A single cypress stands yonder on the hill, kindled by the red glow of evening, like an altar taper. It is a tree that suits the hour and the mood--an Ave Maria tree, monumental as an obelisk, dark and mournful. Those avenues of cypresses leading to the cloisters and burying-grounds in Italy are very beautiful. We have the weeping-willow. Both are genuine churchyard trees, yet each in a way of its own. The willow with its drooping branches points downwards to the tomb, the cypress rises straight upwards, and points from the grave to heaven. The one expresses inconsolable grief, the other believing hope. The symbolism of trees is a significant indication of the unity of man and nature, which he constantly draws into the sphere of his emotions, to share in them, or to interpret them. The fir, the laurel, the oak, the olive, the palm, have all their higher meaning, and are poetical language. I saw few cypresses in Corsica, and these of no great size; and yet such a tree would be in its place in this Island of Death. But the tree of peace grows here on every hand; the war-goddess Minerva, to whom the olive is sacred, is also the goddess of peace. I had fifteen miles to walk from Morosaglia, all the way through wild, silent hills, the towering summits of Niolo constantly in view, the snow-capped Cinto, Artiga, and Monte Rotondo, the last named nine thousand feet in height, and the highest hill in Corsica. It stood bathed in a glowing violet, and its snow-fields gleamed rosy red. I had already been on its summit, and recognised distinctly, to my great delight, the extreme pinnacle of rock on which I had stood with a goatherd. When the moon rose above the mountains, the picture was touched with a beauty as of enchantment. Onwards through the moonlight and the breathless silence of the mountain wilds; not a sound to be heard, except sometimes the tinkling of a brook; the rocks glittering where they catch the moonlight like wrought silver; nowhere a village, nor a human soul. I went at hap-hazard in the direction where I saw far below in the valley the mists rising from the Golo. Yet it appeared to me that I had taken a wrong road, and I was on the point of crossing through a ravine to the other side, when I met some muleteers, who told me that I had taken not only the right but very shortest road to my destination.