hemisphere, all was once more in order. Drake sailed from Port St.
Julian, and on the twentieth entered the Strait and felt his way between
the walls of mountain "in extreme cold with frost and cold continually."
To relieve the crews, who were tried by continual boat work and heaving
the lead in front of the ships, they were allowed occasional halts at
the islands, where they amused and provisioned themselves with killing
infinite seals and penguins. Everything which they saw, birds, beasts,
trees, climate, country, were strange, wild, and wonderful. After three
weeks' toil and anxiety, they had accomplished the passage and found
themselves in the open Pacific. But they found also that it was no
peaceful ocean into which they had entered, but the stormiest they had
ever encountered. Their vessels were now reduced to three; the pinnace
had been left behind at Port St. Julian, and there remained only the
Pelican, the Elizabeth, and the thirty-ton cutter. Instantly that they
emerged out of the Strait, they were caught in a gale which swept them
six hundred miles to the south-west. For six weeks they were battered to
and fro, in bitter cold and winds which seemed as if they blew in these
latitudes for ever. The cutter went down in the fearful seas, carrying
her crew with her. The Elizabeth and the Pelican were separated. The
bravest sailor might well have been daunted at such a commencement, and
Winter, recovering the opening again and, believing Drake to be lost,
called a council in his cabin and proposed to return to England. They
had agreed to meet, if they were parted, on the coast in the latitude of
Valparaiso. The men, with better heart than their commander, desired to
keep the appointment. But those terrible weeks had sickened Winter. He
overruled the opinions of the rest, re-entered the Strait, and reached
England in the following June.
Drake, meanwhile, had found shelter among the islands of Tierra del
Fuego. At length spring brought fair winds and smooth seas, and running
up the coast and looking about for her consort, the Pelican or Golden
Hind--for she had both names--fell in with an Indian fisherman, who
informed Drake that in the harbour of Valparaiso, already a small
Spanish settlement, there lay a great galleon which had come from Peru.
Galleons were the fruit that he was in search of. He sailed in, and the
Spanish seamen, who had never yet seen a stranger in those waters, ran
up their flags, beat their drums, and prepared a banquet for their
supposed countrymen. The Pelican shot up alongside. The English sailors
leaped on board, and one "Thomas Moore," a lad from Plymouth, began the
play with knocking down the first man that he met, saluting him in
Spanish as he fell, and crying out "Down, dog." The Spaniards,
overwhelmed with surprise, began to cross and bless themselves. One
sprang overboard and swam ashore; the rest were bound and stowed away
under the hatches while the ship was rifled. The beginning was not a bad
one. Wedges of gold were found weighing four hundred pounds, besides
miscellaneous plunder. The settlement, which was visited next, was less
productive, for the inhabitants had fled, taking their valuables with
them.
At Arica, the port of Potosi, fifty-seven blocks of precious metal were
added to the store; and from thence they made haste to Lima, where the
largest booty was looked for. They found that they had just missed it.
Twelve ships lay at anchor in the port without arms, without crews, and
with their sails on shore. In all of these they discovered but a few
chests of reals and some bales of silk and linen. A thirteenth, called
by the seamen the Cacafuego, but christened in her baptism "Our Lady of
the Conception," had sailed for the Isthmus a few days before, taking
with her all the bullion which the mines had yielded for the season. She
had been literally ballasted with silver, and carried also several
precious boxes of gold and jewels.
Not a moment was lost. The cables of the ships at Lima were cut, and
they were left to drive on shore to prevent pursuit; and then away sped
the Pelican due north, with every stitch of her canvas spread. A gold
chain was promised to the first man who caught sight of the Cacafuego. A
sail was seen the second day of the chase: it was not the vessel which
they were in pursuit of, but the prize was worth the having. They took
eighty pounds' weight of gold in wedges, the purest which they yet had
seen.
