Chapter L: C. Bryan (3)

And now one can understand how Yarrow came to its fame. Quieter, sweeter, softer than other vales, its green braes, its delicious streams attracted the old singers who preserved the memories of others’ deeds. But why is this music sad? Well, most border ballads are little tragedies, the strongest emotions are the saddest, and such the singers preferred. And then one or two ballads gave a decided tone to the others. The “Dowie Dens,” in fact, strikes the key-note of them all. William Hamilton, of Bangour, and John Logan have both told a story of love and death in excellent fashion in their poems on “The Braes of Yarrow.” As for the rest, Scott is chiefly descriptive; Wordsworth, in spite of an occasional line or even verse of high excellence, is on the whole very poor; and Alan Ramsay is exceedingly bad.

THE MISSISSIPPI

ALEXANDER D. ANDERSON

In the early days of European discoveries and rivalries in the Mississippi Valley its comprehensive river system played a prominent part on the stage of public affairs. The discovery of the river, in 1541, by De Soto and his Spanish troops, was about a century later followed by explorations by the French under the lead of Marquette, Joliet, La Salle and others, who entered the valley from the north. La Salle, during the years 1679-83, explored the river throughout its whole length, took possession of the great valley in the name of France, and called it Louisiana in honour of his King, Louis XIV. Then resulted grand schemes for developing the resources of the valley, which a French writer characterized as “the regions watered by the Mississippi, immense unknown virgin solitudes which the imagination filled with riches.” One Crozat, in 1712, secured from the King a charter giving him almost imperial control of the commerce of the whole Mississippi Valley. There was at that date no European rival to dispute French domination, for the English of New England and the other Atlantic colonies had not extended their settlements westward across the Alleghanies, and the Spanish inhabitants of New Spain or Mexico had not pushed their conquest farther north than New Mexico. Crozat’s trading privileges covered an area many times as large as all France, and as fertile as any on the face of the earth. But he was equal to the opportunity, and, failing in his efforts, soon surrendered the charter.

John Law, a Scotchman, at first a gambler, and subsequently a bold, visionary, but brilliant financier, succeeded Crozat in the privileges of this grand scheme, and secured from the successor of Louis XIV. a monopoly of the trade and development of the French possessions in the valley. In order to carry out his wild enterprise he organized a colossal stock company, called “The Western Company,” but more generally known in history as the “Mississippi Bubble.” According to the historian Monette “it was vested with the exclusive privilege of the entire commerce of Louisiana and New France, and with authority to enforce its rights. It was authorized to monopolize the trade of all the colonies in the provinces, and of all the Indian tribes within the limits of that extensive region, even to the remotest source of every stream tributary in anywise to the Mississippi.” So skilful and daring were his manipulations that he bewitched the French people with the fascinations of stock gambling. The excitement in Paris is thus described by Thiers:

“It was no longer the professional speculators and creditors of the Government who frequented the rue Quincampoix; all classes of society mingled there, cherishing the same illusions--noblemen famous on the field of battle, distinguished in the Government, churchmen, traders, quiet citizens, and servants whom their suddenly acquired fortune had filled with the hope of rivalling their masters.”

The rue Quincampoix was called the Mississippi. The month of December was the time of the greatest infatuation. The shares ended by rising to eighteen and twenty thousand francs--thirty-six and forty times the first price. At the price which they had attained, the six hundred thousand shares represented a capital of ten or twelve billions of francs.

But the bubble soon burst; and its explosion upset the finances of this whole kingdom. Some years later, in 1745, a French engineer named Deverges made a report to his Government in favour of improving the mouth of the Mississippi, and stated that the bars there existing were a serious injury to commerce.

But France met with too powerful rivalry in the valley, and in 1762 and 1763, after a supremacy of nearly a hundred years, was crowded out by the English from the Atlantic colonies and the Spaniards from the south-west, the Mississippi River forming the dividing line between the regions acquired by those two nations. The Spanish officials, for the purpose of promoting colonization, and to aid in establishing trading-posts on the Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Red, and other rivers in the western half of the valley, granted to certain individuals, pioneers, and settlers, large tracts of land. They made little progress, however, in peopling their new territory.

But whatever progress was made under the successive supremacies of France and Spain, the Mississippi and its navigable tributaries supplied the only highways of communication and commerce.

In the year 1800, soon after Napoleon I. became the civil ruler of France, he sought to add to the commercial glory of his country by re-acquiring the territory resting upon the Mississippi which his predecessors had parted with in 1763.

To quote the language of a French historian: “The cession that France made of Louisiana to Spain in 1763 had been considered in all our maritime and commercial cities as impolitic and injurious to the interests of our navigation, as well as to the French West Indies, and it was very generally wished that an opportunity might occur of recovering that colony. One of the first cares of Bonaparte was to renew with the court of Madrid a negotiation on that subject.”

He succeeded in these negotiations, and by secret treaty of St. Ildefonso, in 1800, French domination was once more established over the great river.

Two years later, the commerce of the river had grown to large proportions. Says Marbois, of that period: “No rivers of Europe are more frequented than the Mississippi and tributaries.” A substantially correct idea of their patronage may be obtained from the record of the foreign commerce from the mouth of the Mississippi, for nearly all of the commodities collected there for export had first floated down the river.

