mv IIIMII 'Itit, OF THE l!llll|liillll!I!l!lllll' THE GREATEST WONDERS OF THE WORLD G HHmn REATEST WONDERS of the WORLD AS SEEN AND DESCRIBED BY FAMOUS WRITERS EDITED AND TRANSLATED By ESTHER SINGLETON AUTHOR OF "TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES,"' "GREAT PICTURES," "PARIS," AND "A GUIDE TO THE OPERA," AND TRANS- LATOR OF THE MUSIC DRAMAS OF RICHARD WAGNER WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK THE CHRISTIAN HERALD LOUIS KLOPSCH, Proprietor Nos. 91 to 115 BIBLE HOUSE Copyright, 1900, By Dodd, Mead & Co. Copyright, 1906, By Louis Klopsch '^^/37^'^333 Preface IN my former collections of objects of interest to the tourist, I have confined myself to masterpieces of painting and architecture. The success of those books has encouraged me to carry the idea still further and make a compilation of pleasurable and striking impressions pro- duced upon thoughtful travellers by a contemplation of the wonders of nature. The range is somewhat limited, for I have confined my- self to the description of the grand, the curious and the awe-inspiring in nature, leaving the beauties of landscape for future treatment. Those who miss the Lakes of Kil- larney or the vine-clad hills of the Rhine therefore will re- member that in the following pages I have purposely neglected beautiful scenery. The professional traveller, by which I mean the emissary of a scientific society, appears very seldom here, because it is the effect produced rather than the topographical or de- tailed description that I have sought. I hope this book will appeal to that large class of readers that takes pleasure in travelling by imagination, as well as to those who have actually seen the objects described and pictured here. It is interesting to note the difference between the old and the modern travellers. The day of the Marco Polos vi PREFACE has passed ; the traveller of old seemed to feel himself under an obligation to record marvels and report trifling details, while the modern traveller is more concerned about describing or analyzing the effect produced upon himself. He feels it encumbent upon him to exhibit aesthetic appre- ciation. For this tendency we have to thank Gautier and his humble follower D'Amicis. Thackeray and Dickens write of their journeyings in a holiday spirit ; Kipling is a stimulating combination of the flippant and the devout; Shelley is quite up to date ; and Fromentin and Gautier always speak in terms of the palette. Thus we get an additional pleasure from the varied literary treatment of nature's wonders — apart from their intrinsic interest. Though there is a great deal of information in the fol- lowing pages, I have generally avoided what is simply in- structive ; my aim has been to suit all tastes. For the kind permission to use The Mammoth Cave, Fust San and The Jntarctic, and The Yellowstone, my best thanks are due to Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Messrs. Long- mans, Green and Co., and Mr. Rudyard Kipling. E. S. New York, September^ 190a Contents The Blue Grotto of Capri Alexandre Dumas. Mount Blanc and Chamouni Percy Bysshe Shelley. The Dead Sea Pierre Loti. Mount Vesuvius .... Charles Dickens. The Falls of the Rhine Victor Hugo. In Arctic and Antarctic Seas I. Lord Dufferin. II. W. G. Burn Murdock The Desert of Sahara . . . , EucfeNE Fromentin. Fingal's Cave ...... I. Sir Walter Scott. II. John Keats. In the Himalayas . . . . . G. W. Steevens. Niagara Falls ...... I. Anthony Trollope. II. Charles Dickens. Puji-San Sir Edwin Arnold. 7 15 25 39 46 55 62 71 79 90 viu CONTENTS The Cedars of Lebanon .... Alphonse de Lamartine. The Giant's Causeway .... William Makepeace Thackeray The Great Glacier of the Selkirks Douglas Sladen. Mauna Loa TrollhAtta Lady Brassey Hans Christian Andersen. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado . C. F. Gordon— CuMMiNG. The Rock of Gibraltar . . . . Augustus J. C. Hare. Thingvalla ...... Lord Dufferin. Land's End and Logan Rock John Ayrton Paris. Mount Hekla ...... Sir Richard F. Burton. Victoria Falls David Livingstone. The Dragon-Tree of Orotava Alexander von Humboldt Mount Shasta ..... J. W. Boddam-Wheatham. The Lagoons of Venice John Ruskin. The Cataracts of the Nile Amelia 6. Edwards. In the Alps Th^ophile Gautier. CONTENTS The Vale of Kashmir Andrew Wilson The Lake of Pitch .... Charles Kingsley. The Lachine Rapids .... Douglas Sladen. Lake Rotorua ..... H. R. Haweis. The Big Trees of California c. f. gordon-cumming. Gersoppa Falls ..... W. M. YooL. Etna ...... Alexandre Dumas. Pike's Peak and the Garden of the Gods Iza Duffus Hardy. The Great Geysir of Iceland Sir Richard F. Burton. The Rapids of the Danube . William Beattie. The Mammoth Cave .... Bayard Taylor. Stromboli ...... Alexandre Dumas. The High Woods .... Charles Kingsley. The Yo-sEMiTfe Valley c. f. gordon-cumming. The Golden Horn .... Alphonse de Lamartine. The Yellowstone .... Rudyard Kipling. IX ZIZ 2 20 228 232 248 254 263 268 275 283 295 302 342 352 Illustrations Mer de Glace, Mont Blanc Switzerland . Frontispiece FACING PAOB Blue Grotto Italy 4 Chamouni, Mer de Glace Switzerlattd 12 The Dead Sea Palestine 20 Mount Vesuvius Italy 28 The Falls of the Rhine ....... Germany 40 An Ice Floe Antarctic 52 The Desert of Sahara Africa 60 Fingal's Cave Scotland 64 The Himilavas India 72 Niagara Falls North America .... 80 Niagara Falls in Winter North America .... 88 Fuji-San Japan 92 The Cedars of Lebanon Syria 100 The Giant's Loom, Giant's Causeway . Ireland 104 The Keystone, Giant's Causeway . . . Ireland io8 The Great Glacier of THE Selkirks . Canada 116 Lava Cascade Flow Hawaii 124 TrollhXtta Sweden 132 Canyon of the Colorado North America . . . .136 The Rock of Gibraltar Spain 140 The Rock of Gibraltar Spain 144 Thingvalla Iceland 148 Rocking Stones, Land's End England 156 Falls of THE Zambesi Africa 172 The Dragon-Tree Teneriffe 180 Mount Shasta North America .... 184 The City of the Lagoons Italy 192 XH ILLUSTRATIONS First Cataract of the Nile Africa 200 Mont Blanc Switzerland 208 Aiguille Du Dru, Alps Switzerland 210 The Vale OF Kashmir India 216 The Lachine Rapids Canada 228 Lake Rotorua New Zealand 232 The Big Trees of California North America .... 240 Gersoppa Falls India 248 Etna Sicily ,'256 The Garden of the Gods America 264 The Iron Gates of the Danube .... Turkey 280 The High Woods South America .... 304 The Yo-SEMiTt Valley] North America .... 328 The Golden Horn Turkey 344 Costing Springs, Yellowstone North America . . , . 352 WONDERS OF THE WORLD THE BLUE GROTTO OF CAPRI (ITALY) ALEXANDRE DUMAS WE were surrounded by five and twenty boatmen, each of whom exerted himself to get our cus- tom : these were the ciceroni of the Blue Grotto. I chose one and Jadin another, for you must have a boat and a boatman to get there, the opening being so low and so nar- row that one cannot enter unless in a very small boat. The sea was calm, nevertheless, even in this beautiful weather it broke with such force against the belt of rocks surrounding the island that our barks bounded as if in a tempest, and we were obliged to lie down and cling to the sides to avoid being thrown into the sea. At last, after three-quarters of an hour of navigation, during which we skirted about one-sixth of the island's circumference, our boatmen informed us of our arrival. We looked about us, but we could not perceive the slightest suspicion of a grotto until we made out with difficulty a little black, circular point above the foaming waves : this was the orifice of the vault. I 1 THE BLUE GROTTO OF CAPRI The first sight of this entrance was not reassuring: you could not understand how it was possible to clear it without breaking your head against the rocks. As the question seemed important enough for discussion, I put it to my boatman, who replied that we were perfectly right in re- maining seated now, but presently we must lie down to avoid the danger. We had not come so far as this to flinch. It was my turn first; my boatman advanced, rowing with precaution and indicating that, accustomed as he was to the work, he could not regard it as exempt from danger. As for me, from the position that I occupied, I could see noth- ing but the sky ; soon I felt myself rising upon a wave, the boat slid down it rapidly, and I saw nothing but a rock that seemed for a second to weigh upon my breast. Then, sud- denly, I found myself in a grotto so marvellous that I gave a cry of astonishment, and I jumped up so quickly to look about me that I nearly capsized the boat. In reality, before me, around me, above me, under me, and behind me were marvels of which no description can give an idea, and before which, the brush itself, the grand preserver of human memories, is powerless. You must imagine an immense cavern entirely of azure, just as if God had amused himself by making a pavilion with fragments of the firmament ; water so limpid, so transparent, and so pure that you seemed floating upon dense air; from the ceiling stalactites hanging like inverted pyramids; in the background a golden sand mingled with submarine vegeta- tion ; along the walls which were bathed by the water there were trees of coral with irregular and dazzling branches; at THE BLUE GROTTO OF CAPRI 3 the sea-entrance, a tiny point — a star — let in the half-light that illumines this fairy palace ; finally, at the opposite end, a kind of stage arranged like the throne of a splendid god- dess who has chosen one of the wonders of the world for her baths. At this moment the entire grotto assumed a deeper hue, darkening as the earth does when a cloud passes across the sun at brightest noontide. It was caused by Jadin, who entered in his turn and whose boat closed the mouth of the cavern. Soon he was thrown near me by the force of the wave that had lifted him up ; the grotto recovered its beauti- ful shade of azure ; and his boat stopped tremblingly near mine, for this sea, so agitated and obstreperous outside, breathes here as serenely and gently as a lake. In all probability the Blue Grotto was unknown to the ancients. No poet speaks of it, and certainly, with their marvellous imagination, the Greeks would not have neg- lected making of it the palace of some sea-goddess with a musical name and leaving some story to us. Suetonius, who describes for us with so much detail the Thermes and baths of Tiberius, would certainly have devoted a few words to this natural pool which the old emperor would doubtless have chosen as the theatre for some of his mon- strous pleasures. No, the ocean must have been much higher at that epoch than it is at present, and this marvel- lous sea-cave was known only to Amphitrite and her court of Sirens, Naiads, and Tritons. But sometimes Amphitrite is angered with the indiscreet travellers who follow her into this retreat, just as Diana 4 THE BLUE GROTTO OF CAPRI was when surprised by Actason. At such times the sea rises suddenly and closes the entrance so effectually that those who have entered cannot leave. In this case, they must wait until the wind, which has veered from east to west, changes to south or north ; and it has even happened that visitors, who have come to spend twenty minutes in the Blue Grotto, have had to remain two, three, and, even four, days. Therefore, the boatmen always carry with them a certain portion of a kind of biscuit to nourish the prison- ers in the event of such an accident. With regard to water, enough filters through two or three places in the grotto to prevent any fear of thirst. I bestowed a few reproaches upon my boatman for having waited so long to apprise me of so disquieting a fact ; but he replied with a charming naivete : " Dame ! excellence ! If we told this to the visitors at first, only half would -come, and that would make the boat- men angry." I admit that after this accidental information, I was seized with a certain uneasiness, on account of which I found the Blue Grotto infinitely less delightful than it had appeared to me at first. Unfortunately, my boatman had told me these details just at the moment when I was undressing to bathe in this water, which is so beautiful and transparent that to attract the fisherman it would not need the song of Goethe's poetical Undine. We were unwilling to waste any time in preparations, and, wishing to enjoy ourselves as much as possible, we both dived. It is only when you are five or six feet below the surface THE BLUE GROTTO OF CAPRI 5 of the water that you can appreciate its incredible purity. Notwithstanding the liquid that envelops the diver, no de- tail escapes him ; he sees everything, — the tiniest shell at the base of the smallest stalactite of the arch, just as clearly as if through the air; only each object assumes a deeper hue. At the end of a quarter of an hour, we clambered back into our boats and dressed ourselves without having appar- ently attracted one of the invisible nymphs of this watery palace, who would not have hesitated, if the contrary had been the case, to have kept us here twenty-four hours at least. The fact was humiliating ; but neither of us pre- tended to be a Telemachus, and so we took our departure. We again crouched in the bottom of our respective canoes, and we went out of the Blue Grotto with the same precau- tions and the same good luck with which we had entered it : only it was six minutes before we could open our eyes ; the ardent glare of the sun blinded us. We had not gone more than a hundred feet away from the spot we had visited before it seemed to have melted into a dream. We landed again at the port of Capri. While we were settling our account with our boatmen, Pietro pointed out a man lying down in the sunshine with his face in the sand. This was the fisherman who nine or ten years ago discov- ered the Blue Grotto while looking fox frutti di mare along the rocks. He went immediately to the authorities of the island to make his discovery known, and asked the privi- lege of being the only one allowed to conduct visitors to the new world he had found, and to have revenue from 6 THE BLUE GROTTO OF CAPRI those visitors. The authorities, who saw in this discovery a means of attracting strangers to their island, agreed to the second proposition, and since that time this new Christopher Columbus has lived upon his income and does not trouble to conduct the visitors himself; this explains why he can sleep as we see him. He is the most envied individual in the island. As we had seen all that Capri offered us in the way of wonders, we stepped into our launch and regained the Speronare^ which, profiting by several pufFs of the land breeze, set sail and gently glided off in the direction of Palermo. Le Speronare : Impressions de Voyage (PariS;. ^836). MONT BLANC AND CHAMOUNI i SWITZERLAND') PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY FROM Servoz three leagues remain to Chamouni — Mont Blanc was before us — the Alps, with their innumerable glaciers on high all around, closing in the complicated windings of the single vale — forests inexpress- ibly beautiful, but majestic in their beauty — intermingled beech and pine, and oak, overshadowed our road, or re- ceded, whilst lawns of such verdure as I have never seen before occupied these openings, and gradually became darker in their recesses. Mont Blanc was before us, but it was covered with cloud ; its base furrowed with dreadful gaps, was seen above. Pinnacles of snow intolerably bright, part of the chain connected with Mont Blanc, shone through the clouds at intervals on high. I never knew — I never imagined what mountains were before. The im- mensity of these aerial summits excited, when they sud- denly burst upon the sight, a sentiment of extatic wonder, not unallied to madness. And remember this was all one scene, it all pressed home to our regard and our imagina- tion. Though it embraced a vast extent of space, the snowy pyramids which shot into the bright blue sky seemed to overhang our path ; the ravine, clothed with gigantic pines, and black with its depth below, so deep that the very g MONT BLANC AND CHAMOUNI roaring of the untameable Arve, which rolled through it could not be heard above — all was as much our own, as if we had been the creators of such impressions in the minds of others as now occupied our own. Nature was the poet, whose harmony held our spirits more breathless than that of the divinest. As we entered the valley of Chamouni (which in fact may be considered as a continuation of those which we have followed from Bonneville and Cluses) clouds hung upon the mountains at the distance perhaps of 6,000 feet from the earth, but so as effectually to conceal not only Mont Blanc, but the other aiguilles^ as they call them here, attached and subordinate to them. We were travelling along the valley, when suddenly we heard a sound as of the burst of smothered thunder rolling above ; yet there was something earthly in the sound, that told us it could not be thunder. Our guide hastily pointed out to us a part of the mountain opposite, from whence the sound came. It was an avalanche. We saw the smoke of its path among the rocks, and continued to hear at intervals the bursting of its fall. It fell on the bed of a torrent, which it displaced, and presently we saw its tawny-coloured wa- ters also spread themselves over the ravine, which was their couch. We did not, as we intended, visit the Glacier de Boisson to-day, although it descends within a few minutes' walk of the road, wishing to survey it at least when unfatigued. We saw this glacier which comes close to the fertile plain, as we passed, its surface was broken into a thousand unac- MONT BLANC AND CHAMOUNI 9 countable figures : conical and pyramidical crystallizations, more than fifty feet in height, rise from its surface, and precipices of ice, of dazzling splendour, overhang the woods and meadows of the vale. This glacier winds up- wards from the valley, until it joins the masses of frost from which it was produced above, winding through its own ravine like a bright belt flung over the black region of pines. There is more in all these scenes than mere mag- nitude of proportion : there is a majesty of outline ; there is an awful grace in the very colours which invest these wonderful shapes — a charm which is peculiar to them, quite distinct even from the reality of their unutterable greatness. Yesterday morning we went to the source of the Arveiron. It is about a league from this village ; the river rolls forth impetuously from an arch of ice, and spreads itself in many streams over a vast space of the val- ley, ravaged and laid bare by its inundations. The glacier by which its waters are nourished, overhangs this cavern and the plain, and the forests of pine which surround it, with terrible precipices of solid ice. On the other side rises the immense glacier of Montanvert, fifty miles in ex- tent, occupying a chasm among mountains of inconceivable height, and of 'forms so pointed and abrupt, that they seem to pierce the sky. From this glacier we saw as we sat on a rock, close to one of the streams of the Arveiron, masses of ice detach themselves from on high, and rush with a loud dull noise into the vale. The violence of their fall turned them into powder, which flowed over the rocks in imita- tion of waterfalls, whose ravines they usurped and filled. 