Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
This place is commonly called _Uphusband_, which is, I think, as decent
a corruption of names as one would wish to meet with. However, Uphusband
the people will have it, and Uphusband it shall be for me. I came from
Berghclere this morning, and through the park of LORD CAERNARVON, at
Highclere. It is a fine season to look at woods. The oaks are still
covered, the beeches in their best dress, the elms yet pretty green, and
the beautiful ashes only beginning to turn off. This is, according to
my fancy, the prettiest park that I have ever seen. A great variety of
hill and dell. A good deal of water, and this, in one part, only wants
the _colours_ of American trees to make it look like a "creek;" for the
water runs along at the foot of a steepish hill, thickly covered with
trees, and the branches of the lowermost trees hang down into the water
and hide the bank completely. I like this place better than _Fonthill_,
_Blenheim_, _Stowe_, or any other gentleman's grounds that I have seen.
The _house_ I did not care about, though it appears to be large enough
to hold half a village. The trees are very good, and the woods would be
handsomer if the larches and firs were _burnt_, for which only they are
fit. The great beauty of the place is the _lofty downs_, as steep, in
some places, as the roof of a house, which form a sort of boundary, in
the form of a part of a crescent, to about a third part of the park, and
then slope off and get more distant, for about half another third part.
A part of these downs is covered with trees, chiefly beech, the colour
of which, at this season, forms a most beautiful contrast with that of
the down itself, which is so green and so smooth! From the vale in the
park, along which we rode, we looked apparently almost perpendicularly
up at the downs, where the trees have extended themselves by seed more
in some places than others, and thereby formed numerous salient parts of
various forms, and, of course, as many and as variously formed glades.
These, which are always so beautiful in forests and parks, are
peculiarly beautiful in this lofty situation and with verdure so smooth
as that of these chalky downs. Our horses beat up a score or two of
hares as we crossed the park; and, though we met with no _gothic arches_
made of Scotch fir, we saw something a great deal better; namely, about
forty cows, the most beautiful that I ever saw, as to colour at least.
They appear to be of the Galway-breed. They are called, in this country,
_Lord Caernarvon's breed_. They have no horns, and their colour is a
ground of white with black or red spots, these spots being from the size
of a plate to that of a crown piece; and some of them have no small
spots. These cattle were lying down together in the space of about an
acre of ground: they were in excellent condition, and so fine a sight of
the kind I never saw. Upon leaving the park, and coming over the hills
to this pretty vale of Uphusband, I could not help calculating how long
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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