fomentations when seized with the face-ache;
for marigold broth when I want to bring out
the measles or the scarlet fever; for elder-
flower water to strengthen and cleanse the
few scant hairs that remain on my cranium;
for a glass of clary wine as an exhilarator
and anti-lacrymic; for a tisane of violets
and lime-tree blossoms when the doctor
prescribes a cooling diluent; for decoration of
rose-leaves when he says I am feverish; for
the dried bouquet, which I treasure flattened
between the leaves of a certain folio volume;
and for the pretty little pot-flower (never
mind what genus and species it belongs to)
which Mary Jane presented on my birthday.

But we have not quitted the Faubourg du
Haut-Pont the more for having wandered
amongst the flowers. We have not yet
thanked the Flemish dame for her cutting,
nor inquired the best way to walk to
Clairmarias and view the floating islands
there.

"Walk! " she exclaims, "impossible, from
this place. Last winter you might have
walked there easily enough."

"To drive then?" The lady smiled.

"At the corner, near the sluice, you will
find a boat."

"And the floating islands?" Another
smile, a shrug, and a bow.

Now, if you can give a full and particular
account of eleven hundred and upwards of
named canals that twist zig-zag into an
aqueous network, which converts some two
thousand acres of garden-ground into a
labyrinth of watercourses and an archipelago
of islands, I must confess that I cannot. My
slip-shod boat, urged by a merry gossiping
Charon with whom it would be a pleasure to
pass the Styx, went sliding through the
currentless water, as time passes over a man in
a trance. Not a visible footmark on the
bank, not a direction-post or wheel-rut, to
indicate the direction of hourly traffic. The
houses, whether isolated or standing in rows,
boats moored before their doors, often as
the only means of escape; but which way
they were to go when set in motion, none
but a born Haut-Ponter could tell. Water,
and gardens, and Flemings, and frogs, realised
Hood's joke of a pastoral symphony in A
flat. You saw nobody walking about,
because they couldn't. But you met women
punting their babies to and fro, who will
hereafter be the punters of babies yet unborn.
You passed parties returning from market,
husbands pushing their dearly-beloveds
backward through the water,—economy at the
prow and industry at the helm, with a mass
of leguminous material results in the middle.
The wayside weeds were water-lilies; instead
of flocks of hedge-sparrows, shoals of roach
and dace glanced by; while, tobacco-smoke
imperfectly did duty for dust, and yelping
curs were represented by quacking fowl as
they gambolled at their sport of ducks and
drakes. And thus we glided from Haut-
Pont to Lyzel, a twin terraqueous horticultural
district. In the heart of the suburb
the streets are water, with rows of decent
houses on each side; before them boats
are moored at the edge of the canal, like
strings of aquatic hackney-coaches, or those
used-up things in art, Venetian gondolas.
Close by, are huge stacks of what look like
an infinity of rods for naughty boys, but
really are sticks for ambitious peas that want
to rise in the world, and look down disdainfully
on their squatter comrades. Wat we
call green peas the French style little peas.
What, then, are great peas? I should like to
raise a cut-and-come-again pea, a great green
pea, a bloated marrowfat, which I might divide,
like a peach, into two handsome, portions:
giving half of it to the partner of my joys and
sorrows, and transferring the remaining half
to the plate before my own sweet self. It is
worth noting that the St. Omerian gardeners,
amongst the most skilful in the world (as far as
they go), sow their peas in two parallel drills,
some nine inches apart, leaving a wide
interval of from five to six feet before the
two next drills; down the middle of which
intervening space they plant early potatoes.
They stick the peas en berceau, that is, in
arches, or bowerwise, very early in spring;
and it is found that the shelter of the
sticks greatly aids both the peas and the
potatoes.

In front of the Lyzel houses, are flights of
steps to the water's edge, down which descend,
not noble maidens, but Flemish frowlings.
Single-planked bridges, worthy of Anne of
Geierstein, cross the canal at short intervals.
On its edge, lie beds of dung, of the consistency
of ripe Cheshire cheese, with a thick
crop of seedlings, instead of blue mould,
covering their surface. Nor is there any
scarcity of little anberges, redolent of brown
beer and tobacco, where games known only
to Flemings are played. One practical joke
actually performed hereabouts was to drag the
butt of the party up a chimney, landing him on
the roof, by means of a halter suddenly slipped
round his neck as he sat by the fire. Gliding
noiselessly out of the faubourg, you continue
your voyage through forests of cabbage,
woods of chervil, and palm-groves of haricots,
intermingled with little bits of green carpet
(sorrel, shallots, parsley, and other potherbs
and garnishings). all ready to fly away to
market. Little fields of strawberries,
principally for exportation, take their places
irregularly in the verdant patchwork. During
the height of the strawberry season, the railway
station is as highly perfumed by the
delicately-packed baskets of aromatic fruit as
a double-distilled exquisite is, during his
season, with musk, patchouli, or eau de
Cologne. All sorts of young crops rise
continuously and jauntily from the surface of the
Lyzel, as if they thought themselves the
cream of the earth. And do not scorn those