Chapter I: Bowes (2)

A mile from Marsh Lock we come to Henley. A handsome bridge spans the river here; the tow-path crosses to the right bank. A short half mile below greenlands on the right is Hambleden Lock. At the next bend in the river the red brick house on the right is Culham Court, and here the view up the river to the poplars and wooded hills above Hambleden is very charming. Passing Culham keep to the left bank, leaving the island known as Magpie Island on the right. Half a mile farther, on the top of the high wooded hill on the left, is a farmhouse on a site where has been a farm since Domesday Book was compiled. Two miles from the lock is Medmenham Abbey, with the Abbey Hotel, a well-known and convenient place for water-parties.

On the right bank at Hurley Lock is the village of Hurley with Lady Place, so well known in connection with Lord Lovelace in the revolution of 1688. About half a mile further is Marlow, with its graceful suspension bridge and ugly church. Three hundred yards below the bridge is Marlow Lock. Another three-quarters of a mile brings us to Cookham. Cookham Lock is the most beautifully situated on the river, just under the woods of Hedsor and Cliveden. The scenery down the next reach and past the islands is exceedingly beautiful and is generally considered the finest on the river. Not quite two and a half miles from Cookham Lock is Boulter’s Lock, from London fifty miles.

Below Maidenhead Bridge is the Great Western Railway bridge, supposed to be the largest brick bridge in the world. A mile from Maidenhead is the pleasant village of Bray. Rather more than a quarter of a mile on the left is Bray Lock. Half a mile further is Monkey Island, and here for a little distance there is a good stream. Two miles and a half from Bray Lock, on the right bank, is Surly Hall, an inn well known to Etonians. About another half mile brings us to Boveney Lock on the left. On the right is Windsor racecourse, and three-quarters of a mile down is Athens, the bathing-place of the senior Eton boys. The Great Western Railway bridge and the Brocas clump on the left are next passed, and we arrive at Windsor on the right bank and Eton on the left. The river is here crossed by an iron and stone bridge of three arches. After passing through Windsor bridge, the right bank on which is the tow-path should be kept. The rapid and dangerous stream to the left runs to the weir and the neighbourhood of the Cobbler, as the long projection from the island is called, is undesirable when there is much water in the river. Not half a mile below Windsor bridge is Romney Lock. After passing through Romney Lock, beautiful views of Eton College, the playing-fields and Poet’s walk are obtained on the left, and on the right are Windsor Castle and the Home Park. Farther down is the Victoria Bridge, one of two which cross the river at each extremity of the park, and about a mile and a half from Romney Lock is Datchet on the left bank. After the second of the royal bridges, the Albert, is passed, the right bank must be kept, and a long narrow cut crossed half way by a wooden bridge leads to Old Windsor Lock. Three-quarters of a mile from the lock, in pretty scenery, is the well-known “Bells of Ousely” tavern. Half a mile farther down Magna Charta Island, with its cottage is on the left. Runnymead is on the right bank, which should be followed to Bell Weir Lock.

The Colne enters the Thames on the left between Bell Weir Lock and Staines. Two or three hundred yards farther are Staines Bridge and the town of Staines. After Penton Hook Lock about one and three-quarter miles from Staines is Laleham and the ferry. Still keeping to the left bank, we next come to Chertsey Lock. Hence the river winds very much between flat banks to Shepperton Lock on the left. Here the Wey enters the Thames. Three-quarters of a mile below Halliford are Coway or Causeway Stakes, and immediately afterwards comes Walton Bridge which consists of four arches. On the right below is Mount Felix and the village of Walton. Half a mile on the left is a tumbling bay, whose neighbourhood will best be avoided, and half a mile below this on the right, is the cut leading to Sunbury Lock. About one and a half miles below the lock is an island, either side of which may be taken. On the right are Molesey Hurst and racecourse and on the left, Hampton. Here is a ferry, and on the left bank below the church Garrick’s Villa. Below Molesey Lock is Hampton Court Bridge, an ugly iron erection, Hampton Court being on the left and East Molesey, with the railway station, on the right. Nearly a mile below the bridge, on the right, is Thames Ditton. Passing Messenger’s Island we come to Surbiton, and nearly a mile lower down to Kingston Bridge. The next point is Teddington Lock. On the left Teddington and an almost uninterrupted line of villas extends along the bank as far as Twickenham. There is an iron foot bridge from Teddington to the lock. About a mile from the lock is Eel Pie Island, opposite which are Petersham, and Ham House, the seat of the Earl of Dysart, almost hidden among the trees. On the left is Orleans House, and down the river rises Richmond Hill, crowned with the famous “Star and Garter.” Making the bend just below the next island is, on the right bank, the ivy-clad residence of the Duke of Buccleuch. Not quite three miles from Teddington Lock is Richmond Bridge. A short distance below the Bridge is Richmond Lock, ninety-six and a half miles from Oxford and fifteen and a half miles from London. The trip is generally concluded here, the banks of the river below this point presenting little or nothing to attract the visitor.