Marbois well illustrates the intense indignation at this order on the part of the Western people by attributing to them the following language: “The Mississippi is ours by the law of nature; it belongs to us by our numbers, and by the labour which we have bestowed on those spots which before our arrival were desert and barren. Our innumerable rivers swell it and flow with it into the Gulf Sea. Its mouth is the only issue which nature has given to our waters, and we wish to use it for our vessels. No power in the world shall deprive us of this right.”

Of Morales’s order James Madison, then Secretary of State, wrote the official representative of the United States at the court of Spain:

“You are aware of the sensibility of our Western citizens to such an occurrence. This sensibility is justified by the interest they have at stake. The Mississippi to them is everything. It is the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, and all the navigable rivers of the Atlantic States formed into one stream.”

At this time Thomas Jefferson was President, and in view of the uneasiness of the Western settlers, he hastened to send to France a special ambassador to negotiate for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. The opportunity was a favourable one, for France was then in danger of a conflict with Great Britain. The latter country had become alarmed at and jealous of Bonaparte’s commercial conquests, and he, apprehending war and fearing that he could not hold Louisiana, had about determined to do the next best thing--dispose of it to one of England’s rivals.

Marbois, the historian of Louisiana, from whom we have above quoted, was chosen by Napoleon to represent France in the negotiations with the representative of the United States sent by Jefferson. His account of the cession--the consultation between Napoleon and his ministers--and of his remarks and motives, forms one of the most instructive and interesting chapters of modern history. Napoleon foreshadowed his action by the following remark to one of his counsellors:

“To emancipate nations from the commercial tyranny of England it is necessary to balance her influence by a maritime power that may one day become her rival; that power is the United States. The English aspire to dispose of all the riches of the world. I shall be useful to the whole universe if I can prevent their ruling America as they rule Asia.”

In a subsequent conversation with two of his ministers, on the 10th of April, 1803, on the subject of the proposed cession, he said in speaking of England: “They shall not have the Mississippi which they covet.”

In accordance with this conclusion, on the 30th day of the same month, the sale was made to the United States. When informed that his instructions had been carried out and the treaty consummated, he remarked:

“This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States, and I have just given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride.”

Under the stimulating influence of American enterprise the commerce of the valley rapidly developed. In 1812 it entered upon a new era of progress by the introduction for the first time upon the waters of the Mississippi of steam transportation.

The river trade then grew from year to year, until the total domestic exports of its sole outlet at the sea-board--the port of New Orleans--had during the fiscal year 1855-56 reached the value of over $80,000,000. Its prestige was then eclipsed by railways, the first line reaching the Upper Mississippi in 1854, and the second the Lower Mississippi, at St. Louis in 1857. Says Poor:

“The line first opened in this state from Chicago to the Mississippi was the Chicago and Rock Island, completed in February, 1854. The completion of this road extended the railway system of the country to the Mississippi, up to this time the great route of commerce of the interior. This work, in connection with the numerous other lines since opened, has almost wholly diverted this commerce from what may be termed its natural to artificial channels, so that no considerable portion of it now flowed down the river to New Orleans.”

The correctness of this assertion may be seen by reference to the statistics of the total domestic exports of New Orleans during the year ending June 30, 1879. They were $63,794,000 in value, or $16,000,000 less than in 1856, when the rivalry with railways began.

But since 1879 the river has entered upon a new and important era. The successful completion of the jetties by Capt. Jas. B. Eads inaugurated a new era of river commerce and regained for it some of its lost prestige.

Another step of great importance to the welfare of the Mississippi was taken about this time. The control of its improvement was transferred by Congress to a board of skilled engineers known as the Mississippi River Commission. The various conflicting theories of improvement which have for years past done much to defeat the grand consummation desired will now be adjusted in a scientific and business-like manner.

Again, the rapidly growing popular demand throughout the United States for more intimate commercial relations with Mexico and the several sister nations of Central and South America, which lie opposite the mouth of this great River System, is stimulating the long-neglected longitude trade and thereby creating a new demand for new transportation on the longitudinal water-ways which comprise the Mississippi and its tributaries.

The Mississippi and tributaries considered as a drainage system, extend nearly the whole length of the United States from Canada to the Gulf, and across more than half its width, or from the summit of the Rocky Mountains to that of the Alleghanies.

Steamers can now transport freight in unbroken bulk from St. Anthony’s Falls to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of 2,161 miles, and from Pittsburg to Fort Benton, Mont., 4,333 miles. Lighter craft can ascend the Missouri to Great Falls, near where that river leaves the Rocky Mountains.

THE ZAMBESI

HENRY DRUMMOND

Zambesi, the most important river on the East Coast of Africa, and the fourth largest on the continent, drains during its course of about 1,200 miles an area of 600,000 square miles. Its head-streams, which have not yet been fully explored, are the Leeambye, or Iambaji, rising in Cazembe’s country; the Lungebungo, which descends from the Mossamba Mountains; and the Leeba River, from the marshy Lake Dilolo (4,740 feet), situated between 10° and 12° south latitude and 22° and 23° east longitude. These three rivers, reinforced by the Nhengo, unite to form the upper Zambesi (Leeambye), which flows at first southwards and slightly eastwards through the Barotse valley, then turns prominently to the east near its junction with the Chobe (Chuando or Linianti), and passes over the Victoria Falls. Thence, as the middle reach of the Zambesi, the river sweeps north-east towards Zumbo and the Kebrabassa rapids above Tete, and finally forms the lower Zambesi, which curves southwards until it reaches the Indian Ocean at 18° 50′ south latitude. Fed chiefly from the highland country which stretches from Lake Nyassa to inner Angola, its chief tributaries are the Loängwa and the Shiré, the last an important river draining out of Lake Nyassa, and which in the dry season contains probably as great a volume of water as the Zambesi, and is much more navigable. Except for an interruption of seventy miles at the Murchison cataracts, the Shiré is open throughout its entire length to the lake.

