e, and delve into the remotest depths, the most retired holes and
corners, of our Empire for my subjects? The answer is that there is
nothing else to be done when an author's idiosyncrasy happens to incline
him that way. So again we find ourselves in a retired spot. But what a
spot!

Imagine, if you can, a mountain range like a gigantic fortress, with
embrasures and bastions which appear to soar a thousand versts towards
the heights of heaven, and, towering grandly over a boundless expanse
of plain, are broken up into precipitous, overhanging limestone cliffs.
Here and there those cliffs are seamed with water-courses and gullies,
while at other points they are rounded off into spurs of green--spurs
now coated with fleece-like tufts of young undergrowth, now studded with
the stumps of felled trees, now covered with timber which has, by some
miracle, escaped the woodman's axe. Also, a river winds awhile between
its banks, then leaves the meadow land, divides into runlets (all
flashing in the sun like fire), plunges, re-united, into the midst of a
thicket of elder, birth, and pine, and, lastly, speeds triumphantly past
bridges and mills and weirs which seem to be lying in wait for it at
every turn.

At one particular spot the steep flank of the mountain range is covered
with billowy verdure of denser growth than the rest; and here the aid of
skilful planting, added to the shelter afforded by a rugged ravine, has
enabled the flora of north and south so to be brought together that,
twined about with sinuous hop-tendrils, the oak, the spruce fir, the
wild pear, the maple, the cherry, the thorn, and the mountain ash either
assist or check one another's growth, and everywhere cover the declivity
with their straggling profusion. Also, at the edge of the summit there
can be seen mingling with the green of the trees the red roofs of a
manorial homestead, while behind the upper stories of the mansion proper
and its carved balcony and a great semi-circular window there gleam the
tiles and gables of some peasants' huts. Lastly, over this combination
of trees and roofs there rises--overtopping everything with its gilded,
sparkling steeple--an old village church. On each of its pinnacles a
cross of carved gilt is stayed with supports of similar gilding and
design; with the result that from a distance the gilded portions
have the effect of hanging without visible agency in the air. And
the whole--the three successive tiers of woodland,