AN OCTOBER ABROAD 223 



town in our sense, — a town with trees and grass and 

 large spaces about the houses, gardens, yards, shrub- 

 bery, coolness, fragrance, etc. , — seems unknown in 

 England or Ireland. The towns and villages are 

 all remnants of feudal times, and seem to have been 

 built with an eye to safety and compactness, or else 

 men were more social, and loved to get closer to- 

 gether, then than now. Perhaps the damp, chilly 

 climate made them draw nearer together. At any 

 rate, the country towns are little cities ; or rather 

 it is as if another London had been cut up in little 

 and big pieces and distributed over the land. 



In the afternoon, to take the kinks out of my legs, 

 and quicken, if possible, my circulation a little, 

 which since the passage over the Channel had felt 

 as if it was thick and green, I walked rapidly to 

 the top of the Knockmeledown Mountains, getting a 

 good view of Irish fields and roads and fences as I 

 went up, and a very wide and extensive view of the 

 country after I had reached the summit, and im- 

 proving the atmosphere of my physical tenement 

 amazingly. These mountains have no trees or 

 bushes or other growth than a harsh prickly heather, 

 about a foot high, which begins exactly at the foot 

 of the mountain. You are walking on smooth, fine 

 meadow land, when you leap a fence and there is 

 the heather. On the highest point of this mountain, 

 and on the highest point of all the mountains around, 

 was a low stone mound, which I was puzzled to 

 Know the meaning of. Standing there, the country 

 rolled away beneath me under a cold, gray Novem- 



