occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly 

 " whether we fastened our walls together with ten- 

 penny nails." 



LETTER V. 

 To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 



Among the singularities of this place the two 

 rocky hollow lanes, the one to Alton, and the other 

 to the forest, deserve our attention. These roads, 

 running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic 

 of ages, and the fretting of water, worn down 

 through the first stratum of our freestone, and partly 

 through the second ; so that they look more like 

 water-courses than roads ; and are bedded with 

 naked rag for furlongs together. In many places 

 they are reduced sixteen or eighteen feet beneath 

 the level of the fields ; and after floods, and in frosts, 

 exhibit very grotesque and wild appearances, from 

 the tangled roots that are twisted among the strata, 

 and from the torrents rushing down their broken 

 sides ; and especially when those cascades are frozen 

 into icicles, hanging in all the fanciful shapes of 

 frost-work. These rugged, gloomy scenes affright 

 the ladies when they peep down into them from 

 the paths above, and make timid horsemen shud- 

 der while they ride along them ; but dehght the 

 naturalist with their various botany, and particu- 



14 



