206 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. 
beautiful women, beautiful horses, beautiful turf, and beauti- 
ful trees. But that is not all; it is certain that, in spite of 
fickle weather, we can and do cultivate more varieties of 
plants than can be seen in any other country. What quarter 
of the globe is there that has not been laid under contribution 
to enrich and beautify our gardens ? There are many English 
pleasaunces which are in themselves a liberal education in 
geography. Here are Pines from California, China, Mexico, 
Sardinia ; Fir-trees from the Black Sea and Colorado ; great 
Flame Flowers, Tritomas, from the Cape of Good Hope; a carpet 
of Aczena from New Zealand; Tulips and other bulbs from Asia 
Minor; herbaceous plants from Central Asia; Bamboos from 
China and Japan and the Himalayas; the Chusan Palm; the 
Edelweiss of the Alps; the Honeysuckle of the Pyrenees ; and 
every recurring season tests the resisting power of some new 
plant. It is a never ceasing wonder that all these, and 
thousands of others, all different in nature and in origin, can 
find a congenial home in this Protean climate. Perhaps it is 
the very fact of the variations in our weather that gives us 
this boundless and varied wealth to choose from. 
Then there is the extraordinary power inborn in the 
Englishman of making a home for himself wherever he may 
be. Not only does he travel more than other people, but 
wherever his fortunes lead him—whether as colonist, soldier, 
or diplomatist—there he at once sets about establishing himself 
as if the remainder of his life were to be spent there, and _ his 
ambition is to “settle,’—a word untranslatable in any other 
tongue, because the idea is absent. In a French colony there 
is no such thing as the “settler,’— the man who comes prepared 
to stay if needs must, and perhaps even found a family. The 
