Culp's Hill

“ Not a trace was there of any human life but their own. The waters from the hill swept the little valley, and hugged to their bosom the secrets that lay beneath their surface. And the fall of rock held deeply buried all that which it had embraced in its rending. The farm was utterly destroyed, and with it had fallen victims every head of stock Joan had possessed. The old fur fort had yielded to the fire demon, where, for all the ages, it had resisted the havoc of storm. There was nothing left to mark the handiwork of man, nothing but the terrible destruction it had brought about. ”

“ Although the Western or Shakespeare’s Cliff is part of a larger range, the Castle Hill is better suited for defence. It is, in fact, an isolated knoll about 1,000 yards north and south, and 500 yards east and west, the summit being a steep and narrow ridge. Towards the south its boundary is the sea cliff, 320 feet high, and to the west the deep valley of the town. To the east and north are other valleys, less deep but by no means inconsiderable, and the sides of which are steep. ”

“ It isn't my fault. What else could you expect?' he said.
'We didn't expect any one,' Dan answered slowly. 'This is our field.'
'Is it?' said their visitor, sitting down. 'Then what on Human Earth made you act Midsummer Night's Dream three times over, on Midsummer Eve, in the middle of a Ring, and under—right under one of my oldest hills in Old England? Pook's Hill—Puck's Hill—Puck's Hill—Pook's Hill! It's as plain as the nose on my face.'
He pointed to the bare, fern-covered slope of Pook's Hill that runs up from the far side of the mill-stream to a dark wood. ”

“ Cliff Street, only a block long and only half-opened, terminated then at the cliffs above the gorge of the Medicine River. But darkness under the brow of the hill helped the fleeing railroad men. Dancing dodged in and out of the undergrowth that fringed the street line and eluding his pursuers reached the brow of the cliff unseen. The rioters, knowing that no escape lay in that direction, beat the bushes that fringed the half-opened street, confident that the fugitives were in hiding among them.
For an ordinary man, indeed, there was no escape toward the river. ”

“ At the distance of two or three miles beyond Culgarth, from a hill advancing towards the water, the whole of Windermere is seen; to the right, is the white mansion at Culgarth, among wood, on a gentle eminence of the shore, with the lake spreading wide beyond, crowned by the fells half obscured in clouds. To the south, the hills of the eastern shore, sloping gradually, run out in elegant and often well wooded points into the water, and are spotted with villas and varied above with enclosures. ”

“ They had reached the crown of the hill bordering the valley, where the trail debouched upon the prairie beyond, and the effort of easing his horse, as the struggling beast clawed its way up the shelving slope, at last set loose the tide of the loafer’s ill-temper. ”

“ The Padre silently gathered Mercy into his arms, and the journey across the plateau began.
But as they moved away the subterranean forces attacked again. Again came that awful rocking, and shaking, which left them struggling for a foothold. Twice they were driven to their knees, only to stagger on as the convulsions lessened. It was a nightmare of nervous tension. Every step of the journey was fraught with danger, and every moment it seemed as though the hill must fall beneath them to a crumbling wreckage. ”

“ If you stand upon Rose Hill, which rises from the banks of the river Irthing just where Northumberland meets Cumberland, you have lying around you one of the finest wild prospects in the United Kingdom. Hills to the north, stretching away into Scotland; hills to the east, broken into picturesque valleys, especially the great gap through which rushes the young Tyne; hills to the south, dominated by the powerful head of Cross Fell, a great sprawling mountain, not a peaked one, the highest stretch of which is nearly three thousand feet above sea level. ”

“ The hill was a mass of redolent pinewoods. It was as though the gradual densifying of this belt of woodland country had culminated upon the hill. The brooding gloom of the forest was profound. The dark green foliage of the pines seemed black by contrast with the snow, and gazing in amongst the leafless lower trunks was like peering into a world of dayless night The horses walked with ears pricked and wistful eyes alertly gazing. The darkness of their surroundings seemed to have conveyed something of its mysterious dread to their sensitive nerves. ”

