HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE. 453 



all summer. After struggling through purple beeches, 

 and some other dark foliage, you get out through a 

 lovely grove of araucarias, Pinus excelsa, Pinus longi- 

 folia, and Abies Douglasii ; from this you emerge 

 into a little lawn, quite surrounded by high cliffs, cov- 

 ered with superb plantations of aloes, bananas, pepper 

 trees, and white and scarlet horse-chestnuts, and a col- 

 lection of rhododendrons, dazzling from their gorgeous- 

 ness. 



This lawn was devoted to magnolias of every possible 

 variety, of which some eight or ten sorts were, when 

 we saw them, in flower the air being heavy with 

 their perfume. These were in masses and as single 

 specimens. 



You left this oasis by the only way it seemed possible 

 to get out a cavern in the rocks, through which you 

 passed, until you again entered profound darkness 

 gradually the light returned at last you reached a 

 point from which two vistas opened, one down the lake 

 to Como, the other down the lake to Lecco ; you looked 

 at these as at a picture through a darkened tube, for the 

 cavern was formed apparently for this purpose ; these 

 tunnels led you out to a walk bordered by natural rock, 

 perhaps twenty feet high, covered by lamarque and the 

 Banksian roses in such a profusion of bloom, that the 

 wall had the appearance of being painted white and 

 yellow. On the other side the walk was bordered by 

 masses of choice azalias, in every variety of color, and 

 flowers some eight and ten feet high. Passing a charm- 

 ing cascade overhung with weeping beeches, waving 

 birches, and different varieties of willows, the walk led 

 through a maze of Judas trees (pink and white), all the 

 varieties of double thorns, the laburnum (purple and 

 yellow), and becoming umbrageous and mazy, with purple 

 beeches, purple berberries, and purple filberts ; finally 

 coming out again clear and bright through different 

 varieties of heath and acacia, upon a little platform 



