the Arctic Circle, but northwards the trees rapidly diminish in size,
and disappear altogether soon after leaving Doo-din-ka, in latitude
69½°. These forests are principally pine of various species. We reached
the Koo-ray-i-ka on the 23d of April, and found the crew of the
_Thames_ in excellent health.
The winter quarters chosen by Captain Wiggins were very picturesque.
Standing at the door of the peasant’s house on the brow of the hill,
we looked down on to the “crow’s nest” of the _Thames_. To the left
the Koo-ray-i-ka, a mile wide, stretched away some four or five miles,
until a sudden bend concealed it from view; whilst to the right the eye
wandered across the snow-fields of the Yen-e-say, and by the help of a
binocular the little village of Koo-ray-i-ka might be discerned about
four miles off, on the opposite bank of the great river. The land was
undulating rather than hilly, and everywhere covered with forest, the
trees reaching frequently two, and in some rare instances three feet
in diameter. The depth of the snow varied from four to six feet; and
travelling without snow-shoes, except on the hard-trodden roads, was of
course utterly impossible.
When we arrived at the ship, we found that it was still winter, and
were told that there had not been a sign of rain since last autumn.
April went by and May came in, but still there was no sign of summer,
except the arrival of some of the earliest migratory birds. We
generally had a cloudless sky; and the sun was often burning hot. On
the 9th, 10th, and 11th of May we had rain for the first time, and the
prospects of summer looked a little more hopeful. The rest of May,
however, was more dreary and wintry than ever, alternations of hard
frosts and driving snow-storms; but the river was slowly rising, and
outside the thick centre ice was a strip of thin, newly-frozen ice.
There was, however, little or no change in the appearance of the snow.
Up to the end of May the forces of winter had gallantly withstood the
fiercest attacks of the sun, baffled at all points, and entered into
an alliance with the south wind, and a combined attack was made upon
the winter forces. The battle raged for fourteen days, the battle of
the Yen-e-say, the great event of the year in this cold country, and
certainly the most stupendous display of the powers of nature that it
has ever been my lot to witness. On the morning of the 1st of June
the pressure underneath the ice caused a large field, about a mile
long and a third of a mile wide, opposite the lower angle of junction
of the Koo-ray-i-ka and the Yen-e-say, to break away. About half the
mass found a passage down the strip of newly-formed thin ice, leaving
open water behind it. The other half rushed headlong on to the steep
banks of the river. The result of the collision was a little range of
mountains, fifty or sixty feet high, and picturesque in the extreme.
Huge blocks of ice, six feet thick and twenty feet long, in many
places, were standing perpendicular, whilst others were crushed up
into fragments like broken glass; and in many other places the ice was
piled up in layers one over the other. The real ice on the river did
not appear to have been thicker than two or three feet, clear as a
glass, and blue as an Italian sky. Upon the top of this was about four
feet of white ice. This was as hard as a rock, and had, no doubt, been
caused by the flooding of the snow when the waters of the river had
risen, and its subsequent freezing. Upon the top of the white ice was
eighteen inches of clean snow, which had evidently never been flooded.
