stuck all over the place like cloves in an orange. They defy the law,
and belch forth massy volumes of black smoke, that hang like acres of
crape over the place, and veil the sun and the blue sky even in the
brightest day. But in a fog--why, the air of Hillsborough looks a thing
to plow, if you want a dirty job.

More than one crystal stream runs sparkling down the valleys, and
enters the town; but they soon get defiled, and creep through it heavily
charged with dyes, clogged with putridity, and bubbling with poisonous
gases, till at last they turn to mere ink, stink, and malaria, and
people the churchyards as they crawl.

This infernal city, whose water is blacking, and whose air is coal, lies
in a basin of delight and beauty: noble slopes, broad valleys, watered
by rivers and brooks of singular beauty, and fringed by fair woods in
places; and, eastward, the hills rise into mountains, and amongst them
towers Cairnhope, striped with silver rills, and violet in the setting
sun.

Cairnhope is a forked mountain, with a bosom of purple heather and a
craggy head. Between its forks stood, at the period of my story, a great
curiosity; which merits description on its own account, and also as the
scene of curious incidents to come.

It was a deserted church. The walls were pierced with arrow-slits,
through which the original worshipers had sent many a deadly shaft in
defense of their women and cattle, collected within the sacred edifice
at the first news of marauders coming.

Built up among the heathery hills in times of war and trouble, it had