Red Hill

“ Six miles northwest of the lake is an eminence over two thousand feet high, known as Red Hill, which is annually visited by many hundreds of tourists. There is a good carriage-road to the base, but the ascent is so steep and rugged that by foot or horse-back is the only means for gaining the summit. Though not nearly so lofty as a score or more of the mountains we have mentioned, yet visitors maintain that the view afforded from its peak exceeds in extent and magnificence that obtained from the observatory of Mount Washington or the summits of any of its brothers. ”

“ As we go on, the sharp ridge of Red Mountain comes into view, guarded on the east by a monster hill, which none of our ingenious explorers, so generous in giving names, have condescended to dignify with a title. Its broad base washed by the rushing torrent, its sides clothed in a mantle of living green away up to the sharp line which marks the limit of the timber growth, and yet on and up the eye glances over the granite, with its azure background, until the vast pile is diademed with a fleecy cloud. ”

“ Behind that hill, on the eastward ridge, a great ball is glowing, fiery red. Higher and higher it rises, into the tree-tops, then over them; higher and higher, bathing the valley in soft, white light, uncovering the gray road that climbs the ridge-side; higher and higher, until the pines on the ridge-top stand out boldly, fringing into the sky; higher and higher, casting mysterious shadows over the meadows, touching with light the hillside, new-ploughed and naked; clear and white lies the road over the flats to the hill there—clear and white and smooth. On the hillside the light is burning. ”

“ The Red Lodge, the home of Professor Carter, dated back to the leisured days of George the Third. It was a square, creeper-clad house, surrounded by a high wall, with a covered passageway leading up from the street to the front door. Through the outside gate, the upper half of which consisted of an iron grille, the curiously minded passer-by could, by straining his neck, just obtain a glimpse into the neglected garden. ”

“ A man of this description is not to be held by lightly. I grappled him to my heart.
One day when we were taking a constitutional walk together, I casually mentioned the “Red Hills.” He had never heard of them, inquired, and I told him what little I knew on the matter. The Red Hills are mounds of burnt clay of a brick-red colour, found at intervals along the fringe of the marshes on the east coast. ”

“ Red Hook is a maze of hybrid squalor near the ancient waterfront opposite Governor's Island, with dirty highways climbing the hill from the wharves to that higher ground where the decayed lengths of Clinton and Court Streets lead off toward the Borough Hall. Its houses are mostly of brick, dating from the first quarter of the middle of the nineteenth century, and some of the obscurer alleys and byways have that alluring antique flavor which conventional reading leads us to call "Dickensian." The population is a hopeless tangle and enigma ”

“ A few of the railroad men transplanted their families; but apart from these, Angels was a man's town with elemental appetites, and with only the coarse fare of the frontier fighting line to satisfy them.
Farther along, the desert came more definitely to its own. The rich Red Butte "pockets" began to show signs of exhaustion, and the gulch and ore mining afforded but a precarious alternative to the thousands who had gone in on the crest of the bonanza wave. Almost as tumultuously as it had swept into the hill country, the tide of population swept out. ”

“ THE RED ROAD COUNTRY In cool weather the Red Road was very pleasant walking. It wound up hill and down dale for many a mile till it reached Hornsby, and branched away into different country.
All the way there were gum trees—gum trees and fences; here and there were closer palings and garden shrubs indicating human residence, but they were far apart and the road was very lonely. ”

“ Medwin. "It's only just round the corner out of Kensington Square."
They made their way through the traffic, and a few minutes' walk brought them to a row of small white, semi-detached houses, each one standing back behind a narrow strip of garden.
Mr. Medwin pulled up in front of the third, and opened the gate for Colin.
"This is my chateau," he announced. "Not quite so magnificent as the Red Lodge, but it does well enough for a middle-aged bachelor." ”

