Chapter L: C. Bryan (4)

Seen from below, the American Fall is certainly exquisitely beautiful, but it is a mere frill of adornment to its nobler neighbour the Horseshoe. At times we took to the river, from the centre of which the Horseshoe Fall appeared especially magnificent. A streak of cloud across the neck of Mont Blanc can double its apparent height, so here the green summit of the cataract shining above the smoke of spray appeared lifted to an extraordinary elevation. Had Hennepin and La Hontan seen the fall from this position, their estimates of the height would have been perfectly excusable.

From a point a little way below the American Fall, a ferry crosses the river, in summer, to the Canadian side. Below the ferry is a suspension bridge for carriages and foot-passengers, and a mile or two lower down is the railway suspension bridge. Between ferry and bridge the river Niagara flows unruffled; but at the suspension bridge the bed steepens and the river quickens its motion. Lower down the gorge narrows, and the rapidity and turbulence increase. At the place called the “Whirlpool Rapids,” I estimated the width of the river at 300 feet, an estimate confirmed by the dwellers on the spot. When it is remembered that the drainage of nearly half a continent is compressed into this space, the impetuosity of the river’s rush may be imagined.

Two kinds of motion are here obviously active, a motion of translation and a motion of undulation--the race of the river through its gorge, and the great waves generated by its collision with, and rebound from, the obstacles in its way. In the middle of the river the rush and tossing are most violent; at all events, the impetuous force of the individual waves is here most strikingly displayed. Vast pyramidal heaps leap incessantly from the river, some of them with such energy as to jerk their summits into the air, where they hang momentarily suspended in crowds of liquid spherules. The sun shone for a few minutes. At times the wind, coming up the river, searched and sifted the spray, carrying away the lighter drops and leaving the heavier ones behind. Wafted in the proper direction, rainbows appeared and disappeared fitfully in the lighter mist. In other directions the common gleam of the sunshine from the waves and their shattered crests was exquisitely beautiful. The complexity of the action was still further illustrated by the fact, that in some cases, as if by the exercise of a local explosive force, the drops were shot radially from a particular centre, forming around it a kind of halo.

At some distance below the Whirlpool Rapids we have the celebrated whirlpool itself. Here the river makes a sudden bend to the north-east, forming nearly a right angle with its previous direction. The water strikes the concave bank with great force, and scoops it incessantly away. A vast basin has been thus formed, in which the sweep of the river prolongs itself in gyratory currents. Bodies and trees which have come over the falls are stated to circulate here for days without finding the outlet. From various points of the cliffs above this is curiously hidden. The rush of the river into the whirlpool is obvious enough; and though you imagine the outlet must be visible, if one existed, you cannot find it. Turning, however, round the bend of the precipice to the north-east, the outlet comes into view.

The Niagara season was over; the chatter of sight-seers had ceased, and the scene presented itself as one of holy seclusion and beauty. I went down to the river’s edge, where the weird loneliness seemed to increase. The basin is enclosed by high and almost precipitous banks--covered, at the time, with russet woods. A kind of mystery attaches itself to gyrating water, due perhaps to the fact that we are to some extent ignorant of the direction of its force. It is said that, at certain points of the whirlpool, pine-trees are sucked down, to be ejected mysteriously elsewhere. The water is of the brightest emerald-green. The gorge through which it escapes is narrow, and the motion of the river swift though silent. The surface is steeply inclined, but it is perfectly unbroken. There are no lateral waves, no ripples with their breaking bubbles to raise a murmur; while the depth is here too great to allow the inequality of the bed to ruffle the surface. Nothing can be more beautiful than this sloping liquid mirror formed by the Niagara in sliding from the whirlpool.

A connected image of the origin and progress of the cataract is easily obtained. Walking northwards from the village of Niagara Falls by the side of the river, we have to our left the deep and comparatively narrow gorge, through which the Niagara flows. The bounding cliffs of this gorge are from 300 to 350 feet high. We reach the whirlpool, trend to the north-east, and after a little time gradually resume our northward course. Finally, at about seven miles from the present falls, we come to the edge of a declivity, which informs us that we have been hitherto walking on table-land. At some hundreds of feet below us is a comparatively level plain, which stretches to Lake Ontario. The declivity marks the end of the precipitous gorge of the Niagara. Here the river escapes from its steep mural boundaries, and in a widened bed pursues its way to the lake which finally receives its waters.

The fact that in historic times, even within the memory of man, the fall has sensibly receded, prompts the question, How far has this recession gone? At what point did the ledge which thus continually creeps backwards begin its retrograde course? To minds disciplined in such researches the answer has been, and will be--At the precipitous declivity which crossed the Niagara from Lewiston on the American to Queenston on the Canadian side. Over this transverse barrier the united affluents of all the upper lakes once poured their waters, and here the work of erosion began. The dam, moreover, was demonstrably of sufficient height to cause the river above it to submerge Goat Island; and this would perfectly account for the finding, by Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. Hall, and others, in the sand and gravel of the island, the same fluviatile shells as are now found in the Niagara River higher up. It would also account for those deposits along the sides of the river, the discovery of which enabled Lyell, Hall, and Ramsay to reduce to demonstration the popular belief that the Niagara once flowed through a shallow valley.