When we turned into our berths in the evening the captain thought it
best to institute an anchor-watch. We had scarcely been asleep an hour
before the watch called us up with the intelligence that the river was
rising rapidly, and that the ice was beginning to crack. We immediately
dressed and went on deck. We saw at once that the Yen-e-say was rising
so rapidly that it was beginning to flow up its tributaries. A strong
current was setting up the Koo-ray-i-ka, and small floes were detaching
themselves from the main body of the ice and were running up the open
water. By and by the whole body of the Koo-ray-i-ka broke up and began
to move up stream. Some of the floes struck the ship some very ugly
blows on the stern, doing considerable damage to the rudder; but open
water was beyond, and we were soon out of the press of ice, with, we
hoped, no irretrievable injury. All this time we had been getting steam
up as fast as possible, to be ready for any emergency. It was hopeless
to attempt to enter the creek opposite which we were moored, and which
was now only just beginning to fill with water; but on the other side
of the river, across only a mile of open water, was a haven of perfect
safety. But, alas! when the ice had passed us, before we could get up
sufficient steam, the river suddenly fell three feet, and left aground
by the stern, and immovable as a rock. Nor was it possible, with a
swift current running up the river at the rate of four knots an hour,
to swing the ship round so as to secure the rudder against any further
attacks of the ice. Half a mile ahead of us, as we looked down the
river, was the edge of the Yen-e-say ice. The river was rising again;
but before the stern was afloat we discovered, to our dismay, that
another large field of ice had broken up; and the Koo-ray-i-ka was
soon full of ice again. In the course of the night the whole of the
ice of Yen-e-say, as far as we could see, broke up with a tremendous
crash, and a dense mass of ice-floes, pack-ice, and icebergs backed up
the Koo-ray-i-ka, and with irresistible force drove the Koo-ray-i-ka
ice before it. When it reached the ship, we had but one alternative,
to slip the anchor and let her drive with the ice. For about a mile
we had an exciting ride, pitching and rolling as the floes of ice
squeezed the ship, and tried to lift her bodily out of the water, or
crawl up her sides like a snake. The rudder was soon broken to pieces,
and finally carried away. Some of the sailors jumped on to the ice and
scrambled ashore, whilst others began to throw overboard their goods
and chattels. Away we went up the Koo-ray-i-ka, the ice rolling and
tumbling and squeezing along side, huge lumps climbing one on the top
of another, until we were finally jammed in a slight bay, along with a
lot of pack-ice. Early in the morning the stream slackened, the river
fell some five or six feet, and the ice stood still. The ship went
through the terrible ordeal bravely. She made no water, and there was
no evidence of injury beyond the loss of the rudder. In the evening the
ship was lying amidst huge hummocks of ice, almost high and dry. The
Koo-ray-i-ka, and right across the Yen-e-say, and southwards as far as
the eye could reach was one immense field of pack-ice, white, black,
brown, blue, green, piled in wild confusion as close as it could be
jammed. Northwards the Yen-e-say was not yet broken up. All this time
the weather was warm and foggy, with very little wind, and occasional
slight rain. There was a perfect Babel of birds as an accompaniment
to the crashing of the ice. Gulls, geese, and swans were flying about
in all directions; and their wild cries vied with the still wilder
screams of the divers. Flocks of red polls and shore larks, and
bramblings and wagtails in pairs, arrived, and added to the interest
of the scene. On the 2d of June there was little or no movement in
the ice until midnight, when an enormous pressure from above came on
somewhat suddenly, and broke up the great field of ice to the north
of the Koo-ray-i-ka, but not to a sufficient extent to relieve the
whole of the pressure. The water in the Koo-ray-i-ka rose rapidly. The
immense field of pack-ice began to move up stream at the rate of five
or six knots an hour. The poor ship was knocked and bumped along the
rocky shore, and a stream of water began to flow into the hold. At
nine o’clock all hands left her, and stood upon the snow on the bank,
expecting her instant destruction. The stream rose and fell during the
day; but the leak, which was apparently caused by the twisting of the
stern-post, choked up. Late in the evening an opportunity occurred of a
few hours’ open water, during which steam was got up; and by the help
of a couple of ropes ashore, the rudderless ship was steered into the
little creek opposite to which she had wintered, and run ashore. Here
the leak was afterwards repaired and a new rudder made. We calculated
that about 50,000 acres of ice passed the ship up stream during these
two days; and we afterwards learned that most of this ice got away
some miles up the Koo-ray-i-ka, where the banks are low, and was lost
in the forest.
The battle of the Yen-e-say raged for about a fortnight. The sun was
generally burning hot in the daytime; but every night there was more
or less frost. The ice came down the Yen-e-say at various speeds.
Sometimes we could see gigantic masses of pack-ice, estimated at twenty
to thirty feet in height, driven down the river at an incredible pace,
not less than twenty miles an hour. In the Koo-ray-i-ka the scene was
constantly changing. The river rose and fell. Sometimes the pack-ice
and floes were jammed so tight together that it looked as if one might
scramble across the river without difficulty. At other times there was
a good deal of open water, and the icebergs “calved” as they went along
with much commotion and splashing, that could be heard half a mile
off. Underlayers of the iceberg ground; and after the velocity of the
enormous mass has caused it to pass on, the pieces left behind rise to
the surface, like a whale coming up to breathe. Some of these “calves”
must come up from a considerable depth. They rise up out of the water
with a great splash, and rock about for some time before they settle
down to their floating level. At last the final march past of the
beaten winter-forces in this great fourteen days’ battle took place and
for seven days more the rag, tag, and bob-tail of the great Arctic army
come straggling down--warm and weather-beaten little icebergs, dirty
ice-floes that looked like mud-banks floating down, and straggling
pack-ice in the last stages of consumption. The total rise of the river
was upwards of seventy feet.
