light, and holds a good
deal of luggage. We hope to accomplish the distance--fifty miles--in a
day, easily.

Although this is not my first visit to Ilam, I don't think I have ever
described it to you. The house is of wood, two storeys high, and came
out from England! It is built on a brick foundation, which is quite
unusual here. Inside, it is exactly like a most charming English house,
and when I first stood in the drawing-room it was difficult to believe:
that I was at the other end of the world. All the newest books, papers,
and periodicals covered the tables, the newest music lay on the piano,
whilst a profusion of English greenhouse flowers in Minton's loveliest
vases added to the illusion. The Avon winds through the grounds, which
are very pretty, and are laid out in the English fashion; but in spite
of the lawn with its croquet-hoops and sticks, and the beds of flowers
in all their late summer beauty, there is a certain absence of the
stiffness and trimness of English pleasure-grounds, which shows that
you have escaped from the region of conventionalities. There are thick
clumps of plantations, which have grown luxuriantly, and look as if they
had always been there. A curve of the opposite bank is a dense mass of
native flax bushes, with their tall spikes of red blossom filling
the air with a scent of honey, and attracting all the bees in the
neighbourhood. Ti-ti palms are dotted here and there, and give a foreign
and tropical appearance to the whole. There is a large kitchen garden
and orchard, with none of the restrictions of high walls and locked
gates which fence your English peaches and apricots.

The following is our receipt for killing time at Ilam:--After breakfast,
take the last _Cornhill_ or _Macmillan_, put on a shady hat, and sit or
saunter by the river-side under the trees, gathering any very tempting
peach or apricot or plum or pear, until luncheon; same thing until five
o'clock tea; then cross the river by a rustic bridge, ascend some turf
steps to a large terrace-like meadow, sheltered from the north-west
winds by a thick belt of firs, blue gums, and poplars, and play croquet
on turf as level as a billiard-table until dinner. At these games the
cockatoo always assists, making himself very busy, waddling after his
mistress all over the field, and climbing up her mallet whenever he
has an opportunity. "Dr. Lindley"--so called from his taste for pulling
flowers to pieces--apparently for botanical p