For eight hundred miles the Pelican flew on. At length, one degree to
the north of the line, off Quito, and close to the shore, a look-out on
the mast-head cried out that he saw the chase and claimed the promised
chain; she was recognized by the peculiarities in her sails, of which
they had received exact information at Lima. There lay the Cacafuego; if
they could take her their work would be done, and they might go home in
triumph. She was several miles ahead of them; if she guessed their
character, she would run in under the land, and they might lose her. It
was afternoon: several hours remained of daylight, and Drake did not
wish to come up with her till dark.
The Pelican sailed two feet to the Cacafuego's one, and dreading that
her speed might rouse suspicion, he filled his empty wine casks with
water and trailed them astern. The chase meanwhile unsuspecting, and
glad of company on a lonely voyage, slackened sail and waited for her
slow pursuer. The sun sank low, and at last set into the ocean, and
then, when both ships had become invisible from the land, the casks were
hoisted in, the Pelican was restored to her speed, and shooting up
within a cable's length of the Cacafuego, hailed to her to run into the
wind. The Spanish commander, not understanding the meaning of such an
order, paid no attention to it. The next moment the corsair opened her
ports, fired a broadside, and brought his main-mast about his ears. His
decks were cleared by a shower of arrows, with one of which he was
himself wounded. In a few minutes more he was a prisoner, and his ship
and all that it contained was in the hands of the English. The wreck
was cut away, the ship cleared, and her head turned to the sea; by
daybreak even the line of the Andes had become invisible, and at
leisure, in the open ocean, the work of rifling began. The full value of
the plunder taken in this ship was never actually confessed. It remained
a secret between Drake and the Queen. In a schedule afterwards
published, he acknowledged to have found in the Cacafuego alone
twenty-six tons of silver bullion, thirteen chests of coined silver, and
almost a hundredweight of gold. But this was only so much as the
Spaniards could prove to have been on board.
Drake imagined, like most other English seamen, that there was a passage
to the north corresponding to Magellan's Strait, of which Frobisher
conceived that he had found the eastern entrance. He went on therefore
at his leisure towards the coast of Mexico, intending to follow the
shore till he found it. Another ship coming from China crossed him on
his way loaded with silks and porcelain. He took the best of the freight
with a golden falcon and a superb emerald. Then needing fresh water he
touched at the Spanish settlement of Guatulco.
The work of plunder was nearly over. Again sailing north, the Pelican
fell in with a Spanish nobleman who was going out as Governor to the
Philippines. He was detained a few hours and relieved of his finery, and
then, says one of the party: "Our general, thinking himself both in
respect of his private injuries received from the Spaniards, as also
their contempt and indignities offered to our country and prince in
general, sufficiently satisfied and revenged, and supposing her Majesty
would rest contented with this service, began to consider the best way
for his country."
The first necessity was a complete repair of the Pelican's hull. Before
the days of copper sheathing, the ships' bottoms grew foul with weed;
the great barnacles formed in clusters and stopped their speed, and the
sea-worms bored holes into the planking. Twenty thousand miles of
unknown water lay between Drake and Plymouth Sound, and he was not a man
to run idle risks. Running on till he had left the furthest Spanish
station far to the south, he put into the Bay of Canoa in Lower
California. There he laid his ship on shore, set up forge and workshop,
and refitted her with a month's labour from stem to stern.
By the sixteenth of April, 1579, the Pelican was once more in order, and
started on her northern course in search of the expected passage. She
held on up the coast for eight hundred miles into latitude forty-three
degrees North, but no signs appeared of an opening. Though it was summer
the air grew colder, and the crew having been long in the tropics
suffered from the change. Not caring to run risks in exploring with so
precious a cargo, and finding by observation that the passage, if it
existed, must be of enormous length, Drake resolved to go no further,
and expecting, as proved to be the case, that the Spaniards would be on
the look-out for him at Magellan's Strait, he determined on the
alternative route by the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese had long
traded with China. In the ship going to the Philippines he had found a
Portuguese chart of the Indian Archipelago, and with the help of this
and his own skill he trusted to find his way.
At the little island of Ternate, south of the Celebes, the ship was
again docked and scraped. The crew were allowed another month's rest,
when they feasted their eyes on the marvels of tropical life, then first
revealed to them in their luxuriance--vampires "as large as hens,"
crayfish a foot round, and fireflies lighting the midnight forest.
