citadel, or block-house, as from its materials it was technically called,
there were two different tiers of long, narrow loop-holes, but no regular
windows. The rays of the setting sun, however, glittered on one or two
small openings in the roof, in which glass had been set, furnishing
evidence that the summit of the building was sometimes used for other
purposes than those of defence.

About half-way up the sides of the eminence, on which the dwelling stood,
was an unbroken line of high palisadoes, made of the bodies of young
trees, firmly knit together by braces and horizontal pieces of timber, and
evidently kept in a state of jealous and complete repair. The air of the
whole of this frontier fortress was neat and comfortable, and, considering
that the use of artillery was unknown to those forests, not unmilitary.

At no great distance from the base of the hill, stood the barns and the
stables. They were surrounded by a vast range of rude but warm sheds,
beneath which sheep and horned cattle were usually sheltered from the
storms of the rigorous winters of the climate. The surfaces of the
meadows, immediately around the out-buildings, were of a smoother and
richer sward, than those in the distance, and the fences were on a far
more artificial, and perhaps durable, though scarcely on a more
serviceable plan. A large orchard of some ten or fifteen years' growth,
too, added greatly to the air of improvement, which put this smiling
valley in such strong and pleasing contrast to the endless and
nearly-untenanted woods by which it was environed.

Of the interminable forest, it is not necessary to speak. With the
solitary exception on the mountain-side, and of here and there a wind-row,
along which the trees had been uprooted, by the furious blasts that
sometimes sweep off acres of our trees in a minute, the eye could find no