252 HOSPITALITY. 



■without misconstruing, easily made known to us her 

 desire for us to begone ; but we were of too turgid a 

 composition to comply with her wishes. "We had 

 come for a day's pleasure, and we were bound to 

 have it whether my lady was desirous or not ; and 

 we did have it too, for the butler, and several others, 

 finding that we were in no hurry to decamp, to 

 relieve the old lady from the infliction of looking 

 on such barbarians as we, made a virtue of necessity 

 and asked us down into the vineyard. Here the 

 gardener, as if to make amends for the churlishness 

 of the others, took considerable pains to show us 

 over the grounds, and gave us full permission to 

 regale ourselves with as much fruit as we could eat. 

 We took him at his word, and soon were deep in 

 the discussion of splendid grapes, water and musk- 

 melons, mulberries, bananas, and peaches. There 

 were acres of grape vines — the proprietor cultivating 

 them for the manufacture of wines. They were 

 splendid specimens ; and as they were a novel dish 

 to us, we were not the most moderate consumers 

 of them, as the skins that strewed our paths testified. 

 The mulberries were larger, but much tarter than 

 ours at home. The bananas were not of so good a 

 flavor or such a size as those we had seen at Ealli. 

 The gardener informed me that the banana plant bore 

 the whole year round. The fruit is preceded by a 

 splendid flower resembling the dahlia in color, but 

 treble its size. Besides these fruits the usual garden 

 vegetables were growing, amongst which I noticed 

 the tomato, and, strange to say, the taste of its raw 

 fruit was pleasanter and more refreshing than that 

 of the more valued kinds J had been eating. Deem- 



