XVII. 



IN DURHAM AND NEAR IT. 



DURHAM city stands on the line between north and 

 south, and is, as it were, the key and entrance to the 

 debatable land. Even its present-day outward aspect 

 suggests the fact. It is a city of heights and valleys, 

 beautifully relieved by unconscious devices of old-world 

 architecture, in which quaint simplicity and suggestions 

 of refinement are oddly mingled. Its mixture of grey 

 stone houses, with here and there lath and plaster fronts 

 and wooden carvings below; its long closes, and its 

 strange winding vagaries of lanes and streets ; its 

 modern shop fronts and ornamented old pillars and 

 balustrades, is quaint and wholly striking to the tra- 

 veller, either from the south or the north. The beautiful 

 and picturesque river, with its sloping banks rising high 

 just where they should, to set off fully the Cathedral 

 and the Castle with the finest effect, adds exactly the 

 romantic effect that is demanded. 



From whatever point you look, you have varied out- 

 lines, towers, or turrets rising high, and forming a kind 

 of crown to the whole. No doubt, like all old towns, 

 Durham has its share of dirty corners, but it is ill the 

 part of the stranger to go poking and nosing about for 

 them. We were in this but too like the ill-disposed 

 critic who, seeking for little faults or flaws, is sure to 

 find them, and, having found them, can then see nothing 



