Chapter I: Bowes (3)

Down the Cowal shore the steamer slips and the long belt of houses and villas that extends from Hunter’s Quay to Innellan--once all a lonely shore--is left behind, and we round Toward Point and its lighthouse into Rothsay Bay. This bay, with its environment of hills, is one of the choice bits on the Clyde; the natives all declare it to be finer than the Bay of Naples. Few Rothsay men have been at Naples. When a yacht club holds a regatta here, and the boats cluster at anchor off Rothsay and there are fireworks and illuminations, there is no livelier place than this same bay.

The town itself is beautifully situated, but looks best at a distance. From Barone Hill, at the back, a fine view can be obtained of the panorama of the bay. Rothsay has a long history: it is a royal burgh, and like Renfrew, gives a title to the Prince of Wales. Its chief glory is its ruined castle, over which Norsemen and Scots, Bruces and Baliols, have fought and murdered one another. Old memories and traditions cluster as thick round it as the ivy on its walls.

Leaving Rothsay, we sail into the Kyles of Bute, a narrow passage between the island and the mainland. The wonder is how the steamer can thread its way through the twisting, twining channel, that appears hardly broad enough for the _Columba’s_ paddle-wheels. Now and again it almost seems as if we should run ashore from the sharpness of the turns. The Kyles are full of quiet beauty. As we look at the little hamlets sheltered under the wooded hills, they seem so out of the world and so remote from the common cares that burden humanity, that we wonder can ordinary sins and sorrows ever disturb there the calm routine of life. The evening hour is the hour of enchantment, when your boat gently drifts on the slow heaving water. The voices on the shore seem to reach you through a muffled and mysterious air; the opalescent light in the sky is reflected from the waves that lap against the boat; sweet scents are wafted from the hillsides that loom solemn in the gathering darkness; earth’s uneasy passions are at rest; for the young, it is a pleasant pause in the hurly-burly; for those who are growing old, it is the time of memories and regrets.

It is the garish light of day now, and with a long gaze at the rugged mist-wreathed peaks of Arran, we round Ardlamont Point and, away to the left, meet the sparkling waters and fresh breezes of Loch Fyne.

Tarbert, our first stoppage after the ferry at Ardlamont, is one of the most noted fishing-villages in the west of Scotland. The entrance to East Loch Tarbert, at which the steamer calls, is exceedingly picturesque, and the district, with its brown sails and its brawny fishermen, is one much beloved of artists. Henry Moore, Colin Hunter, David Murray, among the rest, have turned its beauties to great use. Tarbert is the great centre of the trawl (or seine) net fishing, which in Loch Fyne, after much discussion and many bickerings, has practically superseded in the Loch the old drift-net method. Trawl boats work in pairs with four men and a boy in each boat. Tarbert sends out between eighty and ninety boats, and an exceptionally good night’s catch for a pair of trawls is about four or five hundred boxes--each box containing, depending on the size of the herring, from three to five hundred fish. The men are sturdy, fine-looking fellows--and are fishermen proper, as distinguished from the half crofter, half-fishermen of the farther North-west Highlands. The fishing-fleet going out before sundown is, on a good evening, the sight of Tarbert, the brown sails and the yellow-brown boats glancing in the golden light, as they rush and hum through the clear blue-grey water. Tarbert itself, which lies principally round the inner harbour, is not a particularly inviting place--it smells generally strongly of herrings--but the hills around it are very pleasant to ramble over, and the walk to West Loch Tarbert leads through delightful highland country. There is a ruined castle here, which dominates the harbour and is redolent of memories of Robert the Bruce, the builder of the castle in 1325. The narrow isthmus that separates the East from the West Loch has been more than once surmounted by invading Norsemen and other bold buccaneers, who dragged their boats overland. Sir Walter Scott makes use of this fact in _The Lord of the Isles_.

At Ardrishaig, six miles beyond Tarbert and on the west side of Loch Gilp, the outward run of the _Columba_ ends, and passengers for the West Highlands tranship to the _Linnet_, in order to be conveyed through the Crinan Canal.