“ He accompanied this expedition, which left the Fort on the 7th of July, as far as Pembina, where he quitted it, on the 9th of August, and with a bois brule and the two Chippewas only, for companions, plunged into the wilderness lying to the south east, and struck “Robber’s” (Thief) river near its confluence with Red Lake River (which he calls “Bloody River,” and insists that it is the true Red River.) ”

“ The New York Central Railroad takes its way through the beautiful Mohawk valley. That valley is famed in history, and we read of a great many bloody scenes enacted there by the savage Mohawk tribe; but I think that now, with its green meadows, its fields of grain, its grazing sheep and cattle, its farm-houses and dairies, with PEACE smiling over all, it is far more beautiful and interesting than it was in its wildness, when the red-skinned son of nature made it his home, and followed killing bears, deer, and the pale-faces for a living. ”

“ The lake was nearly smooth, and the red light, making its lengthy paths over the wide waters, from west to east, looked like myriads of playful little flames chasing each other over the crests of the waves.
The sun rose next morning and smiled on us over the north-western shore of the State of Michigan, and we found ourselves approaching Mackinaw Straits. That afternoon the vessel laid for a couple of hours at an island in the Straits, and the passengers all went ashore. We discovered the earth to be about as nearly barren as any soil could be. ”

“ I consider my self lucky any way because I have managed to get some of the facts out, but not all of them by any means. Well I had the pleasure to fight under The Red Flag once, any way, so I guess I've had my share of the fun. I would like to kiss you good-bye Gurley, not because you are a girl but because you are the original Rebel Girl. Good Bye. Yours for the OBU ⁠ Joe Hill.
This work is from the United States and in the public domain because it was not legally published with the permission of the copyright holder before January 1, 2003 and the author died 108 years ago. ”

“ This is the only region of Texas which is not the direct continuation of the physical features of some adjoining political division. A great variety of conditions is embraced within its bounds. In its north-eastern part are two long belts of stunted forest (the Cross Timbers) , extending from the Red river to the Brazos, and separated by a prairie 50 miles in width. This is the most fertile portion of the entire region. West of this sub-region and north of the Colorado is a broken, arid country (the Coal-measures) , having a sandy, pebbly soil, covered with a scattered growth of vegetation. ”

“ West of this, between the 100th meridian and the escarpment of the plains, is the gypsum country, consisting of the so-called “red beds” of the western United States, accompanied by massive deposits of gypsum and other salts. This country is much sculptured by erosion, and in places resembles the “bad lands” of the upper Missouri country. There are also extensive intervals of prairie here. Near the centre, in the counties of San Saba, Mason, and Llano, is a rough, semi-mountainous area of older formations. ”

“ A man had been sick a considerable time, and many of the wakan-men had attempted, to the extent of their ability, to exorcise him, but without any favorable results. Red-Bird had in his service many of the gods called Taku-skan-skan. It was decided in council [57] that the case should be referred to them. Accordingly, in the evening, a feast was prepared for the gods, to which they were called by chants, on the part of the medicine-men. A tent of parchment was prepared for them. The doctor was bound, by carefully weaving strings and tying them firmly in all his fingers and toes. ”

“ The boundaries, as recognized by the United States Government, [1] are—the Gulf of Mexico from the Rio Grande to the Sabine river, the Sabine river to 32° N. lat., thence the meridian of 94° 10' to the Red river of Louisiana, thence following that river west to its intersection with the 100th meridian, thence north to lat. 36° 30', thence west to 103° W. long., thence south to lat. 32°, thence west to its intersection with the Rio Grande, which river constitutes the south-western border of the State to the Gulf of Mexico. ”

“ Twenty years before, this had been a highway going through The Village, on its long way to Richmond. Then the railroad was built. It wanted to come through The Village, between court-house and church, but the people rose up in arms. They did not want shrieking, grinding trains, to scare horses and bring in outsiders, nor an iron track parting their homes from their graves in the churchyard. So the railroad went by Redville that was six miles from The Village in summer and three or four times as far in the winter season of ruts and red mud. ”

