MARCH 27 



all the mouldering, enriching, fertilizing 

 admixture of leaves and sticks. But when 

 the river meets the meadow lands it spreads 

 out and carries all over this level ground, 

 which it had made by this same method in 

 years gone by, a new and richer layer. 

 When the water has gone back into its 

 winter channels, the plain at first glance may 

 seem a sorry sight. Fences are down, houses 

 perhaps are swept away, a coat of mud covers 

 everything, while against every projecting 

 twig and stone hangs an untidy coating of 

 leaves. But the fences and houses are not 

 of Nature's making, and it is not strange if 

 she is sometimes careless of the intrusions 

 on her fairest fields; and all the untidiness 

 will soon be mantled with a splendid wealth 

 of grasses and sedges, of alders and cat-tails. 

 It is on these broad meadows that men 

 first won enough subsistence from Nature to 

 gather themselves into stable groups. From 

 the mud of the Nile and of the Euphrates 

 sprang the first blossomings of the new 

 plant of civilization. Here to-day men 

 swarm in the densest clusters. A surpris- 



