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Nowhere can one discover better inspiration for rock-face stonework, and nowhere have the architects of to-day more successfully preserved and developed the best local traditions of Colonial times. Wherein lies the superlative picturesque appeal of the typical ledge stonework of Germantown?

The ground fell precipitously in front of me, and I saw to left and right the sharp crags and horns of the rock-face below me; behind me was a wide space of grassy down, with a fresh wind racing over it. The sky was cloudless. Far below I could see yellow sands, on which a blue sea broke in crisp waves.

The general slope of the mountain at this part was less than forty degrees, and snow had accumulated in, and had filled up, the interstices of the rock-face, leaving only occasional fragments projecting here and there. These were at times covered with a thin film of ice, produced from the melting and refreezing of the snow.

Then I sent Crean round to the left side of the cove, about thirty yards away, where I had noticed a little cave as we were running in. He could not see much in the darkness, but reported that the place certainly promised some shelter. We carried the sleeping-bags round and found a mere hollow in the rock-face, with a shingle floor sloping at a steep angle to the sea.

The marks of the last tide were plainly visible high up on the rugged rock-face, the last tide having left every ledge covered with washed-up fucus and bladder-wrack, speckled with white shells and sandy patches. "Then it must always be deep in water?" said Scarlett. "Well, I tell you what, then, let's borrow somebody's boat and try and get right in that way."

At the back of the plateau the mountain rose again, abruptly, to one of those saw-tooth pinnacles which characterized this range. At the base of the steep was a narrow fissure in the rock-face, leading into a small grotto which Grôm had discovered on one of his hunting expeditions.

Then he cast about where he had best dwell; and he thought of the Isles of Sunset as a lonely place, where he might live and not be disturbed. There was the little cave high up in the rock-face, looking towards the land, to which he had once scrambled up.