Passing Isleworth, Sion House, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland, Brentford, Kew with its Palace, Church and Observatory, the famous Kew Gardens, Chiswick and Chiswick Eyot (famous for its swans), we arrive at Hammersmith with its long bridge, opened in June, 1887, and are practically in London. From here we note Fulham Episcopal Palace, the summer home of the Bishops of London who have been lords of the manor from an early date, Putney, Hurlingham House, Wandesworth, Battersea Park, Chelsea and its iron bridge, Vauxhall, Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Westminster Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, Charing Cross Railway Bridge, the Victoria Embankment with Cleopatra’s Needle, Waterloo Bridge, Somerset House, The Temple Gardens, Blackfriar’s Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Southwark Bridge, St. Saviour’s and come to London Bridge, opened by King William IV. and Queen Adelaide in 1831. Here old London Bridge stood for more than six hundred years, a quaint structure adorned “with sumptuous buildings and statelie and beautiful houses on either syde”; and at the gatehouse of the bridge the heads of traitors were exposed. On leaving London Bridge we enter the Pool, which extends to Limehouse and is divided into the Upper and Lower Pool by an imaginary line drawn across the Thames at Wapping. The Pool is always crowded with steamers, sailing-vessels and barges. On the left bank stands The Monument, commemorating the Great Fire of 1666, which began in the house of the King’s baker in Pudding Lane. Not far from it is Billingsgate Fish Market, then follows the Custom House and the massive, solemn and impressive Tower. Tower Bridge, the foundation stone for which was laid in 1886, is passed, below which begin the great docks. Wapping Old Stairs, made classic by Dibdin’s song, and Shadwell are passed before we leave the Pool and enter Limehouse Reach.

The Thames now bends to the south and we pass the great West India docks, the wall of which includes an area of nearly three hundred acres. We pass Greenwich, famous for its Hospital (the old Palace), Observatory and Park, after which the river takes a northerly course. Woolwich with its Arsenal and Barracks, Shooter’s Hill, from which a fine view of London is obtained and now the river turns south, for the Thames is a river of many windings. At length we reach Tilbury and its Docks and Gravesend, and here we are at the mouth of the river. The Midway enters the Thames between the Isle of Grain and the Isle of Sheppey and is now a muddy river with nothing beautiful on either bank. Half way across the estuary, and fifty miles from London Bridge, is the Nore Lightship, established in 1730.

THE CONNECTICUT

TIMOTHY DWIGHT

Connecticut River rises in New Hampshire. Its fountains are between 44°, 50′ and 45° north latitude, and nearly in 71° west longitude from London; about twenty-five miles eastward from its channel, where in the same latitude it divides Stuart[1] and Colebrook from Canaan in Vermont. These fountains, which are at the distance of two or three miles from each other, flow in two small converging rivulets; one of which empties its waters into a pond, covering about six acres, whence it proceeds to a lake, which from its resemblance to the numerical figure 8, I shall name Double Lake. The other rivulet, also, unites with the same lake; which is two miles long and half a mile wide; and covers between five and six hundred acres. Hence the waters flow in a single channel, about seven miles, into another lake, which from its figure I shall call Heart Lake;[2] about six miles long and three broad, and covering between nine and ten thousand acres. From Heart Lake with a material addition to its current, the river runs north-westward for four miles and a half; and is a continual rapid through the whole distance. In one part of this reach it descends fifty feet in a course of three hundred. Below the rapid, it receives from the northward a stream called Perry’s Brook; and a little further down, another, called Cedar Brook. About two miles further on it receives another from the south, called Dear Water Brook; and, about a mile further, a fourth from the north called Back Brook, conveying into it the waters of a small lake, called Back Lake. That portion of the Connecticut, which is between Perry’s Brook and Back Brook, four miles in length, is named the _Dead Water_: the ground on either side being low and level; and the stream winding, sluggish and deep. After receiving the waters of Back Brook, it runs for one mile over a succession of rocks, termed the Great Falls; in one part of which it descends, perpendicularly, over a ledge twelve feet.

[Footnote 1: Now Stewartstown.]

[Footnote 2: Now Connecticut Lake.]

Before its junction with Indian River, the Connecticut runs about the same distance with that stream, and discharges more than twice its quantity of water into the common channel. Hall’s River is sensibly less than Indian River.

The course of the Connecticut to Perry’s brook, between twenty-five and thirty miles is north-westward; thence to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude west-south-west; thence to the city of Hartford south-south-west, and thence to the Sound about south-east.

The length of this river is about four hundred and ten miles. From Griswold’s point, in Lyme, to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude, the distance measured by its waters, is about three hundred and seventy-four; and thence to the head-waters from thirty-five to forty. Its meanders throughout a great part of its course are almost perpetual.

The number of its tributary streams is very great. The waters which form the Connecticut are remarkably pure and light, such as we commonly term the best water for washing. The tributary streams, almost without an exception, issue from hills formed of stone, covered with a gravelly soil; and roll over a gravelly and stony bed through their whole progress. The waters of the parent stream are, therefore, everywhere pure, potable, perfectly salubrious, and inferior to none in the world for the use of seamen in long voyages.

As a navigable water, this river is inferior to many others of a smaller size. This is owing to two causes; falls and shallows. The falls are the following: Little Falls, Great, Indian, Judd’s, Fifteen-mile, Lebanon, Waterqueechy, Bellow’s, Miller’s, South Hadley, Enfield.

The Fifteen-mile falls, Waterqueechy, and Enfield, and the greatest part of the distance attributed to the others, are mere rapids; and there are also other small rapids, which are of no consequence.

The Valley of the Connecticut is a tract of land, extending from the Sound to Hereford Mountain; five miles beyond the forty-fifth degree of latitude. In the largest sense it includes the tract which is bounded by the Lyme range on the east, and by a confused cluster of hills, commencing at the Sound, and terminating below Middletown, then by the Middletown range, then by that of Mount Tom, and then by that of the Green Mountains, on the west. In this sense it is of very different breadths, from five miles perhaps to forty-five; and its surface is composed of an indefinite succession of hills, valleys and plains. But there is another sense in which the phrase is used with more obvious propriety and in which it denotes that portion of this vast extent, which appears as a valley to the eye, moving in the road along its course from its mouth to the great bend in the northern part of the township of Stuart.

