44 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
There is the Rhododendron, for instance, a 
plant of the same natural family with the Lau- 
rel and the Azalea, and looking more robust 
and woody than either; it once grew in many 
localities in this region, and still lingers in a 
few, without consenting either to die or to blos- 
som. There is only one remote place from 
which any one now brings into our streets those 
large, luxuriant flowers, waving white above the 
dark green leaves, and bearing ‘just a dream of 
sunset on their edges, and just a breath from 
the green sea in their hearts.” The Laurel, 
on the other hand, maintains its ground, imper- 
turbable and almost impassable, on every hill- 
side, takes no hints, suspects no danger, and 
nothing but the most unmistakable onset from 
spade or axe can diminish its profusion. Gather- 
ing it on the most lavish scale seems only to 
serve as wholesale pruning; nor can I con- 
ceive that the Indians, who once ruled over this 
whole country from Wigwam Hill, could ever 
have found it more inconveniently abundant 
than now. We have perhaps no single spot 
where it grows in such perfect picturesqueness 
as at “The Laurels,’ on the Merrimack, just 
above Newburyport,— a whole hillside scooped 
out and the hollow piled solidly with flowers ; 
pines curving around its ridge, and the river 
encircling it below, on which your boat glides 
