ves, after their
three-mile walk from the gardens. There they lounge and there they
chatter. Little boys come slyly to pilfer oranges, and are pelted away
with other oranges; for a single orange has here no more appreciable
value than a single apple in our farmers' orchards; and, indeed,
windfall oranges are left to decay, like windfall apples. During
this season one sees oranges everywhere, even displayed as a sort of
thank-offering on the humble altars of country-churches; the children's
lips and cheeks assume a chronic yellowness; and the narrow side-walks
are strewn with bits of peel, punched through and through by the boys'
pop-guns, as our boys punch slices of potato.

All this procession files down, the whole day long, to the orange-yards
by the quay. There one finds another merry group, or a series of groups,
receiving and sorting the fragrant loads, papering, packing, boxing. In
the gardens there seems no end to the varieties of the golden fruit,
although only one or two are here being packed. There are shaddocks,
_zamboas,_ limes, sour lemons, sweet lemons, oranges proper, and
_Tangerinas_; these last being delicate, perfumed, thin-skinned,
miniature-fruit from the land of the Moors. One may begin to eat oranges
at Fayal in November; but no discriminating person eats a whole orange
before March,--a few slices from the sunny side, and the rest is thrown
upon the ground. One learns to reverse the ordinary principles of
selection also, and choose the smaller and darker before the large and
yellow: the very finest in appearance being thrown aside by the packers
as worthless. Of these packers the Messrs. Dabney employ two hundred,
and five hundred beside in the transportation. One knows at a glance
whether the cargo is destined for America or England: the English boxes
having the thin wooden top bent into a sort of dome, almost doubling the
solid contents of the box. This is to evade the duty, the custom-house
measurement being taken only at the corners. It also enables the London
dealers to remove some two hundred oranges from every box, and still
send it into the country as full.--When one thinks what a knowing race
we came from, it is really wonderful where we Yankees picked up our
honesty.

Let us take one more glance from the window; for there is a mighty
jingling and rattling, the children are all running to see something,
and the carriage is approaching. "The carriage": it is said advisedly;
for there is b