On the whole the Zambesi has a gentle current, and flows through a succession of wide fertile valleys and richly wooded plains; but, owing to the terrace-like structure of the continent, the course of the river is interrupted from point to point by cataracts and rapids. These form serious, and in some cases insurmountable, hindrances to navigation. Those on the lower Zambesi begin with its delta. The bar here was long held to be impassable, except to vessels of the shallowest draught, but the difficulty was exaggerated partly through ignorance and partly in the interests of the Portuguese settlement of Quilimane, which, before the merits of the Kongone entrance were understood, had been already established on the Qua-qua River, sixty miles to the north. The Zambesi is now known to have four mouths, the Milambe to the west, the Kongone, the Leeabo, and the Timbwe. The best of these, the Kongone, has altered and the channel improved recently. There are at least eighteen feet of water on the bar at high water neap tides; and steamers drawing fifteen feet, and sailing vessels drawing three feet less, have no difficulty in entering. The deep water continues only a short distance, and, after Mazaro (sixty miles) is reached, where the river has already dwindled to the breadth of a mile, the channel is open in the dry season as far as Senna (120 miles from the mouth) for vessels drawing four and one-half feet. Up to this point navigation could only be successfully and continuously carried on by vessels of much lighter draught--stern-wheelers for preference with a draught of little more than eighteen inches. About ninety miles from Senna the river enters the Lupata gorge, the impetuous current contracting between walls to a width of scarcely 200 yards. Passing Tete (240 miles from the mouth with a smooth course) the channel becomes dangerous at Kebrabassa, ninety miles further on. From the Kebrabassa rapids upwards, and past the Victoria Falls, there are occasional stretches of navigable water extending for considerable distances, while the upper Zambesi with its confluents and their tributaries forms a really fine and extensive waterway. Like the Nile, the Zambesi is visited by annual inundations, during which the whole country is flooded and many of the minor falls and rapids are then obliterated.

The chief physical feature of the Zambesi is the Mosi-oa-tunya (“smoke sounds there”) or Victoria Falls, admitted to be one of the noblest waterfalls in the world. The cataract is bounded on three sides by ridges 300 or 400 feet high, and these, along with many islands dotted over the stream, are covered with sylvan vegetation. The falls, according to Livingstone, are caused by a stupendous crack or rent, with sharp and almost unbroken edges, stretching right across the river in the hard black basalt which here forms the bed. The cleft is 360 feet in sheer depth and close upon a mile in length. Into this chasm, or more than twice the depth of Niagara, the river rolls with a deafening roar, sending up vast columns of spray, which are visible for a distance of twenty miles. Unlike Niagara, the Mosi-oa-tunya does not terminate in an open gorge, the river immediately below the fall being blocked at eighty yards by the opposing side of the (supposed) cleft running parallel to the precipice which forms the waterfall. The only outlet is a narrow channel cut in this barrier at a point 1,170 yards from the western end of the chasm and some 600 from its eastern, and through this the Zambesi, now only twenty or thirty yards wide, pours for 120 yards before emerging into the enormous zigzag trough which conducts the river past the basalt plateau.

The region drained by the Zambesi may be represented as a vast broken-edged plateau 3,000 or 4,000 feet high, composed in the remote interior of metamorphic beds and fringed with the igneous rocks of the Victoria Falls. At Shupanga, on the lower Zambesi, thin strata of grey and yellow sandstone, with an occasional band of limestone, crop out on the bed of the river in the dry season, and these persist beyond Tete, where they are associated with extensive seams of coal. Gold is also known to occur in several places.

The higher regions of the Zambesi have only been visited by one or two explorers; and the lower, though nominally in possession of the Portuguese since the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, are also comparatively little known. The Barotse valley, or valley of the upper Zambesi, is a vast pastoral plain, 3,300 feet above sea-level, about 189 miles in length and thirty to thirty-five broad. Though inundated in the rainy season, it is covered with villages and supports countless herds of cattle. The Luiwas who inhabit it are clothed with skins, work neatly in ivory, and live upon milk, maize, and sweet potatoes. In the neighbourhood of the falls the tsetse fly abounds; and the Batoka people who live there, and who are the only arboriculturists in the country, live upon the products of their gardens. Zumbo, on the north bank, and Chicova, opposite on the southern side (500 miles above the delta), were the farthest inland of the Portuguese East African settlements, and are well placed for commerce with the natives. Founded by Pereira, a native of Goa, these settlements were ultimately allowed to go to ruins; but Zumbo has been recently reoccupied. The once celebrated gold mines of Parda Pemba are in the vicinity. The only other Portuguese settlements on the Zambesi are Tete and Senna. Tete, formerly a large and important place, now nearly in ruins, still possesses a fort and several good tiled stone and mud houses. Thither Portuguese goods, chiefly wines and provisions, are carried by means of canoes. The exports, which include ivory, gold dust, wheat, and ground-nuts, are limited owing to the difficulty of transport; but this difficulty is not insurmountable, for Tete has been twice visited by some small steam vessels. Senna, further down the river, a neglected and unhealthy village, has suffered much from political mismanagement, and has ceaseless troubles with the Landeens or Zulus, who own the southern bank of the river, and collect in force every year to exact a heavy tribute-money. The industrial possibilities of the lower Zambesi, and indeed of the whole river system, are enormous. India-rubber, indigo, archil, beeswax, and columbo root are plentiful, and oil-seeds and sugar-cane could be produced in sufficient quantity to supply the whole of Europe.

