278 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ December, 
A WALK THROUGH THE VIA GELLIA. 
f AYING liad occasion during the past summer to visit Derbyshire on 
business, it occurred to us to give up one day to a walk through 
f ’ some parts of its beautiful scenery that we had not before traversed. 
Communicating this intention to our household, the only remon¬ 
strance we met with was from a bright boy of six, mildly put— 
“ You ’ll come back as soon as you can, wo’n’t you, pa ? ” 
Finding ourselves at Matlock one July evening, and having heard much 
of the picturesque and floral beauty of the Yia Gellia, the mountain road to 
Middleton and the Black Rocks, we fixed on this as the morrow’s excursion. 
We breakfasted and were on foot early, as all pedestrians should be, and 
taking the road by Cromford, were soon deep in the valley. Right and left, 
far up the hill sides, and deep in the beds of the almost exhausted streams, 
plants and flowers were strewn with a magnificent profusion. To attempt 
to enumerate and describe all these would prove tedious, as the species 
one is generally accustomed to meet with at wide intervals and distances 
seemed gathered together here. Besides, our English botany, never very 
deep, was sometimes tried severely in settling the species, and then there 
were species so universal as scarcely to need particularising. So varied 
and so abundant were the forms met with at every turn that we think 
the Yia Gellia might be aptly called the Yalley of Flowers. Never, 
certainly, in all our rambles (and in boyhood they were numerous and wide), 
did we find ourselves in close contact with such a magnificent collection of 
wild flowers, and we dwelt long in imagination on the aspect of this valley 
in the fresh and glorious months of April and May. 
Up to this time we have been on foot nearly three hours, a great part of 
the time having been spent in gathering and examining at leisure the 
various plants met with ; and now the pleasing murmur of a distant rill falls 
on the ear. Soon by the roadside we meet with a crystal pool, the water 
rushing down a mossy gully from a considerable height, and proving of a 
delicious purity and coolness. We pause here for rest and shade. How 
deep the stillness ! broken only by the murmuring of this sylvan stream 
and the confused hum of innumerable insects winging their way in the 
noontide air. How delightful the change to one whose ordinary occupations 
are among the busiest haunts of men ! The only sign of civilisation is the 
road just traversed: the only sign of domestication, an unusually wild, 
shaggy, and picturesque specimen of that picturesque animal the donkey. 
Flow delightful! But, alas ! no human happiness is enduring or complete. 
The Yia Gellia, beautiful as it is, is not altogether free from sub-mundane 
grievances. We are suddenly assailed by a host of fierce flies—lean, 
hungry blood-suckers. In vain we buffet, they are too active to be 