The vast comparative erosive energy of the Horseshoe Fall comes strikingly into view when it and the American Fall are compared together. The American branch of the river is cut at a right angle by the gorge of the Niagara. Here the Horseshoe Fall was the real excavator. It cut the rock, and formed the precipice, over which the American Fall tumbles. But, since its formation, the erosive action of the American Fall has been almost nil, while the Horseshoe has cut its way for 500 yards across the end of Goat Island, and is now doubling back to excavate its channel parallel to the length of the island. This point, which impressed me forcibly, has not, I have just learned, escaped the acute observation of Professor Ramsay. The river bends; the Horseshoe immediately accommodates itself to the bending, and will follow implicitly the direction of the deepest water in the upper stream. The flexures of the gorge are determined by those of the river channel above it. Were the Niagara centre above the fall sinuous, the gorge would obediently follow its sinuosities. Once suggested, no doubt geographers will be able to point out many examples of this action. The Zambesi is thought to present a great difficulty to the erosion theory, because of the sinuosity of the chasm below the Victoria Falls. But, assuming the basalt to be of tolerably uniform texture, had the river been examined before the formation of this sinuous channel, the present zigzag course of the gorge below the fall could, I am persuaded, have been predicted, while the sounding of the present river would enable us to predict the course to be pursued by the erosion in the future.

But not only has the Niagara River cut the gorge; it has carried away the chips of its own workshop. The shale, being probably crumbled, is easily carried away. But at the base of the fall we find the huge boulders already described, and by some means or other these are removed down the river. The ice which fills the gorge in winter, and which grapples with the boulders, has been regarded as the transporting agent. Probably it is so to some extent. But erosion acts without ceasing on the abutting points of the boulders, thus withdrawing their support and urging them gradually down the river. Solution also does its portion of the work. That solid matter is carried down is proved by the difference of depth between the Niagara River and Lake Ontario, where the river enters it. The depth falls from seventy-two feet to twenty feet, in consequence of the deposition of solid matter caused by the diminished motion of the river.

In conclusion, we may say a word regarding the proximate future of Niagara. At the rate of excavation assigned to it by Sir Charles Lyell, namely, a foot a year, five thousand years or so will carry the Horseshoe Fall far higher than Goat Island. As the gorge recedes it will drain, as it has hitherto done, the banks right and left of it, thus leaving a nearly level terrace between Goat Island and the edge of the gorge. Higher up it will totally drain the American branch of the river; the channel of which in due time will become cultivable land. The American Fall will then be transformed into a dry precipice, forming a simple continuation of the cliffy boundary of the Niagara gorge. At the place occupied by the fall at this moment we shall have the gorge enclosing a right angle, a second whirlpool being the consequence. To those who visit Niagara a few millenniums hence I leave the verification of this prediction. All that can be said is, that if the causes now in action continue to act, it will prove itself literally true.

THE NIAGARA RIVER

G. K. GILBERT

The Niagara River flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The shore of Erie is more than 300 feet higher than the shore of Ontario; but if you pass from the higher shore to the lower, you do not descend at a uniform rate. Starting from Lake Erie and going northwards, you travel upon a plain--not level, but with only gentle undulations--until you approach the shore of Lake Ontario, and then suddenly you find yourself on the brink of a high bluff, or cliff, overlooking the lower lake and separated from it only by a narrow strip of sloping plain.

Where the Niagara River leaves Lake Erie at Buffalo and enters the plain, a low ridge of rock crosses its path, and in traversing this its water is troubled; but it soon becomes smooth, spreads out broadly and indolently loiters on the plain. For three-fourths of the distance it cannot be said to have a valley, it rests upon the surface of the plateau; but then its habit suddenly changes. By the short rapid at Goat Island and by the cataract itself the water of the river is dropped two hundred feet down into the plain, and thence to the cliff at Lewiston it races headlong through a deep and narrow gorge. From Lewiston to Lake Ontario there are no rapids. The river is again broad, and its channel is scored so deeply in the littoral plain that the current is relatively slow, and the level of its water surface varies but slightly from that of the lake.

The narrow gorge that contains the river from the Falls to Lewiston is a most peculiar and noteworthy feature. Its width rarely equals the fourth of a mile, and its depth to the bottom of the river ranges from two hundred to five hundred feet. Its walls are so steep that opportunities for climbing up and down them are rare, and in these walls one may see the geologic structure of the plateau.

The contour of the cataract is subject to change. From time to time blocks of rock break away, falling into the pool below, and new shapes are then given to the brink over which the water leaps. Many such falls of rock have taken place since the white man occupied the banks of the river, and the breaking away of a very large section is still a recent event. By such observation we are assured that the extent of the gorge is increasing at its end, that it is growing longer, and that the cataract is the cause of its extension.

This determination is the first element in the history of the river. A change is in progress before our eyes. The river’s history, like human history, is being enacted, and from that which occurs we can draw inferences concerning what has occurred, and what will occur. We can look forward to the time when the gorge now traversing the fourth part of the width of the plateau will completely divide it, so that the Niagara will drain Lake Erie to the bottom. We can look back to the time when there was no gorge, but when the water flowed on the top of the plain to its edge, and the Falls of Niagara were at Lewiston.

