Slop

“ During the wet season a single rain may fill the gorges, sheet the mountain slopes with water, tear great trees from their hold, break off mighty rock fragments and carry them onward, like wooden blocks, with hundreds of tons of finer gravel. ”

“ Hitherto we had been ascending a series of gentle slopes, with scattered clumps of trees here and there, that grew into a dense wood on the summit of a hill immediately in front of us.
When we had descended into the valley beyond, we found ourselves completely shut in by the torrs, with nothing on either side of us but the desolate, treeless slopes with their monotonous covering of withered grass. And to add to our discomfort, the sun was gaining in power. ”

“ Up by the torrent, through deep forest, past waterfalls, across bright green upper pastures where a million flowers shone, scanning every couloir, examining every ledge where a man might venture, and especially the slope of shale at its foot. ”

“ The lower slopes are farm land, dotted with the large gaards, or mansions of the farmers, many of which have a truly stately air; beyond them are forests of fir, spruce, and larch, while in the glens between, winding groves of birch, alder, and ash come down to fringe the banks of the lake. Wandering gleams of sunshine, falling through the broken clouds, touched here and there the shadowed slopes and threw belts of light upon the water—and these illuminated spots finely relieved the otherwise sombre depth of colour. ”

“ The mystery of the downs hangs about house and wood, as they stand there alone, so unlike all around, with the green slopes, studded with great stones just about this part, stretching away on all sides. ”

“ Two main roads lead up the valley, one at the base of the hills on either side; and riding along either of them in a pleasant day, an admirer of nature's wild grandeur has ample occasion of admiration. The gentle slope, rising way back and up as if touching the clouds, and the more abrupt and ragged, shrub-covered, not less high hills, miniature mountains, with every now and then a ravine down which the water leaps playfully along till it reaches the plateau below and into the little creek on its way to the ocean—is a landscape of beauty not easily described. ”

“ The slopes are covered with violets. Those who have gardens are beginning to be proud of them and to point them out to their neighbours. Almond and peach in blossom peep over old brick walls. The land dreams of summer all in the youth of the year. ”

“ The slopes and the bastions of the summits of those rugged, gravely picturesque mountains present a sentiment of the sadness that goes with great age; and their dark countenances are the very quintessence of patience. ”

“ It was curious to see men at work on those steep slopes that had been scooped out into a succession of narrow shelves, and more strange yet to catch glimpses of peasants ploughing the very mountain top, picturesque figures against the sky. ”

“ The lower slopes in spring and autumn are covered with the black tent roofs and yellow reed walls of nomads driving their flocks from lowland pastures up to mountain-tops when the snow melts, and back to the valleys when the winter returns. ”

“ Although the slope is not very steep, the sensation of slipping down gently into some distant, unknown abyss is unpleasantly suggestive of danger. As the ground sinks under you, the world might easily be imagined to have broken loose from its moorings, and to be floating away to some inconceivable destination. ”

“ The steep verdant slope, whose base is at the water's edge is topped by a lofty rampart of broken, turreted rocks, which are exquisitely rich and mellow in color--mainly dark browns and dull greens, but splashed with other tints. ”

“ He increased his speed as he reached the edge of the slope where it flattened to a rock-studded plateau, with here and there little gentians peeping from granite splits and opening their stiff, azure stars. ”

“ Upon the slope at the foot of this mountain is a country which is resorted to by the curious, and presents many elaborate works of art, mingled with the beauties of nature, to grace the last resting-place of man’s frail body. ”

“ On all its rugged sides there were treacherous slopes which looked hard enough to support a man, but which, once stepped on, gave sickeningly away to slide and slither for a hundred feet straight down to some abrupt edge, where they fell in dusty cataracts to blind basins and walled cups below. ”

“ Two long, smooth slopes of rock one below another form the chief part of the water-slide, and the thin stream slipping over them makes one wish to see how the fall would look when the water comes down, a roaring torrent, swollen by heavy rains and melting snow. ”