The Valley of the Connecticut extends through almost four degrees of latitude, and is bounded on the north by Hereford Mountain; a magnificent eminence, ascending five miles beyond the line. The superior limit of this mountain is an arch more gracefully formed than that of any other within my remembrance. Its elevation is about 2,000 feet above the neighbouring country.

The Intervals on this Valley begin at Hall’s River, about twelve or fourteen miles from its mouth. The word, Interval is used by me in a sense altogether different from that which it has in an English Dictionary. Doctor Belknap spells it Intervale, and confesses his want of authority for the use of the word. There is in truth no such word; unless we are to look for its existence in vulgar and mistaken pronunciation. Originally, when applied to this very subject, it seems to have meant nothing more than that extent of ground which lay between the original bank of the river and the river itself.

This extent was composed of land, peculiar in its form and qualities. The English, so far as I know, have no appropriate name for grounds of this class. Whether such lands exist on the rivers of Great Britain, I am ignorant, having never seen any definite account of them, or allusion to them in any book descriptive of the surface of that country. From the accounts of Sir John Sinclair’s _Statistical History of Scotland_ of the lands on some rivers in that country, I should suppose that a part of them might be Intervals, yet they are distinguished by no appropriate name. On some rivers in this country there are none; and on others very few. Wherever they exist, they are objects of peculiar attention to farmers and subjects of much customary conversation. That a name should be given to them, therefore, is a thing of course. Interval is the name which they have accidentally obtained in this country; and a New Englander relishes it more than _flats_ or _bottoms_.

This word, in its appropriate meaning denotes lands formed by a long continued and gradual alluvion of a river.

Beauty of landscape is an eminent characteristic of this Valley. From Hereford Mountain to Saybrook, it is almost a continued succession of delightful scenery. No other tract within my knowledge, and from the extensive information which I have received, I am persuaded that no other tract within the United States of the same extent can be compared to it, with respect to those objects which arrest the eye of the painter and the poet. There are indeed dull, uninteresting spots in considerable numbers. These, however, are little more than the discords which are generally regarded as necessary to perfect the harmony. The beauty and the grandeur are here more varied than elsewhere. They return oftener; they are longer continued; they are finished by a hand operating in a superior manner. A gentleman[3] of great respectability, who had travelled in England, France and Spain, informed me, that the prospects along the Connecticut excelled those on the beautiful rivers in these three countries in two great particulars--the Forests and the Mountains (he might, I believe, have added the Intervals also); and fell short of them in nothing but population and the productions of art. It is hardly necessary to observe that both these are advancing with a rapid step (perhaps sufficiently rapid), towards a strong resemblance to European improvement.

[Footnote 3: The late Chief Justice Ellsworth.]

Nor are these grounds less distinguished by their beauty. The form of most of them is elegant. A river, passing through them, becomes almost of course winding. As the earth, of which they are composed, is of uniform texture, the impressions made by the stream upon the border, are also nearly uniform. Hence this border is almost universally a handsome arch with a margin entirely neat, and very commonly ornamented with a fine fringe of shrubs and trees. Nor is the surface of these grounds less pleasing. The terraced form and the undulations are both eminently handsome. In a country abounding in hills, plains moderate in their extent, like these, are always agreeable. Their universal fertility makes a cheerful impression on every eye. A great part of them is formed into meadows. Meadows are here more profitable, and everywhere more beautiful, than lands devoted to any other culture. Here they are extended from five to five hundred acres, and are everywhere covered with a verdure peculiarly rich and varied. The vast fields, also, which are not in meadow, exhibit all the productions of the climate, interspersed in parallelograms, divided only by mathematical lines, and mingled in a charming confusion. In many places, large and thrifty orchards, and everywhere forest trees standing singly, of great height and graceful figures, diversify the landscape.

The first object, however, in the whole landscape is undoubtedly the Connecticut itself. This stream may, perhaps, with as much propriety as any in the world be named the Beautiful River. From Stuart to the Sound, it uniformly sustains this character. The purity, salubrity and sweetness of its waters; the frequency and elegance of its meanders; its absolute freedom from all aquatic vegetables; the uncommon and universal beauty of its banks; here a smooth and winding beach; there covered with rich verdure; now fringed with bushes; now crowned with lofty trees; and now formed by the intruding hill, the rude bluff and the shaggy mountain; are objects which no traveller can thoroughly describe and no reader adequately imagine. When to these are added the numerous towns, villages and hamlets, almost everywhere exhibiting marks of prosperity and improvement; the rare appearance of decline; the numerous churches lifting their spires in frequent succession; the neat schoolhouses, everywhere occupied; and the mills busied on such a multitude of streams; it may be safely asserted that a pleasanter journey will rarely be found than that which is made in the Connecticut Valley.

MOSEL

F. WARRE CORNISH

So we embarked under a bright evening sky, and the smooth stream took us swiftly down. It was a beautiful moment; the evening deepened over the green water and the red rocks, till dusk fell, and we ran the boat aground, hiding the oars in a willow-bed, and tramped with our luggage into Ruwer, the neighbouring village, having been assured that wherever we stopped we should find good lodging. And so it proved; not a village which failed to supply good food, decently cooked, excellent wine and golden beer, clean beds, moderate charges, and, best of all, willing and cheerful hospitality, such as one finds in Tyrol and the Bavarian highlands. There was not a dull reach from Trier to Coblenz. The scenery is not so impressive as that of the Danube or the famous windings of the Rhine.

But the hills of the Mosel Valley are beautiful in form and varied with rocks red as those of Devonshire, or grey slate in slabs and spires, or dark volcanic, like the Eifel. Everywhere there are beautiful woods, valleys guarded by ancient castles, and smiling upland meadows far away among the hills.

