After they were gone we took a ramble through the city, but were almost
swept away by the violence of the wind, which struggled with me for my
hat, and whirled R----- before it like a feather. The people in the
public square seemed much diverted at our predicament, being, I suppose,
accustomed to these rude blasts in their mountain-home. However, the
wind blew in momentary gusts, and then became more placable till another
fit of fury came, and passed as suddenly as before. We walked out of the
same gate through which we had entered,--an ancient gate, but recently
stuccoed and whitewashed, in wretched contrast to the gray, venerable
wall through which it affords ingress,--and I stood gazing at the
magnificent prospect of the wide valley beneath. It was so vast that
there appeared to be all varieties of weather in it at the same instant;
fields of sunshine, tracts of storm,--here the coming tempest, there the
departing one. It was a picture of the world on a vast canvas, for there
was rural life and city life within the great expanse, and the whole set
in a frame of mountains,--the nearest bold and dust-net, with the rocky
ledges showing through their sides, the distant ones blue and dim,--so
far stretched this broad valley.
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