The moment that the snow disappeared vegetation sprang up as if by
magic, and the birds made preparations for breeding. As we passed
through Yen-e-saisk I bought a schooner off a ship-builder of the name
of Boiling, a Heligolander. I christened it the _Ibis_; and on the
29th of June we left the Koo-ray-i-ka with this little craft in tow.
Our progress down the river, however, was one catalogue of disasters,
ending in our leaving the _Thames_ on the 9th of July a hopeless wreck,
lying high and dry on a sand-bank, in latitude 67°. As we sailed
northwards in the _Ibis_, the forests became smaller and smaller, and
disappeared altogether about latitude 70°. The highest point we reached
was latitude 71½°, where I sold the _Ibis_ to the captain of a Russian
schooner, which had been totally wrecked during the break-up of the ice.
On the 23rd of July I left Gol-chee-ka in the last Russian steamer up
the river; and reached Yen-e-saisk on the 14th of August. After a few
days’ delay I drove across country to Tomsk, stopping a day or two in
Kras-no-yarsk. In Tomsk I found an excellent iron steamer, in which I
sailed down the river Tom into the Obb, down which we steamed to its
junction with the Eer-tish, up which we proceeded until we entered the
Tob-ol, and afterwards steamed up the Too-ra to Tyu-main, a distance by
water of 2,200 miles. From the Tyu-main I drove through Ekatereenburg
across the Urals to Perm, where I took my passage on board the
_Sam-o-lot_, or self-flyer, down the Kama, and up the Volga, to Nishni
Novgorod.
THE YARROW
JOHN MACWHIRTER
Yarrow and its vale form one of the high places of the earth. In this
age of cheap trips it is easy to get there, and perhaps you don’t think
much of it as you rattle through on the coach. There is many a Highland
scene incomparably grander. After all
“What’s Yarrow, but a river bare,
That glides the dark hills under?
There are a thousand such elsewhere,
As worthy of your wonder.”
A word of dry description must commence. The Yarrow Water is in
Yarrow and Selkirk parishes of the country of Selkirk. It rises in
St. Mary’s Loch, it courses therefrom to its junction with Ettrick
Water fourteen and a half miles, when the latter gives its name to the
united currents. They are soon lost in the Tweed. Beyond St. Mary’s
Loch, and separated from it by a narrow strip of land, is the Loch o’
the Lowes (or Lochs). It is about two miles in length, and is fed by
the Yarrow, which rises some two miles higher up, though it is usually
taken as beginning in the large lake. In the lower reach the banks are
wooded; farther up the hills are bare, soft, rounded, the stream is
clear and swift-flowing, with a musical note on its large and small
stones; there is no growth of sedge or underwood, but the fresh green
grass stretches up the slope till it is lost in the heather. Between
the hills are glens down which wind greater or smaller tributaries to
the Yarrow. Each has its legend and its ruin. Dim, romantic, enticing,
these glens stretch away into the mysterious mountain solitude. You
begin your excursion from Selkirk, which is on Ettrick Water, ten miles
down stream from its junction with the Yarrow, and two places soon take
your attention, Carterhaugh and Philiphaugh. There is a farm “toun,” as
they name a steading in the north, that is called Carterhaugh; but what
is meant here is a charming piece of greensward and wood, that lies
almost encircled by the two streams at and near their meeting place. A
very Faeryland! and here is laid the scene of the faery ballad of “The
Young Tamlane.” The song is very old; it was well known in 1549, as we
learn from a chance mention in a work of the period. It is a delicious
poem, pure phantasy; a very Mid-summer Night’s Dream, scarcely of the
earth at all, far less dealing with historical incident. The forgotten
poet, lest he should be all in the air, makes the young Tamlane son to
Randolph, Earl Murray, and Fair Janet, daughter to Dunbar, Earl March,
but this is only because these were the noblest names in Scotland, and
he chooses Carterhaugh for his stage; as like as not he lived somewhere
on the Yarrow, and the stream sang in his ears as he built the song.