As we embarked on the Mosel, let us praise the water itself, to be in company with which was joy enough; in colour green, neither like emerald nor chrysoprase, nor like the crystal of the rushing Traun, or of the deep basin, the home of the soaring grayling, where the river leaps over the Traun fall. Nor like the water that comes down at Locarno or Verallo; but a deeper, statelier colour, lighter than the Kyle between Mull and Argyll, darker than the Thames at Cookham when at its best after a dry July. In all the shallows wave long tresses of Undine’s hair, and the surface of the water is broken by little ruffing eddies into the loveliest water-pattern. Perhaps other rivers are like this; I do not know them. It seemed to me a peculiar and native charm of this river, never sullen, never boisterous, the lady of German rivers. _Smooth-sliding_ is the proper epithet. I wish my reed were vocal to praise her aright. She has her own poet--Ausonius; but his poem is rather a catalogue than a hymn of praise, and he takes her for a river, not a goddess, as she revealed herself to us.

Ruwer, the village where we were to spend the night, was shimmering between sunset and starlight, and had its own light besides, for the military were here, and all the windows ablaze, and Faust and Wagner and their loves had come out of Trier to take the air and drink, noisy but respectable.

The next morning was the 1st of September, a dawn of golden haze telling of hot tramps over stubbles and turnip-fields. We were cool and contented, and did not lust after partridges. We find our boat in the dewy willow-bed and give ourselves to the stream. We have got used to the rustic oars, and it is no exertion to row with the swift current, which here and there breaks into a little rapid and makes the boat dance--on one occasion we shipped nearly half a pint of water. It is no good to describe what was enjoyed and is remembered; but here are the facts, though mere facts tell little. Red sandstone cliffs, alternating with grey slate; broad meadows of Alpine grass freckled with pink crocus; walnut and apple orchards; sober villages with dark roofs and spires; here and there a ruined castle; high “faraways” of pasture and forest; cavalry and artillery flashing and rumbling as they march to the manœuvres along the riverside roads; slow wagons drawn by fox-coloured cows; on and on we slide, stopping where we like, bathing when we like, till at evening we see a lofty rock at a bend of the river; and a party of ladies in a punt. Boldly we call out to ask if there is a good lodging here, and gaily “_Ja freilich!_” comes back the answer across the river, and we land and put up at a clean and friendly inn. The parents and two hard-featured and hospitable daughters welcome us; the whole family turn out of their rooms and turn us in, and we sup under the stars and the velvet sky in front of the wooded rock, which plunges straight into the river and gives its name, “Echo,” to the inn. The stars were very grand that night, and the invocation of Echo unearthly as always; it was impossible not to believe here in _Kuhlebjorn_ and wood-spirits.

The next morning (Sedan-day) we were taken down to the bank by father, mother and the two daughters, and find the little brother clearing out the boat. How much willingness and courtesy for so small a payment. We said good-bye to the friendly family, wishing them many guests and good weather for their wine, and dropped down to Mühtheim and Berncastle, famous for its “Doctor,” the best wine on the Mosel, though much “Doctor” is sold which did not grow at Berncastle, as there are not vines enough at Zeltinger to furnish half the Zeltinger drunk in England. But the name matters little if the wine is good. At Berncastle or rather at Cues, on the opposite bank, there is a large modern hotel near an iron bridge; but there is also an ancient castle, and a conventual building founded by Cardinal Cusanus in 1465, no longer occupied by Monks.

I wish I could convey something of the pleasure which the rare beauty of the green water and the continual variety of the landscape gave us; the strong rippling of the stream when the rowers, out of mere idleness, put on a spurt and the steerer enjoys his ease; the still backwaters among the rushes, where the current is guided by groynes into the mid-stream; the sun-smitten cliffs; the soft, green slopes and valleys, where cloud-shadows sleep. The new landscapes came gliding into view with a change at every bend; but all is harmony. We pass pious processions of country people with banners and “Aves,” the priest leading them. They seem tired but happy--country people of the humblest kind, unreached by tourists. The trains tinkle to warn people of the crossings, the slow cow-wains creak along the roads, little boys shout injurious remarks to the “_Engeländer_,” women kneel by the stream and wash linen, the fish leap in the shallows, the sun shines, and the day goes by. How good the remembrance of the walk over the hills, cutting off a long loop, while two of us took the boat round; for the Mosel bends round more than once almost in a circle, as at Durham and Château Gaillard, and you walk across through grasshopper pastures and steep vineyard paths, through cool dark woods and heathy summits looking far away, through quivering haze, towards Coblenz and Mainz. How good, too, the blazing sun in little Kinsheim, the _Mittagsessen_ and reposeful hour under the tulip-tree in the hot shady garden at the back of the inn.

Another great loop to Alf, a little boy and his sister bringing the boat from picturesque Pünderich, their dwelling place. Alf will be remembered, not for itself--for it is a tiresome little watering place, crowded and hot, and noisy with voices of German trippers,--but for our excursion to Elz. We climbed out of the trench in which the river runs, and drove across a happy tableland of orchards; roads bordered with fruit-trees, wide-spreading meadows, cornland and wood--peaceful German country sleeping in afternoon sunshine, mowing and reaping, planting and building, unchanged for a thousand years; then the road descended through shady woods, and, lo! at a turning, “pricked with incredible pinnacles into heaven,” with gables, roofs and turrets innumerable, a castle, but, oh, what a castle! Here lived the Sleeping Beauty; hither King Thrushbeard brought his bride; such a building Hop-o-my-Thumb descried from his tree-top. Up in that turret was the spinning-wheel; under that window twanged Blondel’s zither; from that gateway Sintram and the trusty Rolf spurred forward, and St. Hubert set out to chase the holy stag; and knights and ladies, with falcon on wrist or with cross bow and spear, went out a-hunting, or rode “a stately train in pomp of gold and jewels, velvet and vair” to joust at Worms-upon-the-Rhine. Henceforward I have seen the German Zauberland; henceforward nothing can add to or take from this impression. My dream is come true.

