198 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



dences, in every improvement, of a fine appreciation of the natural 

 charms of the locality. The whole of this richly wooded valley is 

 threaded with walks, ingeniously and naturally conducted so as to 

 penetrate to all the most interesting points ; while a great variety of 

 rustic seats, formed beneath the trees, in deep secluded thickets, by 

 the side of the swift rushing stream, or on some inviting eminence, 

 enables one fully to enjoy them. 



There are a couple of miles of these walks, and from the depth 

 and thickness of the wood, and the varied surface of the ground, 

 their intricacy is such that only the family, or those very familiar 

 with their course, are at all able to follow them all with any thing 

 like positive certainty as to their destination. Though we have 

 threaded them several seasons, yet our late visit to Montgomery 

 Place found us giving ourselves up to the pleasing perplexity of 

 choosing one at random, and trusting to a lucky guess to bring us 

 out of the wood at the desired point. 



Not long after leaving the rustic pavilion* on descending by 

 one of the paths that diverges to the left, we reach a charming little 

 covered resting-place, in the form of a rustic porch. The roof is 

 prettily thatched with thick green moss. Nestling under a dark 

 canopy of evergreens in the shelter of a rocky fern-covered bank, 

 an hour or two may be whiled away within it, almost unconscious 

 of the passage of time. 



THE CATARACT. 



But the stranger who enters the depths of this dusky wood by 

 this route, is not long inclined to remain here. His imagination is 

 excited by the not very distant sound of waterfalls. 



" Above, below, aerial murmurs swell, 

 From hanging wood, brown heath and bushy dell ; 

 A thousand gushing rills that shun the light, 

 Stealing like music on the ear of night." 



He takes another path, passes by an airy-looking rustic bridge, and 

 plunging for a moment into the thicket, emerges again in full view 



* See Downing's " Landscape Gardening," p. 48. 



