Down (land)

“ From the verge of the water the land rises uniformly on all sides, with green and sloping acclivities, until from gently rolling hillsides and moderate elevations it insensibly swells into lofty and majestic heights, whose blue outlines ranged all around, close in the view. ”

“ Here we managed with extreme difficulty and great peril to get again out of the shallows aforesaid, into which we had sailed as into a trap, between them and the land, for which happy deliverance God be praised; the shallows extend South and North, from 4 to 9 miles from the mainland, and are 10 miles in length from East to West. ”

“ Ridge succeeds ridge. Valley opens into valley. As far as the eye can reach in every direction are ragged peaks and spurs. The country of the plains is left, and we have entered a strange land, as tangled as the maze at Hampton Court, with mountains instead of hedges. ”

“ From the summits of the hills mentioned one overlooks southward a vast plain which extends to the ocean, ten miles distant; and the conclusion seems irresistible that every rood of that distance has been the shore-line of first an invading, afterward of a receding ocean, and the scene of those great coast-changes which waves produce. We may restore, in imagination, the hills of glacial rubbish crumbling before the stroke of waves, as during an immense period of time the subsidence of the land went on. ”

“ A few minutes rapid riding brought him to the edge of the bare down, which was in fact a mere ridge, with but a few level yards at the summit, beyond these, sinking down almost precipitately into a singular lap or basin of land, nearly circular in form, and about two miles in diameter, walled in as it were from the external world, on every side, by tall, bare, grassy downs, treeless and bleak, without a sign of human habitation or of human culture, and limiting the range of the eye to that narrow and cheerless horizon. ”

“ However, I will admit that the land that surrounds it has a trick of turning this way or that, and so if one is standing upon the plain and facing north, he is likely to find himself suddenly facing west or east or south. ”

“ Following these heights westward, a deep rift indicates the course of the stream dividing the valley, and of the highway to Littleton. Between these walls the long ellipse of fertile land beckons us to descend. ”

“ But when we ascend from the sweltering western margin of the lake to the cool and breezy heights that look down on it, we find that instead of being on the summit of a range of mountains we are only on the edge of a wide table-land. ”

“ The particular point where our friends were suffered to land was rough, barren and rocky, and behind them, with many peaks reaching the line of perpetual snow, rose the noble Coast Range, between which and them stretched a smaller range of mountains. ”

“ The valleys which lie between them necessarily confine the wandering savage to an eastward or westward course, and the slope of the land westward invites him to that direction rather than to the east. ”

“ Leaving the main road, you turn northward, into one constructed by the proprietor of this extensive domain, and which conducts you, by an easy ascent, bordered on the right by towering precipitous cliffs, and on the left so overshadowed by trees, that were it not for openings, occasionally cut through their branches, revealing glances of imposing scenery, you would scarcely be conscious of the eminence you were attaining. ”

“ One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
[19] Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm." ”

“ Mountains. And the note of unsatisfied wonder struck that day has lingered through nearly fifty years’ unusually intimate knowledge of our beautiful West Country border land, and I know now that my sub-conscious self had prepared the ground and worked at the problem I now see solved. ”

“ Few tracts of table-land, of more than a league in breadth, are to be seen, and in many places the blunt termination of mountain ridges project beyond the regular line of the coast, and overhang the waters of the ocean. ”

“ Boundaries in the Hills are determined, not by landmarks, but by the fall of the rain; in the division of a mountain, all that land is yours down which the rain water runs on your side, and on the opposite side, all the land is your neighbour’s over which the water makes its way downwards. ”

“ There's a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And deaths that just hang by a hair; There are hardships that nobody reckons; There are valleys unpeopled and still; There's a land — oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back — and I will. ”

“ At a short distance from the coast the land was occupied by a very high chain of mountains, which was split up into a number of summits and whose sides were formed of immense stone mounds distributed in terraces. ”

“ To understand clearly the nature of the country, let us suppose ourselves standing on the banks of the Red River, looking west. In front we have the fertile belt stretching out before, us, consisting chiefly of rich level prairie land, ascending gradually towards the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ On both sides the land is comparatively low and flat, although here and there, especially on the right bank, there are highlands, and occasionally, when the forest fringing the river permits it, one can see hills and mountains towards the south. ”

“ The surface of the country east of the coast range of mountains consists, principally, of a high table-land, from which rise up mountains and hills, and indented by the valleys of the Thompson and Fraser, and their countless tributaries. ”

“ Our northern music is choked in the sand of over-business, prisoned by northern stiffness, but shy, stiff, awkward though it may be, the divine thing is there, as groundwater 196 is present where there is land ”

“ The general observer, if he takes his stand on the edge of hills by which this basin is bounded, will see the enclosing character of the ridge, as well as the less conspicuous circle of somewhat elevated land occupying the central portion of the field, and which is separated by a valley or plain from the surrounding ridge. ”

“ As we recede to the west the land rises by gentle and successive undulations for a mile or two, furnishing on the summit of these successive ridges the most delightful locations for residences, from some of which you have brought within the ken of your eye the whole village and lake, and country beyond. ”

“ The block of land on which we are lies between three large rivers, and, owing to the conformation of the country and the winding of the rivers, its fourth side is a narrow neck of land not more than a mile and a half wide. ”

