A RIOT OF ROSES. 63 



grant hand. The walker if he be wise 

 will content himself with looking, nor seek a 

 nearer acquaintance. 



While these royal beauties are adorning the 

 highlands, others, perhaps even more .lovely, 

 are blooming in the canons, under the trees, 

 and beside the noisy brooks. First, there is a 

 " riot of roses " the only expression that ade- 

 quately suggests the profusion of these beauti- 

 ful flowers. They grow in enormous bushes, 

 far above one's head, in impenetrable thickets, 

 extending for yards each way. 



" Rose hedges 

 Abloom to the edges." 



Every country road is walled in by them ; every 

 brookside is glorified by their rich masses of 

 color; and no rocky wall is so bare but here 

 and there a tiny shoot finds root, and open its 

 rosy bloom. All these bushes, from the low- 

 growing sort that holds its mottled and shaded 

 petals three inches above the ground, to that 

 whose top one cannot reach, are simply loaded 

 with blossoms of all shades, from nearly white 

 to deepest rose-color, filling the air with per- 

 fume. 



The first time one comes upon this lavish dis- 

 play, he or more probably she picks a 

 spray from the first bush ; she cannot resist the 

 next variety, and before she knows it her arms 



