Griswold’s point, in Lyme, to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude,
the distance measured by its waters, is about three hundred and
seventy-four; and thence to the head-waters from thirty-five to forty.
Its meanders throughout a great part of its course are almost perpetual.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY DETROIT PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPANY THE
CONNECTICUT]
The number of its tributary streams is very great. The waters which
form the Connecticut are remarkably pure and light, such as we commonly
term the best water for washing. The tributary streams, almost without
an exception, issue from hills formed of stone, covered with a
gravelly soil; and roll over a gravelly and stony bed through their
whole progress. The waters of the parent stream are, therefore,
everywhere pure, potable, perfectly salubrious, and inferior to none in
the world for the use of seamen in long voyages.
As a navigable water, this river is inferior to many others of a
smaller size. This is owing to two causes; falls and shallows.
The falls are the following: Little Falls, Great, Indian, Judd’s,
Fifteen-mile, Lebanon, Waterqueechy, Bellow’s, Miller’s, South Hadley,
Enfield.
The Fifteen-mile falls, Waterqueechy, and Enfield, and the greatest
part of the distance attributed to the others, are mere rapids; and
there are also other small rapids, which are of no consequence.
The Valley of the Connecticut is a tract of land, extending from the
Sound to Hereford Mountain; five miles beyond the forty-fifth degree of
latitude. In the largest sense it includes the tract which is bounded
by the Lyme range on the east, and by a confused cluster of hills,
commencing at the Sound, and terminating below Middletown, then by the
Middletown range, then by that of Mount Tom, and then by that of the
Green Mountains, on the west. In this sense it is of very different
breadths, from five miles perhaps to forty-five; and its surface is
composed of an indefinite succession of hills, valleys and plains. But
there is another sense in which the phrase is used with more obvious
propriety and in which it denotes that portion of this vast extent,
which appears as a valley to the eye, moving in the road along its
course from its mouth to the great bend in the northern part of the
township of Stuart.
The Valley of the Connecticut extends through almost four degrees
of latitude, and is bounded on the north by Hereford Mountain; a
magnificent eminence, ascending five miles beyond the line. The
superior limit of this mountain is an arch more gracefully formed than
that of any other within my remembrance. Its elevation is about 2,000
feet above the neighbouring country.
The Intervals on this Valley begin at Hall’s River, about twelve or
fourteen miles from its mouth. The word, Interval is used by me in
a sense altogether different from that which it has in an English
Dictionary. Doctor Belknap spells it Intervale, and confesses his
want of authority for the use of the word. There is in truth no such
word; unless we are to look for its existence in vulgar and mistaken
pronunciation. Originally, when applied to this very subject, it seems
to have meant nothing more than that extent of ground which lay between
the original bank of the river and the river itself.
This extent was composed of land, peculiar in its form and qualities.
The English, so far as I know, have no appropriate name for grounds
of this class. Whether such lands exist on the rivers of Great
Britain, I am ignorant, having never seen any definite account of
them, or allusion to them in any book descriptive of the surface of
that country. From the accounts of Sir John Sinclair’s _Statistical
History of Scotland_ of the lands on some rivers in that country, I
should suppose that a part of them might be Intervals, yet they are
distinguished by no appropriate name. On some rivers in this country
there are none; and on others very few. Wherever they exist, they are
objects of peculiar attention to farmers and subjects of much customary
conversation. That a name should be given to them, therefore, is a
thing of course. Interval is the name which they have accidentally
obtained in this country; and a New Englander relishes it more than
_flats_ or _bottoms_.
This word, in its appropriate meaning denotes lands formed by a long
continued and gradual alluvion of a river.