“ I left the field, and went to the place where the messenger had told me the plates were deposited; and owing to the distinctness of the vision which I had had concerning it, I knew the place the instant that I arrived there.
The Hill Cumorah.
Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario county, New York, stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. [4] On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box. ”

“ Buck was looking straight out ahead in the direction of the farm, and his preoccupation had given place to a smile of anticipation. The Padre was intent upon the black slopes of the hill. Farther along, the hill turned away toward the creek, and the trail bore to the left, passing on the hither side of a great bluff of woods which stretched right up to the very corrals of the farm. ”

“ A vast chalk hill rises some 300 feet above the south-western side of the village, part of which is covered with an extensive beech wood, called "The Hanger," and a down or sheep-walk. This down is a beautiful park-like spot, with a delightful woodland, now bounded by the Sussex Downs. The village lies at the foot of the chalk hill parallel with the Hanger, and contains only one straggling street, nearly a mile in length, a small rivulet rising at each end. The stream at the north-western end often fails, but the other, known as the "Well-Head," is a fine spring, seldom influenced by drought. ”

“ These hills are built of slate, like the hills of Cumberland and North Wales, but there all analogy ceases. Snowdon and Scafell Pike are convulsed masses of broken rock, whose black nakedness is not always scantily clothed with a coverlet of bracken, or wiry grass, or sloppy bog-moss. From the foot of the sheer crags extend long acres of scree-shoot, and the hills are further torn in every direction by the deeply furrowed channels of the torrents. In Man the hill slopes are everywhere smooth, and modelled in regular contours ”

“ During all this time Cully was watching the dying embers, and when all danger was over,—only the small stable with its two horses had been destroyed,—he led the Big Gray back to the pump, washed his head, sponging his eyes and mouth, and housed him in the big stable. Then he vanished.
Immediately on leaving the Big Gray, Cully had dodged behind the stable, run rapidly up the hill, keeping close to the fence, and had come out behind a group of scattering spectators. ”

“ Buck’s quick inquiry met with a significant silence, which Montana Ike finally broke.
“See here,” he cried, with sudden force. “What’s the use in astin’ fool questions? Ther’ ain’t no gold, ther’ ain’t nuthin’. We got color fer scratchin’ when we first gathered around like skippin’ lambs, but ther’s nuthin’ [Pg 66] under the surface, an’ the surface is played right out. I tell you it’s a cursed hole. Jest look around. Look at yonder Devil’s Hill. Wher’d you ever see the like? That’s it. Devil’s Hill. Say, it’s a devil’s region, an’ everything to it belongs to the devil. ”

“ Then he turned his eyes towards the corrals and outbuildings which were dotted about amongst the trees, and finally they settled upon a little clearing on the side of Front Hill. It was a graveyard of the early settlers. “Yes, I must break away from it all––and as soon as possible. I have said so for many a year, but the fascination of it has held me. If I hope to ever marry Prudence I must give it up. I must not––dare not let her discover the truth. The child’s goodness drives me to desperation. ”

“ CULCHARD, on reflection, adopts this suggestion, and the Italian Gentleman, after fluttering feebly about the coupé door, is unceremoniously bundled by the Conductor into the hinder part of the diligence.
In the Bernardino Pass, during the Ascent.
Culch. Glorious view one gets at each fresh turn of the road, PODBURY! Look at Hinter-rhein, far down below there, like a toy village, and that vast desolate valley, with the grey river rushing through it, and the green glacier at the end, and these awful snow-covered peaks all round—look, man!
Podb. I'm looking, old chap. ”

“ CUCKOO VALLEY RAILWAY This century was still young and ardent when ruin fell upon Cuckoo Valley. Its head rested on the slope of a high and sombre moorland, scattered with granite and china-clay; and by the small town of Ponteglos, where it widened out into arable and grey pasture-land, the Cuckoo river grew deep enough to float up vessels of small tonnage from the coast at the spring tides. I have seen there the boom of a trading schooner brush the grasses on the river-bank as she came before a southerly wind, and the haymakers stop and almost crick their necks staring up at her top-sails. ”

