When Miss Sedgwick, the American authoress, visited England, nothing so
much surprised and delighted her as the gay flower-filled gardens of our
cottagers. Many other travellers, from almost all parts of the world,
have experienced and expressed the same sensations on visiting our
shores, and it would be easy to compile a voluminous collection of their
published tributes of admiration. To a foreign visitor the whole country
seems a garden--in the words of Shakespeare--"a _sea-walled garden_."

In the year 1843, on a temporary return to England after a long Indian
exile, I travelled by railway for the first time in my life. As I glided
on, as smoothly as in a sledge, over the level iron road, with such
magical rapidity--from the pretty and cheerful town of Southampton to
the greatest city of the civilized world--every thing was new to me, and
I gave way to child-like wonder and child-like exultation.[002] What a
quick succession of lovely landscapes greeted the eye on either side?
What a garden-like air of universal cultivation! What beautiful smooth
slopes! What green, quiet meadows! What rich round trees, brooding over
their silent shadows! What exquisite dark nooks and romantic lanes! What
an aspect of unpretending happiness in the clean cottages, with their
little trim gardens! What tranquil grandeur and rural luxury in the
noble mansions and glorious parks of the British aristocracy! How the
love of nature thrilled my heart with a gentle and delicious agitation,
and how proud I felt of my dear native land! It is, indeed, a fine thing
to be an Englishman. Whether at home or abroad, he is made conscious of
the claims of his country to respect and admiration. As I fed my eyes on
the loveliness of Nature, or turned to the miracles of Art and Science
on every hand, I had always in my mind a secret reference to the effect
which a visit to England must produce upon an intelligent and observant
foreigner.