morning I awoke perfectly refreshed and ready to appreciate anew the
wonders of the prospect that met my eyes. The pillar of fire was still
distinctly visible, when I looked out from my window, though it was not
so bright as when I had last seen it: but even as I looked it began to
fade, and gradually disappeared. At the same moment a river of glowing
lava issued from the side of the bank which we had climbed with so
much difficulty yesterday, and slowly but surely overflowed the ground
we had walked over. I woke Tom, and you may imagine the feelings with
which we gazed upon this startling phenomenon, which, had it occurred a
few hours earlier, might have caused the destruction of the whole party.
_A Voyage in the Sunbeam_ (London, 1878).
TROLLHÄTTA
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
Whom did we meet at Trollhätta? It is a strange story. We will relate
it.
We landed at the first sluice and immediately stood in a kind of
English garden; the broad pathways are covered with gravel and rise in
low terraces between the green sunlit greensward. It is charming and
delightful here, but by no means imposing; if one desires to be excited
in this manner, he must go a little higher up to the old sluices,
that have burst, deep and narrow, through the hard rock. Nature is
magnificent here, and the water roars and foams in its deep bed far
below. Up here one looks over valley and river; the bank of the river
on the other side rises in green undulating hills, with clusters of
leafy trees and wooden houses painted red; rocks and pine forests hem
in the landscape. Through the sluices steamboats and sailing vessels
are ascending; the water itself is the attendant spirit that must
bear them up above the rock. And from the forest it issues, buzzing,
roaring, and blustering. The din of the Trollhätta Falls mingles with
the noise of the sawmills and the smithies.
“In three hours we shall be through the sluices,” said the Captain,
“and then you shall visit the Falls. We shall meet again at the inn
above.”
We went along the path that led through the forest and thickets; a
whole flock of bare-headed boys surrounded us, all wishing to be our
guides; each one outscreamed the other, and each gave contradictory
explanations of how high was the water and how high it did not or
could rise; and here was also a great difference of opinion among the
learned. Soon we came to a halt on a large heather-covered rock, a
dizzying eminence. Before us, but deep below, the foaming, roaring
water--the Hell Fall, and over this, cascade after cascade, the rich,
swelling, rushing river, the outlet of the largest lake in Sweden. What
a sight, what a foaming above and below! It is like the waves of the
sea, or like effervescing champagne, or like boiling milk; the water
rushes around two rocky islands above so that the spray rises like mist
from a meadow, while below, it is more compressed, and, hurrying away,
returns in circles; then it rolls down in a long wave-like fall, the
Hell Fall. What a roaring storm in the deep--what a spectacle! Man is
dumb. And so were also the screaming little guides; they were silent,
and when they renewed their explanations and stories, they did not get
far before an old gentleman, whom none of us had noticed, although
he was here among us, made himself heard above the noise with his
peculiarly shrill voice; he spoke of the place and its former days as
if they had been of yesterday.
“Here on the rocky isles,” said he, “here in olden times the warriors,
as they are called, decided their disputes. The warrior, Stärkodder,
dwelt in this region, and took a fancy to the pretty maid Ogn; but
she fancied Hergrimer the more, and in consequence he was challenged
by Stärkodder to a duel here by the Falls and met his death; but Ogn
sprang towards them, and, seizing her lover’s bloody sword, thrust it
into her heart. Stärkodder did not get her. So a hundred years passed
and another hundred; the forest became heavy and thick, wolves and
bears prowled here summer and winter, and wicked robbers hid their
booty here and no one could find them; yonder, by the Fall before
Top Island, on the Norwegian side, was their cave; now it has fallen
in--the cliff there overhangs it!”
“Yes, the Tailors’ Cliff!” screamed all the boys. “It fell in the year
1755!”
“Fell!” cried the old man as if astonished that any one could know
of it but himself. “Everything will fall: the tailor also fell. The
robbers placed him upon the cliff and told him that if he would be
liberated for his ransom he must sew a suit of clothes there; he tried
to do it, but as he drew out his thread at the first stitch, he became
dizzy and fell into the roaring water, and thus the rock got the name
of The Tailors’ Cliff. One day the robbers caught a young girl, and she
betrayed them; she kindled a fire in the cavern, the smoke was seen,
the cavern was discovered, and the robbers imprisoned and executed;
that outside there is called The Thieves’ Fall, and below, under the
water, is another cave; the river rushes in there and issues out
foaming; you can see it well up here and hear it too, but it can be
heard better under the stony roof of the mountain sprite.”