The castle stands on an isolated rock with deep wooded ravines on all sides, to which no stranger may go. The saucy castle defied all its neighbours and vexed the lands of my lord archbishop the Elector of Trier, who, to curb its pride, built another castle over against it and called it “Trutz-Elz” (Who care for Elz?). I don’t know the rest of the story, but there stands Elz as good as ever, possessed by the lords of that ilk, and Trutz-Elz is a ruin.

Our time is running out. We left Alf in a dawning of golden mist, and rowed merrily down to Ediger, with its picturesque church, all flying buttresses, pinnacles and crockets, like a church in a Dürer background, to Cochem, with its restored castle and a sense of modern prosperity which is better for the town than for the contemplative traveller. Another clean little hostelry at Treis, with good wine and a cheery landlord. There is a river at Treis and a possibility of small trout if we take great trouble; but we don’t; it is too hot to take trouble; there is no water in the stream, and the fish are asleep. The river now makes up its devious mind to go straight for Coblenz in long reaches, with groynes on either bank. It comes on to rain; we bump a rock and dance along a rapid. Then come commercial buildings with chimneys, reminding us that we live in the iron age. The stream widens, the rain pours down, the Roman bridge comes in sight. Coblenz _finis chartæque viæque_.

May we go there again.

THE IRRAWADDY

EMILY A. RICHINGS

The mighty Irrawaddy, which traverses the entire length of Burma, impresses itself on popular imagination as the living soul of the land, moulded and coloured through countless ages by the influence of the majestic river. If Egypt be the gift of the Nile, Burma is scarcely less the gift of the Irrawaddy, deepened by myriad tributary streams, and flowing in ever-widening volume from forest cradle to fan-shaped Delta. The source of the historic stream is still veiled in mystery, as it winds through impenetrable jungle and untrodden mountains until it becomes navigable for the last thousand miles to the sea. Manifold traditions encompass the great river with that atmosphere of glamour which invests Burma with romantic charm.

The song of the river breathes of nomadic hordes and contending races, of old-world kings, mythical warriors, and legendary saints, until the dominant Burmese united in the Irrawaddy Valley, and the tribes wandering down the lateral tributaries were absorbed or subjected by the ruling power.

The modern voyager generally takes the downward course of the river, journeying by train to Katha, through the palm-studded plains and dense forests skirting the blue hills which divide Burma from the Shan States on the borders of Siam. Under the hovering mists of dawn giant teak and feathery bamboo, looped together with coils of all-embracing creeper, make a rich tangle of matted foliage. Bhamo, the head of navigation as regards the great steamers of the Irrawaddy Flotilla, and the frontier town on the borders of China, lies along the yellow sand-bank of the foreshore. The Siamese name, signifying “City of Pans,” is derived from the local manufacture of iron and earthenware jars, cauldrons, and pitchers, dating from primitive times. Bhamo, formerly a walled Shan town, fiercely contested both by China and Burma, was captured four times by the Chinese, easily reinforced from their own frontier only thirty miles away. The town of 12,000 inhabitants, protected by an English battery and a police force of Indians and Kachins, is still the meeting-place of converging races. Chinese, Moslems, and Hindus possess their own quarters in the squalid city, where the astute Celestials retain the largest share of local trade, importing cotton and salt, or exporting honey, hides, ochre and chestnuts, with thousands of cooking pans. Blue robes, sun-hats and pigtails, grey roofs with upcurved eaves, and tinselled banners waving round the tarnished red of a Joss-house bristling with weird figures, transport our thoughts to the Middle Kingdom, reached by the sandy track beyond the ruined walls. Tom-toms beat in the Hindu quarter, and dark figures glide past with jingling anklets and filigree nose-rings, or lie supine on rickety _charpoys_ in the open street. A muezzin chants from the minaret of a tiny mosque, and the bearded sons of Islam spread their prayer-carpets in the dust, prostrating themselves in obedience to the voice which summons them to prayer on these alien shores. Beneath the banyan trees of an arcaded court a marble Buddha dreams amid the shadows, and kneeling Shan women offer their morning orisons at the crumbling altar. Tall black head-dresses and dark-blue skirts, embroidered with many-coloured wools, mark a distinct racial type. Silver cylinders weigh down dusky ears, silver hoops encircle sunburned necks, and the glittering chain of a silver needle-case hung from the waist-belt of an almond-eyed girl denotes her rank as a Shan lady. The intelligent faces are bright and animated, but every smile discloses teeth blackened with betelnut. The men of the party sip tea and smoke their silver pipes under the green boughs, leaving the devotional exercises to their womankind. A Burman in rose-coloured turban and plaid kilt lolls upon a stone parapet, and Kachin women, with mops of rough hair and furtive faces washed in grease, pass the gateway with loads of elephant-grass on their backs, bringing a barbaric element into the scene.

Pagoda, Joss-house, and Buddhist temple stand in friendly proximity, and no war of sect or creed disturbs the harmony of life under the tolerant British rule; but the Buddhism of the Shan and the Nature-worship of the Kachin show many points of contact.

