1891.
July 17.
St. Ives to London, England.
  Clear and warm.
  I left St. Ives at 11 A.M. and reached London at 7 P.M.
The distance is something over three hundred miles. As far as
Exeter the country is very hilly with many bridges spanning
ravines at a dizzy height, fully two hundred feet in some in-
stances I thought.
  The Thames valley is broad fertile and very beautiful.
The "bed quilt" pattern so universal in the west of England was
nearly or quite wanting, here the fields being very large with
trees singly or in clusters, scattered about irregularly and
the hedge rows no where sufficiently numerous or prominent to
be intrusive or objectionable. The characteristic feature of
this landscape was its immense grain fields stretching in
places almost as far as the eye could reach with scarlet poppies
forming patches of brilliant color here and there. We passed
a "pit" (a small pond hole in the field) white with water lilies
the first I have seen in flower. A long narrow marsh near Bath
was filled with tall flags.
  Of birds I saw three Kestrals, a Magpie, a Lapwing, and
many Wood Pigeons, Rooks and Jackdaws besides Gulls and Curlews
in fair numbers about the tidal waters near the south coast.