The further one goes the better it is, and the better also the river, which at the very end of the woods becomes such a stream as the pleinairistes love, with pollarded trees on either side.

Among the trees of one of these woods nearly a hundred years ago, a walking Englishman named Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote his "Ode to the West Wind".
The Cascine is a Bois also in having a race-course in it--a small course with everything about it on a little scale, grandstand, betting boxes, and all.

And why not ?--for after all Florence is quite small in size, however remarkable in character.

Here funny little race-meetings are held, beginning on Easter Monday and continuing at intervals until the weather gets too hot.

The Florentines pour out in their hundreds and lie about in the long grass among the wild flowers, and in their fives and tens back their fancies.