f the region of smoke, passed beyond the
limits of smouldering ruin and tomb, and soon entered a rich woodland,
somewhat scorched at first, but soon green and flourishing as the
jungle. This cooled and soothed me, and being in no hurry to reach the
ship, I was led on and on, in a somewhat north-western direction, I
fancy. Somewhere hereabouts, I thought, was the place they called 'The
Sweet Waters,' and I went on with the vague notion of coming upon them,
thinking to pass the day, till afternoon, in the forest. Here nature, in
only twenty years has returned to an exuberant savagery, and all was now
the wildest vegetation, dark dells, rills wimpling through deep-brown
shade of sensitive mimosa, large pendulous fuchsia, palm, cypress,
mulberry, jonquil, narcissus, daffodil, rhododendron, acacia, fig. Once
I stumbled upon a cemetery of old gilt tombs, absolutely overgrown and
lost, and thrice caught glimpses of little trellised yalis choked in
boscage. With slow and listless foot I went, munching an almond or an
olive, though I could swear that olives were not formerly indigenous to
any soil so northern: yet here they are now, pretty plentiful, though
elementary, so that modifications whose end I cannot see are certainly
proceeding in everything, some of the cypresses which I met that day
being immense beyond anything I ever heard of: and the thought, I
remember, was in my head, that if a twig or leaf should change into a
bird, or a fish with wings, and fly before my eyes, what then should I
do? and I would eye a branch suspiciously anon. After a long time I
penetrated into a very sombre grove. The day outside the wood was
brilliant and hot, and very still, the leaves and flowers here all
motionless. I seemed, as it were, to hear the vacant silence of the
world, and my foot treading on a twig, produced the report of pistols. I
presently reached a glade in a thicket, about eight yards across, that
had a scent of lime and orange, where the just-sufficient twilight
enabled me to see some old bones, three skulls, and the edge of a
tam-tam peeping from a tuft of wild corn with corn-flowers, and here and
there some golden champac, and all about a profusion of musk-roses. I
had stopped--_why_ I do not recollect--perhaps thinking that if I was
not getting to the Sweet Waters, I should seriously set about finding my
way out. And as I stood looking about me, I remember that some cruising
insect trawled near my ear its lonely drone.