We may think of the river as labouring at a task--the task of sawing in two the plateau. The task is partly accomplished. When it is done the river will assume some other task. Before it was begun what did the river do?

How can we answer this question? The surplus water discharge from Lake Erie could not have flowed by this course to Lake Ontario without sawing at the plateau. Before it began the cutting of the gorge it did not flow along this line. It may have flowed somewhere else, but if so it did not constitute the Niagara River. The commencement of the cutting of the Niagara gorge is the beginning of the history of the Niagara River.

The river began its existence during the final retreat of the great ice sheet, or, in other words, during the series of events that closed the age of ice in America. During the course of its history the length of the river has suffered some variation by reason of the successive fall and rise of the level of Lake Ontario. It was at first a few miles shorter than now; then it became suddenly a few miles longer, and its present length was gradually acquired.

With the change in the position of its mouth there went a change in the height of its mouth; and the rate at which it eroded its channel was affected thereby. The influence on the rate of erosion was felt chiefly along the lower course of the river between Lewiston and Fort Niagara.

The volume of the river has likewise been inconstant. In early days, when the lakes levied a large tribute on the melting glacier, the Niagara may have been a larger river than now; but there was a time when the discharge from the upper lakes avoided the route by Lake Erie, and then the Niagara was a relatively small stream.

The great life work of the river has been the digging of the gorge through which it runs from the cataract to Lewiston. The beginning of its life was the beginning of that task. The length of the gorge is in some sense a measure of the river’s age.

The river sprang from a great geologic revolution, the banishment of the dynasty of cold, and so its lifetime is a geologic epoch; but from first to last man has been a witness to its toil, and so its history is interwoven with the history of man. The human comrade of the river’s youth was not, alas! a reporter with a notebook, else our present labour would be light. He has even told us little of himself. We only know that on a gravelly beach of Lake Iroquois, now the Ridge Road, he rudely gathered stones to make a hearth and built a fire; and the next storm breakers, forcing back the beach, buried and thus preserved, to gratify yet whet our curiosity, hearth, ashes and charred sticks.

In these Darwinian days we cannot deem primeval the man possessed of the Promethean art of fire, and so his presence on the scene adds zest to the pursuit of the Niagara problem. Whatever the antiquity of the great cataract may be found to be, the antiquity of man is greater.

THE MEUSE

ESTHER SINGLETON

The Meuse, or Maas, has the distinction of belonging to three countries,--France, Belgium and Holland. In its long journey of 580 miles to the sea, it passes through varied and beautiful scenery, including the Forest of Ardennes, so famous in the Charlemagne romances and in the turbulent period of the Middle Ages; then through the vine-lands and hop-gardens so often laid waste by battles in Belgium; and finally through the flat lands of Holland where it has afforded inspiration to many painters.

Rising in France in the south of the Department Haute Marne near the Monts Faucilles, it crosses the Department Vosges, where, between Bazeilles and Noncourt, it disappears and has a subterranean course for three miles and a half. After crossing the Meuse and Ardennes Departments, passing by the towns of Neufchâteau, Vaucouleurs, Commercy St. Mihiel and Verdun, it reaches Sedan and enters Belgium. During the rest of its course, its name is variously Meuse, Maes, Maas and Merwede. Above Dinant it receives the Lesse and at Namur, its largest tributary, the Sambre, which almost doubles its volume. Going north-east, it flows through a narrow valley, enclosed between wooded hills and cliffs, dotted with picturesque villas and country houses, and at Liège it is joined by the Ourthe. The river now enters Dutch territory, and is henceforth called the Maas. Passing Maestricht, or Maastricht, it flows by Roermond, where it receives the Roer, and at Venlo a canal begins which connects it with the Scheldt. At Gorinchem, it receives the Waal, an arm of the Rhine. Now the Maas soon divides: the Merwede flowing west, while the southern arm falls into the Biesbosch, an estuary of the sea. On reaching Dortrecht, river and sea navigation begin. Here the Maas again divides. The Old Maas flows directly west while the northern arm joins the Lek, a second branch of the Rhine, and continues its course to Rotterdam, where the Rotte joins it. The two arms unite here and flow into the North Sea by the Hook of Holland. Schiedam and Vlardingen are the last places of importance upon its banks. Including all windings, the Meuse is 580 miles long and is navigable for about 460 miles. In the early part of its course the Meuse traverses a wide valley covered by green meadows and then flows through narrow gorges, hemmed in by high hills and cliffs. At Dinant, picturesquely situated on the right bank, at the base of limestone cliffs crowned by a fortress, it is said that Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and his son, Charles the Bold, having captured the town, caused 800 people to be drowned in the Meuse. The river, however, quite unconscious of this tragedy, flows on beneath a pinnacle of rock called the _Roche à Bayard_, because the famous steed, Bayard, belonging to the Quatre Fils d’Aymon, left a hoof-print here as it sprang over the valley when pursued by Charlemagne. Rocks of fantastic shapes now rise above the river, which is spanned by bridges. Innumerable villas and ancestral castles peep through the thick foliage and command the cliffs. The French border is reached at Givet; and at Sedan, memorable for the battle between the French and Germans (September 1, 1870), Belgian territory is entered. The hills and valleys in the vicinity of Sedan were occupied by the Army of the Meuse.

