Past Ham the gleaming river winds through the Petersham meadows, with their wooded background of Richmond Park, and the broken, furzy ground near the "Star and Garter." Here the Thames becomes as lovely as it is between Hampton Court and Kingston. The banks are profusely timbered, and a bushy little eyot in the centre of the stream adds to the charm of the view. Where the towing-path for a time ends, near Kew Foot Lane, there begins on each shore an irregular line of water-side villas buried in lilac and laburnum, surrounded by smooth lawns with edgings of geometrical flower-beds, those on the Middlesex side still in Twickenham, which extends quite up to Richmond Bridge. On the Richmond, or rather the Petersham shore, tower high up on the verdant bluff the towers and pinnacles of the "Star and Garter," looking in the distance not unlike a French villa on the heights of St. Cloud. Beyond is Richmond Hill, with its leafy Terrace, adding much to the foreign impress of the scene. The boldness with which "thy hill, delightful Sheen," rises up almost sheer from the water, recalls some more glorified Namur. There is a brightness and a vivacity about this little suburb of St. James's which are rare to find in this stolid island. It is a hard climb up the lovely lane from the river-side to the portals of the "Star and Garter," and the gates of Richmond Park. It is a sweet and toothsome spot this site of the "Star and Garter," which recalls cycles of flirtations and memories of iced champagne. "A little dinner at Richmond" is a heading very familiar to the persevering novel reader, and the scene of these pleasant symposia is of course always this aristocratic hotel at the top of the hill. The delights of Richmond Park, on the opposite side of the road, are of another order. Here we have a vast pleasure-ground, the nearest of its kind to London save Epping Forest. If anything, it is lovelier than Epping, since it has been better cared for, and there has been none of that reckless destruction which has so much marred the forest glades of Essex. Close by the Richmond gate is one of the sweetest bits in this thickly-wooded domain--the old Deer Park. A steep slope, green and timbered, divides this from the higher and more public portions of the park. In this undulating preserve, dotted with stately oaks, is kept a large herd of fallow-deer, tame almost to temerity. The old Deer Park has some retired nooks and lonely glades in which one may surprise the dreamy deer sheltering themselves upon a glaring day beneath the wide branches of the ancient oaks, up to the barrel in fern and bracken and bramble. Scattered here and there are plantations new and old, full of larch and fir as of more stately forest trees, in which abound game of all sorts, but more especially the hopping rabbit and the skimming hare.