Starting once more, they had now to feel their way among the rocks and
shoals of the most dangerous waters in the world. They crept round
Celebes among coral reefs and low islands scarcely visible above the
water-line. The Malacca Straits formed the only route marked in the
Portuguese chart, and between Drake and his apparent passage lay the
Java Sea and the channel between Borneo and Sumatra. But it was not
impossible that there might be some other opening, and the Pelican
crawled in search of it along the Java coast. Here, if nowhere else, her
small size and manageableness were in her favour. In spite of all the
care that was taken, she was almost lost. One evening as the black
tropical night was closing, a grating sound was heard under her keel:
another moment she was hard and fast upon an invisible reef. The breeze
was light and the water calm, or the world would have heard no more of
Francis Drake and the Pelican. She lay immovable till morning; "we were
out of all hope to escape danger," but with the daylight the position
was seen not to be utterly desperate. "Our general, then as always,
showed himself most courageous, and of good confidence in the mercy and
protection of God; and as he would not seem to perish wilfully, so he
and we did our best endeavour to save ourselves, and in the end cleared
ourselves of that danger."
The Pelican had no more adventures; and sweeping in clear fine weather
close to the Cape of Good Hope, and touching for water at Sierra Leone,
she sailed in triumph into Plymouth harbour in the beginning of October,
having marked a furrow with her keel round the globe.
Froude: "History of England."
(Adapted)
Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state:
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all.
Wordsworth: "The Happy Warrior."
THE SOLITARY REAPER
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.
Wordsworth
CLOUDS, RAINS, AND RIVERS
Every occurrence in Nature is preceded by other occurrences which are
its causes, and succeeded by others which are its effects. The human
mind is not satisfied with observing and studying any natural occurrence
alone, but takes pleasure in connecting every natural fact with what has
gone before it, and with what is to come after it. Thus, when we enter
upon the study of rivers, our interest will be greatly increased by
taking into account, not only their actual appearances but also their
causes and effects.
Let us trace a river to its source. Beginning where it empties itself
into the sea, and following it backwards, we find it from time to time
joined by tributaries which swell its waters. The river, of course,
becomes smaller as these tributaries are passed. It shrinks first to a
brook, then to a stream; this again divides itself into a number of
smaller streamlets, ending in mere threads of water. These constitute
the source of the river, and are usually found among hills. Thus, the
Severn has its source in the Welsh Mountains; the Thames in the Cotswold
Hills; the Rhine and the Rhone in the Alps; the Missouri in the Rocky
Mountains; and the Amazon in the Andes of Peru.
But it is quite plain, that we have not yet reached the real beginning
of the rivers. Whence do the earliest streams derive their water? A
brief residence among the mountains would prove to you that they are fed
by rains. In dry weather you would find the streams feeble, sometimes
indeed quite dried up. In wet weather you would see them foaming
torrents. In general these streams lose themselves as little threads of
water upon the hillsides; but sometimes you may trace a river to a
definite spring. You may, however, very soon assure yourself that such
springs are also fed by rain, which has percolated through the rocks or
soil, and which, through some orifice that it has found or formed, comes
to the light of day.
But we cannot end here. Whence comes the rain which forms the mountain
streams? Observation enables you to answer the question. Rain does not
come from a clear sky. It comes from clouds. But what are clouds? Is
there nothing you are acquainted with, which they resemble? You discover
at once a likeness between them and the condensed steam of a locomotive.
At every puff of the engine, a cloud is projected into the air. Watch
the cloud sharply: you notice that it first forms at a little distance
from the top of the funnel. Give close attention, and you will sometimes
see a perfectly clear space between the funnel and the cloud. Through
that clear space the thing which makes the cloud must pass. What, then,
is this thing which at one moment is transparent and invisible, and at
the next moment visible as a dense opaque cloud?
It is the _steam_ or _vapour of water_ from the boiler. Within the
boiler this steam is transparent and invisible; but to keep it in this
invisible state a heat would be required as great as that within the
boiler. When the vapour mingles with the cold air above the hot funnel,
it ceases to be vapour. Every bit of steam shrinks, when chilled, to a
much more minute particle of water. The liquid particles thus produced
form a kind of _water-dust_ of exceeding fineness, which floats in the
air, and is called a _cloud_.
