pe, and laid the foundations of still higher degrees of
greatness and power, which were gradually developed after his death. And
this was the origin of Normandy.

It appears thus that this part of France was seized by Rollo and his
Northmen partly because it was nearest at hand to them, being accessible
from the English Channel through the River Seine, and partly on account
of its exceeding richness and fertility. It has been famous in every age
as the garden of France, and travelers at the present day gaze upon its
picturesque and beautiful scenery with the highest admiration and
pleasure. And yet the scenes which are there presented to the view are
wholly unlike those which constitute picturesque and beautiful rural
scenery in England and America. In Normandy, the land is not inclosed.
No hedges, fences, or walls break the continuity of the surface, but
vast tracts spread in every direction, divided into plots and squares,
of various sizes and forms, by the varieties of cultivation, like a vast
carpet of an irregular tesselated pattern, and varied in the color by a
thousand hues of brown and green. Here and there vast forests extend,
where countless thousands of trees, though ancient and venerable in
form, stand in rows, mathematically arranged, as they were planted
centuries ago. These are royal demesnes, and hunting grounds, and parks
connected with the country palaces of the kings or the chateaux of the
ancient nobility. The cultivators of the soil live, not, as in America,
in little farm-houses built along the road-sides and dotting the slopes
of the hills, but in compact villages, consisting of ancient dwellings
of brick or stone, densely packed together along a single street, from
which the laborers issue, in picturesque dresses, men and women
together, every morning, to go miles, perhaps, to the scene of their
daily toil. Except these villages, and the occasional appearance of an
ancient chateau, no habitations are seen. The country seems a vast
solitude, teeming everywhere, however, with fertility and beauty. The
roads which traverse these scenes are magnificent avenues, broad,
straight, continuing for many miles an undeviating course over the
undulations of the land, with nothing to separate them from the expanse
of cultivation and fruitfulness on either hand but rows of ancient and
venerable trees. Between these rows of trees the traveler sees an
interminable vista extending both before him and behind him. In