THE VENGEANCE OF UNCAS. 119 



tree skirts their precipitous sides. The city, built on what, at 

 first sight, appear terraces cut in the steep acclivities, has a 

 most picturesque appearance. When the rosy light of early 

 dawn has driven the mist from the wooded hills, while the tall 

 warehouses at the brink of the river are illumined by the beams 

 of the rising sun, and the strange irregular piles of houses are so 

 strongly marked against the sky that one can distinctly trace 

 the roofs of one line of buildings almost on a level with the 

 foundations of another, the effect is beautiful beyond description. 

 But on entering the place, the enchantment is speedily dissolved, 

 and there is little beauty to compensate for the irregularity of 

 a city built on a hill-side. The traveller who should be set 

 down in that part of Norwich which is devoted to trade and 

 commerce, and who should content himself with what he could 

 behold from his Hotel window, would know little of a place 

 which actually contains a greater variety of beautiful scenery 

 than almost any domain of the same extent in our country. 



About two miles northward of Norwich city is what is now 

 styled Norwich Town ; and never was a lovelier spot hallowed 

 by the affections and virtues of human hearts. A beautiful 

 section of table-land lying just without the city, and bearing 

 the humble title of " The Plain," is filled with villas and 

 homesteads of tasteful and elegant appearance ; while many 

 a massive looking mansion, seated in the midst of a fine green 

 lawn, and surrounded by trees a century old, still remains to 

 prove the antiquity of the place. I have one such now in 

 my mind's eye, — a fine old building, not mounted up in the air 

 like the modern houselings of our great city, but planted with 