Watch the cloud-banner from the funnel of a running locomotive; you see
it growing gradually less dense. It finally melts away altogether; and
if you continue your observations, you will not fail to notice that the
speed of its disappearance depends upon the character of the day. In
humid weather the cloud hangs long and lazily in the air; in dry weather
it is rapidly licked up. What has become of it? It has been reconverted
into true invisible vapour.
The _drier_ the air, and the _hotter_ the air, the greater is the amount
of cloud which can be thus dissolved in it. When the cloud first forms,
its quantity is far greater than the air is able to maintain in an
invisible state. But, as the cloud mixes gradually with a larger mass of
air, it is more and more dissolved, and finally passes altogether from
the condition of a finely-divided liquid into that of transparent vapour
or gas.
Make the lid of a kettle air-tight, and permit the steam to issue from
the spout; a cloud is formed in all respects similar to that issuing
from the funnel of the locomotive. To produce the cloud, in the case of
the locomotive and the kettle, _heat_ is necessary. By heating the water
we first convert it into steam, and then by chilling the steam we
convert it into cloud. Is there any fire in Nature which produces the
clouds of our atmosphere? There is: the fire of the sun.
When the sunbeams fall upon the earth, they heat it, and also the water
which lies on its surface, whether it be in large bodies, such as seas
or rivers, or in the form of moisture. The water being thus warmed, a
part of it is given off in the form of aqueous vapour, just as invisible
vapour passes off from a boiler when the water in it is heated by fire.
This vapour mingles with the air in contact with the earth. The
vapour-charged air, being heated by the warm earth, expands, becomes
lighter, and rises. It expands also, as it rises, because the pressure
of the air above it becomes less and less with the height it attains.
But an expanding body always becomes colder as the result of its
expansion. Thus the vapour-laden air is chilled by its expansion. It is
also chilled by coming in contact with the colder, higher air. The
consequence is that the invisible vapour which it contains is chilled,
and forms into tiny water-drops, like the steam from a kettle or the
funnel of the locomotive. And so, as the air rises and becomes colder,
the vapour gathers into visible masses, which we call clouds.
This ascending moist air might become chilled, too, by meeting with a
current of cold, dry air, and then clouds would be formed; and should
this chilling process continue in either case until the water-drops
become heavier than the surrounding air, they would fall to the earth as
raindrops. Rain is, therefore, but a further stage in the condensation
of aqueous vapour caused by the chilling of the air.
Mountains also assist in the formation of clouds. When a wind laden with
moisture strikes against a mountain, it is tilted and flows up its side.
The air expands as it rises, the vapour is chilled and becomes visible
in the form of clouds, and if sufficiently chilled, it comes down to the
earth in the form of rain, hail, or snow.
Thus, by tracing a river backwards, from its end to its real beginning,
we come at length to the sun; for it is the sun that produces aqueous
vapour, from which, as we have seen, clouds are formed, and it is from
clouds that water falls to the earth to become the sources of rivers.
There are, however, rivers which have sources somewhat different from
those just mentioned. They do not begin by driblets on a hillside, nor
can they be traced to a spring. Go, for example, to the mouth of the
river Rhone, and trace it backwards. You come at length to the Lake of
Geneva, from which the river rushes, and which you might be disposed to
regard as the source of the Rhone. But go to the head of the lake, and
you find that the Rhone there enters it; that the lake is, in fact, an
expansion of the river. Follow this upwards; you find it joined by
smaller rivers from the mountains right and left. Pass these, and push
your journey higher still. You come at length to a huge mass of ice--the
end of a glacier--which fills the Rhone valley, and from the bottom of
the glacier the river rushes. In the glacier of the Rhone you thus find
the source of the river Rhone.