THE VOLGA

ELISÉE RECLUS

The rivulet which, at its farthest source, takes the name of Volga, rises not in a highland region, but in the midst of lakes, marshes and low wooded hills, little elevated above the Volkosniky Les (“Volkon Forest”) and Valdaï plateau, which may be taken as the true source of the stream. The highest ridges of the Valdaï scarcely rise 220 feet above the plateau, although the chief crest, the Popova Gora, attains an altitude of 1,170 feet. The mean elevation of the land is also sufficient to give it a far more severe aspect than that of the Lovat and Lake Ilmen plains on the north-west. Its peat beds, lakes and fir forests are more suggestive of the neighbourhood of Lake Onega, some 300 miles farther north, and the climate is, in fact, about two degrees colder than in the surrounding districts. Yet the Valdaï flora differs on the whole but little, if at all, from that of the plains stretching towards the great lakes, whence it has been concluded that these heights are of comparatively recent origin. They have no indigenous vegetation, all their species coming from the region released from its icy fetters at the close of the long glacial epoch. The plateau, now furrowed by rain and frost, formed at that time a continuation of the uniform slope of the land, and like it, was covered by the ice-fields from Finland. The fish of its lakes, and even of the Upper Volga itself, do not belong to the Volga basin proper, which the Valdaï streams seem to have only recently joined. To judge from their fauna, the true origin of the Volga should be sought, not in the Valdaï, but in Lake Belo Ozero (“White Lake”), east of Lagoda. The sturgeon and sterlet inhabit the Shesksna, the outlet of this lake, as they do in the middle Volga itself. The region giving birth to the Volga is one of the swampiest in West Russia, resembling a lowland tract rather than a true water-parting. Separated by a simple peat bed from a tributary of the Volkhov, the streamlet rising in the Volgino Verkhovye, and sometimes called the Jordan from its sacred character, flows from a spot now marked by the ruins of a chapel, thence oozing rather than flowing from bog to bog for a distance of about twenty-two miles, when it successively traverses three terraced lakes, whose levels differ only a few inches from the other. The Jukopa, one of the southern affluents, often causes a back flow to Lake Peno near its course, the natural fall being so slight that the impulse of a lateral current suffices to reverse it. After leaving Lake Peno, which is close to Lake Dvinetz, source of the Dvina, the Volga turns eastward to Lake Volgo, where it is already a considerable stream, with a volume of from 3,500 to 3,600 cubic feet per second, according to the seasons. Three miles farther down occurs its first rapid, where a dam has now been constructed, which during the rains converts the upper valley, with its lakes, into one vast reservoir forty-eight miles long, over one mile wide, and containing 6,300,000 cubic feet of water. Boats and rafts are then able to descend from the lake region, and higher up the river becomes regularly navigable. Near this point the Volga is nearly doubled by the Selijarovka from the winding Lake Seligen, whose insular monastery of St. Nilus is still visited yearly by about 20,000 pilgrims. Here may be said to begin the commercial stream, the Ra, Rhas, or Rhos of the ancients and of the Mordvinians, the Yûl of the Cheremissiams, the Atel or Etil of the Tatars, the Tamar of the Armenians--that is in these languages, the “River”--and in Finnish the Volga, or the “Holy River.”

Below the Selijarovka it descends the slopes of the plateau through a series of thirty-five _porogi, or rapids_, which, however, do not stop the navigation, and beyond the last of the series it winds unimpeded through the great Russian lowlands, receiving numerous navigable tributaries, and communicating by canal with the Baltic basin. After passing the populous towns of Tver, Ribinsk, Yaroslav, and Kostroma, it is joined at Niji-Novgorod by the Oka, of nearly equal volume, and historically even more important than the main stream. The Oka, which long served as the frontier between Tartar and Muscovite, rises in the region of the “black lands” and throughout a course of 900 miles waters the most fertile plains of Great Russia, bringing to the Nijni fair the produce of Orol, Kaluga, Tula, Riazan, Tambov, Vladimir, and Moscow. Over 1,440 yards broad, it seems like an arm of the sea at its confluence with the Volga. East of this point the main artery is swollen by other tributaries, which, though as large as the Seine, seem insignificant compared with the mighty Kama, joining it below Kazan from the Urals, and draining an area at least equal in extent to the whole of France. Judging from the direction of its course, the Kama seems to be the main stream, for below the junction the united rivers continue the southerly and south-westerly course of the Kama, whose clear waters flow for some distance before intermingling with the grey stream of the Volga. Below Simbirsk the tributaries are few and unimportant, and as the rainfall is here also slight, and the evaporation considerable, the mean discharge is probably as great at this place as at the delta.

Below the Kama junction there formerly existed a vast lacustrine basin, which has been gradually filled in by the alluvia of both streams. Here is the natural limit of the peat region, and here begins, on the right bank, that of the steppes. As we proceed southwards the atmosphere becomes less humid, the ground firmer, and below Simbirsk we no longer meet those mossy and wooded quagmires bound together by the tangled roots of trees, resembling matted cordage. But even in the boggy districts those floating forests are slowly disappearing as the land is brought more and more under cultivation.

Below the dried-up Simbirsk Lake the stream is deflected by an impassable limestone barrier eastwards to Samara, where it escapes through a breach and reverses its course along the southern escarpment of the hills, thus forming a long narrow peninsula projecting from the western plateau. Here is the most picturesque scenery on the Volga, which is now skirted by steep wooded cliffs, terminating in pyramids and sharp rocky peaks. Some of the more inaccessible summits are surmounted by the so-called “Stenka” Kurgans, raised in memory of Razin, Chief of the Cossacks and revolted peasantry, who had established themselves in this natural stronghold of the Volga. The hills often rise more than 300 feet above the stream, the Beliy Kluch, south-west of Sizran, attaining an absolute elevation of 1,155 feet or 1,120 feet above the mean level of the Volga.

The region of the delta really begins at the Tzaritzin bend, some 300 miles from the Caspian, for the stream here branches into countless channels between the beds of the Volga and the Akhtuba, known near the coast as the Bereket. Still the delta, properly so called, is formed only about thirty miles above Astrakhan, by the forking of the Buzan branch from the main bed. Near Astrakhan the Belda and Kûtûm, and, lower down, the Tzarova, Tzagan, Birûl, and other arms, break away, and in the vast alluvial peninsula projecting into the Caspian, and which is at least 110 miles round, there are altogether about two hundred mouths, most of them, however, shifting streams choked with mud. During the spring floods all the delta and lower courses below Tzaritzin form one vast body of moving waters, broken only by a few islands here and there, and after each of these floods new beds are formed, old ones filled up, so that the chart of the delta has to be constantly planned afresh. Two hundred years ago the navigable channel flowed due east from Astrakhan: since then it has shifted continually more to the right and now runs south-south-west.

