8 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



seaward excursions. He could have found no 

 pleasanter way. The pastures which lie between 

 upland and marsh in this region are covered with 

 a wild, free growth of shrub and vine which no 

 herds, however ravenous, can keep down. The 

 best that the cattle can do with them is to beat 

 paths through the lush tangle along which wild 

 grasses find room to work upward toward the 

 light and add to the browse. Here the greenbrier 

 grows greener and more briery than anywhere 

 else that I know, and the stag-horn sumac emu- 

 lates it in vigor of growth if not in convolutions. 

 In places these reach almost the dignity of young 

 trees, and the pinnate leaves spread a wide, fern- 

 like shade as I walked beneath the antler-like 

 branches. The stag-horn sumac is surely rightly 

 named. Its antlers are covered now with an 

 exquisite, deep, soft velvet which clothes them 

 to the leafbud tips and along the very petioles of 

 the leaves. Now it is a clear green which with 

 later growth will become purple and pass into 

 brown, the promise of autumn showing now in 

 a slight purple tinge on the sun-ripened petioles 

 of the older leaves. This soft fuzz clothes the 



