blackness outside. The peaches here are golden-pulped, as if trying to
be oranges, and are richly bitter, with a dark hint of prussic acid,
fascinating the taste like some enchantress of Venice, the pursuit of
whom is made piquant by a fancy that she may poison you. The farther
you penetrate this huge idle peninsula, the more its idiosyncrasy
is borne in on your mind. Infinite horizons, "an everlasting wash of
air," the wild pure warmth of Arabia, and heated jungles of dwarf oaks
balancing balmy plantations of pine. Then, toward the sea, the wiry
grasses that dry into "salt hay" begin to dispute possession with
the forests, and finally supplant them: the sand is blown into
coast-hills, whose crests send off into every gale a foam of flying
dust, and which themselves change shape, under pressure of the same
winds, with a slower imitation of the waves. Finally, by the gentlest
of transitions, the deserts and the quicksands become the ocean.

[Illustration: THE SENATE HOUSE.]

The shore melts into the sea by a network of creeks and inlets,
edging the territory (as the flying osprey sees it) with an inimitable
lacework of azure waters; the pattern is one of looping channels
with oval interstices, and the dentellated border of the commonwealth
resembles that sort of lace which was made by arranging on glass
the food of a silk-spinning worm: the creature ate and wove, having
voracity always before him and Fine Art behind him. Much of the
solider part of the State is made of the materials which enter into
glass-manufacture: a mighty enchanter might fuse the greater portion
of it into one gigantic goblet. A slight approximation to this work
of magic is already being carried on. The tourist who has crossed
the lagoons of Venice to see the fitful lights flash up from the
glass-furnaces of Murano, will find more than one locality here where