Within the valley, as one of them afterwards told me, was a
plain about half-a-mile in circumference, and so exactly circular that it
might have been fashioned according to the compass, though it seemed a
work of Nature's art, not man's: 'twas girdled about by six hills of no
great height, each crowned with a palace that shewed as a goodly little
castle. The slopes of the hills were graduated from summit to base after
the manner of the successive tiers, ever abridging their circle, that we
see in our theatres; and as many as fronted the southern rays were all
planted so close with vines, olives, almond-trees, cherry-trees,
fig-trees and other fruitbearing trees not a few, that there was not a
hand's-breadth of vacant space. Those that fronted the north were in like
manner covered with copses of oak saplings, ashes and other trees, as
green and straight as might be. Besides which, the plain, which was shut
in on all sides save that on which the ladies had entered, was full of
firs, cypresses, and bay-trees, with here and there a pine, in order and
symmetry so meet and excellent as had they been planted by an artist, the
best that might be found in that kind; wherethrough, even when the sun
was in the zenith, scarce a ray of light might reach the ground, which
was all one lawn of the finest turf, pranked with the hyacinth and divers
other flowers. Add to which--nor was there aught there more
delightsome--a rivulet that, issuing from one of the gorges between two
of the hills, descended over ledges of living rock, making, as it fell, a
murmur most gratifying to the ear, and, seen from a distance, shewed as a
spray of finest, powdered quick-silver, and no sooner reached the little
plain, than 'twas gathered into a tiny channel, by which it sped with
great velocity to the middle of the plain, where it formed a diminutive
lake, like the fishponds that townsfolk sometimes make in their gardens,
when they have occasion for them.
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