and frivolity, about a mile and a half from the poetic stream.
Leamington owes its existence, as anything beyond a village, to one Dr.
Jephson, who hit on the brilliant notion that the mineral waters of
the place would cure all possible diseases. A great hotel sprang up,
the Regent, which for years was a kind of hospital for Dr. Jephson’s
patients. This medical genius is quite deified in the town. There are
pleasant gardens dedicated to him, to which none are admitted save
subscribers of a guinea, or something of the sort. It is a downright
apotheosis (or apodiabolosis) of physic. But other causes concurred
to bring Leamington into the first rank of pleasure towns: there is
capital hunting in the neighbourhood, and a first-rate pack of hounds.
It is almost the metropolis of archery, a pastime which young ladies
wisely patronize, since a pretty girl cannot look prettier than in her
toxophilite costume of Lincoln-green. Nothing can be more beautiful
than the walk by the margin of Avon through Lord Warwick’s park.
After passing through several pleasant villages, full of Warwickshire
quaintness, we reach Charlecote House, the seat of the Lucy family.
It has always appeared to me that Haydon more admirably than any
man expressed the feeling which is produced in poetic minds by the
places sacred to Shakespeare. Painting under the stress of a noble
ambition, with the sad certainty that the age could not perceive his
greatness, had injured his health; instead of joining “the vulgar
idlers at a watering-place” he sought change of scene at Stratford.
How the man enjoyed it, and how vigorously he depicts his enjoyment!
“To Charlecote,” says he, “I walked as fast as my legs could carry
me, and crossing the meadow, entered the immortalized park by a back
pathway. Trees, gigantic and umbrageous, at once announce the growth
of centuries: while I was strolling on, I caught a distant view of
the old red-bricked house, in the same style and condition as when
Shakespeare lived; and on going close to the river-side, came at once
on two enormous old willows, with a large branch across the stream,
such as Ophelia hung to. Every blade of grass, every daisy and cowslip,
every hedge-flower and tuft of tawny earth, every rustling, ancient
and enormous tree which curtains the sunny park with its cool shadows,
between which the sheep glitter on the emerald green in long lines of
light, every ripple of the river with its placid tinkle,
“Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
It overtaketh in its pilgrimage,”
announced the place where Shakespeare imbibed his early, deep, and
native taste for forest scenery. Oh, it was delightful, indeed!
Shakespeare seemed to hover and bless all I saw, thought of, or trod
on. Those great roots of the lime and the oak, bursting, as it were,
above the ground, bent up by the depth they had struck into it,
Shakespeare had seen--Shakespeare had sat on.
In the same spirit of delight, and with the same realizing power, did
the great painter--one of those
“Mighty poets in their misery dead,”
“of whom the world was not worthy”--enjoy Stratford itself. Thus does
he write of what he felt as sunset descended on the church where lies
all that was mortal of God’s greatest human creature. “I stood and
drank into enthusiasm all a human being could feel; all that the most
ardent and devoted lover of a great genius could have a sensation
of; all that the most tender scenery of river, trees, and sunset sky
together could excite. I was lost, quite lost; and in such a moment
should wish my soul to take its flight (if it please God) when my time
is finished.” God willed otherwise; that great soul took flight in a
moment, not of delight, but of agony.
There seem to be always American visitors at Stratford. The refined and
thoughtful Americans, like Washington Irving and Hawthorne, have by
the intensity of their reverie, thrown a halo of fresh beauty around
many places sacred to genius. But too many of these trans-atlantic
travellers merely visit a place like Stratford just to say they have
been there; and people of that kind are singularly unpleasant to meet.
There is a story that one Yankee offered an enormous sum of money for
Shakespeare’s house, to take it to the States for exhibition.
I must hurry on. Village after village, quaint and beautiful, lie along
the margin of Avon; the keen eye will notice whence Shakespeare drew
his choicest descriptions of nature; the longest summer-day will not be
too long to loiter around the vicinity of Stratford. One of the best
proofs that Avon River flows through rich and lovely country is the
multitude of monastic institutions which have left their names to the
villages, with here and there a noble tower or graceful gateway.
Founders of abbeys loved a pleasant river flowing through fertile
meadows; salmon and trout and eels for fast-days were as important as
beeves and deer for festivals. So there are more conventual remains
between Naseby and Tewkesbury than in almost any equal distance of
which I have knowledge; and the glory of those old ecclesiastic
foundations is peculiarly realized as the noble bell-tower of Evesham
Abbey rises above the town. The great monastery had lasted more than a
thousand years when the ruthless hand of Henry VIII. fell upon it. The
bell-tower and a most delightful old gateway are the only relics of it
left.