“ They spread in long smooth green billows, miles and miles of them, the slopes so gentle that it is delightful to drive or ride on them; only you must be careful not to go near the edge, where the green breaks off suddenly, and a white chalk cliff goes down, down, hundreds of feet, to the blue sea tossing and tumbling below. ”

“ For all the way up the long red slate slopes, that in the distance seemed barren, you find little garden beds and tufts of dwarf phlox, ivesia, and blue arctic daisies that go straight to your heart, blessed fellow mountaineers kept safe and warm by a thousand miracles. ”

“ But here it challenged man to essay a fall; for where it burst its way over rocky slopes were channels jeopardous and hardly navigable, sequences of foaming rapids, races of wild water swirling round opposing boulders, and careering indignant of restraint between long walls of beetling rock. ”

“ IN certain endless uplands, uplands like great flats gone dizzy, slopes that seem to contradict the idea that there is even such a thing as a level, and make us all realize that we live on a planet with a sloping roof, you will come from time to time upon whole valleys filled with loose rocks and boulders, so big as to be like mountains broken loose. ”

“ Sprinkled over the slopes are little houses with their garden patches in terraces banked up by tottering walls, which bulge under the thrust of the earth. Here and there are very steep lanes, with the dents of the rock forming a natural pavement. ”

“ Down our long muddy hill-slope, near where the knuckles of it dip out of sight into the bottom of the valley, one notices a line of heads. In some places they are clear and in others they cannot be seen. ”

“ Dark forms, running hither and thither, seemed to interweave with the shadows, while others lay stretched up the hillside or sat squatting on barrows and timbers. For a hundred yards and more the slope of the hill showed the toil of many weeks. Hillocks of earth, sand, clay, stones, a confusion of timbers, barrows, baulks, spades and mattocks, ropes, lime-heaps and what not, littered the border of the Slack. Had you tried to thread your way among these you would have run the risk of walking suddenly into the deep cutting in the hillside that sheltered the furnaces themselves. ”

“ The slopes rise softly from the river-plain, now projecting, now retreating, as the valley winds from side to side. A gentle ascent brings us from the banks of the Ouse up to the highest part of the ground in the vicinity, and places before our eyes a wide sweep of rich agricultural country, with peeps of village spires and gleams of the winding river. ”

“ A SHADED slope bounds the homestead to the southward, and a thick copse, descending rather abruptly to the river, flanks the grounds in the rear. Screened from sun and glare, the grass-plot is always a favorite lounging-place during hot weather. Across the water a west or south wind invariably blows, freighted with coolness and charged with that indefinable odor which the wind gathers from its passage through a wood. ”

“ The green slopes of the hill above are scarred all along with old earthworks, so defaced by plough and spade, so trampled down by men and cattle, so worn by the storms of untold centuries, that the eye can hardly trace their outlines in the smooth short sward. ”

“ On the western shore, a series of slopes are seen, commencing at the gravelly margin of the water, and rising one above another, with a barely perceptible acclivity, for a considerable distance, until the back ground is terminated by a chain of beautifully rounded hills, over which trees are thinly scattered, as if planted to embellish the scene. ”

“ We rise from the door-step and walk together down the gentle slope of the hill; past the apple-tree, and the rose-hedge; and along the border of the field where wheat is growing. We walk down to the foot of the gentle slope where women and men and children are living. ”

“ As he ascends a steep slope, each traveller picks up a small stone, and carries it to the top, where he places it on the pile. As he does so, he leaves his weariness behind him, and continues his journey fresh and strong. ”

“ Early in the autumn they begin to scoop out a little tunnel in this grassy slope, and when it is deep enough to protect them from the frost they retire into it, and pushing up the earth behind them close up the entrance of the hole, and there lie dormant until the warmth of spring tempts them to come out. ”

“ Manifold tracks lead to yon sister-peaks Around whose snows the gilded clouds are curled By steep or gentle slopes the climber comes Where breaks that other world. Strong limbs may dare the rugged road which storms, Soaring and perilous, the mountain's breast; The weak must wind from slower ledge to ledge With many a place of rest. ”