Without including the shorter windings, the Volga has a total length of 2,230 miles, presenting with its tributaries, about 7,200 miles of navigable waters. From the sources of the Kama to the delta, these waters cross sixteen parallels of latitude, and nine isothermal degrees, so that while the mean annual temperature of the region is at freezing point, it oscillates about 9° in the delta. At Astrakhan the Volga is frozen for about ninety-eight days, and at Kazan for one hundred and fifty-two, while the Kama is ice-bound for six months at the junction of the Chusovaya above Perm. The rainfall of the basin is about sixteen inches, which would give 700,000 cubic feet per second, were all the moisture to be carried off by the bed of the Volga. But much is absorbed by vegetation in the forests and steppes and in the latter region direct evaporation may dissipate about forty inches during the year in tracts fully exposed to the winds.

Altogether about three-fourths of the rainfall are thus lost _en route_, and preliminary estimates have determined the mean discharge at about 203,000 cubic feet, which is less than two-thirds of that of the Danube, draining an area scarcely half as large as that of the Russian River.

The volume of water discharged by the Volga, which is at least equal to that of all the other influents of the Caspian together, is sufficient to exercise a considerable influence on the level of the sea. Thus the floods of 1867, the heaviest that had occurred for forty years, raised it by more than two feet, the abnormal excess representing 9,600 billions of cubic feet, or about three times the volume of the Lake of Geneva. On the other hand, the delta steadily encroaches on the sea, though at a rate which it is almost impossible to determine. The sedimentary matter held in solution, estimated by Mrczkovski at about the two-thousandth part of the fluid, continues to form islands and sand-banks, while generally raising the bed of the sea round the face of the delta.

The Volga abounds in fish, and the fishing industry supports a large number of hands. Its lower reaches especially form for the whole of Russia a vast reservoir of food, varying with the seasons, and yielding large quantities even in winter by means of holes broken in the ice at certain intervals.

On the islands of the delta are numerous stations where the fish is cut up, and the roe prepared to be converted into fresh and salt caviar. The _bieluga_ and the sterlet, both of the sturgeon family, attain the greatest size, and are the most highly esteemed, but their number seems to have diminished since the appearance of the steamboat in these waters.

THE CONGO

J. HOWARD REED

The Congo is not only the largest river of the “Dark Continent,” but is second only in point of size and volume to the majestic Amazon of South America. It may, therefore, truly be called the largest river of the Old World.

On referring to the latest maps of Africa we find that the most distant source of the Congo is to be found in the River Chambeze, which rises about midway between the south end of Lake Tanganyika and the north end of Lake Nyasa, at a height of 4,750 feet above the level of the sea. Taking a south-westerly course, this stream flows for some 250 miles, until it reaches a huge depression, where it forms a lake, known to the natives by the name Bangweolo. This lake is about 115 miles long by from forty to sixty miles wide, with an area of from 6,000 to 7,000 square miles. At the south-west corner of Bangweolo the river emerges, having a width equal to that of the Thames at London Bridge, and flows northward under the name of Luapula. About 200 miles further to the north Lake Moero, with an area of about 3,500 square miles, is reached. From the north end of this lake the river again issues, flowing away generally in a northward direction.

At a point about 200 miles from Lake Moero the river, known from the lake to this point as the Luwa, is joined by another stream of much larger size, which rises some 500 miles to the south-west, and is known as the Lualaba. Both these branches of the main river, from their sources to this point, have, of course, had their volumes greatly increased by the innumerable tributary streams flowing into them from the hills and highlands on either side. The two great rivers are now united into one majestic stream, which, bearing the name of Lualaba, continues its flow in a north-north-westerly direction. A little above the point of junction the river receives, on its eastern side, the Lukuga River, which drains the surplus waters of Lake Tanganyika and its tributaries, and augments the mighty volume of the main river.

When we remember that Lake Tanganyika is 400 miles long, from twenty to forty miles broad, has an area of 12,650 square miles, and is fed by tributaries which drain about 70,000 square miles of country, we can form some idea of the enormous body of water which is added to the main stream by the Lukuga River.

About 100 miles to the north of where the Lukuga joins the Lualaba, namely, at the Arab settlement of Nyangwe, the main river is more than a mile wide, with a volume and velocity, according to Stanley, of 230,000 cubit feet of water per second. About 300 miles to the north of Nyangwe are to be found the Stanley Falls, where the river, augmented by the discharged waters of a number of important tributary streams, dashes itself madly down a series of wild rapids and terrible cataracts. These falls extend for a distance of from sixty to seventy miles. From this point the majestic river begins to turn slightly to the westward, and, continuing its course first north-west, then west, and finally south-west--in the form of a gigantic horseshoe--reaches, after a thousand miles’ uninterrupted flow, the open expanse of Stanley Pool. Between Stanley Falls and Stanley Pool the volume of the great river is still further increased by the addition of the waters of a great number of large tributary streams, many of which are themselves extensive rivers, draining many thousands of square miles of territory, and navigable for several hundred miles.

