ion," he says, "is
very beautiful, but the country over which it looks is now almost
deserted, and the valley is become a swamp. Its little rivers of clear
water, after turning a mill or two, serve only to flood, instead of
draining and beautifying the country." His descriptions of the splendour
of the scenery, yet of the desolation of the land, are so frequent that
I should not be able to confine my extracts within bounds, did I attempt
to give them all. He speaks of his route as lying through "a rich
wilderness" of ruins. Sometimes the landscape "so far exceeded the
beauty of nature, as to seem the work of magic." Again, "the splendid
view passed like a dream; for the continual turns in the road, and the
increasing richness of the woods and vegetation, soon limited my view to
a mere foreground. Nor was this without interest; on each projecting
rock stood an ancient sarcophagus; and the trees half concealed the lids
and broken sculpture of innumerable tombs."

The gifts of nature remain; he was especially struck with the trees. "We
traversed the coast," he says, "through woods of the richest trees, the
planes being the handsomest to be found in this or perhaps any other
part of the world. I have never seen such stupendous arms to any trees."
Everything was running wild; "the underwood was of myrtle, growing
sometimes twenty feet high, the beautiful daphne laurel, and the
arbutus; and they seemed contending for preeminence with the vine,
clematis, and woodbine, which climbed to the very tops, and in many
instances bore them down into a thicket of vegetation, impervious except
to the squirrels and birds, which, sensible of their security in these
retreats, stand boldly to survey the traveller." Elsewhere he found the
ground carpeted with the most beautiful flowers. A Protestant
Missionary,[51] in like manner, travelling in a different part of the
country, speaks of the hedges of wild roses, the luxuriant gardens and
fruit-trees, principally the cherry, the rich soil, the growth of beech,
oak, and maple, the level meadows and swelling hills covered with the
richest sward, and the rivulets of the purest water. No wonder that, as
he tells us, "sitting down under a spreading walnut-tree, by the side of
a murmuring mill stream, he was led by the charming woodland scenery
around to reflect upon that mysterious Providence, by which so beautiful
a country has been placed under such a blighting government, in the
hands of so igno