The arrival of the Irrawaddy steamer, towing cargo “flats” in its wake, is the event of the week, and rustic barges thread the narrow defile above Bhamo, bringing their contingent of produce and passengers from distant villages on the confines of civilization. One of the great “flats” is a floating market, where Burman and Kachin, Shan and Chin, display their varied merchandise to the motley throng of customers. Gaudy silks and cottons, rude pottery and quaint lacquer-work, barbaric toys and trinkets, fruit, vegetables, and sweetmeats, with household utensils of every kind, fill the dusky space of the covered deck with brilliant colour. Indolent Burmese doze and smoke on gaily-striped quilts, while their wives chaffer and barter with business-like aplomb; for the Burmese woman is the breadwinner of the family, and retains most of the commercial transactions of the country in her capable hands. A pretty girl in white jacket and apple-green skirt, with a pink _pawa_ floating on her shoulders, sits on a pile of yellow cushions and smokes her big cheroot of chopped wood and tobacco in meditative calm. Diamonds glitter in her ears, and ruby studs fasten her muslin bodice, for she goes as a bride to some distant riverside town, and carries her “dot” on her back. Strings of onions and scarlet chillies hang from the rafters above bales of fur from China. Children flit up and down, like many-coloured butterflies, in quaint costumes brightened with pink scarfs and tiny turban, miniature replicas of their elders, for no special garb of childhood exists in Burma, and the general effect suggests an assemblage of gaily-dressed dolls. Shan women in tall black turbans stand round a harper as he twangs the silken strings of a black and gold lyre with sounding-board of varnished deerskin. The weird fractional tones of native music, discordant to European ears, harmonize with the semi-barbaric environment as the musician chants some heroic legend of the mythical past. Presently he approaches a mattress of white and scarlet, occupied by a woman whose brown Mongolian face is blanched to the pallor of age-worn marble by chronic pain, and sings a wild incantation over the sufferer, who by the advice of a fortune-teller undertakes the weary journey to pray for healing at the Golden Pagoda of Rangoon. The charm apparently succeeds, for the tired eyes close, and as the song dies off in a whispering cadence a peaceful slumber smoothes the lines of pain in the troubled face. Family parties sit round iron tea-kettles, and girls bring bowls of steaming rice from the rude galley where native passengers cook their food.

Past green islets in sandy reaches, hemmed in by bold cliffs conveying vague suggestions of Nile scenery, the great steamer pursues her way. Above dark clumps of banyan and tamarind, the golden spires of Buddhist monasteries, or the shining _tee_ of village pagodas, invest the changing landscape with the unique individuality of Burma, distinct in character from the Indian Empire, though politically comprised within it. A magical peace and purity, suggesting a world fresh from the Creator’s hand, transfigures hill and dale with ineffable lucidity of atmosphere and delicacy of colour. The solemnity of the deep gorges piercing the profound gloom of virgin forest supplies a contrasting note of haunting mystery, the loneliness of these upper reaches merely accentuated by occasional signs of human life and activity in the vast solitudes through which the river flows. As the steamer swings round a projecting rock, the grotesque forms of two colossal leographs--the hybrid lion and gryphon of Burmese mythology--rear their white bulk against a green tuft of towering palms at the gate of a Buddhist temple flanking the grey cone of a tall pagoda. Yellow-robed monks lean on the balustrade of an island monastery hidden like a bird’s nest amid the thick foliage, and beautiful even in decay. The broad-eaved roofs, with their carved and gilded pinnacles, are miracles of art, for the historic foundation was formerly renowned throughout Upper Burma, and on festivals even the dog-fish, for which this reach of water is famous, were decorated with strips of gold-leaf, and tamed to come at the call of the monks. Farther on a yellow procession descends a long flight of rocky steps cut in the face of a steep cliff crowned by a monastic pile bristling with gilt finials and vermilion spires. At the foot of the mountain stairway a huge funeral pyre of forest trees attracts groups of villagers, who land from a fleet of carved and decorated boats in festal array, for a monk is to be cremated after the invariable custom of Buddhist orders, and the ceremony is observed as a general holiday. The light-hearted Burmese only extract pleasure from the gruesome spectacle, for what matters this little incident in the manifold cycles of progressive existence reserved for the reincarnating soul?

Stockaded villages line the foreshore, and hilltops glitter with the golden _tee_ of clustering shrines. The sublime defiles of the glorious river, with their frowning cliffs and toppling crags, widen into the dreamy calm of land-locked reaches, where pagodas multiply on every point of vantage, in monumental testimony to the zeal and devotion of the Burmese past. The nomadic races of Burma impressed their character on the multitude of ruined cities and deserted capitals buried under the veil of verdure in the tropical jungle, or covering hill and plain with decaying splendour. In a shadowy channel beneath overhanging rocks the wrecked yacht of the luckless King Theebaw lies overturned, the lapsing water rippling against red funnel and gilded poop. No effort is made to raise the melancholy derelict, a fitting emblem of past sovereignty. At the sacred heights of Sagaing, transformed by the white and golden spires of graceful pagodas into ideal loveliness, a _pothoodaw_, or “man of both worlds,” in semi-monastic garb with yellow parasol, awaits the arrival of the steamer.

The gentle humility of this old _pothoodaw_ contrasts favourably with the aggressive importance of a village “head-man,” or local magistrate, who pushes him aside, and struts along the narrow wharf in tartan silk and spotless muslin, an obsequious attendant carrying his master’s red umbrella and silver betel-box. Yellow-robed brethren dismount from creaking bullock-wagons lined with hay, and await the coming steamer to bear them to the cremation ceremony up-stream. Palm-leaf fans are raised to the brown faces, but two youthful novices satisfy their curiosity concerning European womankind by peeping through the interstices of the sun-dried fronds. Other waiting passengers set out the huge pieces of a clumsy chessboard on a pile of flour bags; for time is no account on these dreamy shores, and two hours must elapse before the Bhamo boat swings in sight.

