Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/49

Rh miles, leaving half way Twickenham, the celebrated seat of Alexander Pope. The Thames is exceedingly pretty here and very unlike the dirty river that flows by London. On both sides the banks were covered with the luxuriant verdure of spring. In England winters are longer, colder and more dreary than in India; for months and months together you have nothing but rain and mist and snow, freezing wind, a dark atmosphere, and cloudy sky. There is not a leaf in the trees, and all nature seems dead and cheerless. When after such a dreary winter comes the season of spring with its sunny skies and warm weather, its fresh leaves and flowers and beautiful birds, the change is far more striking and far more welcome than the same change in India. The Indian spring with its more luxuriant vegetation and a greater variety of birds with sweet songs and rich plumage, with its sunnier skies and altogether more gorgeous appearance, fails to strike us as much as the English spring, simply because the Indian winter is a delightful sunny season, when the trees retain their leaves and the sky is seldom, if ever, clouded, and the change therefore is not so sudden or striking.

Both the banks of the Thames were very pretty with green lawns, fine avenues, shading chestnut trees and fine groves every where. From Teddington an hour's pleasant walk through the beautiful Bushy Park brought us to Hampton Court, renowned in English History. We went through the several apartments of the palace, the royal bed-rooms, the council chamber, and the like, and saw the collection of beautiful oil paintings in those rooms. It was late before we returned to London.