Beauty of landscape is an eminent characteristic of this Valley. From
Hereford Mountain to Saybrook, it is almost a continued succession
of delightful scenery. No other tract within my knowledge, and from
the extensive information which I have received, I am persuaded that
no other tract within the United States of the same extent can be
compared to it, with respect to those objects which arrest the eye of
the painter and the poet. There are indeed dull, uninteresting spots in
considerable numbers. These, however, are little more than the discords
which are generally regarded as necessary to perfect the harmony. The
beauty and the grandeur are here more varied than elsewhere. They
return oftener; they are longer continued; they are finished by a hand
operating in a superior manner. A gentleman[3] of great respectability,
who had travelled in England, France and Spain, informed me, that the
prospects along the Connecticut excelled those on the beautiful rivers
in these three countries in two great particulars--the Forests and the
Mountains (he might, I believe, have added the Intervals also); and
fell short of them in nothing but population and the productions of
art. It is hardly necessary to observe that both these are advancing
with a rapid step (perhaps sufficiently rapid), towards a strong
resemblance to European improvement.
[Footnote 3: The late Chief Justice Ellsworth.]
Nor are these grounds less distinguished by their beauty. The form
of most of them is elegant. A river, passing through them, becomes
almost of course winding. As the earth, of which they are composed,
is of uniform texture, the impressions made by the stream upon
the border, are also nearly uniform. Hence this border is almost
universally a handsome arch with a margin entirely neat, and very
commonly ornamented with a fine fringe of shrubs and trees. Nor is
the surface of these grounds less pleasing. The terraced form and
the undulations are both eminently handsome. In a country abounding
in hills, plains moderate in their extent, like these, are always
agreeable. Their universal fertility makes a cheerful impression on
every eye. A great part of them is formed into meadows. Meadows are
here more profitable, and everywhere more beautiful, than lands devoted
to any other culture. Here they are extended from five to five hundred
acres, and are everywhere covered with a verdure peculiarly rich and
varied. The vast fields, also, which are not in meadow, exhibit all the
productions of the climate, interspersed in parallelograms, divided
only by mathematical lines, and mingled in a charming confusion. In
many places, large and thrifty orchards, and everywhere forest trees
standing singly, of great height and graceful figures, diversify the
landscape.
The first object, however, in the whole landscape is undoubtedly the
Connecticut itself. This stream may, perhaps, with as much propriety
as any in the world be named the Beautiful River. From Stuart to the
Sound, it uniformly sustains this character. The purity, salubrity and
sweetness of its waters; the frequency and elegance of its meanders;
its absolute freedom from all aquatic vegetables; the uncommon and
universal beauty of its banks; here a smooth and winding beach; there
covered with rich verdure; now fringed with bushes; now crowned with
lofty trees; and now formed by the intruding hill, the rude bluff and
the shaggy mountain; are objects which no traveller can thoroughly
describe and no reader adequately imagine. When to these are added the
numerous towns, villages and hamlets, almost everywhere exhibiting
marks of prosperity and improvement; the rare appearance of decline;
the numerous churches lifting their spires in frequent succession; the
neat schoolhouses, everywhere occupied; and the mills busied on such
a multitude of streams; it may be safely asserted that a pleasanter
journey will rarely be found than that which is made in the Connecticut
Valley.
MOSEL
F. WARRE CORNISH
So we embarked under a bright evening sky, and the smooth stream took
us swiftly down. It was a beautiful moment; the evening deepened over
the green water and the red rocks, till dusk fell, and we ran the
boat aground, hiding the oars in a willow-bed, and tramped with our
luggage into Ruwer, the neighbouring village, having been assured that
wherever we stopped we should find good lodging. And so it proved; not
a village which failed to supply good food, decently cooked, excellent
wine and golden beer, clean beds, moderate charges, and, best of all,
willing and cheerful hospitality, such as one finds in Tyrol and the
Bavarian highlands. There was not a dull reach from Trier to Coblenz.
The scenery is not so impressive as that of the Danube or the famous
windings of the Rhine.
But the hills of the Mosel Valley are beautiful in form and varied with
rocks red as those of Devonshire, or grey slate in slabs and spires, or
dark volcanic, like the Eifel. Everywhere there are beautiful woods,
valleys guarded by ancient castles, and smiling upland meadows far away
among the hills.
