A weekend away in the Blue Mountains.
Category Archives: Geography
Country Life
Every day trivial bits of local gossip increased her disgust and lowered her opinion of mankind. The Couillards’ daughter had just had a child and was going to be married shortly ; the Martins’ maid, an orphan, was pregnant, so was a neighbour’s daughter of … Read More →
Cimitière
We shall not cease from exploration And at the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. TS Eliot Four Quartets Pictures taken in and around Le Mas d’Azil, Arriège region of France, … Read More →
Arabia Felix
The inside of Husain’s house was cold and dark. We climbed three flights of steep stone stairs to a bare little sitting-room furnished with a single rug and a few cushions. Puffing my way up, I thought how odd it was that every detail of … Read More →
Hospitality
Hospitality has always been enumerated among the Eastern virtues. It still subsists in Syria, but prevails most in villages and small towns; among the Bidoween Arabs, and the inhabitants of the Castravan mountains. The hospitable reception that European travellers experience on the road, the officiousness … Read More →
Sea life
The water was bad – so bad that few could drink it without disgust – but one drank no water aboard ship as long as the beer held out. The water was generally river water. We note that the river water ‘about London’ was reckoned … Read More →
Dragon’s backbone
Dragon Dormant Commissioner Qu, of Wuling County, was reading in an upper room when a heavy rain began to fall. In the deepening gloom he caught sight of a little creature, bright as a glow-worm, wriggling its way on to his desk. It meandered across … Read More →
Experiments
Australia: an end of the world warehouse of nature’s experiments. Willi Ley