Tamlane is nine when his uncle sends for him “to hunt and hawk and
ride,” and on the way--
“There came a wind out o’ the north,
A sharp wind and a snell,
And a dead sleep came over me,
And frae my horse I fell.
The Queen of the Fairies she was there,
And took me to herself.”
On the left bank of the Yarrow, just across from Carterhaugh, is
Philiphaugh. It is a large space of level ground, and here the fortunes
of the great Montrose and his Highland army came to hopeless smash
in the early morning of 13th September, 1645. Montrose had won six
victories in the Highlands, had been appointed Viceroy of Scotland, and
full of ill-placed confidence was preparing an invasion of England. He
spent the previous evening at ease in Selkirk (they still show you the
house) and was writing despatches to the king, when he heard the sound
of firing. He galloped to the field and found everything practically
over! David Leslie had been seeking him far and near for some time, had
found the camp and invaded it in a mist. The Royalists were scattered;
Montrose--no one ever counted cowardice among his vices--made a
desperate effort to retrieve the fortune of the day, but all in vain.
Finally he dashed through the opposing forces, galloped away up the
Yarrow, then by a wild mountain path, right over Minchmoor, and drew
not bridle till he dashed up to Traquair House, sixteen miles from the
battle-field. A number of prisoners were taken. The common lowland Scot
has still a certain contempt for the Highlander, whose appreciation
in the modern world is due to literature; then he looked upon him as
an outcast and outlaw, “a broken man,” in the expressive phrase of an
earlier day. The captives were shot in the court-yard of Newark Castle,
and buried in a field still called Slain-mans-lee. Celtic troops are
very brave, but unless mixed with the steadier Saxon, they don’t seem
reliable.
[Illustration: THE YARROW]
Still keeping on the left bank, follow the road by the riverside and
as before you come to two places, each with an interest very different
from the others. One is a ruined house, a poor enough building at the
best. An inscription tells you that Mungo Park (1771-1805) the African
traveller, was born and lived here. He saw Scott a little before his
last voyage, told how he dreaded leave-taking (he had been recently
married!) and that he meant to leave for Edinburgh on some pretence
or other and make his adieux from there. On Williamhope ridge the two
parted.
“I stood and looked back, but he did not,” says Scott. He had put
his hand to the plough. Poor Mungo Park! his discoveries seem little
now-a-days, yet to me, he is always the most attractive of African
travellers, his life the most interesting, his end the most melancholy.
One thinks how under the hot sun in those fearful swamps he must have
often remembered the cool delicious green braes of his native Yarrow.
But we turn our eyes to the opposite bank and scarce need be told that
the castle we see, majestic, though in ruins, is “Newark’s stately
tower.” ’Tis a great weather-beaten square keep, where Anna, relict of
the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth, lived for some years of her widowed
life. To her Scott’s “Last Minstrel” sings his lay. But the place was
already centuries old. It was once a hunting-seat of the Scots kings,
when the whole region was the densely wooded Ettrick Forest, and here
there was great sport with the wolf, the mountain bear, the wild-cat,
and all sorts of other small and large deer. Some place-names still
save the old memories, Oxcleugh, Durhame, Hartleap, Hindshope, and so
forth.
After Yarrow hamlet the land is more desolate, the stream shrinks to
a mountain burn, there are no more clumps of trees, and the hills
creep in near the water’s edge, and they are taller and steeper. You
pass lofty Mount Benger, near where Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, who
loved and sang of those sweet vales, had a farm. Farther on the right
bank is Altrive, where he afterwards lived, and where he died. Almost
opposite, the Douglas Burn flows through a gloomy and solitary glen to
Yarrow. Follow this burn and you come to the ruins of Blackhouse Tower.
It was from here that Lord William and Lady Margaret fled at midnight
from Lord Douglas and his seven sons. These were slain one by one, but
it was only when her lover began to press roughly on her father that
the lady interposed.
“Oh hold your hand, Lord William, she said,
For your strokes they are wondrous sair.
True lovers I can get many a one,
But a father I can never get mair.”
