I
would go galloping through the streets on my horse."

At length an omnibus came along which was not full, and Rollo and Carlos
got into it. After meeting with various adventures on the way, and
changing from one omnibus to another, according to the system which
prevails in Paris, they finally reached the gates of the garden. There
was a sentry box on each side of the gates, and soldiers, with bayonets
fixed, guarding the entrance. There were, however, a great many people
going in. The soldiers did not prevent them. They had orders to allow
all persons who were quiet and orderly, and had no dogs with them, to
enter freely. So Rollo and Carlos passed directly in.

Rollo's first feeling was that of astonishment at the extent and variety
of the scenes and prospects which opened before him. Instead of a small
garden, laid out in gravel walks, and beds of flowers, as he had
imagined, he found himself entering a perfect maze of winding walks,
which were bordered on all sides by an endless variety of enclosures,
groups of shrubbery, groves, huts, cabins, yards, ponds of water, and
every other element of rural scenery. The whole, as it first burst upon
Rollo's eye, formed a most enchanting landscape, and extended farther
than he could see. The walks meandered about in the most winding and
devious ways. The spaces between them were enclosed by neat little
fences of lattice work, and were divided into little parks, or fields,
in each of which some strange and unknown animals were feeding. There
were ponds, with a quantity of birds of the gayest plumage sailing upon
them; and green slopes, with goats, or deer, or sheep, of the most
extraordinary forms and colors, grazing in them. At one place Rollo
stopped to look at a small basin of water, with a broad stone margin all
around it, which was completely covered with turtles and tortoises of
all colors and sizes. The animals were lying there asleep, basking in
the sun. A little farther on was a beautiful little yard, almost
surrounded with trees and shrubbery, where three or four ostriches, with
long necks, and heads higher than Rollo's, were walking about with a
very majestic air. And farther still there was a little field, the
occupants of which excited the astonishment of the boys to a still
higher degree. They were three giraffes. One of them, with his head
twenty feet in the air, was cropping the leaves from the top of a tall
tree. The second was standing still, quietly looki