10 MONT BLANC AND CHAMOUNI In the evening I went with Ducree, my guide, the only tolerable person I have seen in this country, to visit the glacier of Boisson. This glacier, like that of Montanvert, comes close to the vale, overhanging the green meadows and the dark woods with the dazzling whiteness of its prec- ipices and pinnacles, which are like spires of radiant crystal covered with a network of frosted silver. These glaciers flow perpetually into the valley, ravaging in their slow but irresistible progress the pastures and the forests which sur- round them, performing a work of desolation in ages, which a river of lava might accomplish in an hour, but far more irretrievably ; for where the ice has once descended, the hardiest plant refuses to grow ; if even, as in some ex- traordinary instances, it should recede after its progress has once commenced. The glaciers perpetually move onward, at the pate of a foot each day, with a motion that com- mences at the spot where, on the boundaries of perpetual congelation, they are produced by the freezing of the waters which arise from the partial melting of the eternal snows. They drag with them from the regions whence they derive their origin, all the ruins of the mountain, enormous rocks, and immense accumulations of sand and stones. These are driven onwards by the irresistible stream of solid ice ; and when they arrive at a declivity of the mountain, sufficiently rapid, roll down, scattering ruin. I saw one of these rocks which had descended in the spring (winter here is the sea- son of silence and safety) which measured forty feet in every direction. The verge of a glacier, like that of Boisson, presents the MONT BLANC AND CHAMOUNI II most vivid image of desolation that it is possible to con- ceive. No one dares to approach it ; for the enormous pinnacles of ice which perpetually fall, are perpetually re- produced. The pines of the forest, vi^hich bound it at one extremity, are overthrow^n and shattered to a wide extent at its base. There is something inexpressibly dreadful in the aspect of the few branchless trunks, which, nearest to the ice rifts, still stand in the uprooted soil. The meadows perish, overwhelmed with sand and stones. Within this last year, these glaciers have advanced three hundred feet into the valley. Saussure, the naturalist, says, that they have their periods of increase and decay : the people of the country hold an opinion entirely different ; but as I judge, more probable. It is agreed by all, that the snow on the summit of Mont Blanc and the neighbouring mountains perpetually augments, and that ice, in the form of glaciers, subsists without melting in the valley of Chamouni during its transient and variable summer. If the snow which pro- duces this glacier must augment, and the heat of the valley is no obstacle to the perpetual existence of such masses of ice as have already descended into it, the consequence is obvious ; the glaciers must augment and will subsist, at least until they have overflowed this vale. I will not pursue Buffon's sublime but gloomy theory — that this globe which we inhabit will at some future period be changed into a mass of frost by the encroachment of the polar ice, and of that produced on the most elevated points of the earth. Do you, who assert the supremacy of Ahri- man, imagine him throned among these desolating snows, 12 MONT BLANC AND CHAMOUNI among these palaces of death and frost, so sculptured in this their terrible magnificence by the adamantine hand of necessity, and that he casts around him, as the first essays of his final usurpation, avalanches, torrents, rocks, and thunders, and above all these deadly glaciers, at once the proof and symbols of his reign ; — add to this, the degrada- tion of the human species — vi^ho in these regions are half- deformed or idiotic, and most of whom are deprived of any- thing that can excite interest or admiration. This is a part of the subject more mournful and less sublime ; but such as neither the poet nor the philosopher should disdain to regard. This morning we departed on the promise of a fine day, to visit the glacier of Montanvert. In that part where it fills a slanting valley, it is called the Sea of Ice. This val- ley is 950 toises, or 7,600 feet above the level of the sea. We had not proceeded far before the rain began to fall, but we persisted until we had accomplished more than half of our journey, when we returned, wet through. Chamouni, July 25th. We have returned from visiting the glacier of Montan- vert, or as it is called, the Sea of Ice, a scene in truth of dizzying wonder. The path that winds to it along the side of a mountain, now clothed with pines, now intersected with snowy hollows, is wide and steep. The cabin of Montanvert is three leagues from Chamouni, half of which distance is performed on mules, not so sure footed, but that on the first day the one I rode fell in what the guides call a MONT BLANC AND CHAMOUNI 1 3 mauvais pas^ so that I narrowly escaped being precipitated down the mountain. We passed over a hollow covered with snow, down which vast stones are accustomed to roll. One had fallen the preceding day, a little time after we had returned : our guides desired us to pass quickly, for it is said that sometimes the least sound will accelerate their descent. We arrived at Montanvert, however, safe. On all sides precipitous mountains, the abodes of unre- lenting frost, surround this vale : their sides are banked up with ice and snow, broken, heaped high, and exhibiting ter- rific chasms. The summits are sharp and naked pinnacles, whose overhanging steepness will not even permit snow to rest upon them. Lines of dazzling ice occupy here and there their perpendicular rifts, and shine through the driving vapours with inexpressible brilliance : they pierce the clouds like things not belonging to this earth. The vale itself is filled with a mass of undulating ice, and has an ascent suf- ficiently gradual even to the remotest abysses of these hor- rible deserts. It is only half a league (about two miles) in breadth, and seems much less. It exhibits an appearance as if frost had suddenly bound up the waves and whirlpools of a mighty torrent. We walked some distance upon its sur- face. The waves are elevated about twelve or fifteen feet from the surface of the mass, which is intersected by long gaps of unfathomable depth, the ice of whose sides is more beautifully azure than the sky. In these regions every- thing changes, and is in motion. This vast mass of ice has one general progress, which ceases neither day nor night; it breaks and bursts forever : some undulations sink while 14 MONT BLANC AND CHAMOUNI Others rise , it is never the same. The echo of rocks, or of the ice and snow which fall from their overhanging precipices, or roll from their aerial summits, scarcely ceases for one moment. One would think that Mont Blanc, like the god of the Stoics, was a vast animal, and that the frozen blood forever circulated through his stony veins. Prose works (London, 1880). THE DEAD SEA {PALESTINE) PIERRE LOTI A SOUND of church bells follows us for a long time in the lonely country as we ride away on horse- back in the early morning towards Jericho, towards the Jordan and the Dead Sea. The Holy City speedily disap- pears from our eyes, hidden behind the Mount of Olives. There are fields of green barley here and there, but principally regions of stones and asphodels. Nowhere are there any trees. Red anemones and violet irises enamel the greyness of the rough country, all rock and desert. By a series of gorges, valleys, and precipices we follow a gradually de- scending route. Jerusalem is at an altitude of eight hundred metres and this Dead Sea to which we are going is four hundred metres below the level of other seas. If it were not for this way for vehicles upon which our horses walk so easily, one would be tempted to call it every now and then Idumaea, or Arabia. This road to Jericho is, moreover, full of people to-day : Bedouins upon camels ; Arabian shepherds driving hundreds of black goats ; bands of Cook's tourists on horseback, or in mule-chairs ; Russian pilgrims, who are returning on foot from the Jordan, piously carrying gourds filled with water from the sacred river j numerous troops of Greek 1 6 THE DEAD SEA pilgrims from the island of Cyprus, upon asses ; incon- gruous caravans and strange groups which we overtake or meet. It is soon midday. The high mountains of the country of Moab which lie beyond the Dead Sea, and which we have seen ever since we reached Hebron like a diaphanous wall in the east seem to be as distant as ever, although for three hours we have been advancing towards them, — ap- parently fleeing before us like the visions of a mirage. But they have grown misty and gloomy ; all that was trailing in the sky like light veils in the morning has gathered and condensed upon their peaks, while a purer and more mag- nificent blue now extends above our heads. Half-way from Jericho, we make the great halt in a caravansary, where there are Bedouins, Syrians, and Greeks ; then we again mount our horses beneath a burning sun. Every now and then, in the yawning gulfs far below us the torrent of the Cedron is visible like a thread of foaming silver; its course here is not troubled as beneath the walls of Jerusalem, and it rushes along rapidly towards the Dead Sea, half-hidden in the deepest hollows of the abysses. The mountain slopes continue to run down towards this strange and unique region, situated below the level of the sea, where sleep the waters which produce death. It seems that one is made conscious of something abnormal in this continuous descent by some unknown sense of oddity and even giddiness suggested by these slopes. Growing more and more grand and rugged, the country now pre- sents almost the appearance of a true desert. But the THE DEAD SEA 1 7 impression of immeasurable solitude is not experienced here. And then there is always that road traced by human hands and these continual meetings with horsemen and various passengers. The air is already dryer and warmer than at Jerusalem, and the light becomes more and more magnifying, — as is always the case when one approaches places devoid of vegetation. The mountains are ever more and more denuded and more cracked by the dryness, opening everywhere with crevasses like great abysses. The heat increases in pro- portion as we descend to the shore of the Dead Sea which in summer is one of the hottest places in the world. A mournful sun darts its rays around us upon the rocks, masses of stone, and pale limestone where the lizards run about by the thousand ; whilst over beyond us, serving as a background for everything, stands ever the chain of Moab, like a Dantesque wall. And to-day storm-clouds darken and deform it, hiding its peaks, or carrying them up too high into the sky and forming other imaginary peaks, thus producing the terror of chaos. In a certain deep valley, through which our way lies for a moment, shut in without any view between vertical walls, some hundreds of camels are at pasture, hanging like great fantastic goats to the flanks of the mountains, — the highest perched one of all the troop silhouetted against the sky. Then we issue from this defile and the mountains of Moab reappear, higher then ever now and more obscured by clouds. Upon this sombre background the near pro- ig THE DEAD SEA spective of this desolate country stands out very clearly ; the summits are whitish and all around us blocks, absolutely white, are delineated by the broiling sun with an extreme hardness of outline. Towards three o'clock, from the elevated regions where we still are, we see before us the country that is lower than the sea, and, as if our eyes had preserved the remembrance of ordinary levels, this really seems not an ordinary plain, but something too low and a great depression of the earth, the bottom of a vast gulf into which the road is about to fall. This sunken region has the features of the desert, with gleaming grey wastes like fields of lava, or beds of salt ; in its midst an unexpectedly green patch, which is the oasis of Jericho, — and towards the south, a motionless expanse with the polish of a mirror and the sad hue of slate, which be- gins and loses itself in the distance with a limitless horizon : the Dead Sea, enwrapped in darkness to-day by all the clouds of the distance, by all that is heavy and opaque yonder weighing upon the border of Moab. The few little white houses of Jericho are gradually out- lined in the green of the oasis in proportion as we descend from our stony summits, inundated with the sun. One would hardly call it a village. It seems that there is not the least vestige of the three large and celebrated cities that formerly successively occupied this site and that in different ages were called Jericho. These utter destructions and annihilations of the cities of Canaan and Idumaea seem to be for the confounding of human reason. Truly a very THE DEAD SEA 1 9 powerful breath of malediction and death must have passed over it all. When we are finally down in the plain, an insufferable heat surprises us ; one would say that we had traversed an immense distance southward, — and yet, in reality, we have only descended a few hundred metres towards the bowels of the earth : it is to their depressed level that the environs of the Dead Sea owe their exceptional climate. Jericho is composed to-day of a little Turkish citadel, three or four new houses built for pilgrims and tourists, half a hundred Arab habitations of mud with roofing of thorny branches and a few Bedouin tents. Round about them are gardens in which grow an occasional palm ; a wood of green shrubs traversed by clear brooks ; some paths overrun by grass, where horsemen in burnous caracole upon their horses with long manes and tails. And that is all. Immediately beyond the wood the uninhabitable desert be- gins ; and the Dead Sea lies there very near, spreading its mysterious winding-sheet above the engulfed kingdoms of Sodom and Gomorrah. This Sea has a very individual as- pect, and this evening it is very funereal; it truly gives the impression of death, with its heavy, leaden, and motionless waters between the deserts of its two shores where great confused mountains mingle with the storm-clouds hanging in the sky. Sunday, April 8th. From Jericho, where we passed the night, the Dead Sea seems very near ; one would think in a few minutes it would 20 THE DEAD SEA be easy to reach its tranquil sheet, — which this morning is of a blue barely tinted with slate, under a sky rid of all of yesterday's clouds. Yet, to reach it, almost two hours on horseback are still required, under a heavy sun, across the little desert which, minus the immensity, resembles the large one in which we have just spent so many days ; towards this Sea, which seems to flee in proportion as we approach, we descend by means of a series of exhausted strata and des- olate plateaux, all glittering with sand and salt. Here we find a few of the odoriferous plants of Arabia Petrasa, and even the semblance of a mirage, the uncertainty as to dis- tances and the continual tremulousness of the horizon. We also find here a band of Bedouins resembling very closely our friends of the desert in their shirts with long pointed sleeves floating like wings, and their little brown veils tied to the forehead with black cords, the two ends of which stand up on the temples like the ears of an animal. Moreover, these shores of the Dead Sea, espe- cially on the southern side, are frequented by pillagers al- most as much as Idumaea. We know that geologists trace the existence of the Dead Sea back to the first ages of the world ; they do not contest, however, that at the period of the destruction of the ac- cursed cities it must have suddenly overflowed, after some new eruption, to cover the site of the Moabite pentapolis. And it was at that time that was engulfed all this " Vale of Siddim," where were assembled, against Chedorlaomer, the kings of Sodom, of Gomorrah, of Admah, of Zeboiim, and of Zoar (Genesis xiv. 2, 3) j all that " plain of Siddim" which THE DEAD SEA 21 " was well watered everywhere," like a garden of delight {^Genesis xiii. lo). Since these remote times, this Sea has receded a little, without, however, its form being sensibly changed. And, beneath the shroud of its heavy waters, unfathomable to the diver by their very density, sleep strange ruins, debris^ which, without doubt, will never be explored ; Sodom and Gomorrah are there, buried in their dark depths. At present, the Dead Sea, terminated at the north by the sands we cross, extends to a length of about eighty kilo- metres, between two ranges of parallel mountains : to the east, those of Moab, eternally oozing bitumen, which stand this morning in their sombre violet ; to the west, those of Judea, of another nature, entirely of whitish limestone, at this moment dazzling with sunlight. On both shores the desolation is equally absolute ; the same silence hovers over the same appearances of death. These are indeed the im- mutable and somewhat terrifying aspects of the desert, — and one can understand the very intense impression pro- duced upon travellers who do not know the Arabia Magna; but, for us, there is here only a too greatly diminished image of the mournful phantasmagoria of that region. Be- sides, one does not lose altogether the view of the citadel of Jericho; from our horses we may still perceive it be- hind us, like a vague little white point, but still a protector. In the extreme distance of the desert sands, under the trembling network of mirage, appears also an ancient for- tress, which is a monastery for Greek hermits. And, finally, another white blot, just perceptible above us, in a 22 THE DEAD SEA recess of the mountains of Judah, stands that mausoleum which passes for the tomb of Moses — for which a great Mohammedan pilgrimage is soon about to start. However, upon the sinister strand where we arrive, death reveals itself, truly sovereign and imposing. First, like a line of defence which it is necessary to surmount, comes a belt of drift-wood, branches and trees stripped of all bark, almost petrified in the chemical bath, and whitened like bones, — one would call them an accumulation of great vertebrae. Then there are some rounded pebbles as on the shore of every sea; but not a single shell, not a piece of seaweed, not even a little greenish slime, nothing organic, not even of the lower order; and nowhere else has this ever been seen, a sea whose bed is as sterile as a crucible of alchemy ; this is something abnormal and disconcerting. Some dead fish lie here and there, hardened like wood, mummified in the naptha and the salts : fish of the Jor- dan which the current brought here and which the accursed waters suffocated instantly. And before us, this sea flees, between its banks of des- ert mountains, to the troubled horizon with an appearance of never ending. Its whitish, oily waters bear blots of bitumen, spread in large iridescent rings. Moreover, they burn, if you drink them, like a corrosive liquor ; if you enter them up to your knees you have difficulty in walking, they are so heavy ; you cannot dive in them nor even swim in the ordinary position, but you can float upon the surface like a cork buoy. Once the Emperor Titus, as an experiment, had several THE DEAD SEA 23 slaves bound together with iron chains and cast in, and they did not drown. On the eastern shore, in the little sandy desert where we have just been marching for two hours, a line of a beauti- ful emerald serpentines ; a few flocks and a few Arabian shepherds that are half bandits pass in the far distance. Towards the middle of the day we reenter Jericho, whence we shall not depart until to-morrow morning, and there remain the tranquil hours of the evening for us to go over the still oasis. When we are seated before the porch of the little inn of Jericho in the warm twilight, we see a wildly galloping horse, bringing a monk in a black robe with long hair floating in the wind. He is one of the hermits of the Mount of the Forty Days, who is trying to be the first to arrive and offer us some little objects in the wood of Jeri- cho and shell rosaries from the Jordan. — At nightfall others come, dressed in the same black robe, and with the same thin hair around their bandit's countenance, and enter the inn to entice us with little carvings and similar chaplets. The night is sultry here, and a little heavy, quite differ- ent to the cold nights of Jerusalem, and just as the stars begin to shine a concert of frogs begins simultaneously from every side, under the dark entanglement of the balms of Gilead, — so continuous and, moreover, so discreet is it, that it seems but another expression of the tranquil silence. You hear also the barking of the sheep-dogs, below, on the side of the Arabian encampments ; then, very far away, the drum and the little Bedouin flute furnish the rhythm 24 THE DEAD SEA for some wild fete ; — and, at intervals, but very distinctly, comes the lugubrious falsetto of a hyena or jackal. Now, here is the unexpected refrain of the coffee-houses of Berlin, which suddenly bursts forth, in ironical disso- nance, in the midst of these light and immutable sounds of ancient evenings in Judea : the German tourists who have been here since sunset, encamped under the tents of agen- cies ; a band of " Cook's tourists " come to see and pro- fane, as far as they can, this little desert. It is after midnight, when everything is hushed and the silence belongs to the nightingales which fill the oasis with an exquisite and clear music of crystal. 