The great high buildings, whose towers overlooked the dense woodlands, and whose gigantic clusters formed large cities, diminished, together with the groves, until only little log cabins lay snugly in the bosom of the vast prairie.

Here were different sights from what one saw in the forest; hedgerows, broad fields of barley corn, pasture lands rolling upward till they met the sky and all dotted over with flocks of white sheep, hayfields whence came the odor of new-mown hay that lay in smooth swathes over which skimmed the swifts in rapid flight; such they saw, and different was it, I wot, from the tangled depths of the sweet woodlands, but full as fair.

I have said the Weald was ever a wild and inhuman place where only few men could go together, without great towns and with only infrequent villages; not a thick or impenetrable woodland but a difficult and a lonely country sparsely scattered with steadings.

Then, suddenly, came a silence in which one might have heard the dust of their feet falling, their shouts receding in the far woodland.

Dangerous and treacherous allies, upon whom no real dependence could ever placed, the Indians were nevertheless the most redoubtable of all foes when the war was waged in their own gloomy woodlands.

There they found a little woodland of tall, leafy trees fit for Sir Launcelot's purpose, and that wood stood to one side of the meadow of battle and at about the distance of three furlongs from it.

But the Romans had more to face than an impenetrable woodland or the roughness of the country; they had to overcome the lack of water, and therefore in the Weald their day's march of some twelve miles was pressed to double its normal length.

But there came a day to him when he missed the deer, and caught a glimpse instead of the divine huntress, Diana, high-buskined, short-kirtled, speeding with her hounds through the lonely woodland, and his thoughts ran no more on venison for that day.

First, you have the clay lying on the chalk, and carrying vast woodlands, seemingly primeval.

Now and then they passed bands of the King's men coming back again to London, but none of those bands stopped them, and so, at last, they reached the sweet, leafy woodlands.

He, too, began to feel the subtle stillness of the drowsing woodland; musing there, caressing his short, crisp mustache, he watched the purple grackle walking about in iridescent solitude, the sun spots waning and glowing on the grass; he heard the soft, garrulous whimper of waterfowl along the water's edge, the stir of leaves above.

Finally we slept in a forest on the other side of the strait, beyond Gallipoli, taking our few provisions, and having to wade at some points through morass a foot deep before we reached dry woodland.

After that, it was but the work of a moment to crook the end of the modern road, where it approached the river through a bit of elevated woodland (the only piece of solid land anywhere near us), and so make it come out, like the road of old, at the "landing."

In the E. is extensive woodland and the Carse of Gowrie, one of the most fertile of Scottish plains.

Now the calm evening hastily approaches, Not a sound stirring thro' the gentle woodlands, Save that soft Zephyr with his downy pinions Scatters fresh fragrance.

I know a magic woodland with grassy rides that ring To strange fantastic music and whirr of elfin wing, There all the oaks and beeches, moss-mantled to the knees, Are really fairy princes pretending to be trees.

We were continually surrounded by the most magnificent woodlands, and were only rarely reminded by a small plantation of kabi, {39} or mil, that we were in the neighbourhood of men.

"How much?" "Well," said Page, "my system, as I've gradually worked it out, is to clear off a certain amount each year of our mediocre woodland, such as for the most part grows up where the bad cutting was done a couple of generations agomaple and oak and beech it is, mostly, with little stands of white birch, where fires have been.

The horse wheeled towards the north, stepping quietly through the moonlight, steadily, slowly northward, through misty woodlands and ferny glades and deep fields swimming under the moon, across a stony stream, up through wet meadows, into a silvery road, and across a bridge which echoed mellow thunder under the trample of the iron-shod horse.

The vast belt of mountainous woodland that lay between was as complete a barrier as if it had been a broad arm of the ocean.

At that period Henry had been a mighty entomologist; and, as the late summer came on, he and all available sisters would set out, armed with butterfly-nets and other paraphernalia, just before twilight, to the nearest woodland, where they would proceed to daub the trees with an intoxicating preparation of honey and rum,a temptation to which moths were declared in text-books to be incapable of resistance.

Scarce a furlong had they ridden, when, from an opposite woodland, they saw approaching a gallant train.

Afterwards the castle was restored once more, but its more stirring days were over; and, to-day, it stands a shattered but dignified ruin, overlooking the tranquil river and peaceful woodlands which once echoed so continuously to the clash of arms and the shouts of besiegers and besieged.

A ride of about fifteen miles, and a pleasant woodland ramble of about two, brought myself and my companion to the great NATURAL BRIDGE.

We had had the curiosity to stroll out to see how he had got on, and presently, in a bit of rocky woodland near by, we came upon a curious scene.