The Zambesi region was known to the mediæval geographers as the empire of Monomotapa, and the course of the river, as well as the position of Lakes N’gami and Nyassa, was filled in with a rude approximation to accuracy in the earlier maps. These were probably constructed from Arab information. The first European to visit the upper Zambesi was Livingstone in his exploration from Bechuanaland between 1851 and 1853. Two or three years later he descended the Zambesi to its mouth and in the course of this journey discovered the Victoria Falls. In 1859, accompanied by Dr. Kirk (now Sir John Kirk), Livingstone ascended the river as far as the falls, after tracing the course of its main tributary, the Shiré, and discovering Lake Nyassa. The mouths of the Zambesi were long claimed exclusively by the Portuguese, but in 1888 the British Government opened negotiations with Portugal to have the river declared free to all nations.

THE URUGUAY

ERNEST WILLIAM WHITE

The River Uruguay, a health-giving stream impregnated with sarsaparilla, and the lesser of the two affluents which swell into the mighty La Plata, possesses charms for the traveller, denied to the greater, the Paraná, at least in the lower part of its course; the water is clearer, the range not so vast, the scenery more varied and picturesque, whilst the traces of industry are more patent and the difficulties and dangers of its navigation add a piquancy unknown to the sister waters.

As its shores were to me as yet an unknown region, I determined to spend a fortnight in becoming familiar with their beauties, so on the morning of the 25th of December, in the midst of a glorious summer season, a friend joined me in taking return tickets from Buenos Ayres to Concordia, Entre Rios, which at the then state of the tide, was the furthest point upwards that a steamer could reach.

During breakfast we pretty well lose sight of the Argentine coast and have nothing before us but a broad freshwater ocean covered with innumerable blue-flowered camelotes, consisting chiefly of _Pontederia_, which spread their broad leaves as sails to speed them on their course; these nesine fragments descend the Paraná but are unknown on the bosom of the Uruguay. On our right side soon rises a long low ridge of sand indicating the Banda Oriental coast, terminating opposite the island of Martin Garcia, in cliffs resembling those of loved Albion. Calm as the Thames at London bridge is all this mighty estuary; it is not always so however, but on this holy day of peace

“The winds with wonder whist
Smoothly the waters kissed!”

And it is only by sailing over it in the glare of daylight that any adequate impression of its vastness can be obtained. Whence comes all this overflowing tide? is a question readily answered by the rigid scientist, but with whose conclusions, the imagination rests not satisfied.

After leaving the outer roads of Buenos Ayres, but little shipping is met with, and the reflection immediately occurs, how different the case would be, were this magnificent water-highway in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon race. On finding ourselves nearly abreast of Martin Garcia, the Argentine coast magically arose under a strong mirage, the trees appearing suspended in the air and completely separated from the shore line; whilst a shoal several miles in extent threatening our port bow, indicated the necessity of hugging the island, if we would avoid the fate of a fine bark which lay rotting only a few yards off.

The navigation is extremely perilous especially at low water and yet but a few buoys are visible, an unaccount-able omission, at least in times of peace. A boat containing the _comandante_ sallies from the fort and we, in common with all other passing vessels, are obliged to lie to, in order to await its visit.

Martin Garcia, at once the Norfolk island and Gibraltar of the River Plate, is the key of the common entrance to both the Paraná and Uruguay, as their bifurcation occurs farther north; and the channel, whose character may be surmised from its name “_Hell channel_,” passes within easy reach of the guns of this sentinel of the rivers, which has been strongly fortified by the Argentine government. A barren looking granitic tract, whence are quarried the _adoquines_ (paving stones) for the streets of the metropolis, with low sandy shores, rising in the interior to the height of two hundred feet and bristling with permanent fortifications and earthworks, it presents a standing menace to dispute with intruders entrance by water into the heart of the republic. On entering the River Uruguay, which has an embouchure of about thirteen miles, both banks are visible and very striking differences they present; the right or Entre-Riano shore is well-wooded and clothed with vegetation, whilst the left or Montevidean lies in all its naked barrenness. Further on, the Banda Oriental coast alters its character, being fringed with islands and less sandy; then jut out into the river a succession of bold bluffs, almost all with a bloody history, covered with a scanty verdure emerging from sand, presenting a close general resemblance to the southern shore of the Isle of Wight; and these promontories are usually dotted with _estancias_. Casting our eyes across the broad waters, we notice a change there likewise; long reefs of sand exchange verdure for sterility, and it is a remarkable circumstance throughout our whole progress up the Uruguay, that the two shores bear continually opposite or, so to speak, complimentary characters, not only physically and politically but botanically; when one is bold or fertile, the other is low or sterile. We now pass several wrecks, attesting the difficulties which beset our watery path.