As we embarked on the Mosel, let us praise the water itself, to be
in company with which was joy enough; in colour green, neither like
emerald nor chrysoprase, nor like the crystal of the rushing Traun, or
of the deep basin, the home of the soaring grayling, where the river
leaps over the Traun fall. Nor like the water that comes down at
Locarno or Verallo; but a deeper, statelier colour, lighter than the
Kyle between Mull and Argyll, darker than the Thames at Cookham when
at its best after a dry July. In all the shallows wave long tresses of
Undine’s hair, and the surface of the water is broken by little ruffing
eddies into the loveliest water-pattern. Perhaps other rivers are like
this; I do not know them. It seemed to me a peculiar and native charm
of this river, never sullen, never boisterous, the lady of German
rivers. _Smooth-sliding_ is the proper epithet. I wish my reed were
vocal to praise her aright. She has her own poet--Ausonius; but his
poem is rather a catalogue than a hymn of praise, and he takes her for
a river, not a goddess, as she revealed herself to us.
Ruwer, the village where we were to spend the night, was shimmering
between sunset and starlight, and had its own light besides, for the
military were here, and all the windows ablaze, and Faust and Wagner
and their loves had come out of Trier to take the air and drink, noisy
but respectable.
The next morning was the 1st of September, a dawn of golden haze
telling of hot tramps over stubbles and turnip-fields. We were cool
and contented, and did not lust after partridges. We find our boat
in the dewy willow-bed and give ourselves to the stream. We have got
used to the rustic oars, and it is no exertion to row with the swift
current, which here and there breaks into a little rapid and makes the
boat dance--on one occasion we shipped nearly half a pint of water. It
is no good to describe what was enjoyed and is remembered; but here
are the facts, though mere facts tell little. Red sandstone cliffs,
alternating with grey slate; broad meadows of Alpine grass freckled
with pink crocus; walnut and apple orchards; sober villages with dark
roofs and spires; here and there a ruined castle; high “faraways” of
pasture and forest; cavalry and artillery flashing and rumbling as they
march to the manœuvres along the riverside roads; slow wagons drawn by
fox-coloured cows; on and on we slide, stopping where we like, bathing
when we like, till at evening we see a lofty rock at a bend of the
river; and a party of ladies in a punt. Boldly we call out to ask if
there is a good lodging here, and gaily “_Ja freilich!_” comes back the
answer across the river, and we land and put up at a clean and friendly
inn. The parents and two hard-featured and hospitable daughters welcome
us; the whole family turn out of their rooms and turn us in, and we
sup under the stars and the velvet sky in front of the wooded rock,
which plunges straight into the river and gives its name, “Echo,” to
the inn. The stars were very grand that night, and the invocation of
Echo unearthly as always; it was impossible not to believe here in
_Kuhlebjorn_ and wood-spirits.
The next morning (Sedan-day) we were taken down to the bank by father,
mother and the two daughters, and find the little brother clearing out
the boat. How much willingness and courtesy for so small a payment.
We said good-bye to the friendly family, wishing them many guests
and good weather for their wine, and dropped down to Mühtheim and
Berncastle, famous for its “Doctor,” the best wine on the Mosel, though
much “Doctor” is sold which did not grow at Berncastle, as there are
not vines enough at Zeltinger to furnish half the Zeltinger drunk in
England. But the name matters little if the wine is good. At Berncastle
or rather at Cues, on the opposite bank, there is a large modern
hotel near an iron bridge; but there is also an ancient castle, and
a conventual building founded by Cardinal Cusanus in 1465, no longer
occupied by Monks.
