Valley of the Kings

“ A sudden turn of the road reveals the picturesque village, scattered over several roundly swelling hills, but clustered thickliest round an abrupt and wooded cliff, steeper than the others, and surmounted by a huge mediæval fortress, one frown of battlements, turrets, and watch-towers behind its tremendous walls. Below the castle and the rock, and in the depth of the valley, lies a tiny lake, quite round, girdled with quinconces and alleys of clipped lime. Far away, beyond the hills, on every side, the deep-blue forest hems us in. ”

“ Then we found ourselves in front of a hill, the summit of which resembled a fortress, with flying-prayers flapping in the wind. At the foot of the hill were some twenty ponies grazing.
With the aid of my telescope I made sure that what at first appeared to be a castle was nothing but a work of nature. Apparently no one was concealed up there. The ponies, however, indicated the presence of men, and we had to proceed with caution. In fact, rounding the next hill, we discerned in the grassy valley below a number of black tents, two hundred yaks, and about a thousand sheep. ”

“ The nobles, the representatives of the Past, with their few surviving adherents, have taken refuge in their last stronghold, the fortress of the Holy Trinity, securely situated upon a high and rocky peak overhanging a deep valley, surrounded and hedged in by steep cliffs and rocky precipices. Through these straits and passes once howled and swept the waters of the deluge. As wild an inundation is now upon them, for the valley is almost filled with the living surges of the myriads of the 'New Men,' who are rolling their millions into its depths. ”

“ The whole valley has been studded with castles, of which now only the ruins remain. In troubled times, when warfare was incessant between the counts of Foix and the counts of Urgel, or between them and the Crusaders, every country gentleman was obliged to pitch his house on the top of a rock, and give it the character of a stronghold. ”

“ Sometimes we cross the valley, and ascend the hills to the ruined castle of Bodenlauben, which commands a view of this rural vale; but our favourite walk is in the wood that clothes the hill on our side of the valley. ”

“ So came they to the brow and looked over it into a valley, about which on all sides went the ridge, save where it was broken down into a narrow pass on the further side, so that the said valley was like to one of those theatres of the ancient Roman Folk, whereof are some to be seen in certain lands. Neither did those desert benches lack their sitters; for all down the sides of the valley sat or lay children of men; some women, but most men-folk, of whom the more part were weaponed, and some with their drawn swords in their hands. ”

“ Pilgrim. But what have you seen?
Men. Seen? Why the Valley itself, which is as dark as pitch; we also saw there the hobgoblins, bogies, and dragons of the pit; we also heard in that Valley a continual howling and yelling, as of a people under unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction and chains; and over that Valley hang the discouraging clouds of Confusion; Discord, also, doth always spread its wings over it. In a word, it is every whit dreadful, being utterly without Law and Order. ”

“ Fancy the long fertile vale surrounded by mountains, which enclose it except at the spot where you enter—behind you and the town they are towering and snowy, while those which skirt the road you pursue the whole length of the valley are milder and green and cultivated, a contrast to the range of bare and broken cliffs on your right and parallel to them. ”

“ I've sat here as the hills were glowing in the changing evening lights and our valley grew dark and cold. What a fair country that must be where the sun sets! And we stay here in our dim light, in our dull monotones, when, to the westward, there's a land all capped with clouds of red and gold. There is Tip's Valley of Peace. John Shadrack's widow may not be a celestial being, but that is my sunset country. ”

“ An exceedingly sharp frost. I took a stroll, morning and evening; the weather all that could be desired, and scenery magnificent, though monotonous in colour. The remains of an extensive fort crown the lofty height immediately over the village. One is led to wonder under what condition of circumstances this small valley could have been of sufficient importance to be worth such a considerable defensive work. Many like ruins are met with in these valleys, mostly perched on inaccessible rocks. ”

“ But the infinite variety of the naked craggy mountains, and the sand and rubbish-filled valley, treeless and bushless, make so wholly uniform impressions, that no one of us would have recognised the principal valley as the right, if the direction and general distance of it had not told us that it was the right one. ”

“ A valley is a natural fortified city, defended against the outside world and stimulating association. The enemy could be arrested on his way, and crushed beneath the rocks; in winter, the torrents and the snow shut him off from all entrance. Could knights in armor pursue the herdsman into his bogs? What could they have taken as prisoners, except a few half-starved goats? The daring climbers, hunters of the bear and wolf, would willingly have played at this game, sure of winning at it warm clothes, arms and horses. ”

“ Our men were not little-hearted, nor did our women lament the death of warriors over-much, for they were there to bear more warriors to the Folk.
‘But the seasons passed, and the Folk multiplied in Shadowy Vale, and livelihood seemed like to fail them, and needs must they seek wider lands. So by ways which thou wilt one day wot of, we came into a valley that lieth north-west of Shadowy Vale: a land like thine of Burgdale, or better; wide it was, plenteous of grass and trees, well watered, full of all things that man can desire.
‘Were there men before us in this Dale? sayest thou. ”

“ But it was the glitter of the bayonets in the valley that caused the hearts of the Virginians to beat most fiercely. Banners and guidons, clusters of white tents, and dark swarms of men marked where the foot of the invading stranger trod their soil. The Virginians loved the great valley. Enclosed between the blue mountains it was the richest and most beautiful part of all their state. It hurt them terribly to see the overwhelming forces of the North occupying its towns and villages and encamped in its fields. ”

“ Before long they reached Rolling Lands, which were a succession of hills and valleys where constant climbs and descents were required, and their journey now became tedious, because on climbing each hill, they found before them nothing in the valley below it except grass, or weeds or stones.
Up and down they went for hours, with nothing to relieve the monotony of the landscape, until finally, when they had topped a higher hill than usual, they discovered a cup-shaped valley before them in the center of which stood an enormous castle, built of purple stone. ”