Evening turns the noble river into a sheet of flaming gold; pink clouds lie like scattered rose-leaves in the path of the sinking sun, and through the deepening veil of twilight the red fires twinkling outside reed-thatched huts of tiny villages supply local colour to riverside life. Jungle-grown Ava and ruined Amapura lie on the water’s brink; the Pagan, grandest of ancient capitals, covers a wide plain with the imposing architecture of a thousand pagodas, the colossal Ananda Dagon soaring like a huge cathedral above multitudinous domes and spires, gold and crimson, white and grey, of the deserted metropolis; for the tide of life swept away from royal Pagan seven hundred years ago. The white tents of the Government elephant camp cover a stretch of sand above the bathing place of the herd, and the officer in charge gives a fascinating account of his adventurous life; though many perils attend the capture of the three hundred elephants annually required by authority, and in the past year fifteen hunters have fallen victims to the dangers which beset horse and rider from sharp tusks, trampling feet, falling trees, and tangling creepers in the dark recesses of primeval forest. The typical denizen of Burmese woods possesses a sacred character in popular estimation, and carven elephants loom through the tropical greenery of the shores, supporting tapering pagoda or pillared portico.

The steamer stops before the unfinished temple and colossal Bell of Mingoon, cracked by earthquake, but the second largest in the world, the grandeur of the uncompleted design memorializing the frustrated ambition of a Burmese king who desired to be immortalized as a _Phaya-Taga_, or “Pagoda-Builder,” rather than by memories of war and conquest. The spiritual idealism which colours Burmese idiosyncrasy tinges the story of the past, and a modern writer aptly epitomizes one aspect of British rule as “an attempt to turn poetic philosophers into efficient policemen.” The charm of this freshwater cruise is enhanced by frequent opportunities of landing at riverside villages, visits to Burmese farms, and strolls through picturesque markets or beneath the palms and tamarinds of country roads leading to mouldering pagodas and forgotten shrines. The inhabitants of these verdant shores are true “children of the river”--the mystic flood which supplies their wants and moulds their character, affording them an “education of contact” with the outside world to soften the crude asperity of mental isolation. The mother plunges her little ones into the eddying waters so early that even in helpless infancy they become amphibious as the croaking frogs in the iris beds at the river’s edge. Merry bathing parties display their skill in diving, swimming, or fishing by hand in the crystal depths; and graceful girls, like brown Naïads, disport themselves beneath the drooping boughs which kiss the ripples of some sheltered creek fit for a fairy’s haunt. Parrots call from the trees, and kingfishers flit across the shallows in flashes of emerald light. Luxuriance of vegetation and depth of colour increase with every hour of the downward voyage. Gold mohur and scarlet cotton-tree dazzle the eye as they tower up into the burning blue of the tropical sky, and when the crescent moon sinks beneath the horizon myriads of glittering fireflies suggest, in the beautiful words of an Oriental poet, that “the night is adrift with her stream of stars.”

Thabetkein, the busy port of the ruby mines sixty miles away; Yandoon, the malodorous fish-curing town _à la mode de Burma_, which buries the native _hors d’œuvre_ to eat it in decay; and beautiful Prome, asleep in the moonlight, are visited in turn, the character of the scenery changing as the wide Delta opens up before the advancing steamer in branching channels, like numerous rivers springing from the parent Irrawaddy. Above us rises the sacred cliff of Guadama, an ancient resort of religious pilgrimage, with countless statues of Buddha carved to inaccessible heights in the living rock. The romance of this watery world turns over a new page on entering the great Bassein Creek, the last stage of the thousand mile course. Elephants feeding in the Jungle, and requiring a whole day for a full meal, crash through the canes regardless of the passing steamer. Peacocks drag their gorgeous trains over pink river-grass and golden sands. Grey egrets preen their soft plumage at the water’s edge, and purple hornbills rest on swaying palms. The Delta is alive with craft--rice boats and launches, cargo-boats and steamers. The barbaric _fenaw_, with swelling sails and twenty oars; the curving native barge, and the graceful Sampans, flitting like brown-winged moths across the stream. Boys, tattooed from head to foot in elaborate patterns, descend side-creek and canal in a rude _dug-out_--the hollow tree which forms the primitive boat--and the green tunnels of foliage show houses of plaited mats, raised on piles and reached by ladders.

Miles of malarious marsh have been reclaimed by Government from the new land ever silting up above the level of the water, and forming the rich rice-fields of this alluvial soil. Riverside towns and villages become more frequent in the lower reaches, and miniature markets of country produce make patches of brilliant colour on the sandy shore. Silken-clad girls, with flower-decked heads, sit beneath pink and green umbrellas, shading piles of golden plantains and pineapples. Bamboo stalls of curious lacquer-ware and trays of clay Buddhas, packets of gold-leaf, and sheaves of incense-sticks appeal to the religious instincts of pilgrims bound for the Golden Pagoda of distant Rangoon. The trade here, as elsewhere, is monopolized by the Burmese women, though many pink-turbaned admirers lie on the sand, smoking, flirting, and singing with the characteristic _dolce far niente_ of masculine life. The long fresh-water cruise floats us from wilderness to the sea, from dreamland to reality. Rice-mills line the shores, ocean-going ships rush towards the forest of masts encircling busy Rangoon, and huge teak-rafts, floated down from distant woods, and sometimes two years on the way, reach their moorings at the Ahlone timber-yards. Elephants, working with military precision, drag the giant trunks by chains from the river’s brink and pile them up with mathematical exactness, pushing them with their heads until perfectly level. Even commercial Burma can never be commonplace, for beyond the motley throngs of the cosmopolitan port, the golden spire of the Shway Dagon, queen of pagodas and goal of the Irrawaddy voyager, idealizes the city clustering round the sacred hill, and created by the central sanctuary of Burma’s ancient faith.