But whence come the glaciers? Wherever lofty mountains, like the Alps,
rise into the high parts of the atmosphere where the temperature is
below the freezing-point, the vapour condensed from the air falls upon
them, not as rain, but as snow. In such high mountainous regions, the
heat of the summer melts the snow from the lower hills, but the higher
parts remain covered, for the heat cannot melt all the snow which falls
there in a year. When a considerable depth of snow has accumulated, the
pressure upon the lower layers squeezes them into a firm mass, and after
a time the snow begins to slide down the slope of the mountain. It
passes downward from one slope to another, joined continually by other
sliding masses from neighbouring slopes, until they all unite into one
long tongue, which creeps slowly down some valley to a point where it
melts. This tongue from the snow-fields is called a glacier.
Without solar fire, therefore, we could have no atmospheric vapour,
without vapour no clouds, without clouds no snow, and without snow no
glaciers. Curious then as the conclusion may be, the cold ice of the
Alps has its origin in this heat of the sun.
Tyndall: "The Forms of Water."
(Adapted)
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
Tennyson
FITZ-JAMES AND RODERICK DHU
The Chief in silence strode before,
And reached that torrent's sounding shore,
Which, daughter of three mighty lakes,
From Vennachar in silver breaks,
Sweeps through the plain, and ceaseless mines
On Bochastle the mouldering lines,
Where Rome, the Empress of the world,
Of yore her eagle wings unfurled.
And here his course the Chieftain staid,
Threw down his target and his plaid,
And to the Lowland warrior said--
"Bold Saxon! to his promise just,
Vich Alpine has discharged his trust.
This murderous Chief, this ruthless man,
This head of a rebellious clan,
Hath led thee safe, through watch and ward,
Far past Clan-Alpine's outmost guard.
Now, man to man, and steel to steel,
A Chieftain's vengeance thou shalt feel.
See here, all vantageless I stand,
Armed, like thyself, with single brand:
For this is Coilantogle ford,
And thou must keep thee with thy sword."
The Saxon paused:--"I ne'er delayed,
When foeman bade me draw my blade;
Nay, more, brave Chief, I vowed thy death:
Yet sure thy fair and generous faith,
And my deep debt for life preserved,
A better meed have well deserved:
Can nought but blood our feud atone?
Are there no means?"--"No, Stranger, none;
And hear,--to fire thy flagging zeal,--
The Saxon cause rests on thy steel;
For thus spoke Fate, by prophet bred
Between the living and the dead:
'Who spills the foremost foeman's life,
His party conquers in the strife.'"--
"Then, by my word," the Saxon said,
"The riddle is already read.
Seek yonder brake beneath the cliff,--
There lies Red Murdoch, stark and stiff.
Thus Fate has solved her prophecy,
Then yield to Fate, and not to me.
To James, at Stirling, let us go,
When, if thou wilt be still his foe,
Or if the King shall not agree
To grant thee grace and favour free,
I plight mine honour, oath, and word,
That, to thy native strengths restored,
With each advantage shalt thou stand,
That aids thee now to guard thy land."
Dark lightning flashed from Roderick's eye--
"Soars thy presumption, then, so high,
Because a wretched kern ye slew,
Homage to name to Roderick Dhu?
He yields not, he, to man nor Fate!
Thou add'st but fuel to my hate:--
My clansman's blood demands revenge.
Not yet prepared?--By heaven, I change
My thought, and hold thy valour light
As that of some vain carpet knight,
Who ill deserved my courteous care,
And whose best boast is but to wear
A braid of his fair lady's hair."--
"I thank thee, Roderick, for the word!
It nerves my heart, it steels my sword;
For I have sworn this braid to stain
In the best blood that warms thy vein.
Now, truce, farewell! and, ruth, begone!--
Yet think not that by thee alone,
Proud Chief! can courtesy be shown;
Though not from copse, or heath, or cairn,
Start at my whistle clansmen stern,
Of this small horn one feeble blast
Would fearful odds against thee cast.
But fear not--doubt not--which thou wilt--
We try this quarrel hilt to hilt."--
Then each at once his falchion drew,
Each on the ground his scabbard threw,
Each looked to sun, and stream, and plain,
As what they ne'er might see again;
Then foot, and point, and eye opposed,
In dubious strife they darkly closed.