flowers into the Ganges; all fill their ewers and jars and then,
stooping, fill their hollowed hand and drink. Here religious feeling
reigns supreme, and no sensual thought ever seems to assail these
beauteous mingled forms. They come into unconscious contact with each
other, but only heed the river, the sun, and the splendour of the
morning in a dream of ecstasy. And when the long ritual is ended, the
women retire to their homes, while the men, seated on the rafts amid
their garlands dispose themselves for prayer.
Oh! the joyful awakenings of this primeval race, praying in daily
unison to God, where the poorest may find room amongst the splendours
of the sun, the waters, and the flowers.
All the life of Benares centres round the river. People come from
the palaces and jungles to die on its sacred banks, and the old and
the sick are brought here by their families to await their end. The
relatives never return to their homes in the country after the death
has taken place, and so Benares, which already contains three hundred
thousand inhabitants, increases rapidly in size. For those who feel
their end approaching this is the spot so eagerly desired.
Oh! to die at Benares. To die on the banks of the Ganges! To have one’s
body bathed for the last time, and then to have one’s ashes strewn into
the river!
THE COLORADO
HENRY GANNETT
The country drained by the Colorado River is a peculiar region. It is a
country of plateaus and canons, the plateaus mainly arid and sterile,
where the few streams flow in deep gorges far below the surface.
The longest and most northern branch of the Colorado is Green River,
which heads in the Wind River Mountains, against the sources of the
Bighorn and Snake Rivers. This stream, in its long course towards the
south, receives the waters of the Uinta from the west, and the Yampa
and White Rivers from the east. Near latitude 38° 15′ and longitude
110° it is joined by Grand River, a stream of nearly equal size, which
heads in Middle Park, Colorado, drawing its first supplies of water
from the snowfields of Long Peak. The stream below the junction of
these two forks is known as the Colorado.
Below their junction, the principal branches of the Colorado from the
east are the San Juan, the Colorado Chiquito, Williams Fork, and the
Gila; on the west, the “Dirty Devil,” Paria, and Virgin.
This region is limited on the east, north, and north-west by high
mountain ranges. Its surface is nearly flat, but by no means unbroken.
There is little rolling or undulating country. Changes of level take
place by very gentle, uniform slopes, or by abrupt, precipitous steps.
A large part of the surface consists of bare rocks, with no soil or
vegetation. A part is covered with a thin sandy soil, which supports
a growth of sage and cacti, or even a few pinon pines and cedars. The
only vegetation is that characteristic of an arid country.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY DETROIT PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPANY THE
COLORADO]
This aridity has modified orographic forms to an astonishing degree.
Where, under different climatic conditions, there would be produced
a region similar in most respects to the prairies of the Mississippi
valley, we find a country, flat indeed, or inclined at low angles, but
one whose water-courses are far beneath the general level, deep down in
cañons, hundreds, thousands of feet beneath the surface.
Great cliffs, thousands of feet in height, and extending like huge
walls for hundreds of miles, change the level of the country at a
single step.
Isolated buttes and mesas, of great height, are scattered over the
plateaus, indicating the former height of the plain of which they
formed parts.
“The landscape everywhere, away from the river, is of rock--cliffs of
rock, tables of rock, terraces of rock, crags of rock--ten thousand
strangely carved forms. Rocks everywhere, and no vegetation: no soil,
no land. When speaking of these rocks, we must not conceive of piles of
boulders, or heaps of fragments, but a whole land of naked rock, with
giant forms carved on it; cathedral-shaped buttes, towering hundreds
or thousands of feet; cliffs that cannot be scaled, and cañon walls
that shrink the river into insignificance, with vast hollow domes
and tall pinnacles, and shafts set on verge overhead, and all highly
coloured--buff, grey, red, brown, and chocolate; never lichened, never
moss-covered, but bare and often polished.”
The above description by Major J. W. Powell, who has explored the
cañons of the Colorado, gives a graphic pen-picture of the lower and
more arid plateaus of this region.
