beautiful to describe, and which stretches far out into calm sunlight, till it joins in faint yet luminous distance a sky of that pale celestial gold that sympathises with all that in the human heart is deepest, tenderest, and most divine. And now you are clambering over wild rocks, about which the sea is foaming and splashing, and which have hitherto hidden what was beyond them from your view-so that when you have passed them there is the delight of satisfied curiosity to add to the beauty of the scene itself. The cliffs are now as high, but not so steep, and covered in parts with turf and with all kinds of creeping plants; but above the rich green of their sides huge gray, fantastic, primeval rocks are peering, in somewhat irregular array, with kites wheeling about them, and here and there a bit of sky serenely blue seen through some cleft in their hoary sides. Beyond, the opening of the deep narrow gorge or "combe," shut closely in on all sides except that towards the sea by hills covered thick with wood, and perfectly enchanting you with its profound seclusion, its winding path through impenetrable woods, its tracts of cool, green sward, its deep glades into which none but the midday sun can shine, and the hillocks of smooth soft turf that crown its guardian hills when they near the sea, and catch the last rays of the descending sun, and the stream buried deep in its bosom, and which you can hear but cannot see for the wild flowers and creeping plants that cover it. Or you may ramble under the cliffs to the right of the town, as far as that huge wall of dark and red sandstone, barred from head to foot with long buttresses,

every one of which is faced with a strip of green turf, and overhanging a secluded nook of the finest and smoothest sand; and when you are tired of strolling about on the sand, you may begin to explore that wilderness of rocks and pools that stretches from where you are standing for miles along the shore, every yard of which is a submarine garden, and every pool starred round with anemones, crimson, white, or brown, and, most beautiful of all, green, these last having their multitude of undulating arms tipped with a purer and more delicate rosecolour than the fingers of Venus as she rose from the And here I will venture to say, that though you be no naturalist, you will linger till the clear tide comes welling up almost to your feet, and begins to cover the "rich and strange" wonders of marine existence that you have seen.

sea.

Though I have confessed that I know very little about the sea, I could go on writing about it for a long time, perhaps longer than my readers would like; but if this paper, far below the subject as it is, shall induce any one of the thousands who read "Fraser" to think of the sea more as it is a fountain of exhaustless wonder and delight-I feel that I shall not have written altogether in vain.

AUTUMN TRAVELS.*

REACTIONARY Symptoms have recently appeared in regard to foreign travel. What a panic, for instance, must have been created among the swarm of animalcula who feed and fatten upon that confiding creature, "the tourist," by a leading article which appeared in The Times in August last, informing the people of England that on the whole it was better to stay at home. And so, as travelling is now carried on, I verily believe it is. At least I know that by far the most miserable-looking people I have ever seen have been "tourists." Stand at the door of one of the crowded hotels of Switzerland in the travelling season, and watch the countenances of the English party who have just arrived in that dusty, rickety vehicle, and are asking anxiously if there is room. You would say, not so much that they were unhappy, as that they were in that stage of suffering when misery has passed into despair. It is evident that four of the party, viz., the father, the young swell with the green veil and alpenstock, and the two once-enthusiastic daughters, have for hours not spoken one word to each other, except to ask how far it is to their

* Published in Fraser's Magazine for June, 1858.

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destination, and to be invariably informed that it is "eine Stunde." The stoutish and reddish mother of the family has probably spoken often enough, for she is evidently of a sort whose pluck and loquacity it is not easy to subdue; but her talk has been irritable and querulous, and it is with something of exhaustion in her tone that she makes the necessary inquiries. It is rare indeed, at the end of a day, to meet even a tolerably contented-looking tourist.

Nevertheless, I boldly assert that the pleasure of Continental travelling is not only not overrated, but that it is one of the greatest and purest pleasures which this world can give. It is not the travelling,

but the travellers who are in fault. Our friends in the dusty voiture had been doing too much. Having perhaps but two or three weeks to spare, they thought that the best way of enjoying them was to get over as much ground as possible. Accordingly, they rushed in a few hours from London to Bâle or Geneva, their impressions of foreign countries being thus far limited to sea-sickness, gesticulation, jabber, gendarmes, passports, billets de bagages, and salles d'attente. They probably rose in a state of utter bewilderment at two or three o'clock in the morning of the day on which it was your privilege to see them; since which they have been in an omnibus, a railway-train, a steamer, over a mountain pass, and five or six hours with a voiturier. Their object was to do a great deal, and their consolation is that they have done it. They have "done" the lake, the pass, the waterfall, the cathedral. They have seen the sun rise over so and

so, heard the echo that everybody hears at one place, drank the wine that everybody drinks at another, and seen the figures come out on the clock at another. It is this insane desire to "do," which is at the root of the tourist's misery. On his return home he finds that he might just as well have stayed there, and that having "done" everything, he has seen nothing. I remember once being in a steamer on the Rhine, just where and when the Rhine was at its loveliest. It was a beautiful though very hot day. There had been a good deal of noise and bustle in the vessel for a short time after we left Coblentz; but gradually the talking and laughing yielded to the entrancing loveliness of the scene, as through the deep seclusion of its guardian hills the "wide and winding" river swept onwards like a dream; and it seemed almost profanation to speak until the vision should have passed away. I was sitting accordingly perfectly silent, with my eyes fixed upon the vine-clad shores, when my reverie was broken by the loud enunciation of these appalling words: "The advice which I have received is to do the Rhine in one day." The voice proceeded from the most conspicuous of a small knot of English tourists of the genus "gent," who was standing on the deck with an open Bradshaw in his hand; and between whom and the Rhine, to judge from his manner and appearance, there could be no sort of conceivable sympathy. He was doing," not seeing or feeling the Rhine.

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I will answer for it, if people would give up the doing" system, and take to the seeing, they would