Among the great tributaries should be mentioned specially the following; the Aruwimi, noted as the scene of the terrible sufferings of the famous Emin Pasha relief expedition; the Ubangi, or Welle-Makua, which is itself a mighty river, rising away in the “Heart of Africa,” and flowing some 1,200 miles before it joins the main stream. On the south bank may be named the Lubilash or Boloko, navigable for 200 miles; the Lulongo, with its branches--the Lopori and Maringa--navigated for 500 miles by the Rev. George Grenfell; the Chuapa, with its branch, the Busera, up which Mr. Grenfell has also steamed some 500 miles. To these may be added the Kwa, which with its tributaries--the Lukenye, the Kasai, the Sankurn, the Kwango, and a number of others--adds enormously to the volume of the Congo, and affords some 1,500 miles of navigable water.

The great river from Stanley Falls to Stanley Pool has an average width of some five miles, but in places it reaches as much as sixteen miles wide, and is split up into separate channels by large islands, with which its bosom is studded. After passing through Stanley Pool the river ceases to be navigable for about 235 miles--except for one comparatively short break of eighty miles--owing to the angry cataracts known as the Livingstone Falls. Below the falls the river again becomes navigable to the Atlantic Ocean, some 110 miles distant.

The majestic river rushes with such an enormous volume into the open ocean that, for many miles out at sea, its stream can be distinctly traced, and its waters remain fresh, refusing for a long time to become contaminated by the salt of the mighty waste of waters.

The main river and its tributaries have already been explored for at least 11,000 miles. This, of course, gives a length of river banks of no less than 22,000 miles. It can be better grasped what this means when we remember that the whole coast-line of Europe, following every indentation of the shore--from the most northern point of Norway to the spot in the Black Sea where the Caucasus Mountains separate Europe from Asia--is only 17,000 miles, or 5,000 miles less than the total length of river banks past which the mighty Congo continually sweeps. To give another illustration, I may remind you that the circumference of the globe on which we live is 24,000 miles. So that the length of the banks of the Congo--so far as they are at present known--only falls some 2,000 miles short of the total girth of our planet. When the great river becomes more completely known the extent of the river’s banks may probably be found to equal, and very possibly to exceed, the earth’s circumference.

The total length of the main river--omitting the branches--from source to mouth is close upon three thousand miles, equal to the distance from Liverpool to New York.

The area of territory drained is something over 1,500,000 square miles, or equal, roughly speaking, to about one-eight of the whole continent of Africa. It exceeds the total area of India by 200,000 square miles, and would only be equalled by thirty-two Englands. It is needless to quote further figures in order to impress upon us the enormous extent and importance of Africa’s greatest waterway.

The wide-spreading arms of the Congo reach themselves out on all sides to such a distance and extent that the remote headwaters, or fountains, overlap and almost intermingle with the streams which contribute their waters to the other great rivers of the continent. On the north-west we find some of the early streams flowing almost from the same sources which supply tributaries of the Niger and the Shari. In the north-east we find the remote tributaries of the Welle-Makua almost touching those of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, which helps to swell the Nile. The headwaters of the Aruwimi, again, flow from within a few minutes’ walk of where a view can be obtained of the Albert Lake, also belonging to the Nile system. The Malagarazi River, which flows into Lake Tanganyika, and so finds its way to the Congo, rises in the same hills which gave birth to the Alexandra Nile, a western affluent to Lake Victoria. We find, also, many of the great tributaries on the southern bank of the Congo flow from highlands which also pay tribute to streams flowing to the Zambezi.

In comparison with the historic tales the Nile and Niger have to tell us, the story of the Congo is only very modern. The early history of the great river is very meagre indeed, and we search the ancient classics in vain for any mention of even its existence.

The river was, and is to this day, known to the Portuguese as the Zaire, but the actual meaning of the word is doubtful. Some consider it to simply mean river. The country through which the great river flows was known to the Portuguese as the kingdom of the Congo. The Zaire, therefore, appeared upon the early Portuguese maps as Rio de Congo, which, when translated, became, of course, on English maps, River of Congo, and finally simply Congo, as we now know it.

Although the mouth of the Congo was discovered by the Portuguese over four hundred years ago, very little was known of the geography of the river itself until our own century. Jesuit missionaries certainly settled in the kingdom of the Congo, and they doubtless collected much information from the native travellers regarding the geography of the interior.

The English geographer, Peter Heylyn, writing in 1657, speaks of the Zaire, or River of Congo, rising in Lake Zembre. After naming the rivers of the Country of Congo, he goes on to say: “This last (the Zaire), the greatest of them all, if not of all Africk also: Of which, though we have spoke already, we shall add this here, that it falleth into the Æthiopic Sea with so great violence, that for ten miles commonly, for fifteen sometimes, the waters of it do retain their natural sweetness: not intermingled nor corrupted with the Salt Sea-water: Nor can the people sail above five miles against the stream of the cataracts, or huge falls which it hath from the Mountains; more terrible and turbulent than those of the Nile.”

The great discoveries connected with the Congo have been in almost all cases the result of inquiries set on foot for other purposes, and not the outcome of direct research. This is especially the case with regard to the long and tedious wanderings of Dr. Livingstone, between the years 1866 and 1873, which terminated only in his death in the latter year. When Livingstone started upon his last and greatest expedition in 1866, it was with the idea of clearing up certain doubtful points connected with Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa, and of establishing, if possible, the southern limit of the Nile watershed. He had no intention of working at the Congo at all, and, in fact, remarks in his journal, in a half jocular manner, that he had no desire to become “blackman’s meat” for anything less than the Nile.

