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CHAPTER VI. 



THE MOOR, OR UPLAND. 



THE configuration of surface to which the one or 

 the other of those epithets may be applied, has not 

 the grand features of some of those that have been 

 mentioned. Still, it is so far from being barren of 

 interest, that we should have had abundant store of 

 observation though we had had nothing else. Moors 

 admit of more latitude of description than mountains ; 

 and, according to their different elevations, they may 

 partake more of the Alpine or the champaign country. 

 They are the favourite haunts of many of our most 

 interesting animals, both quadrupeds and birds ; and 

 though the very name expresses a certain character 

 of bleakness, there is a feeling of freedom about it. 

 It is not nature either in the terror of her majesty, 

 or in the tastefulness of her beauty ; but still it is 

 nature, where man has not altered her appearance. 



We are not sure if there be any place where the 

 heart beats so lightly, and the breathing is so free, as 

 when we enter upon one of those wide expanses ; and, 

 whether it be the Alpine table-land, purple with the 

 blossom, or green with the young shoots of the heath, 

 where there is nothing to interrupt the course of your 

 meditations, or chequer the uniformity of the wide 