“ She is Molly May, who keeps the largest dance-house in Cascade City. She makes lots of money, but spends it all in charity; there has never been a human being [Pg 44] buried by the town since she has been there. Molly May is a ministering angel to the poor and sick, but a bird of prey to those who wish to dissipate."
The hospital was opened on Easter, and the first patient was a poor consumptive girl, but lately an inmate of the Red-Light dance-house. 'Lige Clark did not run again ”

“ The Red River settlement extends beyond Fort Garry for about twenty miles to the northward along the banks of Red River, and about fifty to the westward along its tributary, the Assiniboine. The wealthier inhabitants live in large, well-built wooden houses, and the poorer half-breeds in rough log huts, or even Indian “lodges.” There are several Protestant churches, a Romish cathedral and nunnery, and schools of various denominations. The neighbouring country is principally open, level prairie, the timber being confined, with a few exceptions, to the banks of the streams. ”

“ He succeeded in inducing a considerable number of Swiss families to seek the Red River settlement. Crossing the ocean by Hudson's Bay Company ships, they arrived at York Factory in August, 1821, and were borne in York boats to their destination.
Gathered, as they had been, from the towns and villages of Switzerland, and being chiefly "watch and clock makers, pastry cooks, and musicians," they were ill-suited for such a new settlement as that of Red River, where they must become agriculturists. They seem to have been honest and orderly people, though very poor. ”

“ In the Bald Hills N of Redwood Cr. Northernmost and lowest village.
xōwûnnakût (G) . Village probably situated about a mile E of Redwood Cr. on a small flat S of a ridge along which the Trinidad trail used to run. A small creek a short distance S, entering Redwood Cr. from the E, would have furnished excellent salmon fishing. A depression resembling those characteristic of sweathouses was seen. Tom Hill's oldest brother used to live at this village, which was deserted many years ago, probably because of its nearness to the trail. ”

“ This is their nearest market. Their average rate of travelling is about fifteen miles a day, and they generally secure game enough on the way for their living. I have had highly interesting accounts of the Red River settlement since I have been here, both from Mr. Ross and Mr. Marion, gentlemen recently from there. The settlement is seventy miles north of Pembina, and lies on both sides of the river. Its population is estimated at 10,000. It owes its origin and growth to the enterprise and success of the Hudson's Bay Company. ”

“ A many-tracked railroad yard, flanked on one side by the repair shops, roundhouse, and coal-chutes; and on the other by a straggling town of bare and commonplace exteriors, unpainted, unfenced, treeless, and wind-swept: Angels stood baldly for what it was—a mere stopping-place in transit for the Red Butte Western.
The new superintendent turned his back upon the depressing outlook and laid his hand upon the latch of the door opening into the adjoining room. ”

“ Standing still on the plateau, our backs to the sea, the eye falls on a landscape of cultivated plains, extending out for miles and miles. The only house near to the plateau is exactly opposite to it--a large redbrick house built in a dell. It may be a quarter of a mile distant from the edge of the plateau where we stand, but the gradual descent of the grassy land causes it to look very much nearer. This is the Red Court Farm. ”

“ Leaving the woods behind us we wound slowly up the steep slope, between rough stone walls or banks of grass and furze, the great bare rolling hills stretched out before us, where the sheep were cropping the short sweet grass that grew between the clumps of sedge and rushes, and the larks were singing loudly and joyfully as they rose from their [168] nests among the heather. Redburn proved to be a quaint little old-world gray-stone village, set in a dip amongst the moors, where it might receive some slight shelter from the bitter north wind which blew from the hills in winter-time. ”

“ Still nearer to the present day one can imagine that the dolorous lover has carved his lady’s name upon the wall of the cave by means of a flint implement which his uneasy foot had unearthed from among the ancient dust of the deserted dwelling-place. Could the life and times of the occupants of the Red Cliff be written, from the days of the first inhabitant to the period of to-day, a history of Europe would be provided which could never be excelled for picturesqueness nor for vivid detail. ”