'Jerusalem (Paris, 1895). MOUNT VESUVIUS i ITALY) CHARLES DICKENS A NOBLE mountain pass, with the ruins of a fort on a strong eminence, traditionally called the Fort of Fra Diavolo ; the old town of Itri, like a device in pastry, built up, almost perpendicularly, on a hill, and approached by long steep flights of steps ; beautiful Mola di Gaeta, whose wines, like those of Albano, have degenerated since the days of Horace, or his taste for wine was bad : which is not likely of one who enjoyed it so much, and extolled it so well ; another night upon the road at St. Agatha ; a rest next day at Capua, which is picturesque, but hardly so se- ductive to a traveller now as the soldiers of Prstorian Rome were wont to find the ancient city of that name ; a flat road among vines festooned and looped from tree to tree ; and Mount Vesuvius close at hand at last ! — its cone and summit whitened with snow ; and its smoke hanging over it, in the heavy atmosphere of the day, like a dense cloud. So we go, rattling down-hill, into Naples. Capri — once made odious by the deified beast Tiberius — Ischia, Procida, and the thousand distant beauties of the Bay, lie in the blue sea yonder, changing in the mist and sunshine twenty times a day : now close at hand, now far off, now unseen. The fairest country in the world is 26 MOUNT VESUVIUS spread about us. Whether we turn towards the Miseno shore of the splendid watery amphitheatre, and go by the Grotto of Posilipo to the Grotto del Cane, and away to Baiae : or take the other way, towards Vesuvius and Sor- rento, it is one succession of delights. In the last-named direction, where, over doors and archways, there are count- less little images of San Gennaro, with his Canute's hand stretched out to check the fury of the Burning Mountain, we are carried pleasantly, by a railroad on the beautiful Sea Beach, past the town of Torre del Greco, built upon the ashes of the former town, destroyed by an eruption of Vesu- vius, within a hundred years, and past the flat-roofed houses, granaries, and macaroni manufactories ; to Castel-a-Mare, with its ruined castle, now inhabited by fishermen, standing in the sea upon a heap of rocks. Here, the railroad termi- nates ; but, hence we may ride on, by an unbroken succes- sion of enchanting bays, and beautiful scenery, sloping from the highest summit of St. Angelo, the highest neigh- bouring mountain, down to the water's edge — among vine- yards, olive-trees, gardens of oranges and lemons, orchards, heaped-up rocks, green gorges in the hills — and by the bases of snow-covered heights, and through small towns with handsome, dark-haired women at the doors — and pass de- licious summer villas — to Sorrento, where the poet Tasso drew his inspiration from the beauty surrounding him. Returning, we may climb the heights above Castel-a-Mare, and, looking down among the boughs and leaves, see the crisp water glistening in the sun, and clusters of white houses in distant Naples, dwindling, in the great extent of MOUNT VESUVIUS 27 prospect, down to dice. The coming back to the city, by the beach again, at sunset : with the glowing sea on one side, and the darkening mountain, with its smoke and flame, upon the other, is a sublime conclusion to the glory of the day. Stand at the bottom of the great market-place of Pompeii, and look up the silent streets, through the ruined temples of Jupiter and Isis, over the broken houses with their in- most sanctuaries open to the day, away to Mount Vesuvius, bright and snowy in the peaceful distance ; and lose all count of time, and heed of other things, in the strange and melancholy sensation of seeing the Destroyed and the De- stroyer making this quiet picture in the sun. Then, ram- ble on, and see, at every turn, the little familiar tokens of human habitation and every-day pursuits ; the chafing of the bucket rope in the stone rim of the exhausted well ; the track of carriage wheels in the pavement of the street ; the marks of drinking vessels on the stone counter of the wine- shop ; the amphorae in private cellars, stored away so many hundred years ago, and undisturbed to this hour — all ren- dering the solitude and deadly lonesomeness of the place ten thousand times more solemn, than if the volcano, in its fury, had swept the city from the earth, and sunk it in the bottom of the sea. After it was shaken by the earthquake which preceded the eruption, workmen were employed in shaping out, in stone, new ornaments for temples and other buildings that had suffered. Here lies their work, outside the city gate, as if they would return to-morrow. 28 MOUNT VESUVIUS In the cellar of Diomede's house, where certain skeletons were found huddled together, close to the door, the impres- sion of their bodies on the ashes hardened with the ashes, and became stamped and fixed there, after they had shrunk, inside, to scanty bones. So, in the theatre of Herculaneum, a comic mask, floating on the stream when it was hot and liquid, stamped its mimic features in it as it hardened into stone, and now it turns upon the stranger the fantastic look it turned upon the audiences in that same theatre two thou- sand years ago. Next to the wonder of going up and down the streets, and in and out of the houses, and traversing the secret chambers of the temples of a religion that has vanished from the earth, and finding so many fresh traces of remote antiquity : as if the course of Time had been stopped after this desolation, and there had been no nights and days, months, years, and centuries since : nothing is more im- pressive and terrible than the many evidences of the search- ing nature of the ashes as bespeaking their irresistible power, and the impossibility of escaping them. In the wine-cellars, they forced their way into the earthen vessels : displacing the wine, and choking them, to the brim, with dust. In the tombs, they forced the ashes of the dead from the funeral urns, and rained new ruin even into them. The mouths, and eyes, and skulls of all the skeletons were stuffed with this terrible hail. In Herculaneum, where the flood was of a different and a heavier kind, it rolled in, like a sea. Imagine a deluge of water turned to marble, at its height — and that is what is called " the lava " here. MOUNT VESUVIUS 29 ?ome workmen were digging the gloomy well on the brink of which we now stand, looking down, when they came on some of the stone benches of the theatre — those steps (for such they seem) at the bottom of the excavation — and found the buried city of Herculaneum. Presently going down, with lighted torches, we are perplexed by great walls of monstrous thickness, rising up between the benches, shutting out the stage, obtruding their shapeless forms in absurd places, confusing the whole plan, and making it a disordered dream. Wc cannot, at first, believe, or picture to ourselves, that this came rolling in, and drowned the city ; and that all that is not here has been cut away, by the axe, like solid stone. But this perceived and under- stood, the horror and oppression of its presence are inde- scribable. Many of the paintings on the walls in the roofless cham- bers of both cities, or carefully removed to the museum at Naples, are as fresh and plain as if they had been executed yesterday. Here are subjects of still life, as provisions, dead game, bottles, glasses, and the like ; familiar classical stories, or mythological fables, always forcibly and plainly told ; conceits of cupids, quarrelling, sporting, working at trades ; theatrical rehearsals ; poets reading their produc- tions to their friends ; inscriptions chalked upon the walls ; political squibs, advertisements, rough drawings by school- boys; everything to people and restore the ancient cities in the fancy of their wondering visitor. Furniture, too, you see, of every kind — lamps, tables, couches ; vessels for eating, drinking, and cooking; workmen's tools, surgical 30 MOUNT VESUVIUS instruments, tickets for the theatre, pieces of money, personal ornaments, bunches of keys found clinched in the grasp of skeletons, helmets of guards and warriors ; little household bells, yet musical with their old domestic tones. The least among these objects, lends its aid to swell the interests of Vesuvius, and invest it with a perfect fascina- tion. The looking, from either ruined city, into the neighbouring grounds overgrown with beautiful vines and luxuriant trees ; and remembering that house upon house, temple on temple, building after building, and street after street, are still lying underneath the roots of all the quiet cultivation, waiting to be turned up to the light of day ; is something so wonderful, so full of mystery, so captivating to the imagination, that one would think it would be para- mount, and yield to nothing else. To nothing but Ve- suvius; but the mountain is the genius of the scene. From every indication of the ruin it has worked, we look, again, with an absorbing interest to where its smoke is rising up into the sky. It is beyond us, as we thread the ruined streets : above us, as we stand upon the ruined walls ; we follow it through every vista of broken columns, as we wander through the empty court-yards of the houses ; and through the garlandings and interlacings of every wanton vine. Turning away to Paestum yonder, to see the awful structures built, the least aged of them hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, and standing yet, erect in lonely majesty, upon the wild malaria-blighted plain — we wafch Vesuvius as it disappears from vhe prospect, and MOUNT VESUVIUS 3 1 watch for it again, on our return, with the same thrill of interest : as the doom and destiny of all this beautiful country, biding its terrible time. It is very warm in the sun, on this early spring day, when we return from Paestum, but very cold in the shade : insomuch, that although we may lunch pleasantly, at noon, in the open air, by the gate of Pompeii, the neighbouring rivulet supplies thick ice for our wine. But, the sun is shining brightly ; there is not a cloud or speck of vapour in the whole blue sky, looking down upon the Bay of Naples j and the moon will be at the full to-night. No matter that the snow and ice lie thick upon the summit of Vesuvius, or that we have been on foot all day at Pompeii, or that croakers maintain that strangers should not be on the mountain by night, in such an unusual season. Let us take advantage of the fine weather ; make the best of our way to Resina, the little village at the foot of the moun- tain; prepare ourselves, as well as we can on so short a notice, at the guide's house ; ascend at once, and have sun- set half-way up, moonlight at the top, and midnight to come down in ! At four o'clock in the afternoon there is a terrible uproar in the little stable-yard of Signore Salvatore, the recognized head-guide, with the gold band around his cap ; and thirty under-guides, who are all scuffling and screaming at once, are preparing half-a-dozen saddled ponies, three litters, and some stout staves for the journey. Every one of the thirty quarrels with the other twenty-nine, and frightens the six ponies ; and as much of the village as can possibly squeeze 32 MOUNT VESUVIUS itself into the little stable-yard participates in the tumult, and gets trodden on by the cattle. After much violent skirmishing, and more noise than would suffice for the storming of Naples, the procession starts. The head-guide, who is liberally paid for all the attendants, rides a little in advance of the party ; the other thirty guides proceed on foot. Eight go forward with the litters that are to be used by and by ; and the remaining two-and-twenty beg. We ascend, gradually, by stony lanes like rough broad flights of stairs, for some time. At length, we leave these, and the vineyards on either side of them, and emerge upon a bleak, bare region, where the lava lies confusedly in enor- mous rusty masses : as if the earth had been plowed up by burning thunder-bolts. And now we halt to see the sun set. The change that falls upon the dreary region, and on the whole mountain, as its red light fades, and the night comes on — and the unutterable solemnity and dreariness that reign around, who that has witnessed it can ever forget ! It is dark when, after winding for some time over the broken ground, we arrive at the foot of the cone : which is extremely steep, and seems to rise, almost perpendicularly, from the spot where we dismount. The only light is re- flected from the snow, deep, hard, and white, with which the cone is covered. It is now intensely cold, and the air is piercing. The thirty-one have brought no torches, knowing that the moon will rise before we reach the top. Two of the litters are devoted to the two ladies ; the third, to a rather heavy gentleman from Naples, whose hospitality MOUNT VESUVIUS 33 and good nature have attached him to the expedition, and determined him to assist in doing the honours of the moun- tain. The rather heavy gentleman is carried by fifteen men ; each of the ladies by half-a-dozen. We who walk make the best use of our staves ; and so the whole party begin to labour upward over the snow — as if they were toiling to the summit of an antediluvian Twelfth-cake. We are a long time toiling up ; and the head-guide looks oddly about him when one of the company — not an Italian, though an habitue of the mountain for many years : whom we will call, for our present purpose, Mr. Pickle of Portici — suggests that, as it is freezing hard, and the usual footing of ashes is covered by the snow and ice, it will surely be difficult to descend. But the sight of the litters above, tilting up and down, and jerking from this side to that, as the bearers continually slip and tumble, diverts our atten- tion ; more especially as the whole length of the rather heavy gentleman is, at that moment, presented to us alarm- ingly foreshortened, with his head downward. The rising of the moon soon afterward, revives the flag- ging spirits of the bearers. Stimulating each other with their usual watchword, " Courage, friend ! It is to eat macaroni ! " they press on, gallantly, for the summit. P>om tingeing the top of the snow above us with a band of light, and pouring it in a stream through the valley be- low, while we have been ascending in the dark, the moon soon lights the whole white mountain-side, and the broad sea down below, and tiny Naples in the distance, and every vill^e in the country round. The whole prospect is in 34 MOUNT VESUVIUS this lovely state, when we come upon the platform on the mountain-top — the region of Fire — an exhausted crater formed of great masses of gigantic cinders, like blocks of stone from some tremendous waterfall, burned up; from every chink and crevice of which hot, sulphurous smoke is pouring out : while, from another conical-shaped hill, the present crater, rising abruptly from this platform at the end, great sheets of fire are streaming forth : reddening the night with flame, blackening it with smoke, and spotting it with red-hot stones and cinders, that fly up into the air like feathers, and fall down like lead. What words can paint the gloom and grandeur of this scene ! The broken ground ; the smoke ; the sense of suffocation from the sulphur; the fear of falling down through the crevices in the yawning ground ; the stopping, every now and then, for somebody who is missing in the dark (for the dense smoke now obscures the moon) ; the intolerable noise of the thirty ; and the hoarse roaring of the mountain ; make it a scene of such confusion, at the same time, that we reel again. But, dragging the ladies through it, and across another exhausted crater to the foot of the present Volcano, we approach close to it on the windy side, and then sit down among the hot ashes at its foot, and look up in silence; faintly estimating the action that is going on within, from its being full a hundred feet higher, at this minute, than it was six weeks ^o. There is something in the fire and roar that generates an irresistible desire to get nearer to it. We cannot rest long, without starting off, two of us, on our hands and knees. MOUNT VESUVIUS 35 accompanied by the head-guide, to climb to the brim of the flaming crater, and try to looic in. Meanwhile, the thirty yell, as with one voice, that it is a dangerous proceeding, and call to us to come back; frightening the rest of the party out of their wits. What with their noise, and what with the trembling of the thin crust of ground, that seems about to open under- neath our feet, and plunge us into the burning gulf below (which is the real danger, if there be any) ; and what with the flashing of the fire in our faces, and the shower of red- hot ashes that is raining down, and the choking smoke and sulphur ; we may well feel giddy and irrational, like drunken men. But, we contrive to climb up to the brim, and look down, for a moment, into the Hell of boiling fire below. Then, we all three come rolling down ; blackened, and singed, and scorched, and hot, and giddy : and each with his dress alight in half-a-dozen places. You have read, a thousand times, that the usual way of descending is by sliding down the ashes : which, forming a gradually increasing ledge below the feet, prevent too rapid a descent. But, when we have crossed the two exhausted craters on our way back, and are come to this precipitous place, there is (as Mr. Pickle has foretold) no vestige of ashes to be seen ; the whole being a smooth sheet of ice. In this dilemma, ten or a dozen of the guides cautiously join hands, and make a chain of men ; of whom the fore- most beat, as well as they can, a rough track with their sticks, down which we prepare to follow. The way being fearfully g^eep, and none of the party : even of the thirty ; ^6 MOUNT VESUVIUS being able to keep their feet for six paces together, tlie ladies are taken out of their litters, and placed, each be- tween two careful persons ; while others of the thirty hold by their skirts, to prevent their falling forward — a necessary precaution, tending to the immediate and hopeless dilapida- tion of their apparel. The rather heavy gentleman is ad- jured to leave his litter too, and be escorted in a similar manner; but he resolves to be brought down as he was brought up, on the principle that his fifteen bearers are not likely to tumble all at once, and that he is safer so than trusting to his own legs. In this order, we begin the descent : sometimes on foot, sometimes shuffling on the ice : always proceeding much more quietly and slowly than on our upward way : and constantly alarmed by the falling among us of somebody from behind, who endangers the footing of the whole party, and clings pertinaciously to anybody's ankles. It is im- possible for the litter to be in advance, too, as the track has to be made ; and its appearance behind us, overhead — with some one or other of the bearers always down, and the rather heavy gentleman with his legs in the air — is very threatening and frightful. We have gone on thus; a very little way, painfully and anxiously, but quite merrily, and regarding it as a great success — and have all fallen several times, and have all been stopped, somehow or other, as we were sliding away — when Mr. Pickle, of Portici, in the act of remarking on these uncommon circumstances as quite beyond his experience, stumbles, falls, disengages himself with quick presence of mind, from those about him, plunges MOUNT VESUVIUS 37 away head foremost, and rolls, over and over, down the whole surface of the cone ! Sickening as it is to look, and be so powerless to help him, I see him there, in the moonlight — I have had such a dream often — skimming over the white ice like a cannon- ball. Almost at the same moment, there is a cry from be- hind ; and a man who has carried a light basket of spare cloaks on his head, comes rolling past at the same frightful speed, closely followed by a boy. At this climax of the chapter of accidents, the remaining eight-and-twenty vocif- erate to that degree, that a pack of wolves would be music to them ! Giddy and bloody, and a mere bundle of rags, is Pickle of Portici when we reach the place where we dismounted, and where the horses are waiting ; but, thank God, sound in limb ! And never are we likely to be more glad to see a man alive, and on his feet, than to see him now — making light of it too, though sorely bruised and in great pain. The boy is brought into the Hermitage on the Mountain, while we are at supper, with his head tied up ; and the man is heard of some hours afterwards. He, too, is bruised and stunned, but has broken no bones ; the snow having, for- tunately, covered all the larger blocks of rock and stone, and rendered them harmless. After a cheerful meal, and a good rest before a blazing fire, we again take horse, and continue our descent to Salvatore's house — very slowly, by reason of our bruised friend being hardly able to keep the saddle, or endure the pain of motion. Though it is so late at night, or early •jg MOUNT VESUVIUS in the morning, all the people of the village are waiting about the little stable-yard when we arrive, and looking up the road by which we are expected. Our appearance is hailed with a great clamour of tongues, and a general sensa- tion, for which, in our modesty, we are somewhat at a loss to