Stanley’s great journey from Nyangwe to Boma made known, of course, only the main stream of the river, but it opened the way, and from that day down to the present a whole legion of travellers, both British and European, have devoted themselves to the filling in of the details. The great traveller himself shortly after discovered lakes Leopold II. and Mantumba; and so recently as 1887 explored the great Aruwimi territory, following it to its source in the neighbourhood of the Albert Lake, when engaged in his last great journey through “Darkest Africa.”

The Nineteenth Century has been what we may call the age of discovery, so far as the Congo is concerned. The geography of the river is now fairly well known, the discoveries of the past twenty years having undoubtedly transcended all possible expectations or even conceptions. The next century will in all probability be one of Congo commerce and Congo engineering. Already we find a railway some 250 miles in length, in course of construction, which, when completed, will overcome the natural difficulties of transport in the neighbourhood of the Livingstone Falls, and throw open to the world the mighty natural highway to the heart of the Continent. Already we find, in spite of the difficulties of the cataract region, that some thirty odd steamers are daily ploughing their way up and down the Congo’s giant stream. Thus has the great river begun the work of bearing the naturally rich products of the Congo basin to the coast, and of carrying the return commodities into the interior.

The work of the explorer, the trader, and the missionary is already beginning to bear fruit. In their wake will follow civilization, commerce and Christianity. Cities--centres of industry and light--will be founded, and in due time the peoples of the “Heart of Africa” will take their place in the progress of the world.

THE MACKENZIE RIVER

WILLIAM OGILVIE

Fort McPherson stands on a high bank of gravel and slate, on the east side of the Peel River, about fourteen miles above the point where it divides and joins the Mackenzie delta, which is common to both rivers. The height of this bank rapidly decreases towards the mouth of the river, where it almost entirely disappears. The country surrounding has evidently at one time been a part of the Arctic Ocean which has been gradually filled up with alluvial deposits brought down by the two rivers.

On this rich soil, the timber, mostly spruce, with some tamarack, birch and poplar, is, for the latitude, very large. When I arrived at Fort McPherson, on the 20th of June, the new buds on the trees were just perceptible, and on the evening of the 22d, when I left, the trees were almost fully in leaf.

Between Peel River and the Mackenzie about two-thirds of the channel in the delta averages more than a quarter of a mile wide; the remainder about one hundred yards. All of it was deep when I passed through, and the Hudson’s Bay Company’s steamer, _Wrigley_, drawing five feet of water, finds no difficulty in navigating it. The banks do not rise more than ten or fifteen feet above the water, and the current is continually wearing away the soft deposit and carrying it down to the lower part of the delta and to the Arctic Ocean.

Where we enter the Mackenzie proper, the channel is three-fourths of a mile wide, but it is only one of four, there being three large islands at this point. The whole width of the river cannot be less than three or four miles. Looking northward, down the westerly channel, the view is bounded by the sky, and widens in the distance so that one can fancy he is looking out to sea.

A north wind raises quite a swell here, and the salty odour of the sea air is plainly perceptible above the delta. The banks continue low, and the country flat on both sides of the river, for some nine or ten miles above the islands. The shore on the east side is sloping, while that on the west is generally perpendicular, showing the action of the current, which is wearing into and carrying away portions of it. This form of bank changes into steep shale rock on both sides, gradually increasing in height as far as the Narrows, where they are probably one hundred and fifty feet above the water.

On the Mackenzie I did not stay long enough to learn much about the Indians in the district, nor did I see many of them. While we were in the delta, nine large boats loaded with Esquimaux from the coast passed us on the way up to Fort McPherson to do their trading for the season, in one of which I noticed a young woman devouring a raw musk-rat with evident relish. These people come up from the coast in “skin” boats, called _oumiaks_, made, it is said, of whale skin put round a wood frame. These boats present a very neat appearance, and are capable of carrying about two tons each. Whale oil is one of the principal articles which they bring in for sale.

A few miles above the Narrows the banks change from rock to clay and gravel, and continue generally steep and high as far as Fort Good Hope. In a few places the bank recedes from the river for a short distance, forming a low flat, on which generally grows some fair spruce timber. No rivers of importance flow into the Mackenzie between Red and Hare Indian Rivers. One hundred and thirty miles further on, Loon River enters from the east, and, twenty miles above this Hare Indian River also enters from the same side. The Indians report that Hare Indian River rises in a range of hills on the north-west side of Great Bear Lake, but about its navigability I could learn nothing.

We reached Fort Good Hope on Saturday, the 24th of July, and remained over Sunday. The Fort is built on the east side of the Mackenzie, about two miles above Hare Indian River, and two below the “Ramparts.” The Hudson’s Bay Company has quite a large establishment at this point, consisting of half a dozen houses and some stables. The Roman Catholic Church has a flourishing mission here, and the church is said to possess one of the best finished interiors in the country.

Two miles above the Fort we enter what is known in the vicinity as the “Ramparts,” though in the more south-westerly it would be called a “Cañon.” Here, for a distance of seven miles, the river runs perpendicular and occasionally over hanging walls of rock. At the lower end they rise one hundred and fifty feet above the water. But their height decreases as we near the upper end, at which point they are not more than fifty or sixty feet. The river, at the lower end of the “Ramparts,” is nearly a mile wide, but its walls gradually converge until, about three miles up, the width is not more than half a mile, and this continues to the end. Sir Alexander Mackenzie, when passing through, sounded at its upper end, and found three hundred feet of water, which accounts for the fact that although the Cañon is so narrow the current is not perceptibly increased.