Rounding a point, we suddenly come upon what looks uncommonly like an English fishing-village, with its craft quietly reposing in a snug bay; the church and cemetery topping our eminence, whilst the residence of the lord of the manor caps another, and learn that this is _Nueva Palmira_. The Oriental flag here boards us for the first time and the Easterns got rid of, the Saturno is again let loose on her orbit to hug the Montevidean coast, which now descends again to long reaches of low flat sands, with a broader stream, forming extensive sabulous, and in some cases well-wooded islands, which stretch leagues upon leagues along this left bank. A glorious moon, within two days of the full, succeeded one of the angriest yet finest of sunsets, and her rays, falling full upon the capacious bosom of the placid river transformed it into a lake of burnished silver. At about 9 P. M. we arrive off the mouth of the Rio Negro (Black River), called thus because the decaying sarsaparilla roots, with which its banks are lined, impregnate and discolour the waters and at the same time render them so highly medicinal as to attract great numbers of bathers to its shores.

As the rising sun’s disk was cut in twain by the horizon, I started upon deck to view the landscape. We were coursing through numberless islands, with a scenery on both banks exactly like that of the Suffolk river Orwell, but with an atmosphere O! how different! ours was as the balm of Eden, theirs, the nipping dry Eoic. The breadth of the stream is here about half a mile, and the moderately elevated banks are clothed with vivid green to the water’s edge; then as the river narrows again, we traverse a beautiful Ægean, whose innumerable islets are thickly wooded, principally with Espinillo (_Acacia cavenia_), Tala (_Celtis Sellowiana_), the willow of Humboldt, Ceibo (_Erythrina cristagalli_) and Laurel; but which, to my utter astonishment, presented scarcely any trace of animal life; hardly a dozen butterflies, a chimango or two, and a few weary-looking butcher-birds were its sole visible representatives. About 6 A. M., whilst passing through low jungle we sight our first city on the Argentine side, Concepcion del Uruguay, the capital of the province of Entre Rios; and entering a deep channel scarce a hundred yards broad, flanked by a double row of poplars, emerge in front of the splendid _Saladero_[4] of Santa Candida.

[Footnote 4: Slaughter-house.]

Ten miles above Paysandú, the river expands into a broad belt clear as a mirror, in which the sky, distant foliage and hills are brilliantly reflected, the air changes and bathed in tropical fragrance and balminess, the intensely vivid verdure springs up magically around us.

At the junction of the Queguay, an oriental affluent with the main stream, which at this point has a breadth of about half a mile are planted several _Saladeros_, apparently hard at work; but whether the palms are scared by the scent of blood or refuse to witness the daily holocaust, certain it is that they here suddenly vanish from the scene. Twenty miles above this rises a veritable _Tarpeia_ in the shape of a very lofty, bold, perpendicular-faced mass jutting into the river from the Uruguay coast, and which, with a refinement of cruelty and a just appreciation of history, was actually used by a general in one of the periodic revolutions to which this unhappy country is so subject, wherefrom to hurl his prisoners. Two picturesque islands, circular, rising abruptly out of the water, apparently exactly equal in size and shape, and hence styled “_Las dos hermanas_” (the two sisters), stand as advanced guards to this precipitous promontory, and by their intensely green verdure to the river’s edge and smooth mathematical uniformity, offer a pleasing contrast to the rugged, battered and blackened face of the cliff.

We hold our breath as with a quick turn and dart through the seething flood, our clever steersman pilots us through dangers greater than ever Sylla and Charybdis offered, and leaves us at leisure to survey the prosperous cattle farms, which, on both banks, now line our approach to Concordia.

At length about 5 P. M., after a passage of thirty-one hours and at a distance of 300 miles from Buenos Ayres, we sight the town of Concordia on the right bank, and at almost the same moment Salto, on the left, which, rising tier upon tier, very much resembles Bath; these two occupy almost the same relative positions as Buda and Pesth on the Danube.

From its junction with the Paraná, the Uruguay is navigable at all states of the tide as far as Concordia, but some miles above that city occur the Falls of Salto-grande and numerous rapids which render it unnavigable to steamers from below, except in times of extraordinary freshets between which an interval of years sometimes elapses; whilst above these, although still sown with rapids, the river is navigable but to vessels of smaller draught.

From the marvellous accounts I had listened to, I expected to behold in these Falls another Niagara, but great was my disappointment on viewing them for the first time, for although very picturesque, they struck me as completely wanting in the grandeur with which my imagination had clothed them. Extending for about a mile longitudinally, they consist on the northern limit of a transverse bar of boulders which cause a perpendicular descent of about twenty-five feet; then a succession of rugged rocks, sometimes of very fantastic shape, pile Pelion on Ossa, amongst which the river surges and eddies. The reef spreads completely across the river, a distance of about a quarter of a mile, so that in some states of the tide, it is possible to pass on foot from Entre Rios to the Banda Oriental, at all times a difficult, nay dangerous, undertaking. An island formed of massive boulders occupies the centre, on which a few dwarfed trees struggle for an aquatic existence. Here are found splendid agates, blocks of rock crystal, amethysts and other precious stones; and there lie naked on the blistering rocks, those rusty and silent mementos of Garibaldi’s unsuccessful expedition in 1840 when, to cross the rapids, he was obliged to throw overboard ten eighteen-pounder iron guns.

By contemplating the scene, however, it grows in magnitude and sublimity.

