i4o MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

extent, or she will scatter the region with hundreds
of little swamps, each exactly like the others. So
with lake-making. Instead of resting content
with the modest allowance of lakes bestowed on
our poor little Lake District in England she turns
them out in tens of thousands and often so close
one to another that (to quote the remark of an
American friend) in admiring one you must be
careful not to fall backward into its neighbour:
in Florida alone there are 32,000 lakes, each
with a name of its own. Or she will give you
half a dozen monsters like the Great Lakes of
the Middle West, where you may sail mono-
tonously for days on end without knowing which
of them you are sailing on until you have consulted
the map or the captain. And even where nature
turns artist, as she does in a thousand places,
she is rarely content to offer you a single gem,
like Grasmere or Rydal, but showers them on
you in handfuls.

And so with the landscape in general. I
recall a motor drive of some 200 miles given
me by a friend in Western Pennsylvania hos-
pitably , intent on showing me the beauties
.. of that region. We came to a hilltop, and
there before us lay a deep and lovely valley
with a shining stream wandering through the
fertile levels. It was a bit of England at her best
and reminded me of the Cotswolds. I remarked
on it patriotically to my friend, and could hardly
refrain from shouting with delight when I saw a