589. Robert Southey to Barbara Seton [fragment], [7 July 1801] ⁠* 

Indeed we mist you. The banishment of the factory [1]  would have been nothing, had they left me but my Uncle & his two rooms & you – you left us to ourselves – I was like a bear sucking his own paws. We took a dislike to your house – above all to your window. I had a long story ready [2]              .             .             .             .             .            .             how we were almost starved – yea double starved by the cold & the want of food, & of certain soldiers who arrested us at midnight – & how my book of drawings was inspected – & of the Town of a thousand fountains, [3]  where the people drank well water             .             .             .             .             We reached Monchique – almost another Cintra, wanting indeed the shapes of Cintra but more abundant in water & of far greater magnitude. We stood on the summit & mountains lay below us like the sea. Indeed for half a day we travelled over mountains of just that heaving, swelling, breasting wavyness that the old prints of Palestine exhibit!