THE SOUTHEBN LOWLAND. 97 



green lowland behind us, reminded ns of Shelley's lines about 

 the plains of Lombard}' seen from the Euganean hills : 



" Beneath me lies like a green sea 



The "waveless plain of Lombardy, 

 * * % * 



AVhere a soft and purple mist, 



Like a vaporous amethyst, 



Or an air-dissolved stone, 



Mingling light and fragrance, far 



From the curved horizon's bound 



To the point of heaven's profound. 



Fills the overflowing sky ; 



And the plains that silent lie 



Underneath, the leaves nnsodden 



Where the infant frost has trodden 



With his morning-winged feet, 



Whose bright fruit is gleaming yet ; 



And the red and golden vines 



Piercing with their trellised lines 



The rough dark-skirted wilderness. " 



But there the analogy stopped. It hardly applied even so far. 

 Between us and the rouoh dark-skirted wilderness of the hisrh 

 forests on Montserrat the infant frost had never trodden ; all 

 basked in the equal heat of the perpetual summer ; awaiting, 

 it may be, in ages to come, a civilization higher even than 

 that w^hose decay Shelley deplored as he looked down on 

 fallen Italy. 



No clumsy Avords of mine can give an adequate picture of 

 the beauty of the streams and glens wdiich run down from 

 either slope of the Northern Mountain. The reader must fancy 



VOL. IT. H 



