Plain of Esdraelon

“ And the bones of the dead gleam whitest,
And the sun on a desert glows —
Yet within the selfish kingdom
Where man starves man for gain,
Where white men tramp for existence —
Wide lies the Great Grey Plain. ”

“ In a minute or two her breathing became more regular, her clasp of his hand relaxed, and she fell asleep. The band of silver paleness along the east horizon made even the distant parts of the Great Plain appear dark and near; and the whole enormous landscape bore that impress of reserve, taciturnity, and hesitation which is usual just before day. The eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against the light, and the great flame-shaped Sun-stone beyond them ”

“ Several times a hollow cleft in the slope below the road—a cleft walled by trees, but grass-bottomed—guides the eye out towards it. All along good roads led down to the vale, and an equal number of rough roads climbed the hillside up to the Plain. I was to go down, not up, and I looked with regret at the clear ridge and the rampart of Bratton Castle carved on it against the sky, the high bare slopes, the green magnificent gulleys and horizontal terraces, the white roads, and especially a rough cartway mounting steeply from Edington between prodigious naked banks. ”

“ As our officers and their detachment were for a time allowed to proceed quietly on their march to McPherson, they rather flattered themselves they would see nothing of the enemy. Still, every eye watched the long ravines that intersect the Plains and form such fastnesses for the wily foe. There is so little to prepare you for these cuts in the smooth surface of the plain, that an unguarded traveler comes almost upon a deep fissure in the earth, before dreaming that the lay of the land was not all the seeming level that stretches on to sunset. ”

“ Delight is common, and music in the Gentle Voiced Plain, in the Silver Cloud Plain to the south. There is nothing hard or rough, but sweet music striking on the ear; keening is not used, or treachery, in the tilled familiar land.
To be without grief, without sorrow, without death, without any sickness, without weakness; that is the sign of Emhain; it is not a common wonder that is.
There is nothing to liken its mists to, the sea washes the wave against the land; brightness falls from its hair.
Golden chariots in the Plain of the Sea, rising up to the sun with the tide ”

“ Like a squirrel in a revolving cage, we go on and on and yet find ourselves always in the same country; north and south the same summits appear, and their profiles change but slowly. Deasy named this great open longitudinal valley “Antelope Plain.” Rawling traversed its south-western portion in two directions, and my route runs between them on the left bank of its very broad, but now waterless, drainage channel. We suppose that the salt lake, which Wellby skirted on the south, must lie to the east-north-east, but it is not yet visible. ”

“ That when a while of time is worn,
I may be filled with war and peace
And bridge the sundering of the seas.
He came out of the wood and hastened over the flowery meads of the Glittering Plain, and came to that same house when it was yet very early. At the door he came across a damsel bearing water from the well, and she spake to him and said: “Welcome, Wood-lover! Seldom art thou seen in our garth; and that is a pity of thee. And now I look on thy face I see that gladness hath come into thine heart, and that thou art most fair and lovely. ”

“ Men, women and children, all went tramping towards it across the Plain: and in a few minutes Bleak Row was as absolutely deserted as though it were a city of the dead.
Rosaline slowly rose from her seat, dragged her chair outside, and sat down in the evening sunshine. Thankful was she to be alone. No eye was on her. The houses were empty; the Bare Plain, stretching out around and beyond, lay silent and still, save for that moving mass of human beings, pressing farther and farther away in the distance. The open air seemed necessary to her if she would continue to breathe. ”

“ It will not be difficult for an old trapper to find his way.”
“For my part, I shall not leave this lovely spot without regret,” said Hector. “It would be a glorious place for a settlement—all that one could desire—hill, and valley, and plain, wood and water. Well, I will try and persuade my father to leave the Cold Springs, and come and settle hereabouts. It would be delightful, would it not, Catharine, especially now we are friends with the Indians.” ”

“ For many hundred miles it courses through a wilderness rarely traversed by man, more rarely by men claiming to be civilised. Its banks are only trodden by the savage, and by him but when going to or returning from a raid. For this turbid stream is a true river of the desert, having on its left side the sterile tract of the Llano Estacado, on its right dry table plains that lead up to the Sierras, forming the “divide” between its waters and those of the Bravo del Norte.
On the side of the Staked Plain the Pecos receives but few affluents, and these of insignificant character. ”

“ Thus I had the north wall of the Plain always visible on my left as I rode through Little Cheverell, Erlestoke, Tinhead, and Edington. The road twisted steeply downhill between high banks of loose earth and elm roots, half draped by arum, dandelion, ground ivy, and parsley, and the flowers of speedwell and deadnettle ”

“ But none of us all may come to the Glittering Plain and the King Undying without turning the back for the last time on the Isle of Ransom: nor may any men of the Isle come hither save those who are of the House of the Sea-eagle, and few of those, save the chieftains of the House, such as are they who sat by thee on the high-seat that even. Of these once in a while is chosen one of us, who is old and spent and past battle, and is borne to this land and the gift of the Undying. ”

“ It is a vast great Plain, the like I never saw in all that Island: in the midst whereof is a Lake, which may be a mile over, not natural, but made by art, as other Ponds in the Country, to serve them to water their Corn Grounds. This Plain is encompassed round with Woods, and small Towns among them on every side, inhabited by Malabars, a distinct People from the Chingulayes. But these Towns we could not see till we came in among them. Being come out thro the Woods into this Plain, we stood looking and staring round about us, but knew not where nor which way to go. ”

“ Three of these valleys, however, those of the Bourn on the east, and of the Wylye and the Nadder on the south, have railways in them as well as rivers. The railways are more serious interruptions to the character of the Plain, and whether or not they must be regarded as the boundaries of a reduced Plain, certainly the core of the Plain excludes them. Even so it has to admit the Amesbury and Mili [148] tary Camp Light Railway, cutting across from the Bourn to the Avon, and there ceasing. Within this reduced space of fifteen by twenty miles the Plain is nothing but the Plain. ”

“ At 8 a.m. started on a course of 300 degrees to cross the north-west part of the range. Camped upon a plain of the same description as John Plain, that I met with on my former journey to the north-east of Bishop Creek, a large open plain covered with grass, and with only a few bushes on it. The journey to-day has been very rough and stony. Not a drop of water have we passed to-day, nor is there the appearance of any on before us. I shall be compelled to fall back to-morrow to the water of last night. ”