When Mackenzie discovered and explored this river in 1789, he met some Indians a short distance above this place. After confidence had been established by means of presents, he prepared to start onward; and, although his newly-made friends told him there was great danger ahead in the form of a rapid or cataract which would swallow him and his party without fail, he continued, the Indians following and warning him of his danger. He advanced cautiously into the “Ramparts,” but could hear or see nothing to verify their statements. At last, when through, they admitted that the only bad weather to be encountered was now passed, but that behind the island just below was a bad spirit or monster which would devour the whole party: failing there, the next island below would surely reveal him.

From this incident the two islands have received the names of Upper and Lower Manitou, respectively.

Forty-eight miles from Fort Good Hope, Sans Sault Rapid is reached. It is caused by a ledge of rocks extending partially across the river.

A ridge of hills here extend beyond the river from the Rocky Mountains, occasional glimpses of which can be caught from the water.

Just above this the Mackenzie turns sharply to the east from its southerly course, and skirts the base of the mountains for six miles. Its course then curves a little to the south, when, what might be termed a cañon, is entered, which extends for nine or ten miles. The river here averages a mile in width, and is walled on both sides by perpendicular limestone cliffs, rising from one to two hundred feet above the water. On the south side, this wall terminates in what is known as “Wolverine Rock,” which rises perpendicularly from the water to a height of three hundred feet. The formation is limestone, the strata of which stand almost on edge, and the water has worn through them in several places, so that one can sail underneath. Above this point the mountains again approach the river for a few miles, when they suddenly drop almost to the level of the plain. The banks here are clay and gravel, with an average height of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet.

Six and one-half miles above Sans Sault Rapids, Carcajou River empties its waters into the Mackenzie from the west. This river I believe to be the largest tributary of the Mackenzie below the Laird.

Four hundred and forty-four miles from Fort McPherson brought us to Fort Norman, which is situated on the east bank of the Mackenzie just above the entrance of Great Bear River. I arrived here on Saturday, the 28th of July.

About three and a half miles above Fort Norman on the east bank of the river, two extensive exposures of lignite occur. The upper one is overlaid by about fifty feet of clay and a few feet of friable sandstone, and is about fifteen feet thick. The other seam is of about the same thickness, and probably forty feet lower. When I was there, it was nearly all under water.

The upper seam _has been on fire for over a hundred years_, as it was burning when Sir Alexander Mackenzie passed in 1789, and according to Indian tradition, it must have been burning much longer. The place is locally known as “Le Boucan,” from the fact that the Indians hereabout smoke and cook large quantities of meat or fish in these convenient fire pits. The fire extends at present about two miles along the river, not continuously, but at intervals; when I passed, it was burning in three or four places. After it has burned a certain distance into the seam, the overlaying mass of clay falls in, and, to some extent, suppresses the fire. This clay is, in time, baked into a red coloured rock, in which are found innumerable impressions of leaves and plants.

About a hundred miles above Fort Norman, on the west side, a river discharges a large volume of clear, black water, which rushes bodily half-way across the Mackenzie, and preserves its distinctive character for several miles before it mingles with the main stream. The name applied to this river by the people at Fort Wrigley was “_La rivière du vieux grand lac_.” It is said to flow out of a lake of considerable extent, lying not far from the Mackenzie. Many peaks can be seen up its valley.

Six hundred and twenty-four miles from Fort McPherson brings us to Fort Wrigley. This post was formerly known as “Little Rapid,” but has received the name it now bears in honour of Chief Commissioner Wrigley, of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Just above the Fort there is a swift rush of water over some limestone rock which appears to extend across the river. On the west side two small islands confine a part of the stream in a funnel-like channel, which, being shallow, causes a slight rapid, and gives rise to the former name of the post.

At Fort Wrigley, some slight attempts had been made at cultivation, but I do not consider them a fair test of the capabilities of the place. When I was there, the people were gathering blueberries, then fully ripe, and as large and well-flavoured as they are in Ontario. Ripe strawberries were found on the 9th of August ninety miles below this, and a few raspberries soon afterwards. Above Fort Wrigley, wild gooseberries, and both red and black currants were found in abundance; some of the islands being literally covered with the bushes.

For about sixty miles below Fort Wrigley a range of mountains runs parallel to the river on its east side. Above Fort Wrigley the east bank is generally low and swampy, but the west (although low near the river) gradually rises to a height of seven or eight hundred feet. Fifty-eight miles above Fort Wrigley this hill terminates in a bold, high point, and the ridge turns off to the south-west, enclosing a deep, wide valley between it and the mountains, which here approach the river. This range continues south-eastward out of sight. The positions and heights of some of the peaks were determined by triangulation. One of them was found to rise 4,675 feet above the river.

We arrived at Fort Simpson on Friday, the 24th of August, and remained until the following Tuesday.

We arrived at Fort Providence on Saturday, the 8th of September. Wild gooseberries and currants were plentiful along the banks, but at this season somewhat over-ripe. At the fort, where we remained over Sunday, the usual collection of buildings at a Hudson Bay Company’s post is to be found. The Roman Catholic Church has also a mission here.

