But our road soon wound down by a "dug way" to the bottom-lands, and we found ourselves on level meadows clumped with shrubs and patched with corn-fields, and among scattered knots of grazing cattle and horses. Overhead circled several pairs of black hawks, a befitting reminder to the dwellers on these Thessalian fields, these Campanian pastures, that Scythian Piutes and Navajo Attilas might at any time swoop down upon them. But the forbearance of the Indian in the matter of beef and mutton is inexplicable--and most inexplicable of all in the case of lamb, seeing that mint grows wild. This is a very pleasing illustration of the happiness of results when man and nature work cordially together. The lamb gambols about among beds of mint! What a becoming sense of the fitness of things that would be that should surprise the innocent thing in its fragrant pasture and serve up the two together! "They were pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided." And what a delightful field for similar efforts such a spectacle opens up to the philosophic mind! Here, beyond Aurora, as we wind in and out among the brakes of willow and rose-bush, we catch glimpses of the river, with ducks riding placidly at anchor in the shadows of the foliage. And not a pea in the neighbourhood! Now, why not sow green peas along the banks of the American rivers and lakes? How soothing to the weary traveller would be this occasional relief of canard aux petits pois! After an interval of pretty river scenery we found ourselves once more in a dismal, volcanic country with bald hills and leprous sand-patches the only features of the landscape, with lizards for flowers and an exasperating heat-drizzle blurring the outlines of everything with its quivering refraction. And then, after a few miles of this, we are suddenly in the company of really majestic mountains, some of them cedared to the peaks, others broken up into splendid architectural designs of almost inconceivable variety, richly tinted and fantastically grouped. How wealthy this range must be in mineral! In front of us, above all the intervening hills, loomed out a monster mountain, and turning one of its spurs we break all at once upon the village of Glenwood--a beautiful cluster of foliage with skirts of meadow-land spread out all about it--lying at the foot of the huge slope.