THE ANCIENT EAST

haresomtimes, on the open ground, looks at a distance, in the sunny days of May when hares are often abroad in daylight, as
big as a good sized dog, and, except by the leap and the absence of visible tail, can hardly be toldfrom a dog. The bamboo fishing
rods, if you will glance at the bamboo itself as you fish, seem the mostsingular of growths. There is no wood in the hedge like it,
neither ash, hazel, oak, sapling, nor anything; it isthoroughly foreign, almost unnatural. The hard knots, the hollow stem, the
surface glazed so as to resist a cutwith a knife and nearly turn the steel this is a tropical production alone. But while working
round the shorepresently you come to the sedges, and by the sedges stands a bunch of reeds. A reed is a miniature bamboo,the
same shape, the same knots, and glazy surface; and on reference to any intelligent work of botany, itappears that they both
belong to the same order of inward growing Endogens, so that a few momentsbestowed on the reed by the waters give a clear
idea of the tropical bamboo, and make the singular foreignproduction home like and natural.I found, while I was shooting every
day, that the reeds, and ferns, and various growths through which I pushedmy way, explained to me the jungles of India, the
swamps of Central Africa, and the backwoods of America;all the vegetation of the world. Representaives exist in our own
woods, hedges, and fields, or by the shore ofinland waters. It was the same with flowers. I think I am scientifically accurate in
saying that every knownplant has a relative of the same species or genus, growing wild in this country. The very daisy, the
commonestof all, contains a volume of botany; so do the heaths, and the harebells that hang so heavily under the weightof the
September dew. The horse tails by the shore carry the imagination further bac into the prebistoricworld when relations of
these plants flourished as trees. The horse tails by ponds are generally short, about afoot or eighteen inches high, more or less,
but in ditches occasionally there are specimens of the gianthorse tail as high as the waistcoat, with a stem as thick as a walking
stick. This is a sapling from which theprehistoric tree can readily be imagined. From our southern woods the wild cat has been
banished, but stilllives in the north as an English representative of that ferocious feline genus which roams in tropical
forests. We still have the deer, both wild and in parks. Then there are the birds, and these, in the same manner asplants,
represent the inhabitants of the trackless wilds abroad. Happily the fails mostly in reptiles,which need not be regretted; but
even these, in their general outline as it were, are presented.It has long been one of my fancies that this country is an epitome
of the natural world, and that if any one hascome really into contact with its productions, and is familiar with them, and what
they mean and represent,then he has a knowledge of all that exists on the earth. It holds good even of Australia; for
palaeontologistsproduce fossil remains of marsupails or kangaroos. As for the polar conditions, when going round for snipes
Iconstantly saw these in miniature. The planning action of ice was shown in the ditches, where bridges of icehad been formed;
these slipping, with a partial thaw, smoothed the grasses and mars of teazles in the higherpart of the slope, and then lower
down, as the pressure increased, cut away the earthly, exposing the roots ofgrasses, and sometimes the stores of acorns laid up by
mice. Frozen again in the night, the glacier stayed, andcrumbling earth, leaves, fibres, acorns, and small dead boughs fell on it.
slipping on as the wind grew warmer, it carried these with it and deposited them fifty yards from where they originatd. This is
exactly the action ofa glacies. The ice mist was often visible over the frozen water meadows, where I went foe duck, teal, and
atintervals a woodcock in the adjacent mounds. But it was better seen in the early evening over a great pond, amile or more
long; where, too, the immense lifting power of water was exemplified, as the merest trickle of astreamlet flowing in by and by
forced up the thick ice in broad sheets weighing hundreds of tons. Then too,breathing holes formed just as they are described in
the immense lakes of North America, Lakes Superior orMichigan, and in the ice of the Polar circle. These were never frozen
over, and attracted wild fowl.In August, when there were a few young ducks about, the pond used to remind me in places of
the tropicallackes we heard so much of after the explorers got through the portentous continent, on account of the growthof
aquatic weeds, the quantity and extent of which no one would credit who had not seen them. No wonder theexplorers could
not get through the papyrus grown rivers and lakes, for a boat could hardly be forced throughthese. Acres upon acres of weeds
covered the place, some coming up from a depth of twelve feet. Some fishare chiefly on the feed in the morning, and any one
who has the courage to get up at five will find themraveenous. We often visited the place a little after that hour. A swim was
generally the first thing, and Imention a swim because it brings me to the way in which this mere pond illustrated the great
ocean which encircles the world. For it is well known that the mighty ocean is belted with currents, the cold water of thePolar
seas seeking the warmth of the Equator, and the warm water of the Equator floating like the Gulfstream towards the Pole,
floating because (I think I am right) the warm water runs on the surface. Thefavourite spot for swimming in our pond was in
such a position that a copse cast a wide piece of water thereinto deep shadow all the morning up till ten o’clock at least. At six
in the morning this did not matter, all the water was of much the same temperature; having been exposed to the night
everywhere it was cold of course.But after ten the thing was dfferent; by that time the hot reaper’s sun had warmed the
surface of the openwater on which the rays fell almost from the moment the sun rose. Towards eleven o’clock the difference

CHAPTER 1334