“ Lying itself high up on the western slope of what must once have been a great river terrace, it commanded a view of a wide and fertile meadow country, near enough to be a most beautiful feature in the landscape, but far enough away to prevent any danger from its moisture. ”

“ The side next the dale offers interesting hazards to good climbers. The remaining side is a grass slope steeper than most modern roofs, and traversed by a zigzag path up which the breathless visitor toils painfully. ”

“ On the slopes of many foothills that rise from the edge of the desert plain and often on the higher slopes in great profusion, one finds a stately plant which is always conspicuous and always beautiful. ”

“ Nor is all this marshy softness confined to the levels or to almost level slopes, as one would imagine from one's experience at home, but it extends up the steepest places, where the climbing would be hard enough without this added obstacle. In precipitous slopes where the foot tears out a great swath of moist moss, it may reveal underneath a slippery shingle or shale where nothing but a bird could find a footing in its present condition. ”

“ Every here and there, where the slate cliffs run down in steep slopes to the valleys, you can see from the very top to the bottom, that is to say on a slope of some nine hundred feet, what look like little streams that are perhaps a foot wide at the top and ten or a dozen at the bottom where they open out. ”

“ Many of them have gone down behind the hill to bathe and are washing their clothes in the river. One of the amazing spectacles of our place of hiding is the impassive aspect of the eastern slope as compared with the stirring life which goes on on its western side. ”

“ If you will tip a board or a ruler up to an angle of sixty-five degrees, and then imagine that slope to be hard, icy snow crust, with a drop of two or three thousand feet to the bottom of a cañon below you, you’ve got some idea of what the climbers were up against. ”

“ It grows steep very quickly, and the slope which, covered with bushes, topples down to the water, has the appearance of a picturesque little precipice, and nothing could be more lovely to see than the stains of azure made by the lake through the interlacing of the branches. ”

“ So, our hillsides and mountain-slopes, where the forests are most usually found, are the world's great roofs or water-sheds, from which, if they are thatched with trees, the water flows off slowly and in the most desirable manner into the streams and upon the lands of the regions below, but, if stripped of this protecting covering, then with sudden and disastrous flood which no art of man can withstand. ”

“ In whatever place you are, you will see nothing but the broad upland, covered with rather insignificant trees, and worn into quiet slopes by the action of the water, which gathers in morasses of long grass, hidden in the midst of which runs a deep-set stream. ”

“ Where the soil is favourable and the flowers abundant the band is very conspicuous, and in places where the land slopes to the cliff it broadens and occupies the ground to a breadth of fifty to a hundred yards or even more, then narrows again and pursues its way, following the numberless indentations of the coastline, climbing up and down the steep slopes and sides of gullies and fading and almost vanishing on the barren heath on the highest cliffs. ”

“ In places we scrambled for hours along precipitous slopes, cumbered with fallen rocks, and with swirling rapids below us; a mile or so of easier going where the country was more open, and again a mountain spur would shoulder the river aside. This time the abrupt slope would be dense with high and tangled thorn-bush through which we had to cut a way, whilst here and there a huge fallen rock or a whole landslide from the cliffs above would bar further progress, till we had crawled round, over, or under them, at imminent risk of breaking our ponies’ necks or legs, as well as our own. ”

“ When they advanced toward the cliff, fully two hundred feet in height, a narrow rocky slope was seen ascending on the left, like a flight of winding stairs, to the plateau above. Even with this aid the ascent was difficult. ”

“ In the worst places the guides point out to the traveller where to plant his feet and hold him up if he begins to slip. Shrubs, tough grass, and here and there a stunted pine-tree give a welcome hold, but on the steepest slopes they are wanting. The last slope up to the foot of the cliff—a very long and steep declivity of loose gravel which gives way at every step—is most fatiguing. As I was struggling slowly up it with the guides, we heard the furious barking of dogs away up the mountains on the opposite side of the glen. ”

“ The slope upon which Golden is situated is a comparatively gentle one, but directly back of the city the angle changes and the surface of the world mounts abruptly toward the heavens, which seem to rest like a great coverlet upon the upland snows. ”