And we went on and on along the waterfall towards Top Island, always
on smooth paths covered with saw-dust to Polhelm’s-Sluice; a cleft has
been made in the rock for the first intended sluice-work, which was not
finished, but on account of which has been shaped the most imposing of
all the Trollhätta Falls; the hurrying water falls perpendicularly into
the dark depth. The side of the rock here is connected with Top Island
by means of a light iron bridge, which seems to be thrown over the
abyss; we venture on this swaying bridge above the rushing, whirling
water, and soon stand on the little rocky island between firs and pines
that dart out of the crevices; before us rushes a sea of waves, broken
as they rebound against the rock on which we stand, spraying us with
their fine eternal mist; on each side the torrent flows as if shot from
a gigantic cannon, waterfall upon waterfall; we look above them all and
are lulled by the harmonic tone that has existed for thousands of years.
“No one can ever get to that island over there,” said one of our party,
pointing to the large island above the highest fall.
“I know one who got there!” exclaimed the old man, and nodded with a
peculiar smile.
“Yes, my grandfather got there!” said one of the boys, “but for a
hundred years scarcely any one else has reached it. The cross that
stands there was set up by my grandfather. It had been a severe winter,
the whole of Lake Venern was frozen, the ice dammed up the outlet, and
for many hours the bottom was dry. Grandfather has told us about it:
he and two others went over, set up the cross, and returned. Just then
there was a thundering and cracking noise just like cannon, the ice
broke up and the stream overflowed meadows and forest. It is true,
every word I say!”
[Illustration: TROLLHÄTTA.]
One of the travellers cited Tegner:
“Vildt Göta stortade fran Fjallen,
Hemsk Trollet fran sat Toppfall röt!
Men Snillet kom och sprängt stod Hallen,
Med Skeppen i sitt sköt!”
“Poor mountain sprite,” he added, “thy power and glory are failing! Man
flies beyond thee--Thou must learn of him!”
The garrulous old man made a grimace, and muttered something to
himself--but we were now by the bridge before the inn, the steamboat
glided through the open way, every one hurried on board and immediately
it shot above the Fall just as if no Fall existed.
It was evening; I stood on the heights of Trollhätta’s old sluices, and
saw the ships with outspread sails glide away over the meadows like
large white spectres. The sluice-gates opened with a heavy, crashing
sound like that related of the copper gates of the _Vehmgericht_; the
evening was so still; in the deep silence the tone of the Trollhätta
Fall was like a chorus of a hundred water-mills, ever one and the
same tone and sometimes the ringing of a deep and mighty note that
seemed to pass through the very earth--and yet through all this the
eternal silence of Nature was felt;--suddenly a great bird with heavily
flapping wings flew out of the trees in the deep woods towards the
waterfall. Was it the mountain sprite? We must believe so.
_Pictures of Sweden_ (Leipzig, 1851).
THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO
(_UNITED STATES_)
C. F. GORDON-CUMMING
Probably the greatest chasm in the known world is the grand canyon of
the Colorado river (the Rio Colorado Grande), which is a gorge upward
of two hundred miles in length, and of tremendous depth. Throughout
this distance its vertical crags measure from _one_ to upwards of _six
thousand feet_ in depth! Think of it! The highest mountain in Scotland
measures 4,418 feet. The height of Niagara is 145 feet. And here is a
narrow, tortuous pass where the river has eaten its way to a depth of
6,200 feet between vertical granite crags!
Throughout this canyon there is no cascade; and though the river
descends 16,000 feet within a very short distance, forming rushing
rapids, it is nevertheless possible to descend it by a raft--and this
has actually been done, in defiance of the most appalling dangers and
hardships. It is such a perilous adventure as to be deemed worthy of
note even in this country, where every prospector carries his life in
his hand, and to whom danger is the seasoning of daily life, which,
without it, would appear positively monotonous.
