the horizon. Two hours ago the
whistle sounded "No more steam," and the life of the building went
out. The attendants, tired of the show and _blases_ or "used up,"
according to their nationality, with exhibitions, have shrouded their
cases in sack-cloth and gone to sip ordinaire, absinthe or bitter ale.
I sit on a terrace of the Champ de Mars, the gorgeous building at my
back, and look riverward. Before me stretches away the green carpet of
sward one hundred feet wide and six hundred long, a broad level band
of emerald reaching to the gravel approach to the Pont d'Iena, each
side of which is guarded by a colossal figure of a man leading a
horse. The gravel around the _tapis vert_ is black with the figures of
those whom the fineness of the evening has induced to take a parting
stroll in the ground before retiring.

Flanking the gravel-walks the ground is more uneven, and Art, in
imitation of the wilder aspects of Nature, has done what the limited
space permitted to enhance the allied beauties of land and water,
where

Each gives each a double charm,
Like pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.

On the left is a rockery and waterfall on no mean scale, with a
romantic little lake in front. On the right a rocky island in a
corresponding lake is crowned with a thatched pavilion, the reflection
of which shines broken in the water ruffled by the evening breeze.
Groups of detached buildings hem in the view on each side, and their
flags wave with the sky for a background. Paris is invisible: at this
point the grounds are isolated from outside view.

Rising clear beyond the bridge, the approach to it on the other side
hidden by the lowness of the point of view, stands the palace of the
Trocadero, a broad sweep of green covering the hill, along whose
summit are the widespread wings of the colonnade, uniting at the
central rotunda, of which the domed roof and square campaniles rise
one hundred feet above all and dominate the middle of the picture. The
traces of the indefatigable swarms of workmen are obliterated, except
in the magical and finished work. The spray of the fountains of the
chateau d'eau drifts to leeward and hides at times patches of the
velvety grass on the hill. The central jet plays sturdily, and from
where I sit appears to reach the level of the second corridor of the
rotunda.

The eye fails to detect a single object, excepting the four statues on
the bridge, which is not the creation of a few months. The hill be