It defines the natural environment, with some nostalgia, as a collection of not only forests, rivers and mountains - wood, water and rock, the parts by which Schama groups his text - but also of thatch-roofed farmhouses in sylvan glens, a curl of smoke rising from the chimneys and lambs bleating in clovery meadows full of swarming bees, fair-haired children dancing around a maypole and strong elders smoking their meerschaums.