JANUARY. O 



along the most winterly objects of the scene, 

 bearing on their fronts the tokens of the storm. 

 Against every house, rock, or bank the snow- 

 drift accumulates. It curls over the tops of 

 walls and hedges in fantastic wildness, forming 

 often the most perfect curves, resembling the 

 scrolls of Ionic capitals, and showing beneath 

 romantic caves and canopies. Hollow lanes, 

 pits, and bogs now become traps for unwary 

 travellers ; the snow filling them up, and level- 

 ling all to one deceitful plain. It is a dismal 

 time for the traversers of wide and open 

 heaths ; and one of toil and danger to the shep- 

 herd in mountainous tracts. There the snows 

 fall in amazing quantities in the course of a 

 few hours, and, driven by the powerful winds 

 of those lofty regions, soon fill up the dells 

 and glens to a vast depth, burying the flocks, 

 and houses too in a brief space. In some win- 

 ters the sheep of extensive ranges of country, 

 much cattle, and many of the inhabitants have 

 perished beneath the snow-drifts. At the mo- 

 ment in which I am writing, accounts from 

 Scotland appear in the newspapers of a most 

 tremendous snow-torm, which, leaving the 

 country southward of Alnwick and Gretna- 



