IV 



My Log 379 



was a little raised and about three feet broad, came 

 ambling on a cock-tailed nag a smart-looking fellow 

 with blue trousers, embroidered jacket, and scarlet 

 sash, his wondrous saddle half concealing his pony, 

 and with enormous wooden stirrups ; by his side 

 ran lightly and easily an attendant in light blue 

 garments, who kept up with him with ease, and 

 laughed and chattered as he ran. To us approached 

 an enormous individual with a gun six feet long at 

 least, whom we supposed to be a gamekeeper ; he 

 discoursed long to us through his nose, but finding 

 no results therefrom he went his way up to the 

 mountains and we saw him no more. 



It was wondrous pleasant, lying down to luncheon 

 on the hot baking sand, with the air filled with the 

 rich aromatic scent of the forest, and bright butter- 

 flies and gigantic grasshoppers fluttering and 

 bouncing about us, to think of London the foggy, 

 with its dirty, sJoshy, melting snow, and cold, 

 searching, rheumatising winds. I am by no means 

 sure, however, that one ought not to be frozen hard 

 once a year ; incessant sun mollifieth the particles 

 and degenerates the pineal gland, wherein is the seat 

 of the organs of activity according to the authors. 



There are things, however, to which the sun gives 

 additional force, as witness these grasshoppers, 

 wondrous beasts with heads like horses, who jump 

 four yards good at a leap, and smite one's midriff as 

 a stone from a sling. See also the frogs, who are, 

 though a feeble, a numerous folk, and cover the 