An obvious if belated reflection! ’Twas of no avail, the father is left
dead and dying, and the lady follows her knight (“For ye’ve left me nae
other guide,” she says somewhat bitterly). They light down at “yon wan
water” and his “gude heart’s bluid” dyes the stream, though he swears
“’Tis naething but the shadow of my scarlet cloak.” However, the lovers
die that very night and are buried in St. Marie’s Kirke, and “a bonny
red rose” and a briar grew out of the grave and twined together to the
admiration of all who saw, but to the great wrath of Black Douglas,
who, a sworn foe to sentimentality,
“Pull’d up the bonny briar
And flang’d in St. Marie’s Loch.”
The wild path followed by the lovers over the hillside is still to
be traced, the place of the combat is marked by seven stones; but
again these are of an earlier date, and again it would be useless to
criticise the creation of the fancy too curiously.
And now we are at St. Mary’s Loch, a beautiful sheet of water three
miles long and half a mile broad. At the head of the loch is a monument
to the Ettrick Shepherd. Near the monument is St. Mary’s Cottage,
better known as “Tibbie Shiel’s,” and scene of many a gay carouse of
Christopher North and his merry men, as you know very well if you
have read the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_. The cottage is still kept by a
relative of the original Tibbie, as a humble sort of an inn. If you
are wise you will prefer it to the large new Rodona hotel not far off.
It has a touch of the old times with its huge fireplace and box beds.
It is something to hear the local anecdote, how one morning “after”
Christopher or the shepherd, being more than ever consumed with the
pangs of thirst, in a burst of wild desire, cried “Tibbie, bring ben
the Loch.” It is said that Scott was never farther than the door.
Scott, Hogg, Wilson were, we all know, great writers, though to-day
Wilson is but little read, Hogg popular through one or two lyrics,
whilst Scott is more and more known with the years. But each of the
three had an impressive and attractive personality--he is more than a
writer, he is first of all a man. Superior in interest to monument and
cottage is St. Mary’s Kirk, which stands on a height on the left bank
of the loch. One should say stood, for nothing of it is left. Here
generations of martyrs and freebooters were carried, and the heroes and
heroines of so many of the tales and ballads were laid to rest, but--
“St. Mary’s Loch lies slumbering still,
But St. Mary’s Kirk-bells lang dune ringing,
There’s naething now but the grave-stone hill,
To tell o’ a’ their loud Psalm-singing.”
They still bury there, though at rare and distant intervals. Hard by is
Dryhope Tower. Here was born Mary Scott, the “Flower of Yarrow.” The
romance of the name caused this heroine to be incessantly be-rhymed
through all the subsequent centuries, but we don’t know much about
her. She was married to Walter Scott of Harden, a gentleman widely
and justly renowned for his skill in “lifting” other people’s cattle.
As a portion the bride’s father agreed to “find his son-in-law in
man’s meat and horse’s meat for a year and a day, five barons becoming
bound that, on the expiry of that period, Harden should retire without
compulsion.” Not one of the parties to the contract could write. A
daughter of the “Flower of Yarrow” was married to another freebooter
called “Gilly wi’ the gouden garters.” The bride was to remain at her
father’s house for a year and a day, and in return Gilly contracted
to hand over the plunder of the first harvest moon. By the way, there
is rather a pretty though quite untrustworthy tradition of the origin
of the ballads connected with the name of Mary Scott. In the spoils
brought home by her husband from one of his forays, was a child. Him
she took and reared. Of gentle nature, he delighted to hear of and
celebrate in songs the tragedies and romances acted or repeated around
him; and so he, “nameless as the race from whence he sprung, saved
other names and left his own unsung.” The Meggat Water is one of the
many streams that fill the loch. On one of its tributaries called
Henderland-burn is a ruined tower, and near it a large stone broken
into three parts, on which you may still make out the inscription,
“Here lyes Perys of Cockburne and his wyfe Marjory.” Cockburne was
in his day a noted freebooter, and secure in his tower defied all
attempts to bring him to justice. But James V. in his famous progress
through the Border-land, heard of his proceedings, and came right over
the hills and down upon Henderland, whose proprietor he found eating
his dinner. It was his last meal; he was at once seized and strung up
before his own door. His wife fled and concealed herself in a place
called the Lady’s seat, and when she recovered the silence of the glen
told her that the invaders had departed, and she returned and buried
her husband. One of the most pathetic of the old ballads is said to be
her lament
“But think na’ ye my heart was sair,
When I laid the moul’ on his yellow hair;
O think na’ ye my heart was wae,
When I turned about, awa’ to gae.”