One cannot help contemplating with awe
the possibility of the world again becoming violently rent and shaken
to its foundations by the forces which though now comparatively inert,
still exist beneath us and occasionally give sad proof of their
undiminished power. In the present day the slow but continued action of
this subterranean power is in some parts perceptible (as in South
America) and we have no guarantee that it may not suddenly acquire
increased energy, and overwhelm our fairest lands with a run too
terrible to be imagined. Stinging nettles abound here, of the tall sort
that grow so rankly on old earth heaps and in dry ditches. I placed my
hand among them, delighted to be stung again by English friends; the
sensation is so far preferable to mosquito bites. Besides it took me
back to "childhood's happy hours," when with bramble torn breeches and
urticarious shin, I forced the hedges, apple stealing--I have stolen
apples to-day for a tart which is now baking--robbed the trees of them
for they are no man's property. Just above here on the other side of the
valley is a very perfect crater (of course extinct) for there are now no
volcanoes in the Himalayas. Its lips are rugged and serrated like the
teeth of a saw, and form a very perfect circle I cannot tell the depth
of the basin, but on the further side I can see that the edge rises
perpendicularly to a considerable height, and at the bottom of it I just
got a glimpse of a steeply sloping floor.
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