220 AN OCTOBER ABROAD. 



a more agreeable day I have rarely passed. The 

 park, toward which I at once made my way, is an 

 immense natural forest, sweeping up over gentle hills 

 from the banks of the Seine, and brought into order 

 and perspective by a system of carriage-ways and 

 avenues, which radiate from numerous centres like 

 the boulevards of Paris. At these centres were foun- 

 tains and statues, with sunlight falling upon them ; 

 and, looking along the cool, dusky avenues, as they 

 opened, this way and that, upon these marble tab- 

 leaux, the effect was very striking, and was not at all 

 marred to my eye by the neglect into which the place 

 had evidently fallen. The woods were just mellow- 

 ing into October ; the large, shining horse-chestnuts 

 dropped at my feet as I walked along; the jay 

 screamed over the trees ; and occasionally a red 

 squirrel larger and softer-looking than ours, not 

 so sleek, nor so noisy and vivacious skipped among 

 the branches. Soldiers passed, here and there, to 

 and from some encampment on the farther side of the 

 park ; and, hidden from view somewhere in the for- 

 est-glades, a band of buglers filled the woods with 

 wild musical strains. 



English royal parks and pleasure grounds are quite 

 different. There the prevailing character is pastoral 

 immense stretches of lawn, dotted with the royal 

 oak, and alive with deer. But the Frenchman loves 

 forests, evidently, and nearly all his pleasure grounds 

 About Paris are immense woods. The Bois de Bou- 

 logne, the forests of Vincennes, of St. Germain, of 



