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MALLOCK W.
In an enchanted island
page 192 View PDF version of this page A DREAM OF GUSTAVE DORÉ'S
189
at first taken to be a number of natural crags, I found to be a row of towers, rising one above the other like a break-neck garret staircase, from a wall that climbed the eminence at an angle of forty-five. From the lower end of this wall other walls ex-tended themselves, with other towers, enclosing a vast sloping area. On a shoulder of the rock towards the sea was a crowd of confused buildings, whose dark windows showed that the interior was still not roofless ; and high above all was the summit, over whose seemingly inaccessible ledges crenellated walls peered, crowned with yet loftier towers.
And so this was the Castle of St. Hilarion! I looked at it speechless with gratification. It could not have been better if it had been built after one of my own dreams. Indeed, as we traversed the valley, and came more and more nearly under it, what it suggested to me, with greater and greater vividness, was the fancy that it had been built after a dream of Gustave Doré's.
From the bottom of the valley up to the lowest buildings was a climb amongst clods and rocks of at least two hundred feet. This brought us to a line of long grey walls, broken at intervals by semicircular towers, and at one point flanked by a sort of out-work or barbican, through which we entered under an arch that had almost fallen. Wading through weeds, between broken walls and turrets, we pre-sently found ourselves in the court, if that can be called a court which was so steep that it seemed
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