AN OCTOBER ABROAD 189 



and surprise. The day was bright and lovely, and 

 I found my eyes running riot the same as they had 

 done during my first ride on British soil. The con- 

 trast between the two countries is quite marked, 

 France in this region being much more broken and 

 picturesque, with some waste or sterile land, — a 

 thing I did not see at all in England. Had I 

 awaked from a long sleep just before reaching Paris, 

 I should have guessed I was riding through Mary- 

 land, and should soon see the dome of the Capitol 

 at Washington rising above the trees. So much 

 wild and bushy or barren and half-cultivated land, 

 almost under the walls of the French capital, was a 

 surprise. 



Then there are few or none of those immense 

 home-parks which one sees in England, the land 

 being mostly held by a great number of small 

 proprietors, and cultivated in strips, or long, narrow 

 parallelograms, making the landscape look like 

 many-colored patchwork. Everywhere along the 

 Seine, stretching over the flats, or tilted up against 

 the sides of the hills, in some places seeming almost 

 to stand on end, were these acre or half-acre rectan- 

 gular farms, without any dividing lines or fences, 

 and of a great variety of shades and colors, accord- 

 ing to the crop and the tillage. 



I was glad to see my old friend, the beech-tree, 

 all along the route. His bole wore the same gray 

 and patched appearance it does at home, and no 

 doubt Thoreau would have found his instep even 

 fairer ; for the beech on this side of the Atlantic is a 