I wish I could convey something of the pleasure which the rare beauty
of the green water and the continual variety of the landscape gave
us; the strong rippling of the stream when the rowers, out of mere
idleness, put on a spurt and the steerer enjoys his ease; the still
backwaters among the rushes, where the current is guided by groynes
into the mid-stream; the sun-smitten cliffs; the soft, green slopes and
valleys, where cloud-shadows sleep. The new landscapes came gliding
into view with a change at every bend; but all is harmony. We pass
pious processions of country people with banners and “Aves,” the priest
leading them. They seem tired but happy--country people of the humblest
kind, unreached by tourists. The trains tinkle to warn people of the
crossings, the slow cow-wains creak along the roads, little boys shout
injurious remarks to the “_Engeländer_,” women kneel by the stream and
wash linen, the fish leap in the shallows, the sun shines, and the day
goes by. How good the remembrance of the walk over the hills, cutting
off a long loop, while two of us took the boat round; for the Mosel
bends round more than once almost in a circle, as at Durham and Château
Gaillard, and you walk across through grasshopper pastures and steep
vineyard paths, through cool dark woods and heathy summits looking far
away, through quivering haze, towards Coblenz and Mainz. How good, too,
the blazing sun in little Kinsheim, the _Mittagsessen_ and reposeful
hour under the tulip-tree in the hot shady garden at the back of the
inn.
Another great loop to Alf, a little boy and his sister bringing the
boat from picturesque Pünderich, their dwelling place. Alf will be
remembered, not for itself--for it is a tiresome little watering place,
crowded and hot, and noisy with voices of German trippers,--but for
our excursion to Elz. We climbed out of the trench in which the river
runs, and drove across a happy tableland of orchards; roads bordered
with fruit-trees, wide-spreading meadows, cornland and wood--peaceful
German country sleeping in afternoon sunshine, mowing and reaping,
planting and building, unchanged for a thousand years; then the road
descended through shady woods, and, lo! at a turning, “pricked with
incredible pinnacles into heaven,” with gables, roofs and turrets
innumerable, a castle, but, oh, what a castle! Here lived the Sleeping
Beauty; hither King Thrushbeard brought his bride; such a building
Hop-o-my-Thumb descried from his tree-top. Up in that turret was the
spinning-wheel; under that window twanged Blondel’s zither; from that
gateway Sintram and the trusty Rolf spurred forward, and St. Hubert
set out to chase the holy stag; and knights and ladies, with falcon
on wrist or with cross bow and spear, went out a-hunting, or rode “a
stately train in pomp of gold and jewels, velvet and vair” to joust at
Worms-upon-the-Rhine. Henceforward I have seen the German Zauberland;
henceforward nothing can add to or take from this impression. My dream
is come true.
The castle stands on an isolated rock with deep wooded ravines on all
sides, to which no stranger may go. The saucy castle defied all its
neighbours and vexed the lands of my lord archbishop the Elector of
Trier, who, to curb its pride, built another castle over against it and
called it “Trutz-Elz” (Who care for Elz?). I don’t know the rest of the
story, but there stands Elz as good as ever, possessed by the lords of
that ilk, and Trutz-Elz is a ruin.
Our time is running out. We left Alf in a dawning of golden mist,
and rowed merrily down to Ediger, with its picturesque church, all
flying buttresses, pinnacles and crockets, like a church in a Dürer
background, to Cochem, with its restored castle and a sense of modern
prosperity which is better for the town than for the contemplative
traveller. Another clean little hostelry at Treis, with good wine and a
cheery landlord. There is a river at Treis and a possibility of small
trout if we take great trouble; but we don’t; it is too hot to take
trouble; there is no water in the stream, and the fish are asleep. The
river now makes up its devious mind to go straight for Coblenz in long
reaches, with groynes on either bank. It comes on to rain; we bump
a rock and dance along a rapid. Then come commercial buildings with
chimneys, reminding us that we live in the iron age. The stream widens,
the rain pours down, the Roman bridge comes in sight. Coblenz _finis
chartæque viæque_.
May we go there again.