I suppose no river in the world passes through scenery so extraordinary
as does the Colorado river, in its journey of 2,000 miles from its
birthplace in the Rocky mountains, till, traversing the burning plains
of New Mexico, it ends its course in the Gulf of California. Its early
career is uneventful. In its youth it bears a maiden name, and, as the
Green river, wends it way joyously through the upper forests. Then it
reaches that ghastly country known as the _mauvaises terres_ of Utah
and Arizona--a vast region--extending also into Nevada and Wyoming,
which, by the ceaseless action of water, has been carried into an
intricate labyrinth of deep gloomy caverns.
For a distance of _one thousand miles_ the river winds its tortuous
course through these stupendous granite gorges, receiving the waters of
many tributary streams, each rushing along similar deeply hewn channels.
In all the range of fiction no adventures can be devised more terrible
than those which have actually befallen gold-seekers and hunters who,
from any cause, have strayed into this dreary and awesome region. It
was first discovered by two bold explorers, by name Strobe and White,
who, being attacked by Indians, took refuge in the canyons. Preferring
to face unknown dangers to certain death at the hands of the enemy,
they managed to collect enough timber to construct a rude raft, and
determined to attempt the descent.
Once embarked on that awful journey, there was no returning--they must
endure to the bitter end.
On the fourth day the raft was upset. Strobe was drowned, and the
little store of provisions and ammunition was lost. White contrived to
right the raft, and for ten days the rushing waters bore him down the
frightful chasm, seeing only the perpendicular cliffs on either side,
and the strip of sky far overheard--never knowing, from hour to hour,
but that at the next winding of the canyon the stream might overleap
some mighty precipice, and so end his long anguish. During those awful
ten days of famine, a few leaves and seed-pods, clutched from the
bushes on the rocks, were his only food.
At length he reached a wretched settlement of half-bred Mexicans, who,
deeming his escape miraculous, fed him; and eventually he reached the
homes of white men, who looked on him (as well they might) as on one
returned from the grave. The life thus wonderfully saved, was, however,
sacrificed a few months later, when he fell into the hands of his old
Indian foes.
The story of White’s adventure was confirmed by various trappers and
prospectors, who, from time to time, ventured some little way into
this mysterious rock-labyrinth; and it was determined to attempt
a government survey of the region. Accordingly, in 1869, a party,
commanded by Major J. W. Powell, started on this most interesting but
dangerous expedition. Warned by the fate of a party who attempted to
explore the country in 1855, and who, with the exception of two men
(Ashley and another), all perished miserably, the government party
started with all possible precautions.
[Illustration: THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO.]
Four light Chicago-built boats were provisioned for six months, and,
with infinite difficulty, were transported 1,500 miles across the
desert. On reaching their starting-point, they were lowered into the
awful ravines, from which it was, to say the least, problematic
whether all would emerge alive. The dangers, great enough in reality,
had been magnified by rumour. It was reported, with every semblance of
probability, that the river formed terrible whirlpools--that it flowed
underground for hundreds of miles, and emerged only to fall in mighty
cataracts and appalling rapids. Even the friendly Indians entreated the
explorers not to attempt so rash an enterprise, assuring them that none
who embarked on that stream would escape alive.
But in the face of all such counsel, the expedition started, and for
upwards of three months the party travelled, one may almost say in
the bowels of the earth--at least in her deepest furrows--through
canyons where the cliffs rise, sheer from the water, to a height of
three-quarters of a mile!
They found, as was only natural, that imagination had exaggerated
the horrors of the situation, and that it was possible to follow the
rock-girt course of the Colorado through all its wanderings--not
without danger, of course. In many places the boat had to be carried.
One was totally wrecked and its cargo lost, and the others came to
partial grief, entailing the loss of valuable instruments, and almost
more precious lives. Though no subterranean passage was discovered, nor
any actual waterfall, there were, nevertheless, such dangerous rapids
as to necessitate frequent troublesome portage; and altogether, the
expedition had its full share of adventure.
The ground was found to vary considerably. In some places the rock
is so vivid in colour--red and orange--that the canyons were
distinguished as the Red Canyon and the Flaming Gorge. Some are
mere fissures of tremendous depth; while in other places, where the
water has carved its way more freely, they are broad, here and there
expanding into a fertile oasis, where green turf and lovely groves
are enclosed by stupendous crags--miniature Yosemites--which to these
travellers appeared to be indeed visions of Paradise.
_Granite Crags_ (Edinburgh and London, 1884).
THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR
(_SPAIN_)
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
It was a lovely day, and a calm sea, which was a great subject of
rejoicing, for even as it was the rickety Spanish vessel rolled
disagreeably. Owing to the miserable slowness of everything, we were
eleven hours on board. There was little interest till we reached
the yellow headland of Trafalgar. Then the rugged outlines of the
African coast rose before us, and we entered the straits, between
Tarifa sleeping amid its orange groves on the Spanish coast, and the
fine African peak above Ceuta. Soon, on the left, the great rock
of Gibraltar rose from the sea like an island, though not the most
precipitous side, which turns inwards towards the Mediterranean. But it
was already gun-fire, and too late to join another steamer and land at
the town, so we waited for a shoal of small boats which put out from
Algeciras, and surrounded our steamer to carry us on shore.
Here we found in the Fonda Inglesa (kept by an English landlady), one
of the most primitive but charming little hotels we ever entered. The
view from our rooms alone decided us to stay there some days. Hence,
framed by the balcony, Gibraltar rose before us in all the glory of its
rugged sharp-edged cliffs, grey in the morning, pink in the evening
light, with the town at its foot, whence, at night, thousands of lights
were reflected on the still water. In the foreground were groups of
fishing-boats at anchor, and, here and there, a lateen sail flitted,
like a white albatross, across the bay. On the little pier beneath
us was endless life and movement, knots of fishermen, in their blue
shirts and scarlet caps and sashes, mingling with solemn-looking Moors
in turbans, yellow slippers, and flowing burnouses, who were watching
the arrival or embarcation of their wares; and an endless variety of
travellers from all parts of Europe, waiting for different steamers, or
come over to see the place. Here an invalid might stay, imbibing health
from the fine air and sunshine, and never be weary of the ever changing
diorama. In every direction delightful walks wind along the cliffs
through groves of aloes and prickly-pear, or descend into little sandy
coves full of beautiful shells. Behind the town, a fine old aqueduct
strides across the valley, and beyond it the wild moors begin at once
sweeping backwards to a rugged chain of mountains. Into the gorges
of these mountains we rode one day, and most delightful they are,
clothed in parts with magnificent old cork-trees, while in the depths
of a ravine, overhung with oleander and rhododendron, is a beautiful
waterfall.
[Illustration: THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR.]
It was with real regret that we left Algeciras and made the short
voyage across the bay to Gibraltar, where we instantly found ourselves
in a place as unlike Spain as it is possible to imagine. Upon the
wharf you are assailed by a clamour of English-speaking porters and
boatmen. Passing the gates, you come upon a barrack-yard swarming
with tall British soldiers, looking wonderfully bright and handsome,
after the insignificant figures and soiled, shabby uniforms of
the Spanish army. Hence the Waterport Street opens, the principal
thoroughfare of the town, though from its insignificant shops, with
English names, and its low public-houses, you have to look up at the
strip of bright blue sky above, to be reminded that you are not in an
English seaport.
Just outside the principal town, between it and the suburb of Europe,
is the truly beautiful Alameda, an immense artificial garden, where
endless gravel paths wind through labyrinths of geraniums and coronella
and banks of flame-coloured ixia, which are all in their full blaze of
beauty under the March sun, though the heat causes them to wither and
droop before May. During our stay at Gibraltar, it has never ceased to
surprise us that this Alameda, the shadiest and pleasantest place open
to the public upon the Rock, should be almost deserted; but so it is.
Even when the band playing affords an additional attraction, there are
not a dozen persons to listen to it; whereas at Rome on such occasions,
the Pincio, exceedingly inferior as a public garden, would be crowded
to suffocation, and always presents a lively and animated scene.
One succession of gardens occupies the western base of the Rock,
and most luxuriant and gigantic are the flowers that bloom in them.
Castor-oil plants, daturas, and daphnes, here attain the dignity of
timber, while geraniums and heliotropes many years old, so large as to
destroy all the sense of floral proportions which has hitherto existed
in your mind. It is a curious characteristic, and typical of Gibraltar,
that the mouth of a cannon is frequently found protruding from a
thicket of flowers.