Nearly every watercourse, whether the stream be perennial or not, is a
cañon; a narrow valley, with precipitous walls. In many cases, these
cañons are so numerous that they cut the plateau into shreds--a mere
skeleton of a country. Of such a section Lieutenant Ives, who explored
the course of lower Colorado, writes: “The extent and magnitude of the
system of cañons in that direction is astounding. The plateau is cut
into shreds by these gigantic chasms, and resembles a vast ruin. Belts
of country, miles in width, have been swept away, leaving only isolated
mountains standing in the gap; fissures so profound that the eye cannot
penetrate their depths are separated by walls whose thickness one can
almost span; and slender spires, that seem tottering on their base,
shoot up a thousand feet from vaults below.”
But few of these cañons contain water throughout the year. Most of them
are dry at all times, excepting for a few days in the early spring,
or for a few minutes or hours at most after a heavy shower. It is
characteristic of Western North America, as of all arid countries,
that the streams, away from their sources in the mountains, lose
water, rather than gain it, in traversing the lower country. The dry
atmosphere and the thirsty soil absorb it, and, in many cases, large
streams entirely disappear in this way. This is the case to a great
extent in the plateau country, and still more so in the Great Basin,
where these are the only outlets to the drainage.
Those who have long and carefully studied the Grand Cañon of the
Colorado do not hesitate for a moment to pronounce it by far the most
sublime of all earthly spectacles. If its sublimity consisted only
in its dimensions, it could be sufficiently set forth in a single
sentence. It is more than 200 miles long, from five to twelve miles
wide, and from 5,000 to 6,000 feet deep. There are in the world valleys
which are longer and a few which are deeper. There are valleys flanked
by summits loftier than the palisades of the Kaibab. Still the Grand
Cañon is the sublimest thing on earth. It is not alone by virtue of its
magnitudes, but by virtue of the whole--its _ensemble_.
The space under immediate view from our stand-point, fifty miles long
and ten to twelve wide, is thronged with a great multitude of objects
so vast in size, so bold yet majestic in form, so infinite in their
details, that as the truth gradually reveals itself to the perceptions
it arouses the strongest emotions. Unquestionably the great, the
overruling feature is the wall on the opposite side of the gulf. Can
mortal fancy create a picture of a mural front a mile in height, seven
to ten miles distant, and receding into space in either direction? As
the mind strives to realize its proportions its spirit is broken and
its imagination completely crushed. If the wall were simple in its
character, if it were only blank and sheer, some rest might be found
in contemplating it; but it is full of diversity and eloquent with
grand suggestions. It is deeply recessed by alcoves and amphitheatres
receding far into the plateau beyond, and usually disclosing only
the portals by which they open into the main chasm. Between them the
promontories jut out ending in magnificent gables with sharp mitred
angles. Thus the wall rambles in and out, turning numberless corners.
Many of the angles are acute, and descend as sharp spurs like the
forward edge of a ploughshare. Only those alcoves which are directly
opposite to us can be seen in their full length and depth. Yet so
excessive, nay, so prodigious, is the effect of foreshortening, that it
is impossible to realize their full extensions.
Numerous detached masses are also seen flanking the ends of the long
promontories. These buttes are of gigantic proportions, and yet so
overwhelming is the effect of the wall against which they are projected
that they seem insignificant in mass, and the observer is often deluded
by them, failing to perceive that they are really detached from the
wall and perhaps separated from it by an interval of a mile or two.
At the foot of this palisade is a platform through which meanders the
inner gorge, in whose dark and sombre depths flows the river. Only
in one place can the water surface be seen. In its winding the abyss
which holds it extends for a short distance towards us and the line of
vision enters the gorge lengthwise. Above and below this short reach
the gorge swings its course in other directions and reveals only a
dark, narrow opening, while its nearer wall hides its depth. This inner
chasm is 1,000 to 2,000 feet deep. Its upper 200 feet is a vertical
ledge of sandstone of a dark rich brownish colour. Beneath it lies the
granite of a dark iron-grey shade, verging towards black, and lending
a gloomy aspect to the lowest deeps. Perhaps half a mile of the river
is disclosed. A pale, dirty red, without glimmer or sheen, a motionless
surface, a small featureless spot enclosed in the dark shade of the
granite, is all of it that is here visible. Yet we know it is a large
river, 150 yards wide, with a headlong torrent foaming and plunging
over rocky rapids.