At Namur, also grouped on the cliffs, the Meuse is crossed by several stone bridges. The citadel on a hill between the Sambre and Meuse is believed to occupy the site of the camp of the Aduatuci described by Cæsar. The Meuse, flowing through the town of Liège, forms an island which is connected with each bank by six bridges. The principal town lies on the left bank: Outremeuse is a factory town on the right bank. A fine view is afforded from the citadel (520 feet above the sea level), erected by Prince Bishop Maximilian Henry of Bavaria in 1650, on the site of earlier fortifications. The valleys of the Meuse, Ourthe and Vesdre are here bounded on the south by the Ardennes, while the Petersburg with Maestricht and the broad plains of Limburg are seen on the north. On the opposite bank of the Meuse is the Chartreuse. The river here is 460 feet wide and is crossed by several bridges, of which the Pont des Arches, rebuilt in 1860-3, dates from the Eighth Century, and is famous in local history.

After the train passes under the Chartreuse, the town of Jupille is reached, a favourite residence of Pepin of Héristal, who died here in 714. The town was often visited by Charlemagne.

The Dutch custom-house is at Eysden, where a beautiful old _château_ is seen among its trees; and on the opposite bank of the Meuse, the Petersburg rises 330 feet above the river, with the _château_ of Castert on its summit. We are now in the Dutch province of Limburg, with its capital, Maestricht, on the left bank of the Maas, the _Trajectum Superius_ of the Romans (_Trajectum ad Mosam_), the seat of a bishopric; the residence of Frankish Kings; and, later, the joint possession of Prince Bishops of Liège and the Dukes of Brabant.

At Gorinchem the river is joined by the Waal and as both streams are broad, an impressive sheet of water is the result. For a time, the river is known as the Merwede. About four miles below Gorinchem, the Biesbosch (reed forest) begins, a district of forty square miles and consisting of 100 islands formed by a destructive inundation in 1421, when seventy-two towns and villages and more than 100,000 persons perished.

This inundation also separated the next town of importance, Dordrecht, or Dort, as the Dutch call it, from the mainland. This town, one of the wealthiest towns of the Netherlands in the Middle Ages, presents a most picturesque appearance with its quaint gables, red-tiled roofs, and the lofty square tower of the Groote Kerk, which has kept watch over the Maas for six hundred years. How familiar it looks in the silvery light of early morning or when flooded with the warm golden glow of the afternoon to those who are well acquainted with the pictures of Cuyp and Jan van Goyen! Could we wander through the town, we should find much to study. There are numerous old mediæval houses in the Wynstraat; the ancient gate, Groothoofd-Poort, that had to be rebuilt in 1618; and the finest specimens of carving in Holland,--the choir-stalls of 1538-40 in the Groote Kerk. The harbour is full of boats and timber rafts that have drifted down the Rhine from the Black Forest and the _tjalks_, _praams_ and other Dutch boats, large and small, with their lee-boards (called _zwaards_) used to steady the keelless boats, and bright sails become more numerous.

The Maas now flows through typical Dutch landscapes and feeds many canals that lead to Delft and other cities.

At length we reach Rotterdam which lies on both sides of the river; the older city lies on the right bank of the Maas near its confluence with the Rotte. The many docks and canals--Koningshaven, Nieuwehaven, Haringvliet, Oudehaven, Wijnhaven, Scheepmakershaven, Leuvehaven, Zalmhaven, Westerhaven, etc., are filled with ocean-going vessels and river craft of all sizes and kinds, as well as nationalities, presenting forests of masts and innumerable funnels. The streets are animated with sailors and merchants, while the tree-bordered embankment, called the Bompjes, affords a gay promenade.

On the way to the sea, Schiedam on the Schie, is passed, and also the more interesting town of Vlaardingen, one of the oldest towns in Holland, as is evidenced by the market-place. It is the _dépôt_ for the “great fishery,” and from it a fleet of 125 boats and 1,500 men are sent forth annually. Maasluis, the next town, which takes a share in the “great fishery,” is passed, and then the open sea greets the Maas at the Hook of Holland.