THE IRRAWADDY
EMILY A. RICHINGS
The mighty Irrawaddy, which traverses the entire length of Burma,
impresses itself on popular imagination as the living soul of the land,
moulded and coloured through countless ages by the influence of the
majestic river. If Egypt be the gift of the Nile, Burma is scarcely
less the gift of the Irrawaddy, deepened by myriad tributary streams,
and flowing in ever-widening volume from forest cradle to fan-shaped
Delta. The source of the historic stream is still veiled in mystery,
as it winds through impenetrable jungle and untrodden mountains until
it becomes navigable for the last thousand miles to the sea. Manifold
traditions encompass the great river with that atmosphere of glamour
which invests Burma with romantic charm.
The song of the river breathes of nomadic hordes and contending races,
of old-world kings, mythical warriors, and legendary saints, until
the dominant Burmese united in the Irrawaddy Valley, and the tribes
wandering down the lateral tributaries were absorbed or subjected by
the ruling power.
[Illustration: THE IRRAWADDY]
The modern voyager generally takes the downward course of the river,
journeying by train to Katha, through the palm-studded plains and
dense forests skirting the blue hills which divide Burma from the
Shan States on the borders of Siam. Under the hovering mists of dawn
giant teak and feathery bamboo, looped together with coils of
all-embracing creeper, make a rich tangle of matted foliage. Bhamo,
the head of navigation as regards the great steamers of the Irrawaddy
Flotilla, and the frontier town on the borders of China, lies along
the yellow sand-bank of the foreshore. The Siamese name, signifying
“City of Pans,” is derived from the local manufacture of iron and
earthenware jars, cauldrons, and pitchers, dating from primitive times.
Bhamo, formerly a walled Shan town, fiercely contested both by China
and Burma, was captured four times by the Chinese, easily reinforced
from their own frontier only thirty miles away. The town of 12,000
inhabitants, protected by an English battery and a police force of
Indians and Kachins, is still the meeting-place of converging races.
Chinese, Moslems, and Hindus possess their own quarters in the squalid
city, where the astute Celestials retain the largest share of local
trade, importing cotton and salt, or exporting honey, hides, ochre and
chestnuts, with thousands of cooking pans. Blue robes, sun-hats and
pigtails, grey roofs with upcurved eaves, and tinselled banners waving
round the tarnished red of a Joss-house bristling with weird figures,
transport our thoughts to the Middle Kingdom, reached by the sandy
track beyond the ruined walls. Tom-toms beat in the Hindu quarter, and
dark figures glide past with jingling anklets and filigree nose-rings,
or lie supine on rickety _charpoys_ in the open street. A muezzin
chants from the minaret of a tiny mosque, and the bearded sons of
Islam spread their prayer-carpets in the dust, prostrating themselves
in obedience to the voice which summons them to prayer on these alien
shores. Beneath the banyan trees of an arcaded court a marble Buddha
dreams amid the shadows, and kneeling Shan women offer their morning
orisons at the crumbling altar. Tall black head-dresses and dark-blue
skirts, embroidered with many-coloured wools, mark a distinct racial
type. Silver cylinders weigh down dusky ears, silver hoops encircle
sunburned necks, and the glittering chain of a silver needle-case
hung from the waist-belt of an almond-eyed girl denotes her rank as a
Shan lady. The intelligent faces are bright and animated, but every
smile discloses teeth blackened with betelnut. The men of the party
sip tea and smoke their silver pipes under the green boughs, leaving
the devotional exercises to their womankind. A Burman in rose-coloured
turban and plaid kilt lolls upon a stone parapet, and Kachin women,
with mops of rough hair and furtive faces washed in grease, pass
the gateway with loads of elephant-grass on their backs, bringing a
barbaric element into the scene.
Pagoda, Joss-house, and Buddhist temple stand in friendly proximity,
and no war of sect or creed disturbs the harmony of life under
the tolerant British rule; but the Buddhism of the Shan and the
Nature-worship of the Kachin show many points of contact.