1871.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



123 



with creepers, covered with climbers, and mot- 

 tled with flowers. A mountain stream tumbled 

 down the rocky scarp with considerable force 

 and noise : 



" Its bounding crystal frolicked in (he ray, 

 And gushed from cliff to crag, the pestrly spray." 



No hanging gardens of Babylon surpassed 

 these. Neither Nebuchadnezzar, nor his Medean 

 queen ; Solomon nor Cyrus, ever looked upon a 

 lovelier picture. Notwithstanding the halo, real 

 or imaginary, Avhich has hovered round the Ori- 

 ent for ages, no ancient Assyrian, Jewish, Per- 

 sian, Grecian, or Roman potentate, when revel- 

 ing in the full meridian pomp and splendor of 

 Eastern magnificence, ever saw so fair a scene. 

 No one for a moment doubts that the natu- 

 ral hanging gardens of Australia, antedate those 

 of Babylonian fame. Although apparently "as 

 old as the hills" — yet, no historian's pen has re- 

 corded their wonders, or cast an antediluvian 

 glamor around them. We may reasonably sup- 

 pose, that the eyes of pre-historic man have 

 often scanned the scene many thousands of 

 years before it met the gaze of the Caucasian. 



Those wretched specimens of humanity, the 

 nomadic savages, who wander through their na- 

 tive forests in a beastial state of nudity, know 

 nothing of the past. As with them, so of their 

 country — there is no written history. Whatever 

 consequences Adam's fall may have brought 

 upon the white, it is evident the aboriginal Aus- 

 tralian did not, as a consequence, fall into the fig 

 leaf fashion. A couple passed me, (a sight com- 

 mon enough,) who in one sense, somewhat re- 

 sembled the condition of Adam and Eve, as de- 

 scribed in the second chapter of Genesis, " they 

 were both naked, the man and his wife, and were 

 not ashamed." If some of the doubting Thomas', 

 who laugh at the idea of having a monkey for 

 an ancestor, were to see one of the abject crea- 

 tures, who seem only to lack a caudal appendage 

 to make him positively a handsome monkey, 

 instead of being as he is, absolutely the worst 

 looking man, I feel convinced they would easily 

 be converted to Darwinism. 



Beast-like as they are, they nevertheless seem 

 to love or like one another, as the practice of 

 anthrophophagy proves. Whether their cuisine 

 is as recherche as the Fejee Islanders celebrated 

 roasted missionary, or not, I am unable to say. I 

 am not so positive in my opinion about flesh as 

 was Paul, who, with his usual acumen, seems to 

 have had the faculty of a nice discrimination. 

 See 1 Cor. xv. 30. Eupepsia, as an art, or gas- 



I tronomy, as a science, formed no part of my edu- 

 cation. No, gentle reader, I am only a very 

 common man, and am easily satisfied with plain 

 beef and mutton. I never gave much heed to the 

 flesh-pots of Egypt, or felt a hankering after tit' 

 hits, or craving for toothsome dishes, or taste for 

 game of any kind — -mankind especially. So I will 

 leave the fact for more experienced epicures to 

 decide. 



TO THE FAR WEST. 



BY MRS. F. E. B. 



So many have described the great "Overland 

 Route," that it may be superfluous for me to add 

 anything to their delineations, but I must give 

 you some of my impressions. Through Nebraska 

 and the first part of Wyoming there is little to 

 interest the eye. The land, no doubt, is fertile, 

 but so flat, mile after mile, hour after hour, a 

 mere flat, treeless, waterless, desolate waste. The 

 Platte is the most uninteresting river I ever 

 saw. It is a wonder it runs at all in that appa- 

 rently dead level, and thoiigh the few trees on 

 its banks were all we saw in the State of Ne- 

 braska, one could hardly wish for more of them, 

 for more knarled, twisted, desolate looking spe- 

 cimens I never saw. We hardly get a glimpse 

 of mountains until we cross the Rockies at Sher- 

 man. After that we never lose sight of them. 

 Hour after hour we are in their solemn shadow. 

 Sometimes they retire for a little space, but only 

 to close around us again in more awful grandeur. 

 No graceful crown of trees is theirs', no verdant 

 robe, no gay garniture of flowers, only the gray 

 sage bush, and a few stunted pines, and rocks — 

 everywhere rocks. Yet the eye never tires, and 

 the thought crossed my mind that even infinite 

 ingenuity must have been tasked in devising the 

 ever varying forms of those rocks. Forts and 

 castles, and domes and towers, walls, and monu- 

 ments, graceful peaks and bold overhanging 

 masses, and strange fanciful animal and human 

 shapes, all are there. I felt that it would be 

 good for me to dwell in sight of these mountains, 

 that nothing low and groveling could live in their 

 shadow, that they, so steadfast and unmoved, 

 could ever beckon upward toward a higher and 

 better life. 



On the eighth night out, we crossed the Sierra 

 Nevadas, and the morning sun showed us a new 

 land. The mountains were about us still, but 

 lofty trees and graceful shrubs adorned their 

 sides, and green valleys found place among thera, 



