All about was the sound of brooks musically rippling from the hills, and there was a chaste chill in the air, as befitted the time of day, for _Maiden still the morn is, and strange she is, and secret, Her cheeks are cold as cold sea-shells_.
It was all so beautiful that an old thought came back to me that I often had as a child, when I used to be taken among mysterious mountains, for Summer holidays: Do people really live in such beautiful places all the year round?
Do they live there just like ordinary people in towns, go about ordinary businesses, live ordinary lives?
It seemed to me then, as it seems to me still, that such places should be kept sacred, like fairyland, or should, at least, be the background of high and romantic action, like the scenery in operas.

To think of a valley so beautiful as that through which we were walking being put to any other use than that of beauty seems preposterous; but do you know what that beautiful valley was doing, while Colin and I were thus poetizing it, adoring its outlines and revelling in its tints?
It was just quietly growing potatoes.

Yes! we had mostly passed through the apple country.

This garden of Eden, this Vale of Enna, was a great potato country.

And we learned, too, that its inhabitants were by no means so pleased with beautiful Cohoctori Valley as we were.