account, until turning into the yard, we find that one of a party of French gentlemen, who were on the mountain at the same time, is lying on some straw in the stable with a broken limb ; looking like Death and suffering great tor- ture ; and that we were confidently supposed to have en- countered some worse accident. So " well returned and Heaven be praised ! " as the cheerful Vetturino, who has borne us company all the way from Pisa says with all his heart ! And away with his ready horses into sleeping Naples ! It wakes again to Policinelli and pickpockets, buffo singers and beggars, rags, puppets, flowers, brightness, dirt, and universal degradation ; airing its Harlequin suit in the sunshine, next day and every day ; singing, starving, danc- ing, gaming on the seashore ; and leaving all labour to the burning mountain, which is ever at its work. Pictures from Italy (London, 1845). THE FALLS OF THE RHINE (.GERMANY) VICTOR HUGO MY friend, what shall I say to you ? I have just come from seeing that strange thing. I am only a few steps from it. I hear the noise of it. I am writing to you without knowing what falls from my thoughts. Ideas and images accumulate there pell-mell, hastening, jostling and bruising each other, and disappearing in vapour, in foam, in uproar, and in clouds. Within me there is an immense ebullition. It seems to me that I have the Falls of the Rhine in my brain. I write at random, just as it comes. You must under- stand if you can. You arrive at Laufen. It is a castle of the Thirteenth Century, a very beautiful pile and of a very good style. At the door there are two gilded wy verns with open mouths. They are roaring. You would say that they are making the mysterious noise you hear. You enter. You are in the courtyard of a castle. It is no longer a castle, it is a farm. Hens, geese, turkeys, dirtj a cart in a corner ; and a vat of lime. A door opens. The cascade appears. Marvellous spectacle ! Frightful tumult ! That is the first effect. Then you 40 THE FALLS OF THE RHINE look about you. The cataract cuts out the gulfs which it fills with large white sheets. As in a conflagration, there are some little peaceful spots in the midst of this object of terror; groves blended with foam; charming brooks in the mosses ; fountains for the Arcadian Shepherds of Poussin, shadowed by little boughs gently agitated. — And then these details vanish, and the impression of the whole returns to you. Eternal tempest ! Snow, vital and furious. The water is of a strange transparency. Some black rocks pro- duce sinister aspects under the water. They appear to touch the surface and are ten feet down. Below the two principal leaps of the falls two great sheaves of foam spread themselves upon the river and disperse in green clouds. On the other side of the Rhine, I perceive a tranquil group of little houses, where the housekeepers come and go. As I am observing, my guide tells me : " Lake Con- stance froze in the winter of 1829 and 1830. It had not frozen for a hundred and four years. People crossed it in carriages. Poor people were frozen to death in SchafF- hausen." I descended a little lower towards the abyss. The sky was grey and veiled. The cascade roared like a tiger. Frightful noise, terrible rapidity ! Dust of water, smoke and rain at the same time. Through this mist you see the cataract in its full development. Five large rocks cut it into five sheets of water of diverse aspects and different sizes. You believe you see the five worn piers of a bridge of Titans. In the winter the ice forms blue arches upon these black abutments. THE FALLS OF THE RHINE 4I The nearest of these rocks is of a strange form ; it seems as if the water issued full of rage from the hideous and im- passive head of an Hindu idol with an elephant's head. Some trees and brambles, which intermingle at its summit, give it bristling and horrible hair. At the most awe-inspiring point of the Falls, a great rock disappears and reappears under the foam like the skull of an engulfed giant, beaten for six thousand years by this dreadful shower-bath. The guide continues his monologue: "The Falls of the Rhine are one league from SchafFhausen. The whole mass of the river falls there at a height of seventy feet." — The rugged path which descends from the castle of Laufen to the abyss crosses a garden. At the moment when I passed, deafened by the formidable cataract, a child, accustomed to living with this marvel of the world, was playing among the flowers. This path has several barriers, where you pay a trifle from time to time. The poor cataract should not work for nothing. See the trouble it gives ! It is very necessary that with all the foam that it throws upon the trees, the rocks, the river, and the clouds, that it should throw a few sous into the pocket of some one. That is the least it can do. I came along this path until I reached a kind of balcony skilfully poised in reality right over the abyss. There, everything moves you at once. You are dazzled, made dizzy, confused, terrified, and charmed. You lean on a wooden rail that trembles. Some yellow trees, — it is 42 THE FALLS OF THE RHINE autumn, — and some red quick-trees surround a little pa- vilion in the style of the Cafe Turc, from which one ob- serves the horror of the thing. The women cover them- selves with an oil-skin (each one costs a franc). You are suddenly enveloped in a terrible, thundering and heavy shower. Some pretty little yellow snails crawl voluptuously over this dew on the rail of the balcony. The rock that slopes beyond the balcony weeps drop by drop into the cascade. Upon this rock, which is in the centre of the cataract, a troubadour-knight of painted wood stands leaning upon a red shield with a white cross. Some man certainly risked his life to plant this doubtful ornament in the midst of Jehovah's grand and eternal poetry. The two giants, who lift up their heads, I should say the two largest rocks, seem to speak. The thunder is their voice. Above an alarming mound of foam you see a peace- ful little house with its little orchard. You would say that this terrible hydra is condemned to carry eternally upon his back that sweet and happy cabin. I went to the extremity of the balcony ; I leaned against the rock. The sight became still more terrible. It was a frightful descent of water. The hideous and splendid abyss angrily throws a shower of pearls in the face of those who dare to regard it so near. That is admirable. The four great heaps of the cataract fall, mount, and fall again without ceasing. You would believe that you were be- holding the four lightning-wheels of the storm-chariot. The wooden bridge was laid under water. The boards THE FALLS OF THE RHINE 43 A^ere slippery. Some dead leaves quivered under my feet. In a cleft of the rock, I noticed a little tuft of dried grass. Dry under the cataract of SchafFhausen ! in this deluge, it missed every drop of water ! There are some hearts that may be likened to this tuft of grass. In the midst of a vortex of human prosperity, they wither of themselves. Alas ! this drop of water which they have missed and which springs not forth from the earth but falls from heaven, is Love ! How long did I remain there, absorbed in that grand spectacle ? I could not possibly tell you. During that contemplation the hours passed in my spirit like the waves in the abyss, without leaving a trace or memory. However, some one came to inform me that the day was declining. I climbed up to the castle and from there I de- scended to the sandy shore whence you cross the Rhine to gain the right bank. This shore is below the Falls, and you cross the river at a few fathoms from the cataract. To accomplish this, you risk yourself in a little boat, charming, light, exquisite, adjusted like the canoe of a savage, constructed of wood as supple as the skin of a shark, solid, elastic, fibrous, grazing the rocks every insta-nt and hardly escaping — being managed like all the small boats of the Rhine and the Meuse with a hook and an oar in the form of a shovel. Nothing is stranger than to feel in this little boat the deep and thunderous shocks of the water. As the bark moved away from the bank, I looked above my head at the battlements covered with tiles and the sharp gable ends of the chateau that dominates the precipice. 44 THE FALLS OF THE RHINE Some fishermen's nets were drying up on the stones on the bank of the river. Do they fish in this vortex ? Yes, without doubt. As the fish cannot leap over the cataract, many salmon are caught here. Moreover, where is the whirlpool in which man will not fish ? Now I will recapitulate my intense and almost poignant sensations. First impression : you do not know what to say, you are crushed as by all great poems. Then the whole unravels itself. The beauties disengage themselves from the cloud. Altogether it is grand, sombre, terrible, hideous, magnificent, unutterable. On the other side of the Rhine, the Falls are made to turn mill-wheels. Upon one bank, the castle ; upon the other, the village, which is called Neuhausen. It is a remarkable thing that each of the great Alpine rivers, on leaving the mountains, has the colour of the sea to which it flows. The Rhone, escaping from the Lake of Geneva, is blue like the Mediterranean ; the Rhine, issuing from Lake Constance, is green like the ocean. Unfortunately the sky was overcast. I cannot, there- fore, say that I saw the Falls of Laufen in all their splen- dour. Nothing is richer nor more marvellous than that shower of pearls of which I have already told you. This should be, however, even more wonderful when the sun changes these pearls to diamonds and when the rainbow plunges its emerald neck into the foam like a divine bird that comes to drink in the abyss. From the other side of the Rhine, whence I am now THE FALLS OF THE RHINE 45 writing, the cataract appears in its entirety, divided into five very distinct parts, each of which has its physiognomy quite apart from the others, and forming a kind of cres- cendo. The first is an overflowing from a mill; the sec- ond, almost symmetrically composed by the work of the wave and time, is a fountain of Versailles ; the third, a cas- cade ; the fourth, an avalanche ; and the fifth, chaos. A last word and I will close this letter. Several paces from the Falls, you explore a calcareous rock, which is very beautiful. In the midst of one of the quarries that are there a galley-slave, in stripes of grey and black, with pick- axe in his hand and a double chain on his feet, looked at the cataract. Chance seems to delight itself sometimes in placing in antitheses, sometimes sad and sometimes terrible, the work of nature and the work of society. Le Rhin (Paris, 1846). IN ARCTIC SEAS LORD DUFFERIN EVER since leaving England, as each four-and-twenty hours we climbed up nearer to the pole, the belt of dusk dividing day from day had been growing narrower and narrower, until having nearly reached the Arctic circle, this, — the last night we were to traverse, — had dwindled to a thread of shadow. Only another half-dozen leagues more, and we would stand on the threshold of a four months' day ! For the few preceding hours, clouds had completely covered the heavens, except where a clear in- terval of sky, that lay along the northern horizon, prom- ised a glowing stage for the sun's last obsequies. But like the heroes of old he had veiled his face to die, and it was not until he dropped down to the sea that the whole hemis- phere overflowed with glory and the gilded pageant con- certed for his funeral gathered in slow procession round his grave ; reminding one of those tardy honours paid to some great prince of song, who — left during life to languish in a garret — is buried by nobles in Westminster Abbey. A few minutes more the last fiery segment had disappeared beneath the purple horizon, and all was over. " The king is dead — the king is dead — the king is dead ! Long live the king ! " And up from the sea that had just IN ARCTIC SEAS 47 entombed his sire, rose the young monarch of a new day ; while the courtier clouds, in their ruby robes, turned faces still aglow with the favours of their dead lord, to borrow brighter blazonry from the smile of a new master, A fairer or a stranger spectacle than the last Arctic sun- set cannot be well conceived. Evening and morning — like kinsmen whose hearts some baseless feud has kept asunder — clasping hands across the shadow of the vanished night. You must forgive me if sometimes I become a little mag- niloquent ; for really, amid the grandeur of that fresh pri- maeval world, it was almost impossible to prevent one's im- agination from absorbing a dash of the local colouring. We seemed to have suddenly waked up among the colossal scenery of Keats's Hyperion. The pulses of young Titans beat within our veins. Time itself, — no longer frittered down into paltry divisions, — had assumed a more majestic aspect. We had the appetite of giants, — was it unnatural we should also adopt " the large utterance of the early gods " .? About 3 A. M. it cleared up a little. By breakfast- time the sun reappeared, and we could see five or six miles ahead of the vessel. It was shortly after this, that as I was standing in the main rigging peering out over the smooth blue surface of the sea, a white twinkling point of light suddenly caught my eye about a couple of miles off on the port bow, which a telescope soon resolved into a solitary isle of ice, dancing and dipping in the sunlight. As you may suppose, the news brought everybody upon deck; and 48 IN ARCTIC SEAS when almost immediately afterwards a string of other pieces — glittering like a diamond necklace — hove in sight, the excitement was extreme. Here, at all events, was honest blue salt water frozen solid, and when — as we proceeded — the scattered fragments thickened, and passed like silver argosies on either hand, until at last we found ourselves enveloped in an innumerable fleet of bergs, — it seemed as if we could never be weary of admiring a sight so strange and beautiful. It was rather in form and colour than in size that these ice islets were re- markable; anything approaching to a real iceberg we neither saw, nor are we likely to see. In fact, the lofty ice mountains that wander like vagrant islands along the coast of America, seldom or never come to the eastward or northward of Cape Farewell. They consist of land ice, and are all generated among the bays and straits within Baffin's Bay, and first enter the Atlantic a good deal to the southward of Iceland ; whereas the Polar ice, among which we have been knocking about, is field ice, and — except when packed one ledge above another, by great pressure- — is comparatively flat. I do not think I saw any pieces that were piled up higher than thirty or thirty-five feet above the sea-level, although at a little distance through the mist they may have loomed much loftier. In quaintness of form, and in brilliancy of colours, these wonderful masses surpassed everything I had imagined ; and we found endless amusement in watching their fantastic procession. At one time it was a knight on horseback, clad in sap- IN ARCTIC SEAS 49 phire mail, a white plume above his casque. Or a cathe- dral window with shafts of chrysophras, new powdered by a snowstorm. Or a smooth sheer cliff of lapis lazuli ; or a Banyan tree, with roots descending from its branches, and a foliage as delicate as the efflorescence of molten metal ; or a fairy dragon, that breasted the water in scales of emerald ; or anything else that your fancy chose to con- jure up. After a little time, the mist again descended on the scene, and dulled each glittering form to a shapeless mass of white ; while in spite of all our endeavours to keep upon our northerly course, we were constantly compelled to turn and wind about in every direction — sometimes standing on for several hours at a stretch to the southward and eastward. But why should I weary you with the detail of our vari- ous manoeuvres during the ensuing days ? they were too tedious and disheartening at the time for me to look back at them with any pleasure. Suffice it to say, that by dint of sailing north whenever the ice would permit us, and sailing west when we could not sail north, — we found our- selves on the 2d of August, in the latitude of the southern extremity of Spitzbergen, though divided from the land by about fifty miles of ice. All this while the weather had been pretty good, foggy and cold enough, but with a fine stiff breeze that rattled us along at a good rate whenever we did get a chance of making any Northing. But lately it had come on to blow very hard, the cold became quite piercing, and what was worse — in every direction round the whole circuit of the horizon, except along its southern seg- 50 IN ARCTIC SEAS ment, — a blaze of iceblink illuminated the sky. A more discouraging spectacle could not have met our eyes. The iceblink is a luminous appearance, reflected on the heavens from the fields of ice that still lie sunk beneath the horizon ; it was therefore on this occasion an unmistakable indication of the encumbered state of the sea in front of us. I had turned in for a few hours of rest, and release .from the monotonous sense of disappointment, and was already lost in a dream of deep bewildering bays of ice, and gulfs whose shifting shores offered to the eye every possible com- bination of uncomfortable scenery, without possible issue^ — when " a voice in my dreaming ear " shouted " Land ! " and I awoke to its reality. I need not tell you in what double quick time I tumbled up the companion, — or with what greediness I feasted my eyes on that longed-for view, — the only sight — as I then thought — we were ever distincd to enjoy of the mountains of Spitzbergen ! The whole heaven was overcast with a dark mantle of tempestuous clouds, that stretched down in umbrella-like points towards the horizon, leaving a clear space between their edge and the sea, illuminated by the sinister brilliancy of the iceblink. In an easterly direction, this belt of un- clouded atmosphere was etherealized to an indescribable transparency, and up into it there gradually grew — above the dingy line of starboard ice — a forest of thin lilac peaks, so faint, so pale, that had it not been for the gem-like dis- tinctness of their outline, one could have deemed them as unsubstantial as the spires of fairyland. The beautiful vision proved only too transient j in one short half hour mist and IN ARCTIC SEAS 5 1 cloud had blotted it all out, while a fresh barrier of ice compelled us to turn our backs on the very land we were striving to reach. It was one o'clock in the morning of the 6th of August, 1856, that after having been eleven days at sea, we came to an anchor in the silent haven of English Bay, Spitzbergen. And now, how shall I give you an idea of the wonderful panorama in the midst of which we found ourselves ? I think, perhaps, its most striking feature was the stillness — and deadness — and impossibility of this new world ; ice, and rock, and water surrounded us ; not a sound of any kind interrupted the silence ; the sea did not break upon the shore ; no bird or any living thing was visible ; the mid- night sun — by this time muffled in a transparent mist — shed an awful, mysterious lustre on glacier and mountain ; no atom of vegetation gave token of the earth's vitality ; an universal numbness and dumbness seemed to pervade the solitude. I suppose in scarcely any other part of the world is this appearance of deadness so strikingly exhibited. On the stillest summer day in England, there is always perceptible an undertone of life thrilling through the atmos- phere ; and though no breeze should stir a single leaf, yet — in default of motion — there is always a sense of growth ; but here not so much as a blade of grass was to be seen, on the sides of the bald, excoriated hills. Primeval rocks — and eternal ice — constitute the landscape. Letters from High Latitudes (London, 1859). IN ANTARCTIC SEAS W. G. BURN MURDOCH DAYS such as this are few in a lifetime, so full of interest has it been, and so fatiguing. Since early morning, rather since yesterday, for there was no night and no morning, we have been constantly marvelling at most astonishing and beautiful spectacles. We have been bathed in red blood, and for hours and hours we have rowed in the boats and plunged over miles of soft snow dragging seal- skins, and I have been drawing hard in the times between the boat excursions ; but the air is exhilarating, and we feel equal to almost any amount of work. Sun and snow- showers alternate — fine hard snow it is, that makes our faces burn as if before a fire. It is very cold sketching, and incidents and effects follow each other so rapidly that there