AN OCTOBER ABROAD 171 



scape, no sharp and violent contrasts, no brilliant 

 and striking tints in the foliage. A soft, pale yel- 

 low is all one sees in the way of tints along the 

 borders of the autumn woods. English apples (very 

 small and inferior, by the way) are not so highly 

 colored as ours. The blackberries, just ripening in 

 October, are less pungent and acid ; and the garden 

 vegetables, such as cabbage, celery, cauliflower, beet, 

 and other root crops, are less rank and fibrous; and 

 I am very sure that the meats also are tenderer and 

 sweeter. There can be no doubt about the superi- 

 ority of mutton ; and the tender and succulent grass, 

 and the moist and agreeable climate, must tell upon 

 the beef also. 



English coal is all soft coal, and the stone is soft 

 stone. The foundations of the hills are chalk in- 

 stead of granite. The stone with which most of 

 the old churches and cathedrals are built would not. 

 endure in our climate half a century ; but in Britain 

 the tooth of Time is much blunter, and the hunger 

 of the old man less ravenous, and the ancient archi- 

 tecture stands half a millennium, or until it is 

 slowly worn away by the gentle attrition of the 

 wind and rain. 



At Chester, the old Eoman wall that surrounds 

 the town, built in the first century and repaired in the 

 ninth, is still standing without a break or a swerve, 

 though in some places the outer face of the wall 

 is worn through. The Cathedral, and St. John's 

 Church, in the same town, present to the beholder 

 outlines as jagged and broken as rocks and clilis; 