The pilgrim through the beautiful Vale of Evesham comes upon another
battle-field, where, 600 years ago, fell a famous leader of the Commons
against the Crown. Simon de Montfort fought for the right, so far as we
can judge at this remote period; but his antagonist was the greatest
general of the day, and afterwards became England’s greatest king. He
was but twenty-six when he won the immortal victory known as the Murder
of Evesham. If Montfort gave England its first parliament, Edward gave
us Wales and Scotland, and made the priests pay taxes in defiance of
the Pope. A poetic prince, as well as a gallant; for did he not, when
Eleanora the Castilian died in Lincolnshire, cause Peter l’Imagineur
to build a stately cross wherever her corpse rested on its way to
Westminster? Thanks to the poetry of a railway company, London sees the
last and stateliest of those crosses rebuilt in what was once the quiet
village of Charing.
There was another abbey at Pershore, which takes its name from its
abundant pear-trees. Bredon Hill, not far from this town, is worth
climbing, for its fine view towards the Malverns. At the village of
Strensham the author of _Hudibras_ was born. I must not be retarded
by reminiscences of that most humorous writer of wonderful doggerel;
but pass on to Tewkesbury, last of the towns on the Avon, which here
falls into the wide and shining Severn. Tewkesbury had also its abbey
and its famous battle; it has, moreover, its legend of that unfortunate
gentleman, Brictric of Bristol, who, somewhere about the noon of the
Eleventh Century, made love to Matilda, daughter of Count Baldwin of
Flanders, and then jilted her. ’Twas the unluckiest action of his life.
For Matilda married a certain fierce and resolute Duke of Normandy,
who used to thrash her occasionally; and this same duke became King of
England by the strong hand; and then Matilda coaxed him (nothing loth,
I guess) to seize all Brictric’s wide demesnes, and imprison their
owner. So the poor fellow died in Winchester Castle; and his manors in
half-a-dozen counties, as may be seen by Domesday book, passed into the
hands of the queen. So much for the _spretæ injuria formæ_.
DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE
CHARLES DICKENS
Queenston, at which place the steamboats start from Toronto (or I
should rather say at which place they call, for their wharf is at
Lewiston, on the opposite shore), is situated in a delicious valley,
through which the Niagara River, in colour a very deep green, pursues
its course. It is approached by a road that takes its winding way among
the heights by which the town is sheltered; and seen from this point is
extremely beautiful and picturesque.
Our steamboat came up directly this had left the wharf, and soon bore
us to the mouth of the Niagara: where the Stars and Stripes of America
flutter on one side, and the Union Jack of England on the other: and so
narrow is the space between them that the sentinels in either fort can
often hear the watchword of the other country given. Thence we emerged
on Lake Ontario, an inland sea; and by half-past six o’clock were at
Toronto.
The country round this town being very flat, is bare of scenic
interest; but the town itself is full of life and motion, bustle,
business, and improvement. The streets are well paved, and lighted
with gas; the houses are large and good; the shops excellent. Many of
them have a display of goods in their windows, such as may be seen in
thriving county towns in England; and there are some which would do no
discredit to the metropolis itself.
[Illustration: THE ST. LAWRENCE]
The time of leaving Toronto for Kingston is noon. By eight o’clock
next morning, the traveller is at the end of his journey, which is
performed by steamboat upon Lake Ontario, calling at Port Hope and
Coburg, the latter a cheerful, thriving little town. Vast quantities of
flour form the chief item in the freight of these vessels. We had no
fewer than one thousand and eighty barrels on board, between Coburg and
Kingston.
We left Kingston for Montreal on the tenth of May, at half-past nine in
the morning, and proceeded in a steamboat down the St. Lawrence River.
The beauty of this noble stream at almost any point, but especially
in the commencement of this journey when it winds its way among the
Thousand Islands, can hardly be imagined. The number and constant
successions of these islands, all green and richly wooded; their
fluctuating sizes, some so large that for half an hour together one
among them will appear as the opposite bank of the river, and some so
small that they are mere dimples on its broad bosom; their infinite
variety of shapes; and the numberless combinations of beautiful forms
which the trees growing on them present: all form a picture fraught
with uncommon interest and pleasure.
