Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1896-06-26
a NV stroll in the Garden Of England.

May Stroll in the Garden Of England.
In the beautiful month of May it is
the natural wish of all Of us to go out
into the woods and meadows and valleys
to rambe amid the foliage and flowers
and fragrance of spring Now, had YOU
been on a certain big, white man of-war
in certain month of May You could
have taken just such ramble as Lieu
tenant ]. M. Ellicott, u. S. n, tells in
st. Nicholas that he did, in the county
of Kent, which Englishmen agree in
calling the "Garden Of England" That
big, white man of war steamed up the
Thames until only twenty-five miles
from Lordon and moored in the mar
rowing river almost within jumping
distance of the piers at the town of
Gravesend.
Lieutenant Elicott says owe take
the road for Rochester and soon we are
in country lane bordered by hawthorn
hedges covered with their little punches
of white flowers, filling all the air with
fragrance that we breathe in with de-
light. Through this we are led on and
on, with green medows at our left
stretching away to the swift, bisy
Thames, and on our right low, rounded
hills and sloping and rising fields, some
green with rye and wheat, some red
dened with clover blossoms, and some
yellow with buttercups, all separated
by the towering, fragrant hawthorn
hedges and rising slowly to distant
idge of forest.
On this "great high ay through
Kent" Lieutenant Ellicott passes Gads-
hill, that ancient place of gads or foot
pads once SO dreaded by pilgrims jour
neying to Canterbury and merchants
travelling to London, but later famous as
the home of Dickens. The house in
which the novelist lived is ian old
fashioned house of stone, with a little
cupola on its roof, EMPOWERED in trees
and almost hidden from the road by a
high hedge A few PAGES farther on is
the Sir John Falstaff tavern.
At Gotham village is the Leather
Bottle tavern, to which resorted Mr..
Pickwick, Mr.. Wrinkle and Mr.. Snod-
grass. 1--WE pass through narrow hall
and are ushered in dark low ceilinged
room Here Dickens used to sit and
study the guests. Here, too. he made
the Pickwick club to meet. The walls
of the room are now adorned with
Cruikshank's quaint sketches of Dick
ems characters, with newspaper prints
and articles of the time and with many
portraits of Dickens and his family
Strangely enough, the only two picture
in the room not relating TO Dickens are
portraits of the American actress Mary
Anderson"
But most interesting of all is a spot
near the White Post tavern on the Pei
ham road at Graveseud "Beside the
tavern is a little rectangular yard, well
covered with grass d surrounded BY a
flower border In the middle is a cir.
cular flower bed filled with white tulips,
with a solitary rosebush in its center.
Nothing further marks this spot, and
Jew know that it has special interest
Yet under that sodis the tomb of Poca-
hontas.
I'm The parish register Of old St
Maries church, which once stood there
is entered.
"r6I7, Mary arst, Rebecca Wrolffe
", fife Of Thomas Wrolffe, Gent vir-
ginia Ladye borne, was buried in ye
chancell.'
There is a mistake in the name Thorn
as, for it should be John. "Mary' is old
style for May.
"How strange was the fate of Poca-
hontas, savage maiden from the prim-
eval forests of America, who died
among the civilized white people she
loved, far from the land of her birth"
II fe only 100 wears since the nOtato