MELLOW ENGLAND. 



141 



profile, like the Catskills viewed from the Hudson be- 

 low, only it was evident there were no trees or shrub- 

 bery upon them, and their summits, on this last day of 

 September, were white with the snow. 



ASHORE. 



The first day or half day ashore is, of course, the 

 most novel and exciting ; but who, as Mr. Higginson 

 says, can describe his sensations and emotions this first 

 half day. It is a page of travel that has not yet been 

 written. Paradoxical as it may seem, one generally 

 comes out of pickle much fresher than he went in. 

 The sea has given him an enormous appetite for the 

 land. Every one of his senses is like a hungry wolf 

 clamorous to be fed. For my part I had suddenly 

 emerged from a condition bordering on that of the 

 hibernating animals — a condition in which I had 

 neither ate, nor slept, nor thought, nor moved, when I 

 could help it, into not only a full, but a keen and joy- 

 ous possession of my health and faculties. It was 

 almost a metamorphosis. I was no longer the clod I 

 had been, but a bird exulting in the earth and air, and 

 in the liberty of motion. Then to remember it was a 

 new earth and a new sky that I was beholding, that it 

 was England, the old mother at last, no longer a faith 

 or a fable, but an actual fact there before my eyes and 

 under my feet — why should I not exult? Go to ! ; I 

 will be indulged. These trees, those fields, that bird 

 darting along the hedge-rows, those men and boys 