In the afternoon we shot down some rapids where the river boiled and
bubbled strangely, and where the force and headlong violence of the
current were tremendous. At seven o’clock we reached Dickenson’s
Landing, whence travellers proceed for two or three hours by
stage-coach: the navigation of the river being rendered so dangerous
and difficult in the interval, by rapids, that steamboats do not make
the passage. The number and length of those _portages_, over which the
roads are bad, and the travelling slow, render the way between the
towns of Montreal and Kingston somewhat tedious.
Our course lay over a wide, uninclosed tract of country at a little
distance from the riverside, whence the bright warning lights on the
dangerous parts of the St. Lawrence shone vividly. The night was dark
and raw, and the way dreary enough. It was nearly ten o’clock when we
reached the wharf where the next steamboat lay; and went on board, and
to bed.
She lay there all night, and started as soon as it was day. The morning
was ushered in by a violent thunder-storm, and was very wet, but
gradually improved and brightened up. Going on deck after breakfast,
I was amazed to see floating down with the stream, a most gigantic
raft, with some thirty or forty wooden houses upon it, and at least as
many flag-masts, so that it looked like a nautical street. I saw many
of these rafts afterwards, but never one so large. All the timber, or
“lumber,” as it is called in America, which is brought down the St.
Lawrence, is floated down in this manner. When the raft reaches its
place of destination, it is broken up; the materials are sold, and the
boatmen return for more.
At eight we landed again, and travelled by a stage-coach for four hours
through a pleasant and well-cultivated country, perfectly French in
every respect: in the appearance of the cottages; the air, language,
and dress of the peasantry; the signboards on the shops and taverns;
and the Virgin’s shrines, and crosses, by the wayside. Nearly every
common labourer and boy, though he had no shoes to his feet, wore
round his waist a sash of some bright colour: generally red: and the
women, who were working in the fields and gardens, and doing all kinds
of husbandry, wore, one and all, great flat straw hats with most
capacious brims. There were Catholic Priests and Sisters of Charity
in the village streets; and images of the Saviour at the corners of
cross-roads, and in other public places.
At noon we went on board another steamboat, and reached the village of
Lachine, nine miles from Montreal, by three o’clock. There we left the
river, and went on by land.
Montreal is pleasantly situated on the margin of the St. Lawrence, and
is backed by some bold heights, about which there are charming rides
and drives. The streets are generally narrow and irregular, as in most
French towns of any age; but in the more modern parts of the city, they
are wide and airy. They display a great variety of very good shops;
and both in the town and suburbs there are many excellent private
dwellings. The granite quays are remarkable for their beauty, solidity
and extent.
There is a very large Catholic cathedral here, recently erected; with
two tall spires, of which one is yet unfinished. In the open space
in front of this edifice, stands a solitary, grim-looking, square
brick tower, which has a quaint and remarkable appearance, and which
the wiseacres of the place have consequently determined to pull down
immediately. The Government House is very superior to that at Kingston,
and the town is full of life and bustle. In one of the suburbs is a
plank road--not foot-path--five or six miles long, and a famous road it
is, too. All the rides in the vicinity were made doubly interesting by
the bursting out of spring, which is here so rapid, that it is but a
day’s leap from barren winter, to the blooming youth of summer.
The steamboats to Quebec perform the journey in the night; that is to
say, they leave Montreal at six in the evening, and arrive in Quebec at
six next morning. We made this excursion during our stay in Montreal
(which exceeded a fortnight), and were charmed by its interest and
beauty.
The impression made upon the visitor by this Gibraltar of America:
its giddy heights; its citadel suspended, as it were, in the air; its
picturesque steep streets and frowning gateways; and the splendid views
which burst upon the eye at every turn: is at once unique and lasting.
It is a place not to be forgotten or mixed up in the mind with other
places, or altered for a moment in the crowd of scenes a traveller can
recall. Apart from the realities of this most picturesque city, there
are associations clustering about it which would make a desert rich in
interest. The dangerous precipice along whose rocky front Wolfe and
his brave companions climbed to glory; the Plains of Abraham, where he
received his mortal wound; the fortress, so chivalrously defended by
Montcalm; and his soldier’s grave, dug for him while yet alive, by the
bursting of a shell; are not the least among them, or among the gallant
incidents of history. That is a noble Monument, too, and worthy of two
great nations, which perpetuates the memory of both brave generals, and
on which their names are jointly written.