THE TWEED

SIR THOMAS DICK LAUDER

The great valley which affords a course for the Tweed, when taken in conjunction with those minor branch valleys which give passage to its various tributaries, may be called the great Scoto-Arcadian district of pastoral poetry and song. Who could enumerate the many offerings which have been made to the rural muses in this happy country? for where there are poetry and song, happiness must be presupposed, otherwise neither the one nor the other could have birth.

During those barbarous times, when border raids were in continual activity, and when no one on either side of the marches, or debatable land, could lay down his head to sleep at night, without the chance of having to stand at his defense, or perhaps to mount and ride ere morning, the valleys of the Tweed and its tributaries must have witnessed many strange and stirring events and cruel slaughters. To defend themselves from these predatory incursions the Scottish monarchs erected strong castles along the lower part of the course of the Tweed, and the chain of these places of strength was carried upwards, quite to the source of the streams by the various land owners. These last were either Towers or Peels--these different names being given, rather to distinguish the structures as to their magnitude and importance, than from any great difference of plan--the Tower possessing greater accommodations and being much the larger and more impregnable in strength of the two. These strongholds, being intended for the general advantage and preservation of all the inhabitants of the valley, were built alternately on both sides of the river, and in a continued series, so as to have a view one of another; so that a fire kindled on the top of any one of them, was immediately responded to, in the same way, by all the others in succession; the smoke giving the signal by day and the flame by night--thus spreading the alarm through a whole country of seventy miles in extent, in the provincial phrase, from “Berwick to the Bield,”--and to a breadth of not less than fifty miles carrying alarm into the uppermost parts of every tributary glen.

Availing ourselves of the quaint language of Dr. Pennecuick, we now beg to inform our readers that “The famous Tweed hath its first spring or fountain nearly a mile to the east of the place where the shire of Peebles marches and borders with the stewartry of Annandale--that is Tweed’s Cross, so called from a cross which stood and was erected there in the time of Popery, as was ordinar y, in all the eminent places of public roads in the kingdom before our Reformation. Both Annan and Clyde have their first rise from the same height, about half a mile from one another, where Clyde runneth west, Annan to the south, and Tweed to the east.” There is some little exaggeration, however, in the old Doctor here--for there is, in reality, no branch of Clyde within two miles of Tweed’s Cross, or Errickstane Brae. Tweed’s Well is not very far from the great r oad; and the site of Tweed’s Cross is 1,632 feet above the level of the sea. “Tweed runneth for the most part with a soft, yet trotting stream, towards the north-east, the whole length of the country, in several meanders, passing first through the Paroch of Tweeds-moor, the place of its birth, then running eastwards, it watereth the parishes of Glenholm, Drumelzear, Broughton, Dawick, Stobo, Lyne, Mannor, Peebles, Traquair, Innerleithen, and from thence in its course to the March at Galehope-burn, where, leaving Tweeddale, it beginneth to water the forest on both sides, a little above Elibank.”

The Banks of the Tweed abound in simple rural charms as you proceed downwards from Elibank Tower, and they partake of that peaceful pastoral character which its green sided hills bestow upon it.

We now come to that part of the course of the Tweed, extending from its junction with the united rivers Ettrick and Yarrow to the mouth of Gala Water. The estate of Abbotsford makes up a large part of the whole. The part of it that borders the Tweed consists of a large and very beautiful flat haugh, around the margin of which the river flows gently and clearly over its beds of sparkling pebbles.

The angling from Gala Water foot to Leader foot is all excellent, both for salmon and trout, when the river is in proper condition; and then the beauty and interest of all the surrounding features of nature and the silent grandeur of the holy pile of ruin are such that even the unsuccessful angler must find pleasure in wandering by the river-side, quite enough to counterbalance the disappointment of empty baskets.

Sir Walter Scott says:--

“If thou would’st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild but to flout the ruins grey.
When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold lights’ uncertain shower
Streams on the ruined central tower;
When buttress and buttress alternately,
Seemed framed of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery,
And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;
When the distant Tweed is heard to rave
And the howlet to hoot o’er the dead man’s grave;
Then go--but go alone the while--
Then view St. David’s ruined pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear
Was never scene so sad and fair.”

Before leaving this section of the Tweed, we must not forget to mention that the Knights Templars had a house and establishment on the east side of the village of Newstead. It was called the Red Abbey. Before concluding this part of our subject, it appears to us to be very important, if not essential, to call our readers’ especial attention to the singular promontory of Old Melrose on the right bank of the river. It is a high bare head, around which the river runs in such a way as to convert it into a peninsula. Here it was that the first religious settlement was made. This monastery was supposed to have been founded by Columbus or by Aidan, probably about the end of the Sixth Century. It would appear that it was built of oak wood, thatched with reeds, the neck of land being enclosed with a stone wall. It is supposed to have been burned by the Danes. The name given to it was decidedly Celtic and quite descriptive of its situation--Maol-Ros, signifying Bare Promontory--and from this the more recent Abbey and the whole of the more modern parish of Melrose have derived their name.

We now come to a very beautiful, nay, perhaps, we ought to say the most beautiful part of the Tweed, where it meanders considerably, as it takes its general course in a bold sweep round the parish of Merton. On its north side the ground rises to a very considerable height in cultivated and wooded hills. From several parts of the road that winds over it, most magnificent views are enjoyed up the vale of the Tweed including Melrose and the Eildon Hills; and then at the same time, these rising grounds and the southern banks, which are likewise covered with timber, give the richest effect of river scenery to the immediate environs of the stream.