is time to make little more than mental notes. Christmas Eve. Those who have felt the peace of a summer night in Norway or Iceland, where the day sleeps with wide-open eyes, can fancy the quiet beauty of such a night among the white floes of the Antarctic. To-day has passed, glistering in silky white, decked with sparkling jewels of blue and green, and we thought surely we had seen the last of Nature's white harmonies ; IN ANTARCTIC SEAS 53 then evening came, pensive and soothing and grey, and all the white world changed into soft violet, pale yellow, and rose. A dreamy stillness fills the air. To the south the sun has dipped behind a bank of pale grey cloud, and the sky above is touched with primrose light. Far to the north the dark, smooth sea is bounded by two low bergs, that stretch across the horizon. The nearest is cold violet white, and the sunlight strikes the furthest, making it shine like a wall of gold. The sky above them is of a leaden peacock blue, with rosy cloudlets hanging against it — such colouring as I have never before seen or heard described. To the west- ward, across the gulf, we can just distinguish the blue-black crags jutting from the snowy lomonds. Little clouds, touched with gold and rose lie nestling in the black corries, and gather round the snowy peaks. To the south, in the centre of the floe, some bergs lie, cold and grey in the shadow of the bank of cloud. They look like Greek temples imprisoned forever in a field of snow. A faint cold air comes stealing to us over the floe ; it ripples the yellow sky reflection at the ice-edge for a moment, and falls away. In the distance a seal is barking — a low muffled sound that travels far over the calm water, and occasionally a slight splash breaks the silence, as a piece of snow separates from the field and joins its companion pieces that are floating quietly past our stern to the north, — a mysterious, silent procession of soft, white spirits, each perfectly reflected in the lavender sea. Nature sleeps — breathlessly — silent ; perhaps she dreams 54 IN ANTARCTIC SEAS of the spirit-world, that seems to draw so close to her on such a night. By midnight the tired crew were all below and sound asleep in their stuffy bunks. But the doctor and I found it impossible to leave the quiet decks and the mysterious daylight, so we prowled about and brewed coffee in the de- serted galley. Then we watched the sun pass behind the grey bergs in the south for a few seconds, and appear again, refreshed, with a cool silvery light. A few flakes of snow floated in the clear, cold air, and two snowy petrels, white as the snow itself, flitted along the ice-edge. A cold, dreamy, white Christmas morning, — beautiful beyond expression. From Edinburgh to the Antarctic — Jn Artist's Notes and Sketches during the Dundee Antarctic Expedition of i8g2-j (London, 1894). THE DESERT OF SAHARA (.AFRICA) EUGENE FROMENTIN THE Saharans adore their country,* and, for my part, I should come very near justifying a sentiment so im- passioned, especially when it is mingled with the attach- ment to one's native soil. . . . It is a land without grace or softness, but it is severe, which is not an evil though its first effect is to make one serious — an effect that many people confound with weariness. A great land of hills expiring in a still greater flat land bathed in eternal light ; empty and desolate enough, to give the idea of that surprising thing called the desert ; with a sky almost always • The word Sahara does not necessarily convey the idea of a desert im- mensity. Inhabited at certain points, it is called Fiafi ; habitable at cer- tain others, it takes the name of Kifar, a word whose signification is the same as that of the common word Khela, abandoned ; habitable and in- habited at yet other points, it is called Falat. These three words represent each of the characteristics of the Sahara. Fiafi is the oasis where life retires, about the fountains and wells, under the palms and fruit trees, sheltered from the sun and chmib (simoon). Kifar is the sandy and void plain, which, however, when fertilized for a moment by the winter rains, is covered with grass (a' cheb') in the spring; and the nomadic tribes that ordinarily camp around the oases go thither to pasture their flocks. Falat, finally, is the sterile and bare immensity, the sea of sand, whose eternal billows, to-day agitated by the choub, to-morrow will lie in motion- less heaps ; — the sea that is slowly ploughed by those fleets called caravans. — General Daumas, Le Sahara Algirien, 56 THE DESERT OF SAHARA the same, silence, and on all sides a tranquil horizon. In the centre a kind of lost city, surrounded by solitude ; then a little verdure, sandy islets, and, lastly, a few reefs of whitish calcareous stone or black schists on the margin of an expanse that resembles the sea; — in all this, but little variety, few accidents, few novelties, unless it be the sun that rises over the desert and sinks behind the hills, ever calm, rayless but devouring ; or perhaps the banks of sand that have changed their place and form under the last wind from the South. Brief dawns, longer noons that are heav- ier than elsewhere, and scarcely any twilight ; sometimes a sudden expansion of light and warmth with burning winds that momentarily give the landscape a menacing physiog- nomy and that may then produce crushing sensations ; but more usually a radiant immobility, the somewhat mournful fixity of fine weather, in short, a kind of impassibility that seems to have fallen from the sky upon lifeless things and from them to have passed into human faces. The first impression received from this ardent and inani- mate picture, composed of sun, expanse, and solitude, is acute and cannot be compared with any other. However, little by little, the eye grows accustomed to the grandeur of the lines, the emptiness of the space, and the nakedness of the earth, and if one is still astonished at anything, it is at still remaining sensible to such slightly changing effects and at being so deeply stirred by what are in reality the most simple sights. Here the sky is clear, arid, and unchanging ; it comes in contact with fawn-coloured or white ground, and maintains THE DESERT OF SAHARA 57 a frank blue in its utmost extent ; and when it puts on gold opposite the setting sun its base is violet and almost leaden-hued. I have not seen any beautiful mirages. Ex- cept during the sirocco, the horizon is always distinctly visible and detached from the sky ; there is only a final streak of ash-blue which is vigorously defined in the morn- ing, but in the middle of the day is somewhat confounded with the sky and seems to tremble in the fluidity of the at- mosphere. Directly to the South, a great way ofF towards M'zab, an irregular line formed by groves of tamarinds is visible. A faint mirage, that is produced every day in this part of the desert, makes these groves appear nearer and larger ; but the illusion is not very striking and one needs to be told in order to notice it. Shortly after sunrise the whole country is rosy, a vivid rose, with depths of peach colour ; the town is spotted with points of shadow, and some little white argils, scat- tered along the edge of the palms, gleam gaily enough in this mournful landscape which for a short moment of fresh- ness seems to smile at the rising sun. In the air are vague sounds and a suggestion of singing that makes us under- stand that every country in the world has its joyous awak- ening. Then, almost at the same moment every day, from the south we hear the approach of innumerable twitterings of birds. They are the gangas coming from the desert to drink at the springs. . . . It is then half-past six. One hour later and the same cries suddenly arise in the north } the same Hacks pass over my head one by one, in 5? THE DESERT OF SAHARA the same numbers and order, and regain their desert plains. One might say that the morning is ended ; and the sole smiling hour of the day has passed between the going and returning of the gangas. The landscape that was rose has already become dun ; the town has far fewer little shad- ows ; it greys as the sun gets higher ; in proportion as it shines brighter the desert seems to darken ; th? hills alone remain rosy. If there was any wind it dies away ; warm exhalations begin to spread in the air as if they were from the sands. Two hours later all movement ceases at once, and noontide commences. The sun mounts and is finally directly over my head. I have only the narrow shelter of my parasol and there I gather myself together; my feet rest in the sand or on glittering stones ; my pad curls up beside me under the sun ; my box of colours crackles like burning wood. Not a sound is heard now. There are four hours of incredible calm and stupor. The town sleeps below me then dumb and looking like a mass of violet with its empty terraces upon which the sun illumines a multitude of screens full of little rose apricots, exposed there to dry ; — here and there a black hole marks a window, or an interior door, and fine lines of dark violet show that there are only one or two strips of shadow in the whole town. A fillet of stronger light that edges the contour of the terraces helps us to distinguish these mud edifices from one another, piled as they are rather than built upon their three hills. On all sides of the town extends the oasis, also dumb and slumbrous under the heavy heat of the day. It looks THE DESERT OF SAHARA 59 quite small and presses close against the two flanks of the town with an air of wanting to defend it at need rather than to entice it. I can see the whole of it : it resembles two squares of leaves enveloped by a long wall like a park, roughly drawn upon the sterile plain. Although divided by compartments into a multitude of little orchards, also all enclosed within walls, seen from this height it looks like a green tablecloth ; no tree is distinguishable, two stages of forest only can be remarked : the first, round-headed clumps ; the second, clusters of palms. At intervals some meagre patches of barley, only the stubble of which now remains, form shorn spaces of brilliant yellow amid the foliage ; elsewhere in rare glades a dry, powdery, and ash- coloured ground shows. Finally, on the south side, a few mounds of sand, heaped by the wind, have passed over the surrounding wall ; it is the desert trying to invade the gar- dens. The trees do not move ; in the forest thickets we divine certain sombre gaps in which birds may be supposed to be hidden, sleeping until their second awakening in the evening. This is also the hour when the desert is transformed into an obscure plain. The sun, suspended over its centre, in- scribes upon it a circle of light the equal rays of which fall full upon it in all ways and everywhere at the same time. There is no longer any clearness or shadow ; the perspec- tive indicated by the fleeting colours almost ceases to meas- ure distances ; everything is covered with a brown tone, continuous without streaks or mixture ; there are fifteen or twenty leagues of country as uniform and flat as a floontig. 6o THE DESERT OF SAHARA It seems that the most minute salient object should be visi- ble upon it^ and yet the eye discerns nothing there ; one could not even say now where there is sand, earth, or stony places, and the immobility of this solid sea then becomes more striking than ever. On seeing it start at our feet and then stretch away and sink towards the South, the East, and the West without any traced route or inflexion, we ask our- selves what may be this silent land clothed in a doubtful tone that seems the colour of the void ; whence no one comes, whither no one goes, and which ends in so straight and clear a strip against the sky; — we do not know; we feel that it does not end there and that it is, so to speak, only the entrance to the high sea. Then add to all these reveries the fame of the names we have seen upon the map, of places that we know to be there, in such or such direction, at five, ten, twenty, fifty days' march, some known, others only indicated and yet others more and more obscure. . . . Then the negro country, the edge of which we only know; two or three names of towns with a capital for a kingdom ; lakes, forests, a great sea on the left, perhaps great rivers, extraordinary inclemen- cies under the equator, strange products, monstrous animals, hairy sheep, elephants, and what then ? Nothing more distinct; unknown distances, an uncertainty, an enigma. Before me I have the beginning of this enigma and the spectacle is strange beneath this clear noonday sun. Here is where I should like to see the Egyptian Sphinx. It is vain to gaze around, far or near; no moving thing can be distinguished. Sometimes by chance, a little convoy < <: E < O h u Q H THE DESERT OF SAHARA 6 1 of laden camels appears, like a row of blackish points, slowly mounting the sandy slopes ; we only perceive them when they reach the foot of the hills. They are travellers ; who are they ? whence come they ? Without our perceiving them, they have crossed the whole horizon beneath our eyes. Or perhaps it is a spout of sand which suddenly de- taches itself from the surface like a fine smoke, rises into a spiral, traverses a certain space bending under the wind and then evaporates after a few seconds. The day passes slowly ; it ends as it began with half red- nesses, an amber sky, depths assuming colour, long oblique flames which will empurple the mountains, the sands and the eastern rocks in their turn ; shadows take possession of that side of the land that has been fatigued by the heat during the first half of the day ; everything seems to be somewhat com- forted. The sparrows and turtle-doves begin to sing among the palms ; there is a movement as of resurrection in the town ; people show themselves on the terraces and come to shake the sieves ; the voices of animals are heard in the squares, horses neighing as they are taken to water and camels bel- lowing ; the desert looks like a plate of gold ; the sun sinks over the violet mountains and the night makes ready to fall. Un Et'e dans le Sahara (Paris, 1857). FINGAL'S CAVE (.SCOTLAND} SIR WALTER SCOTT July 19, 18 10. YESTERDAY we visited StafFa and lona: the for- mer is one of the most extraordinary places I ever beheld. It exceeded, in my mind, every description I had heard of it ; or rather, the appearance of the cavern, com- posed entirely of basaltic pillars as high as the roof of a cathe- dral,' and the running deep into the rock, eternally swept by a deep and swelling sea, and paved as it were with ruddy 1 " that wondrous dome, Where, as to shame the temples deck'd By skill of earthly architect. Nature herself, it seem'd, would raise, A minster to her Maker's praise ! Not for a meaner use ascend Her columns, or her arches bend ; Nor of a theme less solemn tells That mighty surge that ebbs and swells. And still, beneath each awful pause From the high vault an answer draws. In varied tone prolonged and high That mocks the organ's melody. Nor doth its entrance front in vain To old lona's holy fane, That Nature's voice might seem to say, ' Well hast thou done, frail Child of clay ! Thy humble powers that stately shrine Task'd high and hard — but witness mine ! ' " Lord of the hies. Canto IV. St. lO. FINGAL'S CAVE 63 marble, baffles all description. You can walk along the broken pillars, with some difficulty, and in some places with a little danger, as far as the farthest extremity. Boats also can come in below when the sea is placid, — which is sel- dom the case. I had become a sort of favourite with the Hebridean boatmen, I suppose from my anxiety about their old customs, and they were much pleased to see me get over the obstacles which stopped some of the party. So they took the whim of solemnly christening a great stone at the mouth of the cavern, Clachan-an Bairdh, or the Poet's Stone. It was consecrated with a pibroch, which the echoes rendered tremendous, and a glass of whisky, not poured forth in the ancient mode of libation, but turned over the throats of the assistants. The head boatman, whose father had been himself a bard, made me a speech on the occasion ; but as it was in Gaelic, I could only receive it as a silly beauty does a fine-spun compliment — bow, and say nothing. When this fun was over (in which, strange as it may seem, the men were quite serious), we went to lona, where there are some ancient and curious monuments. From this remote island the light of Christianity shone forth on Scotland and Ireland. The ruins are of a rude architecture, but curious to the antiquary. Our return was less comfort- able ; we had to row twenty miles against an Atlantic tide and some wind, besides the pleasure of seeing occasional squalls gathering to windward. The ladies were sick, especially poor Hannah Mackenzie, and none of the gentle- men escaped except StafFa and myself. The men, however, 64 FINGAL'S CAVE cheered by the pipes, and by their own interesting boat- songs, which were uncommonly wild and beautiful, one man leading and the others answering in chorus, kept pull- ing away without apparently the least sense of fatigue, and we reached Ulva at ten at night, tolerably wet, and well disposed for bed. The haze and dullness of the atmosphere seem to render it dubious if we can proceed, as we intended, to StafFa to- day — for mist among these islands is rather unpleasant. Erskine reads prayers on deck to all hands, and introduces a very apt allusion to our being now in sight of the first Christian Church from which Revelation was diffused over Scotland and all its islands. There is a very good form of prayer for the Lighthouse Service composed by the Rev. Mr. Brunton. A pleasure vessel lies under our lee from Belfast, with an Irish party related to Macneil of Colonsay. The haze is fast degenerating into downright rain, and that right heavy — verifying the words of Collins — " And thither where beneath the showery west The mighty Kings of three fair realms are laid," • After dinner, the weather being somewhat cleared, sailed for Staffa, and took boat. The surf running heavy up be- tween the island and the adjacent rock, called Booshala, we landed at a creek near the Cormorant's cave. The mist now returned so thick as to hide all view of lona, which was our landmark ; and although Duff, Stevenson, and I, had been formerly on the isle, we could not agree upon the • Ode 071 the Superstitions of the Highlands, FINGAL'S CAVE 65 proper road to the cave. I engaged myself, with DufF and Erskine, in a clamber of great toil and danger, and which at length brought me to the Cannon-ball^ as they call a round granite stone moved by the sea up and down in a groove of rock, which it has worn for itself, with a noise resembling thunder. Here I gave up my research, and returned to my companions, who had not been more fortunate. As night was now falling, we resolved to go aboard and postpone the adventure of the enchanted cavern until next day. The yacht came to an anchor with the purpose of remaining ofF the island all night, but the hardness of the ground, and the weather becoming squally, obliged us to return to our safer mooring at Y-Columb-Kill. 29th August, 1 8 14. Night squally and rainy — morning ditto — we weigh, however, and return towards StafFa, and, very happily, the day clears as we approach the isle. As we ascertained the situation of the cave, I shall only make this memorandum, that when the weather will serve, the best landing is to the lee of Booshala, a little conical islet or rock, composed of basaltic columns placed in an oblique or sloping position. In this way, you land at once on the flat causeway, formed by the heads of truncated pillars, which leads to the cave. But if the state of tide renders it impossible to land under Booshala, then take one of the adjacent creeks ; in which case, keeping to the left hand along the top of the ledge of rocks which girdles in the isle, you find a dangerous and precipitous descent to the causeway aforesaid, from the 66 FINGAL'S CAVE table. Here we were under the necessity of towing our Commodore, Hamilton, whose gallant heart never fails him, whatever the tenderness of his toes may do. He was successfully lowered by a rope down the precipice, and pro- ceeding along the flat terrace or causeway already men- tioned, we reached the celebrated cave. I am not sure whether I was not more affected by this second, than by the first view of it. The stupendous columnar side walls — the depth and strength of the ocean with which the cavern is filled — the variety of tints formed by stalactites dropping and petrifying between the pillars, and resembling a sort of chasing of yellow or cream-coloured marble filling the interstices