“ The hill, with its approaches so steep as to suggest to the imaginative the pathway winding up some rock-bound fastness of the Highlands, successfully defies organ-grinders and motor-buses and other aspirants to the membership in the great society for the propagation of street noises. As you near the summit, the quiet becomes more pronounced until you might fancy yourself a thousand leagues, instead of as many yards, removed from the busy commerce of Kensington or the rather strident activity of Notting Hill. ”

“ Gradually the peat has encroached upon it, till almost nothing but a puddle remains.
In this vast boggy district rise the Tavy, the two Ockments, the Taw, the North Teign, and the two Darts. The nearest elevation is Cut Hill, that reaches 1981 feet, and Whitehorse Hill, 1974. Across this desolate waste there is but one track from Two Bridges to Lydford, narrow, and only to be taken by one, if on horseback, who knows the way. On each hand is unfathomed bog. Cut Hill takes its name from a cleft cut through the walls of peat to admit a passage to Fur Tor. ”

“ One break was natural. But that was where an irresistible freshet had driven a way for itself through the rocky barrier of the hills in a boisterous effort to reach and swell the waters of the superior stream. Its achievement was doubtless the work of ages. But it was complete. A deep rift split the face of the gray stone cliffs to a breadth of something over twenty feet.
On the prairie bank the break was a narrow enough opening, barely sufficient for the passage of a horse-drawn vehicle. It had nothing of the naturalness which had split the face of the opposite cliff. ”

“ But if we examine the final result of this double waste, we shall see that when this ultimate ratio of equality is established throughout the upper and lower talus and the natural slope of the hill, the road must disappear altogether, instead of maintaining, as it often does, a breadth of 70 feet upon an uniform slope of the face of the hill. There is another circumstance in their construction equally repugnant to this hypothesis. In no one instance is the surface level, or even nearly so, as the profiles will show. ”

“ This morning we took a carriage for the first eight miles up the valley of the Raven's Crag, and walked on to the Kuhl-stuhl. In the very top of the hill the rock has made a huge natural arch, which leads to an otherwise inaccessible platform overhanging the valleys. The peasants drove their cattle here for protection in the Thirty Years' War, whence the name of Kuhl-stuhl, and hither the Bohemian Protestants fled for refuge. There is a natural slit in the rock, with a staircase to an upper platform, which was the refuge of the women, but only a thin woman could reach this place of safety. ”

“ CULP CREEK , Lane County . Culp Creek is a post office as well as a stream tributary to Row River south east of Cottage Grove . Culp Creek was named for John Culp who located in this neighborhood a few years prior to 1900. A logging company established a camp there and called it the Culp Creek camp , and when the post office was established in 1925 , the name naturally attached itself to the new office . Geo . E. Potter , a local merchant was first postmaster .
DAIRY , Klamath County . This place was named by William Roberts , a pioneer settler . ”

“ Now the shadow hovering at the forest edge became more distinct as it neared the house; it came slowly, stealing warily up the snow-clad hill. There was no scrunch of footsteps, the snow muffled all such sounds. It drew nearer, nearer, a tall, grey, 124 ghostly shadow that seemed to float over the white carpet which was everywhere spread out upon the earth. And as it came the wind rose, gusty and patchy, and the hiss of rising snow sounded stingingly upon the night air, and often beat with the force of hail against the front of the dugout. ”

“ Charmed with the view of this lovely valley, you would desire to visit it. You would descend the long slope of Chumulari, and straggling through the labyrinth of rugged foot hills that surround it, you would reach the brow of the bounding precipice; but there you must come to a halt. No path leads downward; and if you are still determined to set foot on the shores of that smiling lake, you will have to make the descent of the cliffs by means of a rope or rope-ladder several hundred feet in length. ”