They then quietly proceeded; Juliet, wrapt up in her own fears and affairs, making no comment upon the looks of enjoyment, and contented taciturnity of her companion; till the groom, riding up to the window, said that the horses could go no further. Sir Jaspar ordered them a feed; and enquired of Juliet whether she would chuse, while they took a little rest, to mount on foot to the summit of the ascent, and examine whether any horsemen were yet within sight. Glad to breathe a few minutes alone, she alighted and walked forward; though slowly, and with eyes bent upon the turf; till she was struck by the appearance of a wide ditch between a circular double bank; and perceived that she was approaching the scattered remains of some ancient building, vast, irregular, strange, and in ruins. Excited by sympathy in what seemed lonely and undone, rather than by curiosity, she now went on more willingly, though not less sadly; till she arrived at a stupendous assemblage of enormous stones, of which the magnitude demanded ocular demonstration to be entitled to credibility. Yet, though each of them, taken separately, might seem, from its astonishing height and breadth, there, like some rock, to have been placed from 'the beginning of things,' and though not even the rudest sculpture denoted any vestige of human art, still the whole was clearly no phenomenon of nature. The form, that might still be traced, of an antique structure, was evidently circular and artificial; and here and there, supported by gigantic posts, or pillars, immense slabs of flat stone were raised horizontally, that could only by manual art and labour have been elevated to such a height. Many were fallen; many, with grim menace, looked nodding; but many, still sustaining their upright direction, were so ponderous that they appeared to have resisted all the wars of the elements, in this high and bleak situation, for ages. Struck with solemn wonder, Juliet for some time wandered amidst these massy ruins, grand and awful, though terrific rather than attractive. Mounting, then, upon a fragment of the pile, she saw that the view all around was in perfect local harmony with the wild edifice, or rather remains of an edifice, into which she had pierced. She discerned, to a vast extent, a boundless plain, that, like the ocean, seemed to have no term but the horizon; but which, also like the ocean, looked as desert as it was unlimited. Here and there flew a bustard, or a wheat-ear; all else seemed unpeopled air, and uncultivated waste.