It is varied with protuberances, which from hereabouts have the animal aspect of warts, wens, knuckles, and hips.

It may indeed be likened to an enormous many- limbed organism of an antediluvian time--partaking of the cephalopod in shape--lying lifeless, and covered with a thin green cloth, which hides its substance, while revealing its contour.

This dull green mantle of herbage stretches down towards the levels, where the ploughs have essayed for centuries to creep up near and yet nearer to the base of the castle, but have always stopped short before reaching it.

The furrows of these environing attempts show themselves distinctly, bending to the incline as they trench upon it; mounting in steeper curves, till the steepness baffles them, and their parallel threads show like the striae of waves pausing on the curl.

The peculiar place of which these are some of the features is 'Mai-Dun,' 'The Castle of the Great Hill,' said to be the Dunium of Ptolemy, the capital of the Durotriges, which eventually came into Roman occupation, and was finally deserted on their withdrawal from the island.
* * * * * The evening is followed by a night on which an invisible moon bestows a subdued, yet pervasive light--without radiance, as without blackness.
From the spot whereon I am ensconced in a cottage, a mile away, the fort has now ceased to be visible; yet, as by day, to anybody whose thoughts have been engaged with it and its barbarous grandeurs of past time the form asserts its existence behind the night gauzes as persistently as if it had a voice.