Forty-six miles from Fort Providence we enter Great Slave Lake. The south shore of the lake, between the Mackenzie and Great Slave Rivers, is so low and flat that most of it was submerged when I passed. Fish are numerous in the Mackenzie. The principal species is that known as the “Inconnu.” Those caught in the lower river are very good eating, much resembling salmon in taste, being also firm and juicy.

THE LOIRE

VICTOR HUGO

I have some recollection of having already said so elsewhere: the Loire and Touraine have been far too much praised. It is time to render justice. The Seine is much more beautiful than the Loire; Normandy is a much more charming “garden” than Touraine.

A broad, yellow strip of water, flat banks, and poplars everywhere--that is the Loire. The poplar is the only tree that is stupid. It masks all the horizons of the Loire. Along the river and on the islands, on the edge of the dyke and far away in the distance, one sees only poplars. In my mind there is a strangely intimate relationship, a strangely indefinable resemblance, between a landscape made up of poplars and a tragedy written in Alexandrines. The poplar, like the Alexandrine, is one of the classic forms of boredom.

It rained; I had passed a sleepless night. I do not know whether that put me out of temper, but everything on the Loire seemed to me cold, dull, methodical, monotonous, formal, and lugubrious.

From time to time one meets convoys of five or six small craft ascending or descending the river. Each vessel has but one mast with a square sail. The one that has the biggest sail precedes the others and tows them. The convoy is arranged in such a fashion that the sails grow smaller in size from one boat to the other, from the first to the last, with a sort of symmetric decrease unbroken by any unevenness, undisturbed by any vagary. One involuntarily recalls the caricature of the English family; one might imagine one saw a chromatic scale sweeping along under full sail. I have seen this only on the Loire; and I confess that I prefer the Norman sloops and luggers, of all shapes and sizes, flying like birds of prey, and mingling their yellow and red sails with the squall, the rain, and the sun, between Quillebœuf and Tancarville.

The Spaniards call the Manzanares “the viscount of waterways”; I suggest that the Loire be called “the dowager of rivers.”

The Loire has not, like the Seine and the Rhine, a host of pretty towns and lovely villages built on the very edge of the river and mirroring their gables, church-spires, and house-fronts in the water. The Loire flows through a great alluvion caused by the floods and called La Sologne. It carries back from it the sand which its waters bear down and which often encumber and obstruct its bed. Hence the frequent risings and inundations in these low plains which thrust back the villages. On the right bank they hide themselves behind the dyke. But there they are almost lost to sight. The wayfarer does not see them.

Nevertheless, the Loire has its beauties. Madame de Staël, banished by Napoleon to fifty leagues’ distance from Paris, learned that on the banks of the Loire, exactly fifty leagues from Paris, there was a _château_ called, I believe, Chaumont. It was thither that she repaired, not wishing to aggravate her exile by a quarter of a league. I do not commiserate her. Chaumont is a dignified and lordly dwelling. The _château_ which must date from the Sixteenth Century, is fine in style; the towers are massive. The village at the foot of the wooded hill presents an aspect perhaps unique on the Loire, the precise aspect of a Rhine village--of a long frontage stretching along the edge of the water.

Amboise is a pleasant, pretty town, half a league from Tours, crowned with a magnificent edifice, facing those three precious arches of the ancient bridge, which will disappear one of these days in some scheme of municipal improvement.

The ruin of the Abbey of Marmontiers is both great and beautiful. In particular there is, a few paces from the road, a structure of the Fifteenth Century--the most original I have seen: by its dimensions a house, by its machicoulis a fortress, by its belfry an _hôtel de ville_, by its pointed doorway a church. This structure sums up, and, as it were, renders visible to the eye, the species of hybrid and complex authority which in feudal times appertained to abbeys in general, and, in particular, to the Abbey of Marmontiers.

But the most picturesque and imposing feature of the Loire is an immense calcareous wall, mixed with sandstone, millstone, and potter’s clay, which skirts and banks up its right shore, and stretches itself out before the eye from Blois to Tours, with inexpressible variety and charm, now wild rock, now an English garden, covered with trees and flowers, crowned with ripening vines and smoking chimneys, perforated like a sponge, as full of life as an ant-hill.

Then there are deep caves which long ago hid the coiners who counterfeited the E. of the Tours mint, and flooded the province with spurious _sous_ of Tours. To-day the rude embrasures of these dens are filled with pretty window-frames coquettishly fitted into the rock, and from time to time one perceives through the glass the fantastic head-dress of some young girl occupied in packing aniseed, angelica, and coriander in boxes. The confectioners have replaced the coiners.

THE LOIRE

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

The banks of the Loire, from Blois to Angers, have been high in favour with the two last branches of the royal race that occupied the throne before the House of Bourbon. This beautiful basin so richly deserves the honours paid to it by royalty that this is what one of our most elegant writers has said of it:

“There exists in France a province that has never been sufficiently admired. Perfumed like Italy, flowered like the banks of the Guadalquiver, and beautiful in addition with its individual physiognomy, and entirely French, having always been French, in contrast to our northern provinces, corrupted by German contact, and our southern provinces that have lived in concubinage with the Moors, Spaniards and all races that desired to;--this province pure, chaste, brave and loyal is Touraine! Historic France is there! Auvergne is Auvergne; Languedoc is only Languedoc, but Touraine is France; and for us the most national river of all is the Loire that waters Touraine. Hence, we should not be so astonished at the quantity of monuments found in the Departments that have taken the name and derivatives of the name of the Loire. At every step we take in this land of enchantment, we discover a picture the frame of which is a river or a tranquil oval sheet that reflects in its liquid depths a castle with its turrets, woods and springing waters. It was only natural that where royalty abode by preference and established its court for such a long period the great fortunes and distinctions of race and merit should group themselves and raise palaces there grand as themselves.”

