in their youthful prime; for are not the ruined castles of old days more impressive and attractive than the gorgeous palaces of the new? for there nature in the long run beats art even at her own work. As fast as art builds up time begins to break down, and does his work by imperceptible degrees: then nature with decorative ingenuity comes to the fore and clothes the dilapidations with soft moss and a graceful combination of ivy, ferns, and flowers, till the ugly skeleton with its empty sockets and crumbling limbs is all aglow with a beautiful new life--a picturesqueness that is only born of decay. Here and there, creeping out from some watery waste within their midst, are wide shining pools, overspread with soft green lily pads, with fair white blossoms cushioned thereon, looking as pure and innocent as baby fairies asleep on a bed of green leaves. As we jog solemnly along on our iron road the scene undergoes a gradual change, and we are soon in a new world of green; the change has been so gradual indeed that we hardly know when we took our last look of the dark sombre pines of the north. Their brethren of the South, with whom we are now making acquaintance, are of a lighter colour, and seem of a more airy frivolous nature than the northern forest kings whom we have left a few hundred miles behind us. Here they are tall, slim, and straight, with bare smooth trunks, and a chaplet of pale feathery green leaves waving like warriors’ plumes above their lofty heads. We have soon outrun the romantic cypress swamps, the salt marshes, and forest lands; the shining pools with their lovely water lilies give place to banks of fine white sand, but still among the yellow pines the white blossom of the dogwood streams out like a hidden banner half unfurled. The form and character of the trees here are very different from the eastern or northern branches of their family, just as an oriental beauty differs from a Belgravian belle. We are no longer rushing through luxuriant “hammocks,” and tangles of a leafy wonderland; the ground is rough and uneven, and has but a scanty growth of green. Now and then we come upon a solitary date-palm, majestic in its stately loneliness; the surrounding trees seem to have fallen away from it and group themselves in the distance, as though in honour to its royalty. Here, too, is the tall palmetto, the parent of a large family of dwarf palmettoes which are gathered around it, with their sheaves of lance-like leaves lifted in the sunlight.