The lands here were not so rich as the wide acres thirty miles or more below, where on the fat bottom soil, black and deep, the negroes raised in abundance the wealth-making crop of the country.

On the contrary, this, although it was the capital of the vast Dunwody holdings thereabout, was chosen not for its agricultural richness so much as for its healthfulness and natural beauty.
In regard to these matters, the site could not better have been selected.

The valley, some three or four miles across, lay like a deep saucer pressed down into the crest of the last rise of the Ozarks.

The sides of the depression were as regular as though created by the hands of man.

Into its upper extremity there ran a little stream of clear and unfailing water, which made its entrance at an angle, so that the rim of the hills seemed scarcely nicked by its ingress.