THE CLYDE

ROBERT WALKER

Glasgow and its river have acted and reacted the one upon the other; and the conditions of the city’s prosperity and well-being are indissolubly linked with the stream that wanders down from the upland moors of Lanarkshire, tumbling over precipices, meandering through rich orchard grounds, flowing through the busy haunts of men, until it widens into the noble estuary whose waves reflect the peaks of Arran and wash round the rugged steeps of Ailsa Craig. In its course the Clyde runs amid all variety of scenery: moorland, pastoral, woodland. It is, at one time, a shallow stream, humming over a pebbly bed and glittering in the clear sunshine; at another, a foul and sullen mass of water, which the energy of man has turned to good account in his commercial enterprises; and then again, a restless sea, whose white-crested waves break upon the base of Highland hills. Through all its changes, it is dear to the heart of every true Glasgovian. It has been a source of untold wealth to the place of his birth, and most of his happiest memories are connected with the sunny days of leisure he has spent among its lochs and by its sand-edged bays. Glasgow looks upon the Clyde as its own special glory and possession; it is proud of the manner in which the resources of the river have been developed; it is prouder still of its many natural beauties familiar to its citizens from their earliest youth, and an all-powerful attraction for the strangers who are led to our shores by the fame of its charms.

Glasgow, although it has many picturesque vistas within its bounds which the ordinary business man, engrossed with the cares of the Exchange, recks nothing of, is not, in itself, a magnet to draw tourists who are simply in search of the picturesque. Edinburgh, among Scottish cities, is, from its own natural beauty, the cynosure of neighbouring and far-away eyes. But Glasgow has the Clyde; and the Clyde, notwithstanding the advantages of the Callander and Oban Railway, is still the pleasantest and most picturesque gateway and avenue to the West Highlands, where tourists rightly love to congregate.

The practical energy and shrewdness of the Glasgow people early turned to the best advantage the inducements the Frith of Clyde offered to the thousands who were anxious for “change of air,” and on the outlook for summer resorts. In no district of our island are travelling facilities greater and travelling cheaper than on the Clyde. A wonderful change has taken place since 1812, when the _Comet_, the pioneer boat of a vast fleet of steamers, began to sail between Glasgow, Greenock and Helensburgh. Out of the _Comet_, with its forty-two feet of length, has been evolved what is generally regarded as the premier boat on the river, Mr. MacBrayne’s _Columba_, which carries the tourist-flocks from Glasgow to Ardrishaig, whence Mr. MacBrayne’s West Highland service is continued through the Crinan Canal.

The _Columba_ starts on her journey at seven o’clock in the morning, and as she threads her way down the busy river-channel, the passengers can note the stir and bustle of the wharves, and the evidences in ever-extending docks and quayage, the dredgers and divers, of the indefatigable energy and well-directed skill of the Clyde Trustees, that have turned a shallow meandering stream into a highway for the largest ships that float. Down past the building yards with their clanging hammers and great ships “of iron framed,” past what were once the cheerful rural villages of Govan and Partick, now the grimy hives of busy human bees, we steam, leaving behind us the ancient royal burgh of Renfrew and the mouth of the Cart, and come in view of Bowling and the Kilpatrick Hills, among which the patron saint of Ireland is said to have first seen the light. The river here broadens into something like an inland lake and the landscape grows decidedly picturesque. This has been a favourite subject for many Scottish landscape painters--Nasmyth, McCulloch and Bough among the rest. There is a wide stretch of view and the hills near and distant--the first glimpse we have yet had of the beginning of the Highlands--give to it dignity and variety. To the water, studded with craft of all rigs, Dalnottar Hill, Dunglass (where stands the monument to Bell, who introduced steam navigation to the Clyde), Dumbuck Hill and the mass of Dumbarton Castle, are effective background and setting.

At the Tail of the Bank, as the anchorage off Greenock is called, lie a motley crowd of craft: bluff-bowed timber ships, smart Australian clippers, handsome steam vessels of the various lines to America, gaily-painted foreign ships, and in the midst of them, an embodiment of power and authority, rides the guardship, a formidable ironclad.

The steamer at Greenock gathers passengers who have come down from Glasgow by rail, and she takes in more at Gourock, to which the Caledonian Company now run trains. The old Gourock pier, dear from its fishing associations to the hearts of many generations of Glasgow boys, is now completely altered; a fine quay front has been put up and a handsome station erected. Gourock is one of the oldest of the Clyde watering-places; in its day it was fashionable and thought to be pretty far removed from the giddy world; now it is the resort of the cheap-tripper, and has about its houses something of a second-rate look.

The view of the Frith from both Greenock and Gourock piers is one of great extent and beauty. Opposite, rise in the background range after range of hills, the fantastic ridges of “Argyle’s Bowling-green,” the Cobbler, the Black Hill of Kilmun, the steeps around Glen Messan, and stealing between these mountain masses are the lochs that are among the chief charms of the district. We have fronting us the entrances to the Gareloch, Loch Long and the Holy Loch, with wooded Roseneath and a white stretch along the shore of cottages and little towns. If we can only secure a day when the waves glitter in the sun and the fleecy clouds fleck the hillsides with alternate lights and shadows, then we need scarcely wish for a fairer scene.

Glasgow men are enthusiastic yachtsmen, and the regattas, the opening cruises and closing cruises of the various clubs are among the chief galas of the westcoast season. Our yachts and their builders--such as Watson and Fife--our skippers and our crews, are famous all the world over. The “white wings” spot the Frith at every turn, and there are few prettier sights than one of these Clyde greyhounds, bursting through the water under a cloud of canvas, with her lee-rail well buried in the sea.