VISITING THE GARDENS 173 



wild animals kept for the purpose at home. As 

 further comfort, let a stay-at-home study the 

 reports of travellers to note how soon they grow 

 sick of tropical glare and glow, of the crude 

 and garish tints of rank evergreenery, of the 

 " chromo-lithograph midsummer" that wants 

 tenderness, sweetness, variety, and contrast, of 

 the endless monotonies of shade and the blinding 

 dazzle of perpetual sunshine chequered by a 

 "scorched darkness" that brings no rest how 

 they sigh for refreshing showers that come in 

 their season as a devastating deluge, for weeks 

 and months together turning into feverish mud 

 the choking dust and the soil cracked as if 

 gasping for breath, where masterful Nature, if at 

 least she knows her own mind, is always in 

 violent extremes. I was once in a desert oasis 

 when it had the prodigious experience of a wet 

 day, not in bursts of storm but in gently drop- 

 ping rain, and I shall never forget the satisfaction 

 with which the natives turned out to bask in 

 weather so familiar to us as to be hardly worth 

 grumbling at. 



I, too, have peeped into those stifling Arcadias, 

 and have known what it is to hail a "mango 

 shower " or a sea breeze. But I quote for high 