The eastern side of the Rock, in great part a perpendicular precipice,
is elsewhere left uncultivated, and is wild and striking in the
highest degree. Here, beyond the quaint Jewish cemetery of closely set
gravestones, bearing Hebrew inscriptions on the open hillside, a rugged
path winds through rocks and tangled masses of flowers and palmists, to
a curious stalactitic cavern called Martin’s Cave. On this side of the
cliff a remnant of the famous “apes of Tarshish” is suffered to remain
wild and unmolested, though their numbers, always very small, have
lately been reduced by the very ignorant folly of a young officer, who
shot one and wounded nine others, for which he has been very properly
impounded.
On the northern side of the Rock are the famous galleries tunnelled
in the face of the precipice, with cannon pointing towards Spain from
their embrasures. Through these, or, better, by delightful paths,
fringed with palmettos and asphodel, you may reach El Hacho, the signal
station, whence the view is truly magnificent over the sea, and the
mountain chains of two continents, and down into the blue abysses
beneath the tremendous precipice upon which it is placed.
[Illustration: THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR.]
The greatest drawback to the charms of Gibraltar has seemed to be the
difficulty of leaving it. It is a beautiful prison. We came fully
intending to ride over the mountain passes by Ronda, but on arriving we
heard that the whole of that district was in the hands of the brigands
under the famous chief Don Diego, and the Governor positively refused
to permit us to go that way. Our lamentations at this have since been
cut short by the news of a double murder at the hands of the brigands
on the way we wished to have taken, and at the very time we should
have taken it. So we must go to Malaga by sea, and wait for the happy
combination of a good steamer and calm weather falling on the same day.
Late in the afternoon of the 15th of March we embarked on board the
_Lisbon_ in the dockyard of Gibraltar. It had been a lovely day, and
the grand Rock had looked its best, its every cleft filled with flowers
and foliage. The sun set before we had rounded Europe Point, and the
precipitous cliffs of the eastern bay rose utterly black against the
yellow sky.
_Wanderings in Spain_ (London, 1873).
THINGVALLA
(_ICELAND_)
LORD DUFFERIN
At last I have seen the famous Geysers, of which every one has heard
so much; but I have also seen Thingvalla, of which no one has heard
anything. The Geysers are certainly wonderful marvels of nature, but
more wonderful, more marvellous is Thingvalla; and if the one repay you
for crossing the Spanish Sea, it would be worth while to go round the
world to reach the other.
Of the boiling fountains I think I can give you a good idea, but
whether I can contrive to draw for you anything like a comprehensible
picture of the shape and nature of the Almanna Gja, the Hrafna Gja,
and the lava vale, called Thingvalla, that lies between them, I am
doubtful. Before coming to Iceland I had read every account that had
been written of Thingvalla by any former traveller, and when I saw it,
it appeared to me a place of which I had never heard; so I suppose I
shall come to grief in as melancholy a manner as my predecessors, whose
ineffectual pages whiten the entrance to the valley they have failed to
describe.
After an hour’s gradual ascent through a picturesque ravine, we emerged
upon an immense desolate plateau of lava, that stretched away for
miles and miles like a great stony sea. A more barren desert you
cannot conceive. Innumerable boulders, relics of the glacial period,
encumbered the track. We could only go at a foot-pace. Not a blade
of grass, not a strip of green, enlivened the prospect, and the only
sound we heard was the croak of the curlew and the wail of the plover.
Hour after hour we plodded on, but the grey waste seemed interminable,
boundless: and the only consolation Sigurdr would vouchsafe was that
our journey’s end lay on this side of some purple mountains that peeped
like the tents of a demon leaguer above the stony horizon.
As it was already eight o’clock, and we had been told the entire
distance from Reykjavik to Thingvalla was only five-and-thirty miles,
I could not comprehend how so great a space should still separate us
from our destination. Concluding more time had been lost in shooting,
lunching, etc., by the way than we supposed, I put my pony into a
canter, and determined to make short work of the dozen miles which
seemed still to lie between us and the hills, on this side of which I
understood from Sigurdr our encampment for the night was to be pitched.
Judge then of my astonishment when, a few minutes afterwards, I was
arrested in full career by a tremendous precipice, or rather chasm,
which suddenly gaped beneath my feet, and completely separated the
barren plateau we had been so painfully traversing from a lovely, gay,
sunlit flat, ten miles broad, that lay,--sunk at a level lower by a
hundred feet,--between us and the opposite mountains. I was never so
completely taken by surprise; Sigurdr’s purposely vague description of
our halting-place was accounted for.