CHATSWORTH. 505 



drons and azaleas growing among them, ivy and other vines climb- 

 ing over them, and foot-paths winding through them. From the 

 top of a rocky precipice, some thirty feet high, dashes down a 

 waterfall, which loses itself in a pretty meandering stream that 

 steals away from the foot of the rock. Nothing can well look 

 wilder or more natural than this spot ; and yet this spot, the " rock- 

 garden," of six acres, has all been created. Every one of these 

 rocks has been brought here some of them from two or three miles 

 away. It is just as wild a scene as one finds on the skirts of some 

 wooded limestone ridge in America. Though it was all made a few 

 years ago, yet now that the trees and shrubs have had time to take 

 forms of wild luxuriance, all traces of art are obliterated. The eye 

 of the botanist only, detects that the masses of laurels are rare rho- 

 dodendrons, and that beautiful azaleas of the Alps * make the un- 

 derwood to the forest that surrounds it. 



You wish to go onward. We will leave the rock garden by 

 this path, on the side opposite to that which we entered. No, that, 

 you see, is impossible ; a huge rock, weighing fifty or sixty tons, 

 exactly stops up the path and lies across it. Your compan- 

 ion smiles at your perplexity, and with a single touch of his hand, 

 the rock slowly turns on its centre, and the path is unobstructed ! 

 There is no noise, and nothing visible to explain the mystery ; and 

 when the rock has been as quietly turned back to its place, it looks 

 so firm and solid upon its base, that you feel almost certain that 

 either your muscles or the rocks themselves obey the spell of some 

 unseen and supernatural wood-spirit. 



One of the greatest beauties at Chatsworth lies in the diversity 

 of surface the succession of hill and dale, which, especially in the 

 pleasure-grounds, continually occurs. This variation offers excel- 

 lent opportunities for the production of a succession of scenes, now 

 highly ornate and artistic, like the flower gardens, now romantic 

 and picturesque, like the rocky valley. And as we continue our 

 ramble, after entirely losing sight of the wild scene I have just de- 

 scribed, we enter upon another still different, a wide glade or 



* Azalea, or, rather, Rhododendron hirsutum and ferrugineum ; two beau- 

 tiful sorts, perfectly hardy. 



