gloriously fertile as ever delighted the eyes of a weary
traveller.

BORDEAUX

Instead of boundless forests of pine, the whole face of the
country was now covered with vineyards, interspersed, in the most
exquisite and tasteful manner, with corn-fields and meadows of
the the richest pasturage. Nor was there any deficiency of
timber; a well-wooded chateau, with its lawn and plantations,
here and there presenting itself, while quiet hamlets and
solitary cottages, scattered in great abundance over the scene,
gave to it an appearance of life and prosperity exceedingly
bewitching. Had there been but the addition of a fine river
flowing through the midst of it, and had the ground been somewhat
more broken into hill and dale, I should have pronounced it the
most enchanting prospect of the kind I had ever beheld; but,
unfortunately, both these were wanting. Though the effect of a
first view, therefore, was striking and delightful, and though to
the last we could not help acknowledging the richness of the land
and its high state of cultivation, its beauty soon began to pall.
The fact is, that an immense plain, however adorned by the
labour of man, is not an object upon which it is pleasing to gaze
for any length of time; the eye becomes wearied with the extent
of its own stretch, and as there is no boundary but the horizon,
the imagination is left to picture a continuance of the same
plain, till it becomes as tired of fancying as the eye is of
looking. Besides, we were not long in discovering that the
vineyards were unworthy to be compared, in point of luxuriant
appearance, with those of Spain and the more southern regions of