The city is rich in public institutions and in Catholic churches and
charities, but it is mainly in the prospect from the site of the Old
Government House, and from the Citadel, that its surpassing beauty
lies. The exquisite expanse of country, rich in field and forest,
mountain-height and water, which lies stretched out before the view,
with miles of Canadian villages, glancing in long white streaks, like
veins along the landscape; the motley crowd of gables, roofs, and
chimney-tops in the old hilly town immediately at hand; the beautiful
St. Lawrence sparkling and flashing in the sunlight; and the tiny
ships below the rock from which you gaze, whose distant rigging looks
like spiders’ webs against the light, while casks and barrels on their
decks dwindle into toys, and busy mariners become so many puppets: all
this, framed by a sunken window in the fortress and looked at from
the shadowed room within, forms one of the brightest and the most
enchanting pictures that the eye can rest upon.
In the spring of the year, vast numbers of emigrants who have newly
arrived from England or from Ireland, pass between Quebec and Montreal
on their way to the backwoods and new settlements of Canada. If it be
an entertaining lounge (as I very often found it) to take a morning
stroll upon the quay at Montreal, and see them grouped in hundreds on
the public wharfs about their chests and boxes, it is matter of deep
interest to be their fellow-passenger on one of these steamboats, and,
mingling with the concourse, see and hear them unobserved.
THE TIGRIS
GEORGE RAWLINSON
The Tigris, like the Euphrates, rises from two principal sources. The
most distant, and therefore the true source is the western one, which
is in latitude 38° 10′ longitude, 39° 20′, nearly, a little to the
south of the high mountain lake called Göljik, in the peninsula formed
by the Euphrates where it sweeps round between Palon and Telek. The
Tigris’s source is near the south-western angle of the lake, and cannot
be more than two or three miles from the channel of the Euphrates. The
course of the Tigris is at first somewhat north of east, but after
pursuing this direction for about twenty-five miles it makes a sweep
round to the south, and descends by Arghani Maden upon Diarbekr. Here
is a river of considerable size, and it is crossed by a bridge of ten
arches a little below that city. It then turns suddenly to the east,
and flows in this direction past Osman Kieui to Til where it once
more alters its course and takes that south-easterly direction, which
it pursues with certain slight variations, to its final junctions
with the Euphrates. At Osman Kieui it receives the second or Eastern
Tigris, which descends from Niphates, with a due course south, and,
collecting on its way the waters of a large number of streams, unites
with the Tigris half-way between Diarbekr and Til, in longitude 41°
nearly. Near Til a large stream flows into it from the north-east,
bringing almost as much water as the main channel ordinarily holds.
The length of the whole stream, exclusive of meanders, is reckoned at
1,146 miles. From Diarbekr to Samara the navigation is much impeded by
rapids, rocks and shallows, as well as by artificial bunds or dams,
which in ancient times were thrown across the stream, probably for
purposes of irrigation. The average width of the Tigris in this part
of its course is 200 yards, while its depth is very considerable. From
the west the Tigris obtains no tributary of the slightest importance,
for the Tharthar, which is said to have once reached it, now ends in a
salt lake, a little below Tekrit. Its volume, however, is continually
increasing as it descends, in consequence of the great bulk of water
brought in from the east, particularly by the Great Zab and the Diyaleh.
The Tigris, like the Euphrates, has a flood season. Early in the month
of March, in consequence of the melting of the snow on the southern
flank of Niphates, the river rises rapidly. Its breadth gradually
increases at Diarbekr from 100 or 120 to 250 yards. The stream is swift
and turbid. The rise continues through March and April, reaching its
full height generally in the first or second week of May. At this time
the country about Baghdad is often extensively flooded, not, however,
so much from the Tigris as from the overflow of the Euphrates, which is
here poured into the eastern stream through a canal. About the middle
of May the Tigris begins to fall, and by midsummer it has reached its
normal level.
We find but little mention of the Tigris in Scripture. It appears
indeed under the name of Hiddekel, among the rivers of Eden, and
is there correctly described as “running eastward to Assyria.” But
after this we hear no more of it, if we except one doubtful allusion
in Nahum, until the Captivity, when it becomes well known to the
prophet Daniel, who had to cross it in his journeys to and from Susa.