THE RHONE

ANGUS B. REACH

Few travellers have much fancy for the most rapid of the great European streams. If they at all make its personal acquaintance, it is with knapsack on back, and iron-shod _bâton_ in hand--when they stand upon the mother-glacier, and watch the river-child glide brightly into air--or perhaps it is near fair Geneva, that, loitering on a wooden bridge, they mark the second start in life of the strong river, and, if they be philosophers, lament the clamorous and not cleanly Arve. Later in the river’s career--the pellucid waters of the snow are again and still more fatally fouled by the slow-running Saone which comes down by Lyons, heavy and fat with the rich mud of Burgundy. At the point of junction there, also, the tourist sometimes goes to observe the coalition of the streams, and to find out, that instead of the bigger river cleansing the smaller, the smaller utterly besmirches and begrimes the greater. So pondering over the moral, he too often takes little further heed of the Rhone; or if he does, it is as a mere beast of burden. He is bound south, and he knows that the “swift and arrowy Rhone” will add wings to the speed of steam; that stepping on board the long, long steamboat from the noble quays of Lyons at summer’s dawn, he will step ashore amid the clamour of the uproarious Avignon porters by the summer’s eve. But the day’s flight--through rocks, and vines, and corn-lands, and by ancient towns and villages, and through old bridges of stone, and modern bridges of boats, is to the conventional traveller usually nearly a blank. How different from the Rhine; no legends in the handbook, no castles, no picturesque students, no jolly Burschen choruses over pipes and beer. The steamer flies southwards. If she be one of the quickest of the Rhone fleet, and the river be in good order, she could carry you between sunrise and sunset, from the land where the chestnut and the walnut most abound, through the zone where the mulberry is almost exclusively the tree; next past the region where men are clipping, and twisting, and trimming the olive, at once sacred and classic, and, finally, fairly into the flats, where tropical rice grows out of fever-haunted swamps in the African-like jungles of the Camargue. During this flight, it is to be noted, that you have descended upwards of 600 feet, in fact, that you have been steaming down a modified water-fall, and have measured in a day, a run from a climate which may be described as temperate, to one which is, to all intents and purposes, torrid.

And in this run must we not have passed some rather curious objects, some rather striking points of scenery? May not there have been nooks, and ravines, and old towers within that sterile, yet viney land, burnt by the hot kiss of the sun, which are worthy of a traveller’s afternoon? There are many such. The masonry of Rome still stands by the stream, and ancient rock-perched ruins there are, telling grim tales of the old religious wars of France; tales going back to the Albigenses and Count Raymond of Toulouse, and in later days dealing with the feuds which Ivry put an end to, but which were renewed when the peasants of the wild hills of the Cevennes, in their white _camisas_, Langue d’ Oc for shirts, worn over their clothes as uniforms, held out the long and obstinate contest of the dragonnades, and frequently beat even Marichale Villars, with the best of the cavaliers of the Grand Monarque. But there are still other points of interest connected with the Rhone itself--parts and pendicles of the river. First, look at the current. Did you ever see a blacker, fiercer, more unmercifully minded looking stream? Take care how you get into it. There is drowning in its aspect. A sudden sweep down that foaming current, and all would be over. No swimming in these deadly whirling eddies. Once they embrace you in their watery arms, down you go, never stopping, even to die, to the sea, whither the Rhone is ever, ever rushing, ploughing its way through shingles, roaring round opposing rocks, sometimes carrying by assault a new channel through a green pasture, at others, when its sudden floods are out, rushing with a furious vengeance, at what at sunset was a fertile island, rich with the ripe corn, which to-morrow will be a torrent, and a few morrows afterwards--sand.

In spite of its fury of current, in spite of its sudden shiftings of sand and shingle banks, its sudden floods, its sudden fogs, the Rhone has been navigated from time immemorial.

Toiling hard and slowly up the stream an _equipage_ goes crawling along, composed of half a dozen huge barges hauled by those struggling, splashing, panting horses on the bank. Before the introduction of steam, there were upwards of fifty of these barge squadrons. They floated down from Lyons to Beaucaire, opposite Arles, in two days, but difficult and dreary was the passage back. A month in summer, six weeks in winter were consumed in the tedious struggle with the ever-opposing stream.

But our boat is sweeping towards a rocky promontory. The contracted stream shoots rapidly through the defile; and, at the narrowest point, a chain bridge appears, connecting two small villages clustered beneath vine-covered steps. The crag above that on the right hand is castled most picturesquely; that on the left is crowned with a more genial diadem. The first village is Tournon, the second Tain. The latter is poor, shabby, dirty: the houses are rickety and slovenly. All the slope of the cliff is split up into squares, triangles, etc., and bounded by stone walls: and these are full of vines--the aristocracy of the grape--in short, Hermitage.

Descending the Rhone a little further, we find ourselves opposite Valence. About a mile from the river--the intervening space is corn-country, the fields dotted with mulberries--rises a bold and high peak of rocks, and on their summit, a nobly perched lyric of a castle.

Clamber up! The hill is steep, and tough to ascend, and the heath is slippery. Nevertheless, persevere, and be rewarded at length by entering the ruins, where you will perceive a half-crumbled cavernous looking recess in a thick wall. It seems to have been a fireplace. Approach cautiously! That fireplace has no back, and fuel flung in there will roll out at a hole behind, and find itself upwards of eight hundred feet high in the yielding air.

The castle once belonged to a Protestant lord, the Seigneur de Crussol, and when, after a successful foray across the river, amongst the Catholic population, he managed to secure a score or two of prisoners, high festival was held, and the unhappy captives, amid the brimming glasses and convivial jokes of the company, were flung into the chimney of Crussol, and found by the trembling peasantry indefinite masses of horror next morning.

These were wild old savage days; but let us go back for a few moments to days far more ancient though hardly more barbarous. Hannibal, coming from Spain, also crossed the Rhone; and, looking at that wild rushing river, so deep and broad, and perpetual in its current, we have often thought that the great Carthaginian performed a more brilliant exploit in getting his moorish cavalry, his war-elephants, and his undisciplined Spanish brigades, across the water, than across the mountains. No one knows the spot he selected for his ferriage. Imagine the leader with his troops encamped, and chafing at the broad river which lay between them and those distant snow-capped hills, beyond which was Italy. In three days, we are told, the feat was achieved. Apocryphal accounts tell us how the horses, mad with the terror of fire, swam wildly across the stream, and how the elephants trumpeted upon the rafts.

