We passed through country today that was like a continuous pleasure-ground, so beautifully patched with shrubs and trees and broken with hills and creeks. We came to a shepherd’s hut that was in a spot which might by labour be turned into a paradise. The man’s wife and family were there. It has something wild and comfortable in aspect. One little girl was swinging, a graceful little creature. I will make a bas relief of her when I get back to England and the fine arts. The place where we are camped in is the most beautiful we have seen, and the wildest.
Christmas – and warm soft air, brilliant sunlight, plentiful flowering foliage, butterflies, innumerable common flies, voices of birds, almost as various and manifold as the vegetation. I can scarcely write for the flies buzzing about and irritating my eyes. The grass is pale yellow and more like hay than grass with the sun’s heat. It dazzles my eyes to look across the plain where the heat is shaking the distance. All this should be strange to an Englishman, but somehow it seems all a matter of course to me. I knew before I left my own country that Time and Place were reversed here, so all I see appears appropriate. If anything comes better than I have been accustomed to, I enjoy; if worse, I endure it.
I have seen 27 Christmas days now but never expected to see one like this. While I write in the full shine of a glorious day, my friends are in their beds sleeping, or perhaps a few rather ‘jolly fellows’ may be winding home through the streets with raw, dark, dirty drizzle falling on them, after spending Christmas Eve. Well, I hope they may enjoy their plum pudding. I wish I could get my letters. Ah! If I could it would be better than a prince’s feast to me, a Christmas luxury truly.
