more varied. The most abundant was the mulberry, of which there were
many hundreds, mostly in rows, forming walks, and albeit of the same
species as our English mulberry they differed from it in the great
size and roughness of the leaves and in producing fruit of a much
smaller size. The taste of the fruit was also less luscious and it was
rarely eaten by our elders. We small children feasted on it, but it
was mostly for the birds. The mulberry was looked on as a shade, not a
fruit tree, and the other two most important shade trees, in number,
were the _acacia blanca,_ or false acacia, and the paradise tree or
pride of China. Besides these there was a row of eight or ten
ailanthus trees, or tree of heaven as it is sometimes called, with
tall white smooth trunk crowned with a cluster of palm-like foliage.
There was also a modern orchard, containing pear, apple, plum, and
cherry trees.

The entire plantation, the buildings included, comprising an area of
eight or nine acres, was surrounded by an immense ditch or foss about
twelve feet deep and twenty to thirty feet wide. It was undoubtedly
very old and had grown in width owing to the crumbling away of the
earth at the sides. This in time would have filled and almost
obliterated it, but at intervals of two or three years, at a time when
it was dry, quantities of earth were dug up from the bottom and thrown
on the mound inside. It was in appearance something like a prehistoric
earthwork. In winter as a rule it became full of water and was a
favourite haunt, especially at night, of flocks of teal, also duck of
a few other kinds--widgeon, pintail, and shoveller. In summer it
gradually dried up, but a few pools of muddy water usually remained
through all the hot season and were haunted by the solitary or summer
snipe, one of the many species of sandpiper and birds of that family
which bred in the northern hemisphere and wintered with us when it was