With Daniel it is “the Great River”--an expression commonly applied
to the Euphrates; and by its side he sees some of his most important
visions. No other mention seems to occur except in the apocryphal
books; and there it is unconnected with any real history. The Tigris,
in its upper course, anciently ran through Armenia and Assyria. Lower
down, from above the point where it enters on the alluvial plain, it
separated Babylonia from Susiana. In the wars between the Romans and
the Parthians we find it constituting, for a short time (from A. D. 114
to A. D. 117), the boundary line between these two empires. Otherwise
it has scarcely been of any political importance. The great chain
of Zagros is the main natural boundary between Western and Central
Asia; and beyond this, the next defensible line is the Euphrates.
Historically it is found that either the central power pushes itself
westward to that river; or the power ruling the west advances eastward
to the mountain barrier.
The water of the Tigris, in its lower course, is yellowish, and is
regarded as unwholesome. The stream abounds with fish of many kinds,
which are often of a large size. Abundant water-fowl float on the
waters. The banks are fringed with palm trees and pomegranates, or
clothed with jungle and reeds, the haunt of the wild-boar and the lion.
THE OISE
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The river was swollen with the long rains. From Vadencourt all the way
to Origny, it ran with ever quickening speed, taking fresh heart at
each mile, and racing as though it already smelt the sea. The water was
yellow and turbulent, swung with an angry eddy among half-submerged
willows, and made an angry clatter along stony shores. The course
kept turning and turning in a narrow and well-timbered valley. Now,
the river would approach the side, and run grinding along the chalky
base of the hill, and show us a few open colza fields among the trees.
Now, it would skirt the garden-walls of houses, where we might catch
a glimpse through a doorway and see a priest pacing in the chequered
sunlight. Again the foliage closed so thickly in front, that there
seemed to be no issue; only a thicket of willows, overtopped by elms
and poplars, under which the river ran flush and fleet, and where a
kingfisher flew past like a piece of the blue sky. On these different
manifestations, the sun poured its clear and catholic looks. The
shadows lay as solid on the swift surface of the stream as on the
stable meadows. The light sparkled golden in the dancing poplar leaves,
and brought the hills into communion with our eyes. And all the while
the river never stopped running or took breath; and the reeds along the
whole valley stood shivering from top to toe.
There should be some myth (but if there is, I know it not) founded on
the shivering of the reeds. There are not many things in nature more
striking to man’s eye. It is such an eloquent pantomime of terror; and
to see such a number of terrified creatures taking sanctuary in every
nook along the shore, is enough to infect a silly human with alarm.
Perhaps they are only a-cold, and no wonder, standing waist deep in
the stream. Or perhaps they have never got accustomed to the speed and
fury of the river’s flux, or the miracle of its continuous body. Pan
once played upon their forefathers; and so, by the hands of the river,
he still plays upon these later generations down all the valley of the
Oise; and plays the same air, both sweet and shrill, to tell us of the
beauty and the terror of the world.
The canoe was like a leaf in the current. It took it up and shook it
and carried it masterfully away, like a Centaur carrying off a nymph.
To keep some command on our direction, required hard and diligent
plying of the paddle. The river was in such a hurry for the sea! Every
drop of water ran in a panic, like as many people in a frightened crowd.
There was never any mistake about the Oise, as a matter of fact. In
these upper reaches, it was still in a prodigious hurry for the sea.
It ran so fast and merrily, through all the windings of its channel
that I strained my thumb, fighting with the rapids, and had to paddle
all the rest of the way with one hand turned up. Sometimes it had to
serve mills; and being still a little river, ran very dry and shallow
in the meanwhile. We had to put our legs out of the boat, and shove
ourselves off the sand of the bottom with our feet. And still it went
on its way singing among the poplars and making a green valley in
the world. After a good woman and a good book, and tobacco, there is
nothing so agreeable on earth as a river. I forgave it its attempt on
my life; which was after all one part owing to the unruly winds of
heaven that had blown down the tree, one part to my own mismanagement,
and only a third part to the river itself, and that not out of malice,
but from its great preoccupation over its business of getting to the
sea. A difficult business, too; for the _détours_ it had to make are
not to be counted. The geographers seem to have given up the attempt;
for I found no map representing the infinite contortion of its course.
A fact will say more than any of them. After we had been some hours,
three if I mistake not, flitting by the trees at this smooth, breakneck
gallop, when we came upon a hamlet and asked where we were, we had got
no farther than four kilometres (say two miles and a half) from Origny.
If it were not for the honour of the thing (in the Scotch saying), we
might almost as well have been standing still.