“ It is a little nest of wild scenery, a mimic valley shut in by high overhanging crags, with the ruins 172 of a battlemented and noble old castle, standing upon a rock in the centre, with the village of some hundred stone cottages at its very foot. You might stand on the towers of the ruins, and toss a biscuit into almost every chimney in the village. The strong round towers are still perfect, and the turrets and loop-holes and windows are still there; and rank green vines have overrun the whole mass everywhere ”

“ In the old days of warfare many of these mountain dwellers never knew the sea; they were prevented from reaching it by the beach clansmen who claimed the fishing for their own and made it death for the hill people to venture down to the shore. All the people of a single valley, six or perhaps a dozen clans, united to war against other valleys, its people risking their lives if they trespassed beyond the hills. Yet under a wise and powerful chief a whole valley lived in amity and knew no class or clan divisions. ”

“ Here the Visigoths were fought and were absorbed. When the Arabs faced north of Andalusia, they veered to the east: and the Ebro was their path back to Spain’s center. Commerce and nurture went this way: but were the servants of War. Signs of War still mark the valley for its own. Encased in desert and rock, the towns rise above the plethoric vineyards like parts of the stone world. War has brought the desert ranges down and has made cities of them. The Valley, pressing up through Aragon, through Navarre to Castile, is clad in armor of rock towns. ”

“ You have repulsed them from your camp, you have driven them headlong down into the valley, you are standing over the prostrate bodies of your foes. Fill the valley with the same carnage with which you filled the mountain side. ”

“ THE third Valley, which lies between the third and the fourth Hill, seems to be a double Valley; for in the Middle of it, it rises high, which makes it doubtful whether it be a part of the Valley, or the Promontory. That the Height of it is a part of the Valley, seems plain from the Height of the Arches, which reach from one Side of the Valley to the other; and it may be look’d upon to be the Ridge of the Promontory, from the Descent of the extreme Parts of it falling to the right and left, on each Side of the Promontory. ”

“ We turn for a view to the east. Here barren pastures sprawl over the hills, dotted in places with herds of cattle or flocks of mountain sheep. But the Valley of Lavedan, which we expected now to overlook, is not yet in sight. After a long descent before us, there is another though lower col to surmount before we can point out the villages of the new valley.
We seat ourselves by a snowbank, and enjoy the pleasures of rest for a season. Enter to us, a peasant upon the scene,—a woman, crossing the col from the Lavedan side. ”

“ Wall and battlement, churches, castle, brilliant and spear-like, stood out from the blue dome: beneath spread a clear valley and clear streams. Other heights had lesser castles, and the valley had houses of the poor. Travel upon the road thickened, grew more various, spiced with every class and occupation. The day carried sound easily, and there was more sound to carry. Contacts became frequent, and these were now with people affected, in greater or less degree, by the sojourn in Angoulême of Duke Richard. ”

“ It does not appear, from any thing history or tradition tells us, or from any monumental remains in the valley or its immediate vicinity, that it had before been occupied by other nations. They do not speak of having driven out or conquered any other tribe. There are no old forts or earthen walls, or other traces of military or defensive occupancy, of which we have heard. Their ramparts were rather their own brawny arms, stout bodies and brave hearts. From the earliest notices of them, they were renowned for wielding the war club and arrow with great dexterity. ”

“ Rocky heights guard it to the south. The valley between is green, without wood, and, with much that is grand, has little beautiful, till near its conclusion; where, more fertile and still more wild, it divides into three narrower vallies, two of which disclose scenes of such sublime severity as even our long view of Saddleback had not prepared us to expect.
The first of these is the vale of St. John, a narrow, cultivated spot, lying in the bosom of tremendous rocks, that impend over it in masses of gray crag, and often resemble the ruins of castles. ”

“ The back of the valley was formed by a single high ridge of smooth granite, and from it five offshoots ran down into the valley like fingers from the ridge of knuckles. At the tip of each of these fingers rose rocky peaks among the bush and jungle of the lower valley; these peaks and the fingers themselves form the strongholds of the individual impis. ”

“ From the extraordinary number of these hill-forts one has the impression that the upper valleys of the Cheviots must at one time have been thickly peopled, probably in pre-Roman times. It is easy to see that the camps or forts overlooking a valley often bear a certain relation to each other, as if the one had been raised to support the other, and not infrequently we can trace well-marked intrenchments extending across a hill-ridge, or along a hill-slope for a distance of not much short of a mile, and evidently having some strategic connection with the forts or camps in their vicinity. ”

“ Sometimes a bold cliff stands majestically on the river-side, and an old feudal castle hangs on the summit, where once the lord of the domain held high revel and strong rule, a robber on land and a pirate on the river he would be called now, since his race has run out, and kings who do the same things that he did are reckoned as the lawful 233plunderers as well as rulers of the people. ”

“ There are also numerous barren cliffs on the higher portions of the mountains, and where they towered in the most rugged, inaccessible ridges, our ancestors built their fastnesses, to secure themselves from the attacks of their enemies. Our castle stands on a mountain-ridge in the midst of the valley of the Saale. ”

“ One was there who left all his friends behind;
Who going inland ever more and more,
And being left quite alone, at last did find
A lonely valley sheltered from the wind,
Wherein, amidst an ancient cypress wood,
A long-deserted ruined castle stood. ”

“ In this spirit, the Highland peasant has a hereditary right to his hut—a right derived from God—but kings have given our feudal lords, even in the nineteenth century, a power over the land on which the hut is built; and at their behest whole villages are demolished, and the people swept away with a heartless barbarity sufficient to call down the lasting vengeance of heaven on the ignoble dukes and canting marquises of the northern and western Highlands! ”