The walls of the Grand Cañon and the level of the plateau descend by
a succession of great steps, produced by faults, until the level of
the river is reached at the mouth of the Grand Wash; and thus ends the
Grand Cañon.
Below the Grand Wash, a dry stream bed which enters the Colorado from
the north, the river turns south again and enters the Black Cañon of
Lieutenant Ives’ report--a cañon which would be a remarkable feature
were it not brought into such close juxtaposition with that described
above.
Below it the river runs in narrow valleys and low cañons to its mouth.
THE AVON
JOHN WILSON CROKER
There are Avons and Avons. Of course, Shakespeare’s Avon is the famous
stream which takes precedence of all others. It rises at Naseby, in the
yard of a small inn near the church. So for two things is that village
of Naseby renowned. A good many years ago a hospitable agriculturist,
resident near Naseby, asked me to come over and see the battle-field
and source of the Avon. I came and saw. The battle-field, truth to say,
impressed me in no degree more than the river-head; I saw a quantity of
ploughed land, undulating in true Northamptonshire fashion. Doubtless
grim old Oliver and hot Prince Rupert saw a good deal more; and that
heavy land is responsible for many oaths on the part of the prince,
and prayers from the ever-prayerful lips of the Roundhead general.
But Naseby field is very much like all the rest of Northamptonshire.
There is not a hill in the country, or a brook that a boy cannot leap,
or a church spire that a boy cannot throw a stone over, or enough
level ground for a game of cricket. Yet it is a capital hunting county
nevertheless.
[Illustration: THE AVON]
Descending the Avon from Naseby, we pass through much dreary
Northamptonshire scenery. At a village called Catthorpe, we are
reminded of a certain poetaster named Dyer. Poetry was in a poor state
when the author of _Grongar Hill_ could be considered a poet. He was
an amiable clergyman, who wrote mediocre verse; but Horace’s opinion
of such verse is peculiarly popular in the present day. The first
town of any consequence which the pedestrian reaches is Lutterworth;
and concerning Lutterworth there is little to be said, except that
Wicliffe was once its rector; and the ashes of the great reformer were
disinterred by certain ecclesiastical vultures, and thrown into the
brook which runs into the Avon at Lutterworth. So says Fuller, whom
Wordsworth has followed: “This brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon,
Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main
ocean. And thus the ashes of Wicliffe are the emblem of his doctrine,
which now is dispersed all the world over.”
The next town is Rugby; an immortal town, forever connected with the
greatest of school-masters.
The scenery about Avon begins to improve near Newnham Regis; a small
village, remarkable for having nothing of the church left except the
tower. The rector of Church Lawford is also vicar of King’s Newnham;
and as the two villages cannot count five hundred inhabitants, we
perhaps need not regret the destruction of the ancient church.
The city of Coventry lies not very far from the Avon. It is, I think,
the dirtiest place in England, Bristol and Birmingham not excepted. In
days gone by it had great fame, this _Coventria civitas_; and its earl,
Leofric, who used to stride about his hall among his dogs,
“His beard a foot before him, and his hair
A yard behind,”
was a worthy ancestor of Lord Palmerston; and we all remember who wrote,
“I waited for the train at Coventry;
I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
To watch the three tall spires.”
What strikes me in this city of Coventry--when I look at those noble
spires, which Tennyson has immortalized (St. Michael’s is second to
Salisbury only), and at the splendid city-hall--is the wonderful change
between the past and the present. It is now one of the most sordid
and miserable towns in the empire. What generous and magnificent
inhabitants must it have had when the spires of St. Michael’s and
Trinity were raised heavenwards! I’ll be hanged if Godiva the beautiful
would have
“Unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt”
for the present population of Coventry. I fear that among its makers of
watches and ribbons there are goodly number of “low churls, compact of
thankless earth.”
