122 KILMARNOCK. 



and tlie other Hampstead, doubtless in allusion to 

 the somewhat similarly situated villages in the 

 neighbourhood of London. It is spoken of as 

 something rather wonderful in the country round, 

 that in these elevated dwellings the apartments are 

 furnished \v\{\\ fire-places. 



The scenery about this part is singularly romantic. 

 Large, round hills, almost hemispherical in their 

 contour, rise out of the valleys in great number, 

 apparently without any order ; yet so regular in 

 their form that they seem as if cast up by art. The 

 road often winds round the sides of these, and opens 

 delightful and ever changing panoramas. The valleys 

 and plains beneath, smiling in verdure, and studded 

 over with clumps of ornamental trees, now hidden 

 and interrupted by these conical hills, now breaking 

 into view between them, strike the passenger with 

 ever fresh delight; and the various hills themselves, 

 half in the glowing sunlight, half in deep shadow, 

 changing their relative places as he moves on, have a 

 wonderfully beautiful effect, totally unlike anything 

 I have ever seen elsewhere. We look across a deep 

 grassy vale from the hill-side around which we are 

 winding, and see another similar mound, with the 

 narrow line of road passing across its rounded side in 

 like manner. We are told that we shall presently 

 pass along that line : it looks almost within gunshot, 

 but we wind on, and lose sight of the opposite hill, 

 and it is perhaps half an hour before we arrive at it, 

 having made many tortuous courses and opened 

 many new scenes in the intermediate space. The 

 summits of many of these hills have been planted 



