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Its airy site, its splendid mosque, its vast monasteries, the bright material of which the whole city is built, its cupolaed houses of freestone, and above all the towers and gates and battlements of its lofty and complete walls, always rendered it a handsome city. Jerusalem has not been sacked so often or so recently as the other two great ancient cities, Rome and Athens.

The whole country wore a smiling aspect; the houses, built of freestone, looked fresh and comfortable, and were surrounded by their gardens. The maize-fields were as a rippling green sea. The flax-fields in bloom were sheets of the tenderest blue, and those of the Trifolium incarnatum red as blood, and the road was like a white ribbon binding together a variegated wreath.

Although the country had assumed a level character, and was more open than on the higher branches of the Macquarie, the small freestone elevations, backing the alluvial tracts near the river, still continued upon our right, though much diminished in height, and at a great distance from the banks.

I purpose to bring, parodying a passage of the good Sieur Chanvallon, not freestone and marble for their restoration, but a critical hammer to knock down the loose bricks that, for more than four centuries, have shown large holes in several places. Tacitus is raised by his genius to a height, which lifts him above the reach of the critic.

After leaving the Quarry Walk, we passed an old tower of red freestone, the only one remaining of those formerly standing at intervals along the whole course of the town wall; and we also went along what little is now left of the wall itself. And thence, through the irregular streets, which gave no account of themselves, we found our way, I know not how, back to our hotel.

The river is here broader than elsewhere, and very shallow, and has an island covered with bushes, about midway across. Just over the bridge we saw a church, of red freestone, and evidently very ancient. This is the Church of the Holy Cross, and is a portion of the Abbey of St. Peter and St. John, which formerly covered ten acres of ground.

Although the country had assumed a level character, and was more open than on the higher branches of the Macquarie, the small freestone elevations, backing the alluvial tracts near the river, still continued upon our right, though much diminished in height, and at a great distance from the banks.

In the midst of the entrance, there is a rock of freestone, formed by nature and suitable for the construction of any kind of machine or bulwark for the defence of the harbor." This island is a mere fancy; none such exists any where upon this coast. The distance which they thus ran easterly, of eighty leagues, would have carried them more than an hundred miles into the ocean beyond Cape Cod.

These pillars rest on two nondescript animals, which look as much like walruses as anything else. The pillars of the other door consist of two figures supporting the capitals, and themselves standing on two handsomely carved lions. The work is curious, and evidently very ancient, and the material a red freestone.

Once upon a time there lived two noble lords in the east country. Their lands lay between a broad river and an old oak forest. In the midst of his land each lord had a stately castle; one was built of white freestone, the other of grey granite. So the one was called Lord of the White Castle, and the other Lord of the Grey. No lords in all the east country were so noble and kind as they.