The beauty of Avon begins where it enters the park of Stoneleigh
Abbey, seat of Lord Leigh. The first baron, when Mr. Chandos Leigh,
published some elegant poetry. His title to the estate was at one time
questioned; and an inventive attorney produced a most marvellous case
against him, accusing him and Lady Leigh of pulling down one side of
Stoneleigh Church, to get rid of some genealogical testimony furnished
by the Monuments, and of causing a huge stone to be dropped on some men
who were engaged in building a bridge across the river Sow, it being
important to suppress their evidence; I forget how many murders this
lawyer (who very justly suffered imprisonment) charged against one of
the gentlest and most amiable of men. Of the old abbey nothing is left
but a gateway; and the great mansion of the Leighs, though doubtless
magnificent and luxurious within, has no external beauty. But the
park is redolent of _As you like it_. All this Warwickshire woodland
breathes of Shakespeare. Under these stately oaks, the noblest I have
ever seen, beside this sparkling river, how sweet it were to moralize
with melancholy Jaques, to while away the golden time with joyous
Rosalind! As the traveller lies beneath a patrician tree, amid the
magical noontide, well might he fancy the mellow voice of Amiens in the
distance, cheering the banished Duke with music. Of Stoneleigh village
I have only to say, that when last there I found it impossible to
obtain a glass of ale; Lord Leigh having an objection to that wholesome
liquid. An English village without ale is awful to think of.
Two miles through field and woodland, and we are at Kenilworth. Wise
were the monks when they settled down in that green valley. Very
quaint is the village that clusters round the old church; traditions
of monastic and baronial times linger there; the exteriors of several
of the antique houses made me wish to catch a glimpse of the interiors
and their inhabitants, which I was not lucky enough to do. They are
just the sort of houses where a good dinner and a bottle of rare
port is the order of the day. The end of the village near the church
is quite another affair; instead of seeming coeval with the castle
and the priory, it appears to have sprung up simultaneously with the
railway-station. Extremes meet at Kenilworth: in these modern villas
you would expect to find no inhabitant less active than a commercial
traveller; in the old houses at the other end you would hardly be
startled by an interview with Sir Walter Raleigh or rare Ben Jonson.
Of course I ought to describe Kenilworth Castle; but I cannot do
it, that’s a fact; besides which, the thing has been done a hundred
times. It is a glorious ruin; and as one lies on the turf on a summer
day in the shadow of its grey stonework, watching the flying clouds,
and the choughs in the ivy, and the little river shimmering through
the meadows, and the immoveable old towers decaying in their stately
strength, there descends upon the spirit a mystic and unutterable
feeling, worth more than all the poetry ever written, ay, or all the
claret ever pressed from Bordeaux grapes.
Avon winds back into Stoneleigh Park after leaving Kenilworth, and
passes the little village of Ashow, where I tasted the juiciest
mulberries I ever ate,--blood-ripe as those wherewith the laughing
Naiad Ægle stained the temples of Silenus. Cool and peaceful is that
pleasant village, where Avon murmurs softly amid reedy islets. Passing
onward, we see a cross upon a wooded hill: there poor Piers Gaveston
was beheaded, some five centuries and a half ago. There is a capitally
written inscription on the cross. Somewhat farther is Milverton Church,
with a quaint wooden tower: they say it is not worth while to build a
stone one, as the lightning strikes it so often. But Guy’s Cliff!
Perhaps I had better let those three words stand as sole suggestion of
what that exquisite residence is. The strange legend of Guy of Warwick,
vanquisher of Colbrand the Dane, and of the Dun Cow, hovers around
this delightful old place. But I don’t know whether Mr. Bertie Percy’s
poetic dwelling is not surpassed by the mill close thereto.
