As to the soil—this has little resemblance to that of a forest. It is pebbly, full of clay and even sand, and no one would dream of calling it fertile. And yet within limits it is fertile—even to luxuriance. A tall grass flourishes upon it, though this often assumes a dry, sharply angular and meagre character. In winter it covers the ground like trampled hay. Sometimes it degenerates into reeds, whilst in other parts it is soft, thick, and lush, mixed with hemlock, nettles, colt’s foot, all manner of creeping, leafy stuff, high, rocket-like thistles, and young and tender tree-shoots. It is a favourite hiding-place for pheasants and quail, and the vegetation runs in billows against the gnarled boles of the tree-roots. Out of this chaos of undergrowth and ground thicket the wild vine and the wild hop-plant go gyrating up in spirals, draping broad-leaved garlands upon the trees and even in winter clinging to the trunks with tendrils which resemble hard and unbreakable wire.
This domain is neither forest nor park—it is an enchanted garden—nothing less. I will stoutly defend this term—even though it refers to a poor, limited, and even crippled bit of nature, the glories of which may be exhausted with a few simple botanical names. The ground is undulant; it rises and falls in regular waves. This feature gives a fine completeness to the views—the eye is led into the illimitable even at the sides. Yes, even if this wood were to stretch for miles to the right and left, even if it were to be as broad as it is long, instead of merely measuring a hundred and some odd paces from the centre to the extreme edge on either side, one could not feel more secluded, more lost, or isolated. Alone the ear is reminded by the regular and rushing sound of waters to the west that the river hovers within a friendly distance, near yet invisible. There are little gulches filled to the brim with bushes of elder, common privet, jasmine, and black elderberry, so that one’s lungs on steamy June days are almost overcome by perfume. And then again there are sinkages in the ground—mere gravel-pits along the slopes and bottoms of which only a few willow shoots and a little dry sage manage to flourish.
All this has not ceased to exert a magic influence upon me, even though the place, for many a year, has been as a daily haunt to me. In some way I am fantastically moved and touched by all this, for example, by the massed foliage of the ash-trees, which reminds me somehow of the contours of huge bulls. These creeping vines and reedy thickets, this dampness and this drouth, this meagre jungle—to sum up my impressions as a whole—affect me a little like being transported to the landscape of another period of the Earth’s growth, even to a submarine landscape—as though one were wandering at the bottom of the sea. This vision has a certain contact with reality, for water once stood or ran everywhere hereabout, especially in those seepages which have now assumed the shape of square meadow-basins surrounded by nurseries of ash-trees and serve sheep for drink and pasture. One of these ponds lies directly behind my house.
My delectable wilderness is crisscrossed by paths, by strips of trampled grass and also by pebbly trails. Obviously none of these were made, they simply grew through the agency of use. Yet no man could say by whom these paths have been trodden into the soil. It is only now and then, and usually as an unpleasant exception, that Bashan and I meet anyone here. When such meetings do occur, my companion comes to a sudden halt in startled surprise and gives vent to a single muffled bark which gives a pretty clear expression to my own feelings in connection with the encounter. Even on fine sunny afternoons in the summer, when great numbers of pedestrians from the city come pouring into the neighbourhood (it is always a few degrees cooler here than elsewhere), we two are able to wander quite undisturbed on the inner ways. The public is apparently unaware of these, besides, the river is a great attraction and draws them mightily. Hugging its banks as closely as possible, that is, when there is no flooding, the human river wanders out into the countryside and then comes rolling back in the evening. At most we chance to stumble upon a pair of lovers kissing in the bushes. With wide, shy, yet insolent eyes, they regard us from their bower, as though stubbornly bent on challenging us, daring us to say anything against their being here, defying us to give any open disapproval of their remote and guerilla lovemaking—intimations which we silently answer in the negative by beating a flank retreat, Bashan with that air of indifference with which all things that do not bear the scent of the wild about them affect him, and I with a perfectly inscrutable and expressionless face which allows no trace either of approval or disapproval to be seen.
But these paths are not the only means of traffic and communication in my domain. You will find streets there, or—to be more precise—preparations that may once have been streets, or were once destined to be such. It is like this: traces of the path-finding and path-clearing axe and of a sanguine spirit of enterprise in the realm of real estate reveal themselves for quite a distance beyond the built-up part of the country and the little villa colony. Some speculative soul had peered deeply into the untold possibilities of the future, and had proceeded upon a bold and audacious plan. The society which had taken this tract of territory in hand some ten or
