impart a sense of life and motion to the
stilly calm, a tumbling sheet of water gushes down between the rocks,
and in bounding leaps descends towards the Shannon, of which it is a
tributary.

A narrow path, defended by a little railing of rustic-work, separates
the end of the cottage from the deep gorge of the waterfall; but through
the open window the eye can peer down into the boiling abyss of spray
and foam beneath, and catch a glimpse of the bridge which, formed of a
fallen ash-tree, spans the torrent.

Traversed in every direction by paths, some galleried along the face,
others cut in the substance of the rock, you can pass hours in rambling
among these wild