Few places I have seen dwell in my memory like this beautiful old mill,
surrounded by a wealth of water, a luxury of leafage. If there be
mills in fairy-land, they are built on this pattern. If the miller’s
daughter, “so dear, so dear” to the Laureate that he plagiarized from
Anacreon for her sake, had any actual existence, it must have been at a
mill like this of Guy’s Cliff.
I scarce dare approach Warwick after Nathaniel Hawthorne. The reaction
from a fast, loud, vulgar, sordid life, makes the most refined and
poetic natures of America dreamers of dreams. Such, with especial
emphasis, was Hawthorne. To him the ideal was more real than reality.
What visions he saw in Warwick, where the great castle “floats double”
in the lucid Avon; where a strange old-world tranquillity broods over
the famous Earl of Leicester’s antique hospital! After Windsor (and
I do not forget Alnwick), I think Warwick the noblest castellated
building in England. Built into the solid rock, it overhangs Avon with
a wild sublimity. As you look down from the windows of the great hall
upon the river far beneath, you think that thus may Guinevere and
Lancelot have looked, when the angry Queen cast into the water the nine
great diamonds, while the doomed barge bore to her burial the lily maid
of Astolat. Why over that old broken bridge, green with the ivy of a
thousand years, may not the blameless King have passed, and Merlin the
sage, and Tristram of Lyonnesse, leading Iseult of Ireland? Who knows?
Are these things fables? Are ye enchanters, Alfred Tennyson and Matthew
Arnold?
The Earl of Warwick’s courtesy throws the castle open to the public two
or three days a week. Rumour says that the late Earl’s housekeeper,
whose monument may be seen in Warwick Church, left her master sixty
thousand pounds, accumulated by visitors’ fees! At the very gateway
you are met by wonders,--an iron porridge-pot of the great Sir Guy,
holding a hogshead or two, I suppose. The old knight must have had
a rare appetite for breakfast. There is also his sword, a gigantic
weapon, which I defy Jacob Omnium to wield with both hands. As for
the contents of the castle, I will not say a word about them; though
of historical portraits, Vandykes and Rubenses, there is a fine
collection. I commend the traveller upon looking out upon Avon from
those wondrous rooms, to call back, if he can, the heroic and poetic
times when it was possible to build such a castle; when it seemed fit
habitation for those who dwelt in it,--for Neville the Kingmaker, to
wit, who fills a marvellous page, brilliant with gold and stained with
blood, in England’s history; and who well deserved to be found in
Shakespeare’s peerless portrait-gallery.
Warwick town is very quaint, and has two old-fashioned hostelries, the
Warwick Arms and the Woolpack, at either of which a hungry and thirsty
traveller will find ample refreshment of the right sort. From the
top of Warwick Church tower there is a magnificent view over a rich
country. The church’s chief glory is the Beauchamp Chapel, just 400
years old, a perfect poem in stone, an absolute triumph of the good
old artist-workmen, who find no rivals in the days when artists are
never workmen, and workmen never artists. Its dead inhabitant was last
of the Beauchamp Earls, and that crowned saint, Henry VI., conferred
the earldom upon the Kingmaker; thus commencing the third line of
its holders, for the first Earl was a Newburgh, or Neuburg, of the
Conqueror’s creation; then, two centuries later, it passed through a
female to the Beauchamps; two centuries more, and the last Beauchamp
was succeeded by a Nevil; on Nevil’s death, “false, fleeting, perjured
Clarence” had the earldom, whose son, last of the Plantagenets, ended
the fourth line, when he and Perkin Warbeck died on Tower Hill; next
came the Dudleys, creatures of Henry VIII., the elder of whom, Lady
Jane Grey’s father-in-law and worst enemy, is better known as Duke
of Northumberland; then Lord Rich, whose great grand-son married
Cromwell’s daughter, was created Earl of Warwick by James I.; and
finally George II. conferred the title on Greville, Earl Brooke,
ancestor of the present Earl. Thus six families at least have held this
famous earldom.