Is it not incomprehensible that Royalty did not follow the advice given by Louis XI. indirectly to make Tours the capital of the kingdom? There, without much expenditure, the Loire could have been made accessible to trading vessels and to ships of war of light draught. There, the seat of government would have been secure from the surprise of an invasion. The northern strongholds would not then have demanded so much money for their fortifications, as costly to themselves as the sumptuousness of Versailles. If Louis XIV. had listened to the advice of Vauban, who wanted to build a residence for him at Mont Louis, between the Loire and the Cher, perhaps the Revolution of 1789 would not have occurred. Still, here and there, those lovely banks bear the marks of the royal affection. The castles of Chambord, Blois, Amboise, Chenonceaux, Chaumont, Plessis-lez-Tours, all those which the mistresses of our kings, and the financiers and great lords built for themselves at Véretz, Azay-le-Rideau, Ussi, Villandri, Valençay, Chanteloup, Duretal (some of which have disappeared but the majority still exist) are admirable monuments that are redolent with the marvels of that epoch that is so ill comprehended by the literary sect of Mediævalists. Among all these castles, that of Blois is the one on which the magnificence of the Orleans and the Valois has set its most brilliant seal; and is the most interesting of all for the historian, the archæologist, and the Roman Catholic.

THE POTOMAC

ESTHER SINGLETON

The Potomac was an important river from the earliest period of the country’s history. Explorers followed its route to the interior of the country, and as early as 1784 The Potomac Company was chartered with Washington as its president for the purpose of connecting the Potomac Valley with the west by means of a canal for general land improvement. This was succeeded by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, whose canal runs parallel with and near to the river all the way from Georgetown to Cumberland.

The first attempt to explore the Chesapeake Bay and its tributary rivers was made in 1608 by Captain John Smith, who speaks of the Patawomeke as six or seven miles broad and navigable for 140 miles. Another Indian name was Cohonguroton (River of Swans). No less than forty tribes of the warlike Algonquins lived upon its banks and held their councils at the point of land now occupied by the Arsenal.

In 1634, Henry Fleet with some of Calvert’s people visited the Falls of the Potomac; and early in the Seventeenth Century several tracts of land on the river banks were granted to settlers. Among these was one Francis Pope, gentleman, who in 1663 had four hundred acres laid out which he called Rome, on the east side of the Anacostian River and to the mouth of the Tiber, for so this little arm of the Potomac was called more than a century before Washington was founded, there being a tradition that on its banks would rise a capital greater than Rome. The Tiber has now disappeared beneath the streets of Washington, but it once flowed below the hill on which the Capitol now stands between forest-lined banks and was noted for its shad and herring.

The Potomac is formed by the junction of two rivers on the boundary between Maryland and West Virginia. The North Branch rises in the Western Alleghanies and the South Branch in the Central; and, flowing north-east, they unite about fifteen miles south-east of Cumberland. The Potomac thus forms an irregular boundary between Maryland and West Virginia and Maryland and Virginia throughout its entire course of four hundred miles. Its chief tributaries are the Shenandoah from Virginia and the Monocacy from Maryland. At Harper’s Ferry the Potomac breaks through the Blue Ridge meeting the Shenandoah--“Daughter of the Stars”--which has cut its way through the mist-wreathed mountains, laved the Luray Caverns and watered a lovely valley. These rivers winding around Loudon Heights, Bolivar Heights and Maryland Heights are picturesque in the highest degree, and the scenery is rendered more interesting by the associations with John Brown’s raid and capture and other thrilling incidents of the Civil War.

Twelve miles below is Point of Rocks and below this the Monocacy joins the main stream.

A number of falls mark its course through the mountains; and about fifteen miles above Washington it descends rapidly until it reaches Great Falls, at which point it breaks through the mountain in a channel narrowing to a hundred yards in width and bounded on the Virginia side by perpendicular rocks seventy feet high. Cedars, oaks, willows and other forest trees contribute beauty to this wild spot, where cherries and strawberries abound, and which is the haunt of the rattlesnake and other venomous reptiles. The water falls in a series of cascades. Not far from this point Cabin-John Bridge is reached, a bridge formed of large blocks of granite 420 feet long and twenty feet wide, which springs the chasm of Cabin-John Creek at a height of 101 feet in a single arch of 220 feet. This is the largest stone arch in the world, the second being the Grosvenor Bridge (with a span of 200 feet), over the Dee.

At a distance of four miles below Great Falls, the stream widens and flows quietly for ten miles; and then descends thirty-seven feet in a second series of cascades known as Little Falls, about three miles above Georgetown. The Potomac, thus released from the hills above Georgetown, expands into a broad lake-like river, and receives the Anacostia at Washington, where it meets the tide. About twenty-five miles below Washington, it becomes an estuary from two to eight miles wide, and enters the Chesapeake Bay, after having made a journey of four hundred miles.