A wide champagne country, fertile to magnificent luxuriance--the rushing Rhone dotted with wooded islands; a city clustering on a hill and a castle crowning it, and we approach Avignon. Here the traveller usually leaves the river (if he be antiquarian and historic) and examines the noble churches, towers, bastions and dungeons with which the Avignon Popes beautified the city; or, if he be sentimental and romantic, he prepares his feelings, works them--hard work it usually is--into a proper frame, and proceeds to Vaucluse. A pretty spot it is in itself, with its grottoed rocks and limpid waters; and certainly the name of Petrarch may fairly enough add a certain degree of interest to the scene.

The last point of interest is the delta of the river; the several mouths through which, after its rapid course from the lake of Geneva, the Rhone at length pours itself into the sea. The Carmargue, as this strange swampy district is called, is seldom or ever trodden by English foot. It has no attractions for the ordinary sightseer, but it has many for the lover of aspects of nature, of a strange and unwonted character, and of which few are to be seen in Europe. Proceeding from Arle, along a muddy, clayey road, through a perfect flat intersected by numerous draining ditches, you gradually find yourself arriving in a region where the earth appears to be losing its consistence and melting into mud beneath your feet. Forests of swamp-growing trees, willows, and marsh-mallows stretch around; and as you emerge from them you come upon a boundless plain, an enormous stagnant flat--mud and water and water and mud for scores and scores of square miles, but intersected as far as the eye can reach, by a network of clay walls, upon which you can make your way, gazing in wonder upon the perfect sublimity of the apparent desolation. But there is no desolation in the case. These swamps are rice-fields. If you paid your visit during the summer, the grain will be growing out of the tepid water; if during the autumn, you will see withered beds of the straw left for manure, slowly rotting in the soil. At long distances crawling figures appear. These are the labourers employed by the Company which grows the rice, and whose stations for draining out the surplus water, which would otherwise perhaps overwhelm the whole district, may be fixed by their lofty siphon tubes breaking the dead flatness of the several lines of view. And yet there is a dreary death-like beauty about all this silent land. Shelley has sung such; Tennyson has done it more elaborately and better, and we find traces of the sentiment in “Eothen.” The vast and the drear have a sublime of their own, and in this dismal waste of laid-out world we feel it. Even ugliness is made respectable by extent, and we leave the swamps with an impression of lorn, melancholy grandeur looming in our minds.

THE YUKON

WILLIAM OGILVIE

To within a few years ago a great unexplored solitude extended to the eastward between the valleys of the Upper Yukon, or Lewes, and the Mackenzie, and from the sixtieth parallel of latitude northward to the shores of the “frozen ocean.” This extensive region is known as the Yukon country, a name rendered appropriate by the fact that it is drained by the Yukon River and its tributaries, which form one of the great river systems of the world.

Walled in by high mountains, and in consequence unapproachable from every side, it is not strange that the Yukon district should so long have remained in almost undisturbed seclusion. Had it not been for the fact that the rich metalliferous belt of the Coast and Gold Ranges passes through the district from one end to the other, the probability is that it would still have remained unexplored for many years to come.

Only four gates of approach to the district exist, and, strangely enough, these are situated at the four corners. From the north-west, access is gained to the country by following the Yukon from its mouth in Behring Sea; from the north-east, by crossing from the Mackenzie to the Porcupine, and following down the latter stream to its confluence with the Yukon; from the south-east, by ascending the Liard from Fort Simpson and crossing the water-shed to the head-waters of the Pelly; and finally, from the south-west, by entering where the coast range is pierced by the Chilkoot and Chilkat Passes.

As a matter of fact, all these routes are beset with difficulties, and when it is remembered that there are only four roads into a region three times greater in extent than the total area of the New England States, it is not to be wondered at that the total population of the region should consist of a few scattered Indian families and a hundred or so of hardy miners.

Occasional contributions to our knowledge of the district have been made from time to time for at least half a century, mainly by officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company, miners and _employés_ of the abandoned Telegraph Expedition; and skeleton maps of the interior have been constructed in accordance with the topographical data, so far as known.

Among recent expeditions that of Lieutenant Schwatka, of the United States Army, in the summer of 1883, may be mentioned. Entering the country by the Chilkoot Pass, Lieutenant Schwatka floated down the Yukon on a raft from the source of the Lewes River to Nuklikahyet, continuing his journey from this point to the sea by boat. The object of this expedition was to examine the country from a military point of view, and to collect all available information with regard to the Indian tribes. We are indebted to it also for a great deal of general information with regard to the country. Schwatka, who seems to have gone through the country with his eyes open, used the explorer’s baptismal privilege freely, and scattered monuments of Schwatkanian nomenclature broadcast throughout the land, re-christening many places that had already been named, and doing so too in apparent indifference to the fact that many thus set aside had an established priority of many years.

