Leaves from a Madeira Garden 



full glory of colour. The hills above look 

 almost flat in the brilliant morning light. But 

 we know that their surface is broken into 

 countless ridges and vales, which invite an 

 exploration that is never finished ; and that 

 certain shoulders of rock are concealing from 

 us grim ravines girdled with giant precipices. 

 And we know, too, that the peaks which en- 

 close them are but the prelude to loftier peaks 

 behind, and that beyond them again lies a very 

 fairyland of beauty, the wild, forest-clad glens, 

 the verdant and fertile lowlands, the awful sea- 

 cliffs of the northern shore. 



And so amid the turmoil of arrival at a 

 Southern port — the clamour of the diving 

 boys, and the importunity of touts and traders 

 — we return once more to our winter home. 

 It is but eight months since we left it, and our 

 intervening experiences — the green lawns and 

 immemorial elms of our Sussex homestead ; 

 those glorious nights by the Norwegian salmon- 

 river ; the routine of English life ; the haste 

 of travel on English roads ; the bustle of Picca- 

 dilly and the pageant of the Boulevards — all 

 these seem to fade into a dreamland of the 

 past, and to yield place naturally to the one 



8 