“ Ranges of pine-clad hills, running nearly north and south, rise in higher and higher succession towards the west, and in the further distance we could see parallel to them a range of rugged, rocky peaks, backed by the snow-clad summits of some giants which towered229 up beyond. ”

“ All this working land was turned into exuberance by the light. The sunshine was dizzy on open stubble; shadows from immense cumulus clouds were forever sliding across low mounds; and the sky was wider and loftier and more resolutely blue than the sky of cities . . . she declared.
“It's a glorious country; a land to be big in,” she crooned. ”

“ I can't but say it is an awkward sight To see one's native land receding through The growing waters; it unmans one quite, Especially when life is rather new: I recollect Great Britain's coast looks white, But almost every other country 's blue, When gazing on them, mystified by distance, We enter on our nautical existence. ”

“ The number of surrounds made by the instrument, in each parish respectively, is sett downe, together with the quantity of land contained in each surround, according to the denominations, as one plowland, 1⁄2, 1⁄3, or 1⁄4 of a plowland, &c. ”

“ There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made. ”

“ The eternal silence of the great white desert. Cloudy columns of snow drift advancing from the south, pale yellow wraiths, heralding the coming storm, blotting out one by one the sharp-cut lines of the land. ”

“ Wild was the day; the wintry sea
Moaned sadly on New-England's strand,
When first the thoughtful and the free,
Our fathers, trod the desert land. ”

“ "There was a time when our people covered the whole land, as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor. ”

“ Due west I see across the deep valley into my friend’s house, where it crowns the ridge, and then beyond to that vast plain which, in its miles and miles of forest-covered flatness, broken by great river-mouths, long vistas of deep lagoons, and a group of shining pools scattered over its surface, forms one of the strangest features in this matchless panorama of mountain, river and plain, sea, sky, and ever-changing cloud-effects. ”

“ But I shall follow the endless, winding way,—the flowing river in the cave of man; careless whither I be led, reckless where I land. ”

“ In a flat country stretches of water are doubly welcome. They take the place of hills, and give the eye what it craves,—distance; which softens angles, conceals details, and heightens colors,—in short, transfigures the world with its romancer's touch, and blesses us with illusion. So, as I loitered along the south road, I never tired of looking across the river to the long, wooded island, and over that to the line of sand-hills that marked the eastern rim of the East Peninsula, beyond which was the Atlantic. ”

“ It stretches away like the land of promise, a pleasant land flowing with milk and honey, a land of broad views and of fruitful fields, of vineyards and oliveyards, and of far distances, luminous in the fresh glory of sunrise, hazy with softened charm in the hot noon, transformed under the evening sky of crimson and gold at sunset, a land which one would have thought all might desire to possess ”

“ The true life, the true bright sunshine, lay far out upon the plain. And oh! to see this sunlight once before he died! to move with a jocund spirit in a golden land! to hear the trained singers and sweet church bells, and see the holiday gardens! And O fish! he would cry, if you would only turn your noses down stream, you could swim so easily into the fabled waters and see the vast ships passing over your head like clouds, and hear the great water-hills making music over you all day long! ”

“ Toward the north, the mountains crept out from under the forest and moved down to the sea, rising until they became a vast wilderness of cliffs and rocks, and hid the sea, with peak after peak rising as far as the eye could reach into the snow and the mist. ”

“ Crossing from ridge to ridge, high in the air, on long straddling trestles as if flowing on stilts, or down and up across valleys and hills, imprisoned in iron pipes to strike and wash away hills and miles of the skin of the mountain’s face, riddling, stripping every gold gully and flat. These are the white man’s marks made in a few feverish years, to say nothing of mills, fields, villages, scattered hundreds of miles along the flank of the Range. ”

“ The sight of the North through the open door had sobered and awed him, as it awes all men who know its power. Beyond lay only the edge of the forest and the snow-swept barrens, stretching down to a gray and desolate sea. ”

“ All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.
We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So’s we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye. ”

“ The Downs have a singular charm in the exquisite play of long, gracefully undulating lines which bound their gentle edges. If not a 'majestic range of mountains,' as judged by an Alpine standard, there is no want of true sublimity in their springing curves, especially when harmonised by the lights and shadows under cloud-masses driving before a broad south-westerly gale ”

“ On the north side, coming down through a gorge, or 'the gulf,' as we used to call it, was a stream which, in the dry season of the year, was a little brook, trickling over the rocks, but which, in the spring freshets, or when the clouds emptied themselves on the mountain, was a wild, foaming, roaring, and resistless torrent. ”

“ The storm-tossed seaman from the ’whelming wave;
The ocean-beacon and the river-ranger,
That lures from evil, and that warns from danger.
A STROLL TO THE MOUNTAIN TELEGRAPH.
Placed on this mount, what various views delight
The ravished soul, and captivate the sight!
Lo! yonder mountains high o’er mountains rise,
Each higher than the last, the highest strike the skies.
The beauty of rural scenery has engaged the attention and been the theme of the poet and novelist under every clime and in every nation, from the arctic regions of the North to the burning tropics of the South. ”

“ However, by and by they found solace in the appearance of distant forest, and in the afternoon they entered a land--but such a land! A land hung in mourning, darkened by gigantic cypresses, submerged; ”