Comparatively But A Few Years Ago, Newera Ellia
Was Undiscovered - A Secluded Plain Among The Mountaintops,
Tenanted By The Elk And Boar.
The wind swept over it, and the
mists hung around the mountains, and the bright summer with its
spotless sky succeeded, but still it was unknown and unseen
except by the native bee-hunter in his rambles for wild honey.
How changed! The road encircles the plain, and carts are busy in
removing the produce of the land. Here, where wild forests
stood, are gardens teeming with English flowers; rosy-faced
children and ruddy countrymen are about the cottage doors;
equestrians of both sexes are galloping round the plain, and the
cry of the hounds is ringing on the mountain-side.
How changed! There is an old tree standing upon a hill, whose
gnarled trunk has been twisted by the winter's wind for many an
age, and so screwed is its old stem that the axe has spared it,
out of pity, when its companions were all swept away and the
forest felled. And many a tale that old tree could tell of
winter's blasts and broken boughs, and storms which howled above
its head, when all was wilderness around. The eagle has roosted
in its top, the monkeys have gamboled in its branches, and the
elephants have rubbed their tough flanks against its stem in
times gone by; but it now throws a shadow upon a Christian's
grave, and the churchyard lies beneath its shade. The
church-bell sounds where the elephant trumpeted of yore.
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