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The general floor of the amphitheatre was grass of the same character as
that I had found in the road; if anything, more deliciously soft, thick,
velvety, and miraculously green. It was hard to conceive how all this
beauty had been attained.
I have spoken of two openings into the vale. From the one to the
northwest issued a rivulet, which came, gently murmuring and slightly
foaming, down the ravine, until it dashed against the group of rocks out
of which sprang the insulated hickory. Here, after encircling the tree,
it passed on a little to the north of east, leaving the tulip tree some
twenty feet to the south, and making no decided alteration in its course
until it came near the midway between the eastern and western boundaries
of the valley. At this point, after a series of sweeps, it turned off at
right angles and pursued a generally southern direction meandering as it
went--until it became lost in a small lake of irregular figure (although
roughly oval), that lay gleaming near the lower extremity of the vale.
This lakelet was, perhaps, a hundred yards in diameter at its widest
part. No crystal could be clearer than its waters. Its bottom, which
could be distinctly seen, consisted altogether, of pebbles brilliantly
white. Its banks, of the emerald grass already described, rounded,
rather than sloped, off into the clear heaven below; and so clear was
this heaven, so perfectly, at times, did it reflect all objects above
it, that where the true bank ended and where the mimic one commenced,
it was a point of no little difficulty to determine. The trout, and
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