We scarcely know a place anywhere which is so thoroughly embowered in grand timber as Dryburgh Abbey. The most beautiful fragment of the ruin is that which is called Saint Mary’s Aisle, which formed the south aisle of the transept; and let it not be approached save with that holy awe which is inspired by the recollection of the illustrious dead! for here repose the ashes of the immortal Sir Walter Scott!

Below Dryburgh Lord Polwarth’s property of Merton begins and runs for about two miles down the Tweed. As you approach the place of Mackerston, the immediate bed of the stream becomes more diversified by rocks, both on its side and in its channel. The Duke of Roxburgh’s fishings stretch for nearly four miles to a point about half a mile below Kelso.

Nothing can surpass the beauty of the scene when looked at from Kelso bridge. And then when it is taken from other points, the bridge itself, the ruined abbey, the buildings of the town, with the wooded banks and the broad river form a combination of objects, harmonizing together, which are rarely to be met with. Each particular description of scenery requires to be judged of and estimated according to its own merits. You cannot, with any good effect or propriety, compare a wild, mountainous and rocky highland scene with a rich, lowland district. But this we will say, that, of all such lowland scenes, we know of none that can surpass the environs of Kelso; for whilst the mind is there filled with all those pleasing associations with peace and plenty, which such scenes are generally more or less calculated to inspire, there are many parts of it which would furnish glowing subjects for the artist. Here the Tweed is joined by the Teviot; and we shall finish this part of our subject by those beautiful lines from Teviot’s own poet, Leyden, in his _Scenes of Infancy_:--

“Bosomed in woods where mighty rivers run,
Kelso’s fair vale expands before the sun;
Its rising downs in vernal beauty swell,
And, fringed with hazel, winds each flowery dell;
Green spangled plains to dimpling lawns succeed
And Tempe rises on the banks of Tweed.
Blue o’er the river Kelso’s shadow lies,
And copse-clad isles amid the waters rise.”

Like a gentleman of large fortune, who has just received a great accession to it, the Tweed, having been joined by the Teviot, leaves Kelso with a magnitude and an air of dignity and importance that it has nowhere hitherto assumed during its course, and which it will be found to maintain, until it is ultimately swallowed up by that grave of all rivers--the sea. A few miles brings it to the confines of Berwickshire, and in its way thither it passes through a rich country.

Just before quitting the confines of Roxburghshire the Tweed receives the classic stream of the Eden, which enters it from the left bank. The Eden is remarkable for the excellence of the trout, which are natives of the stream, but they require very considerable skill and great nicety of art to extract them by means of the angle from their native element.

And now we must congratulate our kind and courteous reader, as well as ourselves, that the romantic days of border warfare have been long at an end; for if it had been otherwise, our noble companion the Tweed, which has now brought us to a point where he washes England with his right hand waves whilst he laves Scotland with his left, might have brought us into some trouble. As he forms the boundary between England and Scotland from hence to the sea, we must in order to preserve him as a strictly Scottish river, say little about his right bank, except what may be necessary for mere illustration. But as we see before us the truly dilapidated ruins of what was once the strong and important fortress of Wark Castle, we must bestow a few words upon it.

Wark was the barony and ancient possession of the family of Ross, one of whom, William de Ross, was a competitor for the crown of Scotland in the reign of Edward I. of England. It continued in that family to the end of the Fourteenth Century, when it appears to have become the possession of the Greys, who took their title from the place, being styled the Lords Grey of Wark, in the descendants of which family it has continued to the present time.

The Scottish banks of the river from the Eden water to Coldstream are richly cultivated and partially wooded by hedgerows and the plantations of several properties. The view down the course of the stream, which runs down wooded banks of no great height, and is crossed by the noble bridge of Coldstream, is extremely beautiful. The village of Coldstream itself is very pretty with its nice modern cottages and gardens; but it is likewise interesting from some of its old buildings. Coldstream was remarkable for its convent of Cistercian nuns, of which Mr. Chambers gives us the following interesting account:--Previous to the Reformation Coldstream could boast of a rich priory of Cistercian nuns; but of the buildings not one fragment now remains. The nunnery stood upon a spot a little eastwards from the market-place, where there are still some peculiarly luxuriant gardens, besides a small burying-ground, now little used. In a slip of waste ground, between the garden and the river, many bones and a stone coffin were dug up some years ago; the former supposed to be the most distinguished of the warriors that fought at Flodden; for there is a tradition that the abbess sent vehicles to that fatal field and brought away many of the better orders of the slain, whom she interred here. The field, or rather hill, of Flodden, is not more than six miles from Coldstream, and the tall stone that marks the place where the king fell, only about half that distance, the battle having terminated about three miles from the spot where it commenced.

General Monk made this his quarters till he found a favourable opportunity for entering England to effect the Restoration; and it was here that he raised that regiment that has ever afterwards had the name of the Coldstream Guards.

The River Till is an important tributary to the Tweed from its right bank. The Till runs so extremely slow that it forms a curious contrast with the Tweed, whose course here is very rapid, giving rise to the following quaint verses:--

“Tweed said to Till,
What gars ye rin sae still?
Till said to Tweed,
Though ye rin wi’ speed,
And I rin slow,
Yet where ye drown ae man
I drown twa.”