The part of the journey between Victoria and Chilkoot Inlet has been so much written of, talked of and pictured during the last few years that I will repeat only one of the many statements made concerning it--that though it is in ocean waters and can be traversed by the largest ships, it is so sheltered by countless islands from the gales and waves of the vast Pacific, nearly the whole of the length, that its waters are always as smooth as those of a large river. In marked contrast to this is the west coast of the United States, where harbours are like angel’s visits.

Chatham Strait and Lynn Channel lie almost in a straight line, and during the summer there is always a strong wind blowing up from the sea. At the head of Lynn Channel are Chilkat and Chilkoot Inlets. The distance down these channels to the open sea is about three hundred and eighty miles, and along the whole extent of this the mountains on each side of the water confine the incoming currents of air and deflect inclined currents in the direction of the axis of the channel. Coming from the sea, these air currents are heavily charged with moisture, which is precipitated when they strike the mountains, and the fall of rain and snow is consequently very heavy.

The rapids extending for a couple of miles below the Cañon, are not at all bad. What constitutes the real danger is a piece of calm water forming a short, sharp bend in the river, which hides the last or “White Horse” rapids from sight until they are reached. These rapids are about three-eighths of a mile long. They are the most dangerous on the river, and are never run through in boats except by accident. Parties always examine the Cañon and rapids below before going through, and coming to the calm water suppose they have seen them all, as all noise from the lower rapid is drowned in that of the ones above. On this account several parties have run through the “White Horse,” being ignorant of its existence until they were in it. These rapids are confined by low basaltic banks, which, at the foot, suddenly close in and make the channel about thirty yards wide. It is here the danger lies, as there is a sudden drop, and the water rushes through at a tremendous rate, leaping and seething like a cataract. The miners have constructed a portage road on the west side, and put down rollways in some places on which to shove their boats over. They have also made some windlasses with which to haul their boats uphill, notably one at the foot of the Cañon. This roadway and the windlasses must have cost them many hours of hard labour.

Lake Labarge was reached on the evening of the 26th of July, and our camp pitched on its southern shore. The lake is thirty-one miles in length, broad at both ends and narrow in the middle, lying north and south, like a long slender foot-print made by some gigantic Titan in long-bygone days.

As the prevailing wind blows almost constantly down the lake, the miners complain much of the detention from the roughness of the water, and for the three days I was on the lake, I certainly cannot complain of any lack of attention from blustering Australis.

The survey was carried along the western shore, which is irregular in shape, being indented by large, shallow bays, especially at the upper and lower ends.

Just above where the lake narrows in the middle, there is a large island, which is shown on Schwatka’s map as a peninsula, and called by him Richtofen Rocks. How he came to think it a peninsula I cannot understand, as it is well out in the lake; the nearest point of it to the western shore is upwards of half a mile distant, and the extreme width of the lake here, as determined from triangulation, is not more than five miles, which includes the depth of the deepest bays on the western side. It is therefore difficult to understand that he did not see it as an island. The upper half of this island is gravelly, and does not rise very high above the lake; the lower end is rocky and high, the rock of a bright red colour and probably granite.

At the lower end of the lake there is a deep wide valley extending northwards, which has evidently at one time been the outlet of the lake. In this the mixed timber, poplar, and spruce, is of a size which betokens a fair soil; the herbage, too, is more than usually rich for this region. This valley, which Dr. Dawson has named “Ogilvie Valley,” is extensive, and if ever required as an aid to the sustenance of our people, will figure largely in the district’s agricultural assets.

We left this, the last lake of the great chain, behind us on Saturday, the 30th of July, and proceeded with a moderate current of about four miles an hour. The river just here is crooked and runs past high, steep banks surmounted by scrub pine and stunted poplar which shut in the narrow valley. There are, however, many flats of moderate extent, along the river and at its confluence with other streams, where the soil is fair.

The waters of the Big Salmon are sluggish and slow. The valley, as seen from the mouth, is wide, and gives one the impression of being occupied by a much more important stream. Looking up it, in the distance could be seen many high peaks covered with snow, and, as this was in the beginning of August, it is likely they are always covered so--which would make their probable altitude above the river, five thousand feet or more.

Two days’ run, or about thirty-six miles, the river constantly winding low, sandy points, and dotted with small, well-timbered islands, brought us to the Little Salmon (Daly of Schwatka), a small and unimportant stream entering upon the east. One of the most remarkable objects along the river, located just below the Little Salmon, is a huge hemisphere of rock, called the “Eagle’s Nest,” rising abruptly from a gravel slope on the east bank, to a height of about five hundred feet. It is of a light grey colour, but what the character of the rock is I could not determine, as I saw it only from the river, which is about a quarter of a mile distant.

We passed the mouth of the Nordenskiold on the 9th of August. The river here makes a loop of eight miles round a hill on the east bank named by Schwatka, Tantalus Butte. The distance across from point to point is only half a mile.

Early the next day we heard the booming of the Rink Rapids in the distance, and it was not long before they were in sight. These rapids are known to miners as Five Finger Rapids, from the fact that five large, bold masses of rock stand in mid-channel. This obstruction backs up the water so as to raise it about a foot, causing a swell below for a few yards.