of the roof — the corresponding variety below, where the ocean rolls over a red) and in some places a violet-coloured rock, the basis of the basaltic pillars — the dreadful noise of those august billows so well corresponding with the grandeur of the scene — are all circumstances else- where unparalleled. We have now seen in our voyage the three grandest caverns in Scotland, — Smowe, Macallister's Cave, and StafFa ; so that, like the Troglodytes of yore, we may be supposed to know something of the matter. It is, however, impossible to compare scenes of natures so different, nor, were I compelled to assign a preference to any of the three, could I do it but with reference to their distinct characters, which might affect different individuals in different degrees. The characteristic of the Smowe cave may in this case be called the terrific, for the difiiculties which oppose the stranger are of a nature so uncommonly wild, as, for the first time at least, to convey an impression of FINGAL'S CAVE 67 terror — with which the scenes to which he is introduced fully correspond. On the other hand the dazzling white- ness of the incrustations in Macallister's Cave, the elegance of the entablature, the beauty of its limpid pool, and the graceful dignity of its arch, render its leading features those of severe and chastened beauty. Staffa, the third of these subterranean wonders, may challenge sublimity as its prin- cipal characteristic. Without the savage gloom of the Smowe cave, and investigated with more apparent ease, though, perhaps, with equal real danger, the stately regu- larity of its columns forms a contrast to the grotesque im- agery of Macallister's Cave, combining at once the senti- ments of grandeur and beauty. The former is, however, predominant, as it must necessarily be in any scene of the kind. We had scarce left StafFa when the wind and rain re- turned. Lockhart, Life of Sir Walter Scott (Edinburgh, 1878). FINGAL'S CAVE iSCOTLAND) JOHN KEATS I AM puzzled how to give you an Idea of StafFa. It can only be represented by a first-rate drawing. One may compare the surface of the Island to a roof — this roof is supported by grand pillars of basalt standing together as thick as honeycombs. The finest thing is Fingal's Cave — it is entirely a hollowing out of Basalt Pillars. Suppose now the Giants who rebelled against Jove had taken a whole Mass of black Columns and bound them together like bunches of matches — and then with immense axes had made a cavern in the body of these columns Of course the roof and floor must be composed of broken ends of the Columns — such is Fingal's Cave, except that the Sea has done the work of excavations, and is continually dashing there — so that wc walk along the sides of the cave on the pillars which arc left as if for convenient stairs. The roof is arched somewhat gothic-wise, and the length of some of the entire side-pillars is fifty feet. About the island you might seat an army of Men each on a pillar. The length of the cave is 120 feet, and from its extremity the view into the sea, through the large Arch at the entrance — the colour of the columns is a sort of black with a lurking gloom of purple therein. For solemnity and grandeur it FINGAL'S CAVE 69 far surpasses the finest Cathedral. At the extremity of the Cave there is a small perforation into another cave, at which the waters meeting and buffeting each other there is some- times produced a report as of a cannon heard as far as lona, which must be twelve Miles. As we approached in the boat, there was such a fine swell of the sea that the pillars appeared rising immediately out of the crystal. But it is impossible to describe it — Not Aladdin magian Ever such a work began. Not the Wizard of the Dee Ever such a dream could see, Not St. John in Patmos Isle In the passion of his toil When he saw the churches seven Golden-aisled built up in heaven Gaz'd at such a rugged wonder. As I stood its roofing under Lo ! I saw one sleeping there On the marble cold and bare. While the surges wash'd his feet And his garments white did beat Drench'd about the sombre rocks, On his neck his well-grown locks Lifted dry above the Main Were upon the curl again — " What is this ? and what art thou ? " Whisper'd I, and touch'd his brow ; " What art thou ? and what is this ? " Whisper'd I, and strove to kiss The, Spirit's hand, to wake his eyes ; Up he started in a trice : " I am Lycidas," said he " Fam'd in funeral Minstrelsy — This was architected thus By the great Oceanus. 70 FINGAL'S CAVE Here his mighty waters play Hollow Organs all the day, Here, by turns, his dolphins all, Finny palmers great and small, Come to pay devotion due — Each a mouth of pearls must strew ! Many a mortal of these days Dares to pass our sacred ways, Dares to touch, audaciously This Cathedral of the sea — I have been the Pontiff-priest, Where the Waters never rest, Where a fledgy sea-bird choir Soars for ever — holy fire I have hid from Mortal Man. Proteus is my Sacristan But the stupid eye of Mortal Hath pass'd beyond the Rocky portal. So for ever will I leave Such a taint and soon unweave All the magic of the place — 'Tis now free to stupid face — To cutters and to fashion boats, To cravats and Petticoats. The great Sea shall war it down, For its fame shall not be blown At every farthing quadrille dance." So saying with a Spirit's glance He dived — I am sorry I am so indolent as to write such stuff as this. It can't be helped. The western coast of Scotland is a most strange place — it is composed of rocks, mountains, mountainous and rocky islands intersected by lochs — you can go but a short distance anywhere from salt water in the highlands. Letters of yohn Keats (London and New York, 1 891). IN THE HIMALAYAS (/M>M) G. W. STEEVENS IN Calcutta they grumbled that the hot weather was be- ginning already. Mornings were steamy, days sticky, and the municipal impurities rose rankly. The carter squatted over his bullocks with his shining body stark naked but for a loin-cloth. At Siliguri, the bottom of the ascent to Darjiling, the rough grass and the tea-gardens were sheeted at sunrise in a silver frost. What few natives appeared happed their heads in shawls as if they had toothache. It takes you an afternoon and a night to get as far as Siliguri. What you principally notice on the way is the dullness of the flat, moist richness of Bengal, and the extra- ordinary fullness of the first-class carriages. Even at this winter season the residents of Calcutta snatch at the chance of being cold for twenty-four hours. When you get out of your carriage at the junction station, you see on the other side of the platform a dumpy little toy train — a train at the wrong end of a telescope with its wheels cut from beneath it. Engines and trucks and carriages seem to be crawling like snakes on their bellies. Six miniature easy-chairs, three facing three, on an open truck with an awning, make a first-class carriage. 72 IN THE HIMALAYAS This is the Darjiling-Himalaya Railway — two-foot gauge, climbing four feet to the hundred for fifty miles up the foothills of the greatest mountains in the world. It is extraordinary as the only line in India that has been built with Indian capital. But you will find that the least of its wonders. A flat-faced hillman bangs with a hammer twice three times on a spare bit of railway metal hung up by way of a gong, the whistle screams, and you pant away on surely the most entrancing railway journey in the world. Nothing very much to make your heart jump in the first seven miles. You bowl along the surface of a slightly as- cending cart-load, and your view is mostly bamboo and tea. Graceful enough, and cool to the eye — the bamboos, hedges or clumps of slender stem with plumes of pale leaf swing- ing and nodding above them ; the tea, trim ranks and files of short, well-furnished bushes with lustrous, dark-green leaves, not unlike evergreens or myrtle in a nursery at home, — but you soon feel that you have known bamboo and tea all your life. Then suddenly you begin to climb, and all at once you are in a new world — a world of plants. A new world is easy to say, but this is new indeed and a very world — such a primeval vegetable world as you have read of in books and eked out with dreams. It has every- thing you know in your world, only everything expressed in vegetation. It is a world in its variety alone. Trees of every kind rise up round you at every angle — unfamiliar, most of them, and exaggerations of forms you know, as if they were seen through a microscope. You might come on such broad fleshy leaves by way of Jack's giant bean- IN THE HIMALAYAS 73 Stalk. Other growths take the form of bushes as high as our trees ; but beside them are skinny, stunted starvelings, such as the most niggardly country might show. Then there are grasses — tufted, ruddy bamboo grass, and huge yellow straws with giant bents leaning insolently over to flick your face as you go by. Smaller still grow the ferns, lurking shyly in the crevices of the banks. And over everything, most luxuriant of everything, crawl hundred- armed creepers, knitting and knotting the whole jungle into one mellay of struggling life. The varieties — the trees and shrubs and grasses and ferns and creepers — you would see in any tropical garden; but you could not see them at home. You could not- see them in their unpruned native intercourse one with the other. The rise and fall of the ground, the whims of light and air, coax them into shapes that answer to the most fan- tastic imagination. Now you are going through the solemn aisles of a great cathedral — grey trunks for columns, with arches and vaulted roofs of green, with dark, retreating chapels and altar-trappings of mingled flowers. Now it is a king's banqucting-hall, tapestried with white-flowering creeper and crimson and purple bougainvillea ; overhead the scarlet-mahogany blossoms of a sparse-leaved tulip-tree might be butterflies frescoed on a ceiling. Fancy can compel the wilderness into moments of order, but wild it remains. The growths are not generally build- ings, but animate beings in a real world. You see no per- fectly shaped tree, as in a park or garden ; one is warped, another stunted, another bare below — each formed, like 74 IN THE HIMALAYAS men, by the pressure of a thousand fellows. Here is a corpse spreading white, stark arms abroad. Here are half- a-dozen young creatures rolling over each other like puppies at play. And there is a creeper flinging tumultuous, en- raptured arms round a stately tree j presently it is gripping it in thick bands like Laocoon's serpent, then choking it mercilessly to death, then dead itself, its bleached, bare streamers dangling limply in the wind. It is life, indeed, this forest — plants fighting, victorious and vanquished ; loving and getting children ; springing and waxing and decaying and dying — our own world of men translated into plants. While I am spinning similitudes, the Darjiling-Himalaya Railway is panting always upwards, boring through the thick world of trees like a mole. Now it sways round a curve so short that you can almost look back into the next carriage, and you understand why the wheels are so low. Now it stops dead, and almost before it stops starts back- wards up a zigzag, then forwards up another, and on again. In a moment it is skating on the brink of a slide of shale that trembles to come down and overwhelm it ; next it is rumbling across a bridge above the point it passed ten minutes ago, and also that which it will reach ten minutes hence. Twisting, backing, circling, dodging, but always rising, it untreads the skein whose end is in the clouds and the snows. Presently the little engine draws quite clear of the jungle. You skirt opener slopes, and the blue plain below is no longer a fleeting vista, but a broad prospect. You see how the forest spills itself on to the fields and spreads into a dark IN THE HIMALAYAS 75 puddle over their lightness. You see a great river overlay- ing the dimness with a ribbon of steel. The ferns grow thicker about you ; gigantic fronds bow at you from gullies overhead, and you see the tree-fern — a great crown of drooping green on a trunk of a man's height — standing superbly alone, knowing its supreme gracefulness. Next, as you rise and rise, the air gets sharp ; through a gauzy veil of mist appear again huge forests, but dark and gloomy with brown moss dripping dankly from every branch. Ris- ing, rising, and you have now come to Ghoom, the highest point. Amid the cold fog appears the witch of Ghoom — a hundred years old, with a pointed chin and mop of griz- zled hair all witch-fashion, but beaming genially and re- questing backsheesh. Then round a corner — and here is Darjiling. A scat- tered settlement on a lofty ridge, facing a great cup en- closed by other ridges — mountains elsewhere, here hills. Long spurs run down into the hollow, half black with for- est, half pale and veined with many paths. At the bottom is a little chequer of fresh green millet ; the rim at the top seems to line the sky. And the Himalayas and the eternal snows ? The devil a Himalaya in sight. Thick vapours dip down and over the very rim of the cup ; beyond Darjiling is a tumult of peaked creamy cloud. You need not be told it, — clouds that hide mountains always ape their shapes, — the majestic Himalayas are behind that screen, and you will not see them to-day, nor perhaps to-morrow, nor yet for a fortnight of to-morrows. 76 IN THE HIMALAYAS You must console yourself with Darjiling and the hill- men. And Darjiling is pleasant to the eye as you look down on it, a huddle of grey corrugated-iron roofs, one stepping over the other, hugging the hillside with one or two red ones to break the monotone. There is no contin- uous line of them : each stands by itself in a ring of deep green first. The place is cool and grateful after an Indian town — clean and roomy, a place of homes and not of pens. In the middle of it is the bazaar, and my day, by luck, was market-day. Here, again, you could never fancy your- self in India. A few Hindus there are, but beside the dumpy hillmen their thin limbs, tiny features, and melting eyes seem hardly human. More like the men you know is the Tibetan, with a long profile and long, sharp nose, though his hat has the turned-up brim of the Chinese, though he wears a long bottle-green dressing-gown open to the girdle, and his pigtail knocks at the back of his knees. But the prevailing type, though as Mongolian, is far more genial than the Tibetan. Squat little men, for the most part, fill the bazaar, with broad faces that give room for the features, with button noses, and slits for eyes. They wear boots and putties, or gaiters made of many-coloured carpet- bagging ; and their women are like them — with shawls over their heads, and broad sashes swathing them from bosom to below the waist, with babies slung behind their backs, not astride on the hip as are the spawn of India. Their eyes are black as sloes — puckered, too, but seeming puckered with laughter; and their clear yellow skins are actually rosy on the cheeks, like a ripe apricot. Square-faced, long- IN THE HIMALAYAS 77 pigtailed, plump, cheery, open of gaze, and easy of carriage, rolling cigarettes, and offering them to soothe babies — they might not be beautiful in Europe ; here they are ravishing. But you come to Darjiling to see the snows. So on a night of agonizing cold — feet and hands a block of ice the moment you cease to move them — must follow a rise be- fore it is light. Maybe the clouds will be kinder this morning. No ; the same stingy, clammy mist, — only there, breaking through it, high up in the sky — ^yes, there are a few faint streaks of white. Just a few marks of snow scored on the softer white of the cloud, chill with the ut- terly disconsolate cold of ice through a window of fog. Still, there are certainly Himalayas there. Up and up I toiled ; the sun was plainly rising behind the ridge of Darjiling. In the cup below the sunlight was drawing down the hillsides and peeling off the twilight. Then, at a sudden turn of the winding ascent, I saw the sum- mit of Kinchinjunga. Just the summit, poised in the blue, shining and rejoicing in the sunrise. And as I climbed and climbed, other peaks rose into sight below and beside him, all dazzling white, mounting and mounting the higher I mounted, every instant more huge and towering and stately, boring into the sky. Up — till I came to the summit, and the sun appeared — a golden ball swimming in a sea of silver. He was sending the clouds away curling before him ; they drifted across the mountains, but he pursued and smote and dissolved them. And ever the mountains rose and rose, huger and huger; as they swelled up they heaved the clouds away in 78 IN THE HIMALAYAS rolls ofF their shoulders. Now their waists were free, and all but their feet. Only a chasm of fog still hid their lower slopes. Fifty miles away, they looked as if I could toss a stone across to them ; only you could never hope to hit their heads, they towered so gigantically. Now the clouds, clearing to right and left, laid bare a battlemented range of snow-white wall barring the whole horizon. Behind these appeared other peaks ; it was not a range, but a country of mountains, not now a wall, but a four-square castle carved by giants out of eternal ice. It was the end of the world — a sheer rampart, which forbade the fancy of anything beyond. And in the centre, by peak and col and precipice, the prodigy reared itself up to Kinchinjunga. Bare rock be- low, then blinding snow seamed with ridges of chimneys, and then, above, the mighty summit — a tremendous three- cornered slab of grey granite between two resplendent faces of snow. Other mountains tiptoe at the sky snatch at it with a peak like a needle. Kinchinjunga heaves him- self up into it, broadly, massively, and makes his summit a diadem. He towers without effort, knowing his majesty. Sublime and inviolable, he lifts his grey nakedness and his mail of burnished snow, and turns his forehead serenely to sun and storm. Only their touch, of all things created, has perturbed his solitude since the birth of time. In India (New York, 1899). NIAGARA FALLS ( NORTH AMERICA ) ANTHONY TROLLOPE IT has been said that it matters much from what point the Falls are first seen, but to this I demur. It mat- ters, I think, very little, or not at all. Let the visitor first see it all, and learn the whereabouts of every point, so as to understand his own position and that of the waters ; and then having done that in the way of business let him pro- ceed to enjoyment. I doubt whether it be not the best to do this with all sight-seeing. I am quite sure that it is the way in which acquaintance may be best and most pleas- antly made with a new picture. The Falls are, as I have said, made by a sudden breach in the level of the river. All cataracts are, I presume, made by such breaches ; but generally the waters do not fall precipitously as they do at Niagara, and never elsewhere, as far as the world yet knows, has a breach so sudden been made in such a body of water. Up above the Falls, for more than a mile, the waters leap and burst over rapids, as though conscious of the destiny that awaits them. Here the river is very broad, and comparatively shallow, but from shore to shore it frets itself into little torrents, and begins to assume the majesty of its power. Looking at it even here, one feels sure that no strongest swimmer could have a chance of saving himself, if fate had cast him in even among those 8o NIAGARA FALLS petty whirlpools. The waters, though so broken in their descent, are deliciously green. This colour as seen early in the morning, or just as the sun has set, is so bright as to give to the place of its chiefest charms. This will be best seen from the further end of the island — Goat Island, as it is called, which, as the reader will un- derstand, divides the river immediately above the Falls. Indeed the island is a part of that precipitously broken ledge over which the river tumbles ; and no doubt in proc- ess of time will be worn away and covered with water. The time, however, will be very long. In the meanwhile it is perhaps a mile round, and is covered thickly with tim- ber. At the upper end of the island the waters are di- vided, and coming down in two courses, each over its own rapids, form two separate falls. The bridge by which the island is entered is a hundred yards or more above the smaller fall. The waters here have been turned by the is- land, and make their leap into the body of the river below at a right angle with it, — about two hundred yards below the greater fall. Taken alone this smaller cataract would, I imagine, be the heaviest fall of water known, but