THE VEGETATION OF THE ISLAND OF ST. LEGEK. 



513 



and the Bengals, with * Laurette Messimy ' leading them all, have 

 been cut outside in the month of February. 



I do not speak of herbaceous plants, as there are hosts of them, 

 and next spring I hope to add a long planned herbaceous border some 

 300 feet in length, which I have up to now been prevented putting 

 into execution on account of long absences from home. 



As to this last, my home, or what I call my "hermitage," it 

 has become a very cosy old house with many comforts in it, and 

 when at home I always try to add some fresh ones. 



Inside of it I have collected, during my many and varied travels, 

 all sorts of curious and valuable new and ancient objects, which, 

 having taken up their permanent places all over the house, keep me 

 company above all during the long winter evenings, when, quite alone, 

 I look upon them like old friends without whom I should no more feel 

 at home, as they tell me many tales, all lived, and suffered, or enjoyed. 



Then, when in the morning I walk out in the open, I look with a 

 more or less motherly pride at all around me, but also rather with a 

 certain preoccupation at all that remains still to be accomplished in 

 order to make my endeavours become, if only in the slightest degree, 

 more worthy of the small bit of earthly paradise amidst this unique 

 nature, which I have had the fortune to meet with and have been 

 allowed to improve. 



Sir Albert Eollit, in moving a vote of thanks to the authoress 

 and to Mr. Wilks, the reader of the paper, said the work O'f both had 

 been admirably done. His one qualification 'for presiding was that he 

 knew Maggiore as well as he knew Piccadilly, the result of having 

 stayed there with friends for many years, almost in face of these little 

 islands, at Oggebbio, far from railways, and with the advantage of their 

 yacht on which to explore the Lake. It was an exaggeration to say to 

 each other, as they did, that they discovered a new Italian lake once a 

 year, but there was a grain of truth in it; for instance, sailing home 

 one day near these islets, some one on board said ' There is a lake at 

 the top oif that highest pinnacle. ' So they brought up, and a man came 

 off in a boat, who replied that it was so, and that he could put the 

 party up on mules in five hours ; so some- went, and reported a most 

 beautiful ultramarine lake well worth the ascent. And how many 

 had been to Maggiore, yet had never seen the quite adjacent Lake of 

 Orta, perhaps next to Garda the most beautiful of all the Italian 

 lakes ! A strange incident on that part of Maggiore was that every 

 time they sailed they were bo^arded by the crew of a Swiss gunbo^at, 

 who examined the ship for contraband, and who, while perfectly 

 courteous, always asked the same questions to no purpose, and wasted 

 a good deal of time better devoted to the admiration of the grandest, 

 the mist masculine, of the Italian lakes, the potential dangers of which, 

 as he once experienced in rowing between Luino and Pallanza, when 

 he nearly lost his life, were shown by the fact that one of such 

 gunboats foundered in a storm on the Lake, and was still at the 



VOT;. XXXVITT. L L 



