With this, we turned once more toward Paris, and, jumping into the first
cab that came by, were driven to the station. It happened that a train
was then about to start; so we were off immediately.

There were no other passengers in the carriage, so Dalrymple infringed
the company's mandate by lighting a cigar, and I, finding him
disinclined for talk, did the same thing, and watched the passing
country. Flat and uninteresting at first, it consisted of a mere sandy
plain, treeless, hedgeless, and imperfectly cultivated with struggling
strips of corn and vegetables. By and by came a line of stunted
pollards, a hamlet, and a little dreary cemetery. Then the landscape
improved. The straight line of the horizon broke into gentle
undulations; the Seine, studded with islets, wound through the
meadow-land at our feet; and a lofty viaduct carried us from height to
height across the eddying river. Then we passed into the close green
shade of a forest, which opened every here and there into long vistas,
yielding glimpses of

"--verdurous glooms, and winding mossy ways."

Through this wood the line continued to run till we reached our
destination. Here our first few steps brought us out upon the Place,
directly facing the old red and black chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye.
Leaving this and the little dull town behind us, we loitered for some
time about the broad walks of the park, and then passed on into the
forest. Although it was neither Sunday nor a fête-day, there were
pleasure parties gipseying under trees--Parisian cockneys riding
raw-boned steeds--pony-chaises full of laughing grisettes dashing up and
down the broad roads that pierce the wood in various directions--old