Читать книгу The Stranger's Handbook to Chester and Its Environs онлайн
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The room we have passed into is the ancient keep, formerly known as Bonewaldesthorne’s Tower; and after ruminating a moment on the rusty swords and rapiers that hang around, we will mount the winding staircase into the room above. Here, on a whitened table, the light of day being first excluded, we are introduced to the wondrous revelations of the Camera Obscura. On this little table we have pourtrayed, with minute but pleasing accuracy, every place and occurrence within gunshot of the Tower,—boats on the Canal, pedestrians on the Walls, ships on the Dee, green fields and trees, the flying train, and every passing incident, ridiculous or sublime. From this Tower we proceed by a steep descent of zig-zag steps, between rugged battlements of venerable sandstone, thickly coated with “that rare old plant, the ivy green,” to the centre of attraction, the Water Tower itself. How beautiful, how indescribably beautiful, are those thick masses of dark, glossy, green ivy, “creeping where no life is seen” round the blackened old ramparts we have just passed by!