taken in conjunction with the other it is terribly shorn of its majesty. The waters here are not green as they are at the larger cataract, and though the ledge has been hollowed and bowed by them so as to form a curve, that curve does not deepen itself into a vast abyss as it does at the horseshoe up above. This smaller fall is again divided, and the visitor passing down a flight of steps and over a frail wooden bridge finds himself on a smaller island in the midst of it. NIAGARA FALLS. NIAGARA FALLS 8 I But we will go at once on to the glory, and the thunder, and the majesty, and the wrath of that upper hell of wa- ters. We are still, let the reader remember, on Goat Is- land, still in the States, and on what is called the American side of the main body of the river. Advancing beyond the path leading down to the lesser fall, wc come to that point of the island at which the waters of the main river begin to descend. From hence across to the Canadian side the cataract continues itself in one unabated line. But the line is very far from being direct or straight. After stretching for some little way from the shore, to a point in the river which is reached by a wooden bridge at the end of which stands a tower upon the rock, — after stretching to this, the line of the ledge bends inwards against the flood, — in, and in, and in, till one is led to think that the depth of that horseshoe is immeasurable. It has been cut with no stinting hand. A monstrous cantle has been worn back out of the centre of the rock, so that the fury of the waters converges, and the spectator as he gazes into the hollow with wishful eyes fancies that he can hardly trace out the centre of the abyss. Go down to the end of that wooden bridge, seat your- self on the rail, and there sit till all the outer world is lost to you. There is no grander spot about Niagara than this. The waters are absolutely around you. If you have that power of eye-control, which is so necessary to the full en- joyment of scenery, you will certainly see nothing but the water. You will certainly hear nothing else; and the sound, I beg you to remember, is not an car-cracking, 82 NIAGARA FALLS agonizing crash and clang of noises ; but is melodious and soft withal, though loud as thunder. It fills your ears, and as it were envelops them, but at the same time you can speak to your neighbour without an effort. But at this place, and in these moments, the less of speaking I should say the better. There is no grander spot than this. Here, seated on the rail of the bridge, you will not see the whole depth of the fall. In looking at the grandest works of nature, and of art too, I fancy, it is never well to see all. There should be something left to the imagination, and much should be half-concealed in mystery. The greatest charm of a mountain range is the wild feeling that there must be strange desolate worlds in those far-off val- leys beyond. And so here, at Niagara, that converging rush of waters may fall down, down at once into a hell of rivers for what the eye can see. It is glorious to watch them in their first curve over the rocks. They come green as a bank of emeralds ; but with a fitful flying col- our, as though conscious that in one moment more they would be dashed into spray and rise into air, pale as driven snow. The vapour rises high into the air, and is gathered there, visible always as a permanent white cloud over the cataract; but the bulk of the spray which fills the lower hollow of that horseshoe is like a tumult of snow. This you will not fully see from your seat on the rail. The head of it rises ever and anon out of the caldron below, but the caldron itself will be invisible. It is ever so far down, — far as your own imagination can sink it. But your eyes will rest full upon the curve of the waters. NIAGARA FALLS 83 The shape you will be looking at is that of a horseshoe, but of a horseshoe miraculously deep from toe to heel ; — and this depth becomes greater as you sit there. That which at first was only great and beautiful, becomes gigan- tic and sublime till the mind is at loss to find an epithet for its own use. To realize Niagara you must sit there till you see nothing else than that which you have come to see. You will hear nothing else, and think of nothing else. At length you will be at one with the tumbling river before you. You will find yourself among the waters as though you be- longed to them. The cool liquid green will run through your veins, and the voice of the cataract will be the expression of your own heart. You will fall as the bright waters fall, rushing down into your new world with no hesitation and with no dismay ; and you will rise again as the spray rises, bright, beautiful, and pure. Then you will flow away in your course to the uncompassed, distant, and eternal ocean. And now we will cross the water, and with this object will return by the bridge out of Goat Island on the main- land of the American side. But as we do so let me say that one of the great charms of Niagara consists in this, — that over and above that one great object of wonder and beauty, there is so much little loveliness ; — loveliness es- pecially of water, I mean. There are little rivulets running here and there over little falls, with pendent boughs above them, and stones shining under their shallow depths. As the visitor stands and looks through the trees the rapids glitter before him, and then hide themselves behind islands. They glitter and sparkle in far distances under the bright 84 NIAGARA FALLS foliage till the remembrance is lost, and one knows not which way they run. Close to the cataract, exactly at the spot from whence in former days the Table Rock used to project from the land over the boiling caldron below, there is now a shaft down which you will descend to the level of the river, and pass between the rock and the torrent. This Table Rock broke away from the clifF and fell, as up the whole course of the river the seceding rocks have split and fallen from time to time through countless years, and will continue to do till the bed of the upper lake is reached. You will descend this shaft, taking to yourself or not taking to yourself a suit of oil-clothes as you may think best. In the spot to which I allude the visitor stands on a broad safe path, made of shingles, between the rock over which the water rushes. He will go in so far that the spray rising back from the bed of the torrent does not in- commode him. With this exception, the further he can go in the better; but circumstances will clearly show him the spot to which he should advance. Unless the water be driven in by a strong wind, five yards make the difference between a comparatively dry coat and an absolutely wet one. And then let him stand with his back to the entrance, thus hiding the last glimmer of the expiring day. So standing he will look up among the falling waters, or down into the deep misty pit, from which they reascend in almost as palpable a bulk. The rock will be at his right hand, high and hard, and dark and straight, like the wall of some huge cavern, such as children enter in their dreams. For the NIAGARA FALLS 85 first five minutes he will be looking but at the waters of a cataract, — at the waters, indeed, of such a cataract as we know no other, and at their interior curves which elsewhere we cannot see. But by and by all this will change. He will no longer be on a shingly path beneath a waterfall ; but that feeling of a cavern wall will grow upon him, of a cavern deep, below roaring seas, in which the waves are there, though they do not enter in upon him ; or rather not the waves, but the very bowels of the ocean. He will feel as though the floods surrounded him, coming and going with their wild sounds, and he will hardly recognize that though among them he is not in them. And they, as they fall with a continual roar, not hurting the ear, but musical withal, will seem to move as the vast ocean waters may perhaps move in their internal currents. He will lose the sense of one continued descent, and think that they are passing round him in their appointed courses. The broken spray that rises from the depth below, rises so strongly, so palpably, so rapidly, that the motion in every direction will seem equal. And, as he looks on, strange colours will show themselves through the mist ; the shades of grey will become green or blue, with ever and anon a flash of white ; and then, when some gust of wind blows in with greater violence, the sea-girt cavern will become all dark and black. Oh, my friend, let there be no one there to speak to thee then ; no, not even a brother. As you stand there speak only to the waters. North America (London, 1862). NIAGARA FALLS ( NORTH AMERICA ) CHARLES DICKENS WE called at the town of Erie, at eight o'clock that night, and lay there an hour. Between five and six next morning, we arrived at Buffalo, where we break- fasted J and being too near the Great Falls to wait patiently anywhere else, we set off by the train, the same morning at nine o'clock, to Niagara. It was a miserable day ; chilly and raw ; a damp mist falling ; and the trees in that northern region quite bare and wintry. Whenever the train halted, I listened for the roar ; and was constantly straining my eyes in the direction where I knew the Falls must be, from seeing the river rolling on towards them ; every moment expecting to behold the spray. Within a few moments of our stopping, not before, I saw two great white clouds rising up slowly and majestic- ally from the depths of the earth. That was all. At length we alighted ; and then for the first time, I heard the mighty rush of water, and felt the ground tremble under- neath my feet. The bank is very steep, and was slippery with rain, and half-melted ice. I hardly know how I got down, but I was soon at the bottom, and climbing, with two English officers who were crossing and had joined me, over some broken NIAGARA FALLS 87 rocks, deafened by the noise, half-blinded by the spray, and wet to the skin. We were at the foot of the American Fall. I could see an immense torrent of water tearing headlong down from some great height, but had no idea of shape, or situation, or anything but vague immensity. When we were seated in the little ferry-boat, and were crossing the swollen river immediately before both cataracts, I began to feel what it was — but I was in a manner stunned, and unable to comprehend the vastness of the scene. It was not until I came on Table Rock, and looked — Great Heaven, on what a fall of bright green water ! — that it came upon me in its full might and majesty. Then, when I felt how near to my Creator I was stand- ing, the first effect, and the enduring one — instant and last- ing — of the tremendous spectacle, was Peace. Peace of Mind, tranquillity, calm recollections of the Dead, great thoughts of Eternal Rest and Happiness : nothing of gloom or terror. Niagara was at once stamped upon my heart, an Image of Beauty ; to remain there, changeless and in- delible, until its pulses cease to beat, for ever. Oh, how the strife and trouble of daily life receded from my view, and lessened in the distance, during the ten memorable days we passed on that Enchanted Ground ! What voices spoke from out the thundering water ; what faces, faded from the earth, looked out upon me from its gleaming depths ; what Heavenly promise glistened in those angels' tears, the drops of many hues, that showered around, and twined themselves about the gorgeous arches which the changing rainbows made ! 88 NIA<5ARA FALLS I never stirred in all that time from the Canadian side, whither I had gone at first. I never crossed the river again ; for I knew there were people on the other shore, and in such a place it is natural to shun strange company. To wander to and fro all day, and see the cataracts from all points of view; to stand upon the edge of the great Horse-Shoe Fall, marking the hurried water gathering strength as it approached the verge, yet seeming too, to pause before it shot into the gulf below ; to gaze from the river's level up at the torrent as it came streaming down ; to climb the neighbouring heights and watch it through the trees, and see the wreathing water in the rapids hurrying on to take its fearful plunge ; to linger in the shadow of the solemn rocks three miles below; watching the river as, stirred by no visible cause, it heaved and eddied and awoke the echoes, being troubled yet, far down beneath its surface, by its giant leap ; to have Niagara before me, lighted by the sun and by the moon, red in the day's decline, and grey as evening slowly fell upon it ; to look upon it every day, and wake up in the night and hear its ceaseless voice : this was enough. I think in every quiet season now, still do those waters roll and leap, and roar and tumble, all day long ; still are the rainbows spanning them, a hundred feet below. Still, when the sun is on them, do they shine and glow like molten gold. Still, when the day is gloomy, do they fall like snow, or seem to crumble away like the front of a great chalk cliff, or roll down the rock like dense white smoke. But always does the mighty stream appear to die NIAGARA FALLS 89 as it comes down, and always from its unfathomable grave arises that tremendous ghost of spray and mist which is never laid : which has haunted this place with the same dread solemnity since Darkness brooded on the deep, and that first flood before the Deluge — Light — came rushing on Creation at the word of God, American Notes for General Circulation (London, 1842). FUJI-SAN (.JAPAN) SIR EDWIN ARNOLD I HAVE just made in the company of Captain John Ingles, R. N., Naval Adviser to the Imperial Govern- ment of this country, and a young Japanese gentleman — Mr. Asso — a very fortunate and delightful ascent of Fuji- San, the famous mountain — you would not wonder, residing here, that everybody in Japan talks about Fuji, and thinks about her ; paints her on fans, and limns her with gold on lacquer ; carves her on temple-gates and house-fronts, and draws her for curtains of shops and signboards of inns, rest- houses and public institutions. Living in Tokio or Yoko- hama, or anywhere along this Tokaido — the Southern road of Japan — you would soon perceive how the great volcano dominates every landscape, asserts perpetually her sover- eignty over au other hills and mountains, and becomes in reality as well - s imagination, an indispensable element in the national scenery. Far away at sea, when approaching Japan, if the weather be clear, long before the faintest blue line of coast is discernible froni the deck, there is seen hanging in the air a dim white symmetrical cone, too con- stant for a cloud, which is Fuji-San. After you have landed and taken up your residence in Yokohama, Tokio, or any point of the southeastern littoral, you will be always FUJI-SAN 91 seeing Fuji-Yama from some garden-nook, some tea-house gallery, some grove of cryptomerias, or thicket of bamboo, or even from the railway-carriage window. In the spring and autumn, as frequently as not, she will, indeed, be shr-^uded in the dense masses of white or grey cumulus wnich her crest collects, and seems to create in the mists of the Pacific. But during summer, when the snows are all melted from the vast cone, and again in winter, when she is covered with snow half-way down her colossal sides, but the air is clear, the superb mountain stands forth, dawn after dawn, and evening after evening — like no other em- inence in the world for beauty, majesty, and perfcctness of outline. There are loftier peaks, of course, for Fuji-San is not much higher than Mont Blanc, but there is none — not even Etna — which rises so proudly alone, isolated, distinct, from the very brink of the sea — with nothing to hide or diminish the dignity of the splendid and immense curves sweeping up from where the broad foot rests, planted on the Suruga Gulf, to where the imperial head soars, lifted high above the clouds into the blue of the firmament. By many and many a picture or photograph you must know well those almost perfectly matched flanks, that massive base, the towering lines of that mighty cone, slightly truncated and dentated at the summit. But no picture gives, and no artist could ever reproduce, the variety and charm of the aspect which Fuji-San puts on from day to day and hour to hour under the differing influences of air and weather. Sometimes it is as a white cloud that you see her, among the white clouds, changeless among the gZ FUJI-SAN changeful shapes from which she emerges. Sometimes there will break forth, high above all clouds, a patch of deep grey against the blue, the broad head of Fuji. Some- times you will only know where she sits by the immense collection of cirrus and cirro-cumulus there alone gathe-ed in the sky j and sometimes — principally at dawn and night- fall — she will suddenly manifest herself, from her foot, jewelled with rich harvests, to her brow, bare and lonely as a desert — all violet against the gold of the setting sun, or else all gold and green against the rose and silver of the daybreak. . . . As late as the Fourteenth Century Fuji was constantly smoking, and fire is spoken of with the eruptions, the last of which took place in December, 1707, and continued for nearly forty days. The Ho-Yei-san, or hump in the south face, was probably then formed. In this, her final out- break, Fuji covered Tokio itself, sixty miles away, with six inches of ash, and sent rivers of lava far and wide. Since then she has slept, and only one little spot underneath the Kwan-nom-Gatake, on the lip of the crater, where steam exhales, and the red pumice-cracks are hot, shows that the heart of this huge volcano yet glows, and that she is capable of destroying again her own beauty and the forests and rich regions of fertility which clothe her knees and feet. It is a circuit of 120 miles to go all round the base of Fuji-San. If you could cut a tunnel through her from Yoshiwara to Kawaguchi, it would be forty miles long- Generally speaking, the lower portion of the mountain is FUJI-SAN 93 cultivated to a height of 1,500 feet, and it is a whole prov- ince which thus climbs round her. From the border of the farms there begins a rough and wild, but flowery moor- land, which stretches round the hill to an elevation of 4,000 feet, where there the thick forest-belt commences. This girdles the volcano up to 7,000 feet on the Subashiri side and 8,000 on the Murayama fall, but is lower to the east- ward. Above the forest extends a narrow zone of thicket and bush, chiefly dwarfed larch, juniper and a vaccinium ; after which comes the bare, burnt, and terribly majestic peak itself, where the only living thing is a Httle yellow lichen which grows in the fissures of the lava blocks, for no eagle or hawk ventures so high, and the boldest or most bewil- dered butterfly will not be seen above the bushes half-way down. The best — indeed, the only — time for the ascent of the mountain is between July 15th and Septembei 5th. Dur- ing this brief season the snow will be melted from the cone, the huts upon the path will be opened for pilgrims, and there will be only the danger of getting caught by a typhoon, or reachi.ig the summit to find it swathed day after day in clouds, and no view obtainable. Our party of three started for the ascent on August 25th, taking that one of the many roads by which Fuji is approached that goes by Subashiri. Such an expedition may be divided into a series of stages. You have first to approach the foot of the mountain by train or otherwise, then to ride through the long slope of cultivated region. Then, abandoning horses or vehicles, to traverse on foot the sharper slopes of the forest belt. At 94 FUJI-SAN the confines of this you will reach the first station, called Sho or Go ; for Japanese fancy has likened the mountain to a heap of dry rice and the stations are named by rice-meas- ure. From the first station to the ninth, whatever road you take, all will be hard, hot, continuous climbing. You must go by narrow, bad paths, such as a goat might make, in loose volcanic dust, gritty pumice, or over the sharp edges of lava dykes, which cut boots and sandals to shreds. . . . At daybreak the horses are brought, and the six coolies, two by two, bind upon their backs the futons and the food. We start, a long procession, through a broad avenue in the forest, riding for five miles, under a lovely dawn, the sun shining gloriously on the forehead of Fuji, who seems further off^ and more immensely lofty the nearer we approach. The woodland is full of wild strawberries and flowers ; in- cluding tiger-lilies, clematis, Canterbury bells, and the blue hotari-no hana, or fire-fly blossom. At 6:30 a. m., we reach