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 same elevation as the Worcestershire Beacon; but here the resemblance ceased, both the mount itself and the whole line of hills being thickly wooded, which the Malvern Hills are not. A turn in our descent of Cut Hill brought in sight the ridge of Mount Douraking, of somewhat lower height than Mount Bakewell, though of a shape more wild and craggy, the top being surmounted by tall trees, which had struggled up amongst heaps of broken granite, and forced their way through the abrupt stony slopes wherever they could find a footing. On perceiving shortly afterwards one or two small houses in the valley, and a round building with a peaked roof, out of which rose a weathercock, I thought that we must be approaching a village of some kind, and my driver informed me that we had at length reached Barladong. How to find our own house now became my difficulty, less on account of the number of the dwellings than because there appeared to be nobody of whom to ask a question. On the other hand, in accordance with the dignity of a town that ranks third in the colony, there was no deficiency of public edifices, for, on proceeding a little way farther, we beheld five or six built of red brick, and all placed at wide intervals from one another, as if in hopes of inducing people to fill up the gaps with private houses.

None of the buildings, however, made any pretence to the picturesque, excepting the round one with the weathercock, which I afterwards heard had been erected as a windmill by an American, possibly after some hazy model preserved in his youthful recollections of the many old Dutch-patterned structures in his own land. Meanwhile a pitiless January sun was beating down upon us,