OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE AUTHOR'S FORMER WORK ("The Saturday Half-holiday Guide.") The Pall Mall Gazette. This little book by (Mr. Henry Walker), may save many an hour from being wasted through not knowing wh re to go or how. For a small sum a greater amount of information is given than any similar book we know supplies. The list of places worth seeing in the suburbs is particularly full. The Daily News. A Hand-book of the principal places for resort in London on the Saturday afternoon. It contains much more information than is to be found in any other single publication. The information is throughout of an exact and practical character. The Standard. Th's clever little handbook admirably fulfils its purpose, and will be found of real use to all who wish to find their way readily to the open-air resorts and free national exhibitions of the metropolis. The descriptive matter displays considerable literary taste, and scientific facts are well given. The Nonconformist. A very terse and serviceable description of the various open-air resorts and free national exhibitions in and around the metropolis, for the use of holiday-makers in search of heathful recreation. With this cheap little guide in hand, no one need be at a loss how to bestow his leisure on Saturday afternoons. It is no mere compilation, but a brochure prepared with evident care, and we have been surprised at the fulness of original information we have found packed in so small a compass. The Leisure Hour. The Holiday-maker can buy this guide for a few pence, and we recommend him to do so, seeing that it will show him how to make a profit of his holiday. It may chance to surprise him by the very various revelations it makes as to the pleasant uses to which a man may apply his avaliable leisure. By accepting its guidance, even for a single season, he may see and learn a great deal of which otherwise he would probably remain ignorant. Land and Water. This will prove very useful to the thousands of pleasure-seekers who now stream out of London on Saturday afternoons. The Chester Chronicle. Amongst its other merits, the Saturday Half-holiday Guide is well adapted for country cousins visiting London and the environs. It is the best, and in every respect the cheape t guide we know. The Staffordshire Advertiser. As a popular guide both to open-air resorts and free national exhibitions it is unequalled, whether regard be had to its price or the accuracy and completeness of the information which it contains. SATURDAY AFTERNOON RAMBLES ROUND LONDON: RURAL AND GEOLOGICAL. BY HENRY WALKER, AUTHOR OF THE LONDON "SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY GUIDE." Reprinted from the City Press "RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST ROUND LONDON," A.D. 1869 "For thou hast pined And hungered after Nature many a year Gough Ada - Lond. LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1871. PREFACE. THE Londoner's Saturday Afternoon may well have a literature of its own. It is not Nature's fault if her landscapes around London do not form the chief feature in literature of such a description. If we take the testimony of travelled connoisseurs in rural scenery, we Londoners should be conscious that we are living amid aspects of Nature that the eyes of Englishmen most conversant with the landscape beauties of other climes chiefly love to dwell upon. The country around London is richer in landscape scenery than many of us know. Nature rude and aboriginal as well as Nature tamed and humanised awaits us; wild gardens, redundant with vegetable life and colour, side by side with sandy wastes from which the sea might not long have retreated; beautiful woodland resorts in which the sylvan people of old religion might almost still be found: "Satyr and Dryad glancing through the shade :" romantic geological haunts and memorials of ancient Time; lakes and waters where the heron still pays an evening visit; remarkable trees and a varied vegetation to surprise us; and all within an afternoon's ramble from Town. To complete the rural picture we have a noble river, with a valley scenery all its own: a river beautiful in the living land |
