NATURE IN ENGLAND. 



I. 



THE first whiff we got of transatlantic nature was. 

 the peaty breath of the peasant chimneys of Ireland 

 while we were yet many miles at sea. What a home- 

 like, fireside smell it was ; it seemed to make some- 

 thing long forgotten stir within one. One recognizes 

 it as a characteristic Old World odor, it savors so of 

 the soil and of a ripe and mellow antiquity. I know 

 no other fuel that yields so agreeable a perfume as 

 peat. Unless the Irishman in one has dwindled to ft 

 very small fraction, he will be pretty sure to dilate 

 lostrils and feel some dim awakening of memory 

 itching the scent of this ancestral fuel. The fat, 

 nous peat, the pith and marrow of ages of vege- 

 table growth, how typical it is of much that lies there 

 before us in the elder world ; of the slow ripenings 

 accumulations, of extinct life and forms, decayed 

 civilizations, of ten thousand growths and achieve- 

 ments of the hand and soul of man, now reduced to 

 tin ir last modicum of fertilizing mould. 



With the breath of the chimney there came pres- 

 ently the chimney-swallow, and dropped much fa- 

 tigued upon the deck of the steamer. It was a still 

 more welcome and suggestive token: the bird of 



