20 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



marches, where reeds stand black against the 

 sundown, and from long distance comes the cry 

 of a curlew ; not to everyone to gaze from steep 

 cliffs over the wine-dark, shadowy sea, or from 

 high mountain-side to see crowned chaos smoking 

 with mist or gold-bright in the sun. To most it 

 is given to watch assiduously a row of houses/ 

 But surely here, in Nature's wildest and most 

 orderly of lavish gardens, the * row of houses ' must 

 vanish for the nonce while mind and soul drink of 

 the ' largeness ' of it all. Surely, too, when pre- 

 sently all but the memory of the' scene is gone, 

 one's ' row of houses,' erstwhile of the ' East End,' 

 will be at least a row of pretty country villas 

 fronted by smiling parterres. 



But what a sin it seems to be walking on these 

 flowers as we are now doing ! In default, however, 

 of a path, and in presence of such profusion, there 

 is no other way of proceeding ; we are constrained, 

 moreover, to be ' walking, like Agag, 4< delicately." 

 And here we are at the gully ; and there, in the 

 crevices of the rocks to the right, are a number of 

 the yellow Alpine Auricula (Primula auricula], in 

 company with a rosy band of the little Erinus 

 alpinus. This Auricula, true representative of the 

 Alpine flora, and prime parent of many of our 



