218 A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN. 



he has won in the floral world, waving a preliminary 

 welcome, to be completed, on my landing, with hand 

 and heart. 



He drove me through the woods of Tregothnan, 

 which must be charming indeed to sight and to scent 

 when the honeysuckles, which climb to the very top 

 of the trees, are in flower and fragrance, and which 

 were charming then in their early leafage, and with 

 their primrose carpet below. And he showed me 

 Tregothnan itself, the stately house and spacious 

 gardens, with the camellias growing freely and 

 flowering abundantly, as climbers on the walls and 

 as shrubs in the open air, much as you see them in 

 Southern France and Italy. Laurels also grown into 

 great trees, and on either side of the broad drives 

 and walks, with a wide margin of grass intervening, 

 the rhododendrons ! Then, for the first time, I saw 

 these trees in their glory, beautiful pyramids, fifteen 

 to twenty feet in height, and covered from base to 

 crown with great trusses of white, and roseate, and 

 crimson, and purple flowers. The taller trees of the 

 shrubberies made an admirable background, and here 

 and there the snowy blossoms of the cherry a most 

 pleasing contrast. There is a grand old cork tree 

 and many fine conifers, perhaps the best specimen of 

 Torreya myristica in this country, and the most 

 amiable Amabilis I ever saw. 



Then, if I may diverge a few hundred yards from 

 the garden, we saw the famous " Devons," small in 

 stature, but thoroughbred, solemn, graceful in 

 demeanour, as though they traced their pedigree to 

 the sacred bulls of the Brahmin, faultless as to 



