I have seen some of them as beautifully and exactly rounded as if a cunning engineer had planned them, and had them dug out with the spade.

At first, of course, their sides and bottom are nothing but loose stones, cinders, slag, ashes, such as would be thrown out of a furnace.

But Madam How, who, whenever she makes an ugly desolate place, always tries to cover over its ugliness, and set something green to grow over it, and make it pretty once more, does so often and often by her worn-out craters.

I have seen them covered with short sweet turf, like so many chalk downs.

I have seen them, too, filled with bushes, which held woodcocks and wild boars.