Read "The Hillyars and the Burtons" by Henry Kingsley online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THE fierce summer was blazing over head; the forests were parched and crisp; the plains were yellow and dry, and the rivers at their lowest: some barely whispering, others absolutely silent; as we passed away to the southward, towards our new home, and our strange new fortunes.
To the west and north of the town, the dun gray wolds rolled off in melancholy waves towards the great interior; but to the south, on our track, the vast wood-clad mountains, dimly visible in the southwest, had thrown out a spur, which carried the dark forest with it down to the sea, and ended not ten miles from the town in the two noble promontories, Cape Horner and Cape Huskisson; so that we had barely got clear of the enclosures when we found ourselves out of sight of the melancholy plains, travelling along a dusty winding track, fringed on each side with bracken fern, through a majestic open forest of lofty trees.