306 A Walk from 



much unsatisfactory perspiration. Fearing that a 

 second attempt would be equally unsuccessful, I took 

 the Leeds road, and left the Jericho at the first round. 

 Walked about nine miles to a furnace-lighted village 

 called very appropriately Hoyland, or Highland, when 

 anglicised from the Danish. It commands truly a 

 grand view of wooded hills and deep valleys dashed 

 with the sheen of ripened grain. 



The next day I passed through a good sample 

 section of England's wealth and industry. Mansions 

 and parks of the gentry, hill, valley, wheatfields, 

 meadows of the most vivid green ; crops luxuriant in 

 most picturesque alternations ; in a word, the whole a 

 vista of the richest agricultural scenery. And yet out 

 of the brightest and broadest fields of wheat, barley 

 and oats, towered up the colliery chimneys in every 

 direction, like good-natured and swarthy giants 

 smoking their pipes complacently and " with comfort- 

 able breasts " in view of the goodly scene. The 

 golden grain grew thick and tall up to the very pit's 

 mouth. In the sun-light above and gas-light below 

 human industry was plying its differently-bitted 

 implements. There were men reaping and studding 

 the pathway of their sickles through that field with 

 thickly-planted sheaves. But right under them, a 

 hundred fathoms deep, subterranean farmers were at 