Six miles below Rink Rapids are what are known as “Little Rapids.” This is simply a barrier of rocks which extends from the westerly side of the river about half-way across. Over this barrier there is a ripple which would offer no great obstacle to the descent in a good canoe.

About five miles above Pelly River there is another lake-like expanse filled with islands. The river here is nearly a mile wide, and so numerous and close are the islands that it is impossible to tell where the shores of the river are. The current, too, is swift, leading one to suppose the water shallow; but I think that even here a channel deep enough for such boats as will navigate this part of the river, could easily be found. Schwatka named this group “Ingersoll Islands.”

About a mile below the junction with the Lewes, and on the south side, stands all that remains of the only permanent trading-post ever built by white men in the district. This post was established by Robert Campbell, for the Hudson’s Bay Company, in the summer of 1848. It was built upon the point of land between the two rivers, but this location proving untenable, on account of flooding by ice-jams in the spring, it was, in the season of 1852, moved across the river to where the ruins now stand. It appears that the houses composing the post were not finished when the Indians from the coast on Chilkat and Chilkoot Inlets, came down the river to put a stop to the competitive trade which Mr. Campbell had inaugurated and which they found to seriously interfere with their profits. Their method of trade appears to have been then pretty much as it is now--very one-sided. What they found convenient to take by force, they took; and what they found convenient to pay for, they paid for--at their own price.

Rumours had reached the post that the coast Indians contemplated a raid, and, in consequence, the friendly Indians in the vicinity remained about nearly all summer. Unfortunately, they went away for a short time, and, during their absence, the coast Indians arrived and pillaged the place, and set fire to it, leaving nothing but the remains of two chimneys, which are still standing. This raid and capture took place on Sunday, the 1st of August, 1852. Mr. Campbell was ordered to leave the country within twenty-four hours, and accordingly he dropped down the river. On his way he met some of the local Indians, and returned with them, but the robbers had made their escape. Mr. Campbell went on down the river until he met the outfit for his post on its way up from Fort Yukon. He turned it back. He then ascended the Pelly, crossed to the Liard, and reached Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie, late in October.

Nothing more was ever done in the vicinity of Fort Selkirk by the Hudson’s Bay Company after these events, and in 1869 the company was ordered by Capt. Chas. W. Raymond, who represented the United States Government, to evacuate the post at Fort Yukon, which he had ascertained to be west of the 141st meridian. The post was occupied by the company, however, for some time after the receipt of the order, until Rampart House, which was intended to be on British territory, and to take the trade previously done at Fort Yukon, was built. Under present conditions the company cannot very well compete with the Alaska Fur Company, whose agents do the only trade in the district, and they appear to have abandoned--for the present at least--all attempts to do any trade nearer to it than Rampart House, to which point, notwithstanding the distance and difficulties in the way, many of the Indians on the Pelly-Yukon make a trip every two or three years to procure goods in exchange for their furs.

On the 19th I resumed my journey northwards. Opposite Fort Selkirk, the Pelly-Yukon River is about one-third of a mile broad; and it maintains this width down to White River, a distance of ninety-six miles. Islands are numerous, so much so that there are few parts of the river where one or more are not in sight; many of them are of considerable size, and nearly all are well timbered.

Between Stewart and White Rivers the river spreads out to a mile and upwards in width, and is a maze of islands and bars. Stewart River, which was reached on the following day, enters from the east in the middle of a wide valley, with low hills on both sides, rising on the north side in clearly marked steps or terraces to distant hills of considerable height. The river, a short distance up, is two hundred yards in width, the current slack, the water shallow and clear, but dark-coloured; while at the mouth, I was fortunate enough to meet a miner, named McDonald, who had spent the whole of the summer of 1887 on the river and its branches, prospecting and exploring. He gave me a good deal of information, which I have incorporated in my map of the district. This man had ascended two of the main branches of the river. At the head of one of them he found a large lake, which he named Mayhew Lake. On the other branch he found falls, which he estimated to be from one to two hundred feet in height. McDonald went on past the falls to the head of this branch, and found terraced gravel hills to the west and north; he crossed them to the north and found a river flowing northwards. On this he embarked on a raft, and floated down it for a day or two, thinking it would turn to the west and join the Stewart, but finding it still continuing north, and acquiring too much volume to be any of the branches he had seen while passing up the Stewart, he returned to his point of departure, and after prospecting among the hills around the head of the river he started westwards, crossing a high range of mountains composed principally of shales with many thin seams of what is called quartz, ranging from one to six inches in thickness. On the west side of this range he found the head-waters of Beaver River, which he descended on a raft, taking five days to do so.

It is probable the river flowing northwards, on which he made a journey and returned, is a branch of Peel River. The timber on the gravel terraces of the water-shed, he described as small and open. He was alone in this unknown wilderness all summer, not seeing even any of the natives. There are few men, I think, so constituted as to be capable of isolating themselves in such a manner.

On the 1st of September, we passed the site of the temporary trading-post shown on the maps as Fort Reliance. Several days of continuous rain now interrupted our work so that Forty Mile River (Cone Hill River of Schwatka) was not reached till the 7th of September.

THE JORDAN

ANDREW ROBERT FAUSSET