We must now proceed to make our last inroad into England--an inroad, however, very different indeed from those which used to be made by our ancestors, when they rode at the head of their men-at-arms, for the purpose of harrying the country and driving a spoil. We go now upon a peaceful visitation of Norham Castle, certainly the most interesting of all objects of a similar description on the whole course of the Tweed.

The ancient name of the castle appears to have been Ubbanford. It stands on a steep bank, partially wooded and overhanging the river. It seems to have occupied a very large piece of ground as the ruins are very extensive, consisting of a strong square keep, considerably shattered, with a number of banks and fragments of buildings enclosed within an outer wall of a great circuit; the whole forming the most picturesque subject for the artist. It was here that Edward I. resided when engaged in acting as umpire in the dispute concerning the Scottish crown. From its position exactly upon the very line of the border, no war ever took place between the two countries without subjecting it to frequent sieges, during which it was repeatedly taken and retaken. The Greys of Chillingham Castle were often successively captains of the garrison; yet as the castle was situated in the patrimony of St. Cuthbert, the property was in the see of Durham till the Reformation. After that period it passed through various hands.

The parish of Ladykirk, which now comes under our notice, upon the left bank of the Tweed, was created at the Reformation by the junction of Upsetlington and Horndean. James IV. had built a church which he dedicated to the Virgin Mary, whence it received its name.

As we proceed downwards, the scenery on the Tweed may be said to be majestic, from the fine wooded banks which sweep downwards to its northern shores. The surface of the water is continually animated by the salmon coble shooting athwart the stream.

A very handsome suspension bridge, executed by Captain Samuel Brown of the Royal Navy here connects England with Scotland, and at some distance below, the Tweed receives the Whitadder as its tributary from the left bank.

When we begin to find ourselves within the liberties of Berwick, we discover that we are in a species of no man’s land. We are neither in England nor in Scotland, but in “our good town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.” We have never passed through it without being filled with veneration for the many marks that yet remain to show what a desperate struggle it must have had for its existence for so many centuries, proving a determined bravery in the inhabitants almost unexampled in the history of man. It always brings to our mind some very ancient silver flagon, made in an era when workmen were inexpert and when the taste of their forms was more intended for use than for ornament, but of materials so solid and valuable as to have made it survive all the blows and injuries, the marks of which are still to be seen upon it; and which is thus infinitely more respected than some modern mazer of the most exquisite workmanship.

Escaping from Berwick-bridge the Tweed, already mingled with the tide, finds its way down to its estuary, the sand and muddy shores of which have no beauty in them.

And now, oh silver Tweed! we bid thee a kind and last adieu, having seen thee rendered up to that all-absorbing ocean, with which all rivers are doomed to be commingled, and their existence terminated, as is that of frail man, with the same hope of being thence restored by those well-springs of life that are formed above the clouds.

NIAGARA

JOHN TYNDALL

It is one of the disadvantages of reading books about natural scenery that they fill the mind with pictures, often exaggerated, often distorted, often blurred, and, even when well drawn, injurious to the freshness of first impressions. Such has been the fate of most of us with regard to the Falls of Niagara. There was little accuracy in the estimates of the first observers of the cataract. Startled by an exhibition of power so novel and so grand, emotion leaped beyond the control of the judgment, and gave currency to notions which have often led to disappointment.

A record of a voyage, in 1535, by a French mariner named Jacques Cartier, contains, it is said, the first printed allusion to Niagara. In 1603 the first map of the district was constructed by a Frenchman named Champlain. In 1648 the Jesuit Rageneau, in a letter to his superior at Paris, mentions Niagara as “a cataract of frightful height.” In the winter of 1678 and 1679 the cataract was visited by Father Hennepin, and described in a book dedicated “to the King of Great Britain.” He gives a drawing of the waterfall, which shows that serious changes have taken place since his time. He describes it as “a great and prodigious cadence of water, to which the universe does not offer a parallel.” The height of the fall, according to Hennepin, was more than 600 feet. “The waters,” he says, “which fall from this great precipice do foam and boil in the most astonishing manner, making a noise more terrible than that of thunder. When the wind blows to the south its frightful roaring may be heard for more than fifteen leagues.” The Baron la Hontan, who visited Niagara in 1687, makes the height 800 feet. In 1721 Charlevois, in a letter to Madame de Maintenon, after referring to the exaggerations of his predecessors, thus states the result of his own observations: “For my part, after examining it on all sides, I am inclined to think that we cannot allow it less than 140 or 150 feet”--a remarkably close estimate. At that time, viz., a hundred and fifty years ago, it had the shape of a horseshoe, and reasons will subsequently be given for holding that this has been always the form of the cataract, from its origin to its present site.

As regards the noise of the fall, Charlevois declares the accounts of his predecessors, which, I may say, are repeated to the present hour, to be altogether extravagant. He is perfectly right. The thunders of Niagara are formidable enough to those who really seek them at the base of the Horseshoe Fall; but on the banks of the river, and particularly above the fall, its silence, rather than its noise, is surprising. This arises, in part, from the lack of resonance; the surrounding country being flat, and therefore furnishing no echoing surfaces to reinforce the shock of the water. The resonance from the surrounding rocks causes the Swiss Reuss at the Devil’s Bridge, when full, to thunder more loudly than the Niagara.