 Different, indeed, from the aspect which that part of the country now presents was the landscape that lay around them, bathed in the smiles of the westering sun.  In a valley to the left, a full view of which the steep road commanded (where now roars the din of trade through a thousand factories), lay a long, secluded village.  The houses, if so they might be called, were constructed entirely of wood, and that of the more perishable kind,--willow, sallow, elm, and plum- tree.  Not one could boast a chimney; but the smoke from the single fire in each, after duly darkening the atmosphere within, sent its surplusage lazily and fitfully through a circular aperture in the roof.  In fact, there was long in the provinces a prejudice against chimneys!  The smoke was considered good both for house and owner; the first it was supposed to season, and the last to guard "from rheums, catarrhs, and poses."  [So worthy Hollinshed, Book II