But the health-giving, fever-destroying
Eucalyptus is not needed in this well-wooded healthy country, and the
splendid foliage of acacia, walnut, oaks, and birch leaves nothing to
desire either in the matter of shade or ornament. A lover of trees,
birds, and whispering breezes will say that here at least is a corner of
the Happy Fields of Homer, or the Islands of the Blest described by
Hesiod.
Nowhere is summer to be more revelled in, more amply tasted, than in
these rustic villages, where creature comforts yet abound, and nowhere
is the _dolce far niente_ so easily induced. Why should we be at the
trouble of undertaking a hot, dusty railway journey in search of Gaelic
tombs, Gothic churches, or Merovingian remains when we have the essence
of deliciousness at our very door?--waving fields of ripe corn, amid
which the reapers in twos and threes are at work--picturesque figures
that seemed to have walked out of Millet's canvas--lines of poplars
along the curling river, beyond hills covered with woods, a clustering
village, or a chateau, here and there. This is the picture, partially
screened by noble acacia trees, that I have from my window, accompanied
by the music of waving barley and wheat, dancing leaves, and
chaffinches, tame as canaries, singing in the branches.
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