Uma-Gayeshi, or " turn-the-horses-back " ; and hence to the mountain top there is nothing for it but to walk every step of the long, steep, and diffi<:ult path. Two of the men with the lightest loads led the way along the nar- row path, in a wood so thick that we shall not see Fuji again till we have passed through it. It takes us every now and then through the gates and precincts of little Shinto temples, where the priests offer us tea or mountain water. In one of them, at Ko-mitake, we are invited to ring the brass gong in order that the Deity may make our limbs strong for the task before us. And this is solemnly done FUTI-SAN 95 by all hands, the ninsoku slapping their brown thighs piously after sounding the bell. The shortest time in which the ascent has been made is six hours and a half. We, taking it more easily, made no attempt to beat the record, and stopped frequently to botan- ize, geologize, etc. The rarefaction of the air gave our Japanese companion, Takaji San, a slight headache, which soon passed as the circulation became accustomed to the at- mosphere ; but Captain Ingles and I, being I suppose, both in excellent health and strength, experienced no inconvenience worth mentioning. At half-past four next morning, while I was dreaming under my thick coverings, a hand touched me and a voice said softly, " Danna Sama, hi no de ! " " Master, here is the sun ! " The shoji at my feet were thrown open. I looked out, almost as you might from the moon, over a prodigious abyss of space, beyond which the eastern rim of all the world seemed to be on fire with flaming light. A belt of splendid rose and gold illumined all the horizon, darting long spears of glory into the dark sky overhead, gilding the tops of a thousand hills ^ scattered over the purple plains below, and casting on the unbroken background of clouds beyond an enormous shadow of Fuji. The spectacle was of unparalleled :{plendour, recalling Lord Tennyson's line — " And, in the East, God made himself an awful Rose of Dawn." Moment by moment it grew more wonderful in foveliness of colour and brilliant birth of day ; and then, suddenly, just 96 FUJI-SAN when the sun rolled into sight — an orb of gleaming gold, flooding the world beneath with almost insufferable radiance — a vast mass of dense white clouds swept before the north wind over the view, completely blotting out the sun, the belt of rose and gold, the lighted mountains and plains, and the lower regions of Fuji-San. It was day again, but misty, white, and doubtful ; and when we started to climb the last two stages of the cone the flags of the stations were invis- ible, and we could not know whether we should find the summit clear, or wrapped in enveloping clouds. All was to be fortunate, however, on this happy day; and after a hard clambering of the remaining 2,000 feet we planted our staffs victoriously on the level ground of the crater's lip and gazed north, south, east, and west through clear and cloudless atmosphere over a prodigious prospect, whose diameter could not be less than 300 miles. It was one of the few days when O-ana-mochi, the Lord of the Great Hole, was wholly propitious ! Behind the long row of little black huts standing on the edge of the mountain, gaped that awful, deadly Cup of the Volcano — an immense pit half a mile wide and six or seven hundred feet deep, its sides black, yellow, red, white, and grey, with the varying hues of the lava and scoriae. In one spot where a perpet- ual shadow lay, from the ridge-peaks of Kcn-ga-mine and the Shaka-no-wari-ishi, or " Cleft Rock of Buddha," gleamed a large patch of unmelted snow, and there was dust-covered snow at the bottom of the crater. We skirted part of the crater, passed by the dangerous path which is styled " Oya-shirazu, Ko-shirazu," ** The place where you FUJI-SAN 97 must forget parents and children, to take care of yourself; " saw the issue of the Kim-mei-sai or " Golden famous water," and of the Gim-mei-sai, or " Silver famous water " ; and came back to breakfast at our hut silent with the de- light and glory, the beauty and terror of the scene. Enor- mous flocks of fleecy clouds and cloudlets wandered in the lower air, many thousand feet beneath, but nowhere con- cealed the lakes, peaks, rivers, towns, villages, valleys, sea- coasts, islands, and distant provinces spreading out all round. Imagine the prospect obtainable at 13,000 feet of elevation through the silvery air of Japan on a summer's morning with not a cloud, except shifting, thin, and transi- tory ones, to veil the view ! . . . At the temple with the bell we were duly stamped — shirts, sticks, and clothing — with the sacred mark of the mountain, and having made the hearts of our faithful and patient ninsoku glad with extra pay, turned our backs on the great extinct volcano, whose crest, glowing again in the morning sunlight, had no longer any secrets for Captain Ingles, or Takaji San, or myself. Seas and Lands (New York, 1891). THE CEDARS OF LEBANON (.SYRIA) ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE THE Sheik of Eden, the last inhabited village towards the summit of Lebanon, was the maternal uncle of M. Mazoyer, my interpreter. Informed by his nephew of our arrival in Tripoli, the venerable sheik descended the mountain with his eldest son and a portion of his retinue ; he came to visit me at the convent of the Franciscans, and offered me hospitality at his home in Eden. From Eden to the Cedars of Solomon it is only a three hours' march ; and if the snows that cover the mountains will permit us, we can visit these ancient trees that have spread their glory over all Lebanon and that are contemporaries of the great king ; we accepted, and the start was arranged for the following day. At five o'clock in the morning we were on horseback. The caravan, more numerous than usual, was preceded by the Sheik of Eden, an admirable old man whose elegance of manner, noble and easy politeness, and magnificent cos- tume were far from suggesting an Arab chieftain ; one would have called him a patriarch marching at the head of his tribe ; he rode upon a mare of the desert whose golden- bay skin and floating mane would have made a worthy mount for a hero of Jerusalem ; his son and his principal THE CEDARS OF LEBANON 99 attendants caracoled upon magnificent stallions, a few paces before him ; we came next, and then the long file of our moukres and our Sal's. The sheik has sent three Arabs over the route to the Cedars to learn if the snow will permit us to approach those trees ; the Arabs returning say that access is imprac- ticable ; there are fourteen feet of snow in a narrow valley which must be crossed before reaching the trees; — wishing to get as near as possible, I entreat the sheik to give me his son and several horsemen; I leave my wife and my caravan at Eden ; I mount the strongest of my horses, Scham^ and we are en route at break of day ; — a march of three hours over the crests of the mountains, or in the fields softened with melting snow. I arrive at the edge of the valley of the Saints, a deep gorge where the glance sweeps from the rocky height to a valley more confined, more sombre and more solemn even than that of Hamana ; at the top of this valley, at the place where, after continually rising, it reaches the snows, a superb sheet of water falls, a hundred feet high and two or three toises wide ; the entire valley resounds with this waterfall and the leaping torrents that it feeds ; on every side the rocky flanks of the moun- tain stream with foam ; we see almost beyond our vision, in the depths of the valley, two large villages the houses of which can scarcely be distinguished from the rocks rolled down by the torrent ; the tops of the poplars and the mul- berries from here look like tufts of reed or grass ; we de- scend to the village of Beschierai by paths cut in the rock, and so abrupt that one can hardly imagine that men will 100 THE CEDARS OF LEBANON risk themselves upon them ; people do perish sometimes ; a stone thrown from the crest where we stand would fall upon the roofs of these villages where we shall arrive after an hour's descent ; above the cascade and the snows, enor- mous fields of ice extend, undulating like vapours in tints greenish and blue by turns ; in about a quarter of an hour towards the left in a half circular valley formed by the last mounts of Lebanon, we see a large, black blot upon the snow, — the famous group of cedars ; they crown the brow of the mountain like a diadem ; they mark the branching off of numerous and large valleys that descend from there ; the sea and the sky are their horizon. We put our horses to a gallop over the snow to get as near as possible to the forest ; but on arriving five or six hundred steps from the trees, we plunge our horses up to their shoulders; we realize that the report of the Arabs is correct, and we must renounce the hope of touching these relics of the centuries and of nature; we alight and sit upon a rock to contemplate them. These trees are the most celebrated natural monuments in the whole universe. Religion, poetry, and history have equally consecrated them. Holy Writ celebrates them in several places. They are one of the favourite images which the prophets employ. Solomon wished to consecrate them — doubtless on account of the renown of magnificence and sanctity that these prodigies of vegetation enjoyed at this epoch — to the ornamentation of the temple that he was the first to elevate to the one God. These were certainly the trees ; for Ezekiel speaks of the cedars of Eden as the most THE CEDARS OF LEBANON 101 beautiful of Lebanon. The Arabs of all sects have a tra- ditional veneration for them. They attribute to these trees, not only a vegetative force that gives them eternal life, but even a soul that makes them give signs of wisdom, of fore- sight, similar to those of instinct in animals and intelligence in men. They know the seasons in advance ; they move their enormous branches like human limbs, they spread or contract their boughs, they raise their branches towards the sky or incline them to the earth, according as the snow is preparing to fall or to melt. They are divine beings under the form of trees. They grow on this single spot of the mounts of Lebanon ; they take root far beyond the region where all prolific vegetation dies. All this strikes the imagination of the Oriental people with astonishment, and I do not know that science is not even more astonished. Alas ! however, Basan languishes and Carmel and the flower of Lebanon fade. — These trees diminish every cen- tury. Travellers formerly counted thirty or forty, later seventeen, and still later, about a dozen. — There are now only seven of those whose massive forms can presume to be contemporaneous with Biblical times. Around these old memorials of past ages, which know the history of the ground better than history herself, and which could tell us, if they could speak, of many empires, religions, and vanished human races, there remains still a little forest of cedars more yellow it appears to me than a group of four or five hundred trees or shrubs. Each year in the month of June the population of Beschierai, Eden, and Kanobin, and all the villages of the neighbouring valleys, ascend to the cedars 102 THE CEDARS OF LEBANON and celebrate mass at their feet. How many prayers have resounded beneath their branches ! And what more beau- tiful temple, what nearer altar than the sky ! What more majestic and holier dais than the highest plateau of Lebanon, the trunks of the cedars and the sacred boughs that have shaded and that will still shade so many human generations pronouncing differently the name of God, but who recog- nize him everywhere in his works and adore him in his manifestations of nature ! And I, I also prayed in the presence of those trees. The harmonious wind that re- sounded through their sonorous branches played in my hair and froze upon my eyelids those tears of sorrow and adora- tion. Voyage en Orient (Paris, 1843). THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY {IRELAND) WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY THE road to the Causeway is bleak, wild, and hilly. The cabins along the road are scarcely better than those of Kerry, the inmates as ragged, and more fierce and dark-looking. I never was so pestered by juvenile beggars as in the dismal village of Ballintoy. A crowd of them rushed after the car, calling for money in a fierce manner, as if it was their right ; dogs as fierce as the children came yelling after the vehicle ; and the faces which scowled out of the black cabins were not a whit more good-humoured. We passed by one or two more clumps of cabins, with their turf and corn-stacks lying together at the foot of the hills j placed there for the convenience of the children, doubtless, who can thus accompany the car either way, and shriek out their " Bonny gantleman, gi'e us a ha'p'ny." A couple of churches, one with a pair of its pinnacles blown off, stood in the dismal open country, and a gentleman's house here and there : there were no trees about them, but a brown graso round about — hills rising and falling in front, and the sea beyond. The occasional view of the coast was noble; wild Bengore towering eastwards as we went along; Ra- ghery Island before us, in the steep rocks and caves of which Bruce took shelter when driven from yonder Scottish coast, that one sees stretching blue in the northeast. 104 THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY I think this wild gloomy tract through which one passes is a good prelude for what is to be the great sight of the day, and got my mind to a proper state of awe by the time we were near the journey's end. Turning away shore- wards by the fine house of Sir Francis Macnaghten, I went towards a lone handsome inn, that stands close to the Causeway. The landlord at Ballycastle had lent me Ham- ilton's book to read on the road; but I had not time then to read more than half-a-dozen pages of it. They de- scribed how the author, a clergyman distinguished as a man of science, had been thrust out of a friend's house by the frightened servants one wild night, and butchered by some Whiteboys who were waiting outside and called for his blood. I had been told at Belfast that there was a corpse in the inn : was it there now ? It had driven ofF, the car- boy said, " in a handsome hearse and four to Dublin the whole way." It was gone, but I thought the house looked as if the ghost was there. See, yonder are the black rocks stretching to Portrush : how leaden and grey the sea looks ! how grey and leaden the sky ! You hear the waters rush- ing evermore, as they have done since the beginning of the world. The car drives us with a dismal grinding noise of the wheels to the big lone house : there's no smoke in the chimneys ; the doors are locked. Three savage-looking men rush after the car : are they the men who took out Mr. Hamilton — took him out and butchered him in the moon- light ? Is everybody, I wonder, dead in that big house ? Will they let us in before those men are up ? Out comes a pretty smiling girl, with a curtsey, just as the savages are THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY IO5 at the car, and you are ushered into a very comfortable room ; and the men turn out to be guides. Well, thank Heaven it's no worse ! I had fifteen pounds still left ; and, when desperate, have no doubt should fight like a lion. The traveller no sooner issues from the inn by a back door, which he is informed will lead him straight to the Causeway, than the guides pounce upon him, with a dozen rough boatmen who are likewise lying in wait ; and a crew of shrill beggar-boys, with boxes of spars, ready to tear him and each other to pieces seemingly, yell and bawl inces- santly round him. "I'm the guide Miss Henry recom- mends," shouts one. " I'm Mr. Macdonald's guide," pushes in another. " This way," roars a third, and drags his prey down a precipice ; the rest of them clambering and quarrelling after. I had no friends ; I was perfectly helpless. I wanted to walk down to the shore by myself, but they would not let me, and I had nothing for it but to yield myself into the hands of the guide who had seized me, who hurried me down the steep to a little wild bay, flanked on each side by rugged clifFs and rocks, against which the waters came tumbling, frothing, and roaring furiously. Upon some of these black rocks two or three boats were lying : four men seized a boat, pushed it shout- ing into the water, and ravished me into it. We had slid between two rocks, where the channel came gurgling in: we were up one swelling wave that came in a huge ad- vancing body ten feet above us, and were plunging madly down another (the descent causes a sensation in the lower regions of the stomach which it is not at all necessary here I06 THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY to describe), before I had leisure to ask myself why the deuce I was in that boat, with four rowers hurrooing and bounding madly from one liquid mountain to another — four rowers whom I was bound to pay. I say, the query came qualmishly across me why the devil I was there, and why not walking calmly on the shore. The guide began pouring his professional jargon into my ears. " Every one of them bays," says he, " has a name (take my place, and the spray won't come over you) : that is Port NofFer, and the next. Port na Gange; them rocks is the Stookawns (for every rock has its name as well as every bay); and yonder — ^give way, my boys, — hurray, we're over it now : has it wet you much, sir ? — that's a little cave : it goes five hundred feet under ground, and the boats goes into it easy of a calm day." " Is it a fine day or a rough one now ? " said I ; the in- ternal disturbance going on with more severity than ever. " It's betwixt and between ; or, I may say, neither one nor the other. Sit up, sir. Look at the entrance of the cave. Don't be afraid, sir ; never has an accident happened in any one of these boats, and the most delicate ladies has rode in them on rougher days than this. Now, boys, pull to the big cave. That, sir, is six hundred and sixty yards in length, though some say it goes for miles inland, where the people sleeping in their houses hear the waters roaring under them." The water was tossing and tumbling into the mouth of the little cave. I looked, — for the guide would not let me alone till I did, — and saw what might be <*xpected : a black THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY 107 hole of some forty feet high, into which it was no more possible to see than into a millstone. " For Heaven's sake, sir," says I, " if you've no particular wish to see the mouth of the big cave, put about and let us see the Causeway and get ashore." This was done, the guide meanwhile telling some story of a ship of the Spanish Armada having fired her guns at two peaks of rock, then visible, which the crew mistook for chimney-pots — what benighted fools these Spanish Armadilloes must have been ; it is easier to see a rock than a chimney-pot ; it is easy to know that chimney- pots do not grow on rocks. — ^' But where, if you please, is the Causeway ? " " That's the Causeway before you," says the guide. " Which ? " " That pier which you see jutting out into the bay right ahead." " Mon dteu ! and have I travelled a hundred and fifty miles to see that F " I declare, upon my conscience, the barge moored at Hungerford Market is a more majestic object, and seems to occupy as much space. As for telling a man that the Causeway is merely a part of the sight ; that he is there for the purpose of examining the surrounding scenery ; that if he looks to the westward he will see Portrush and Donegal Head before him; that the cliffs immediately in his front are green in some places, black in others, interspersed with blotches of brown and streaks of vendure ; — what is all this to a lonely individual lying sick in a boat, between two im- mense waves that only give him momentary glimpses of the I08 THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY land in question, to show that it is frightfully near, and yet you are an hour from it ? They won't let you go away — that cursed guide will tell out his stock of legends and stories. The boatmen insist upon your looking at boxes of " specimens," which you must buy of them ; they laugh as you grow paler and paler j they offer you more and more " specimens " ; even the dirty lad who pulls number three, and is not allowed by his comrades to speak, puts in his oar, and hands you over a piece of Irish diamond (it looks like half-sucked alicompayne), and scorns you. " Hurry, lads, now for it, give way ! " how the oars do hurtle in the rowlocks, as the boat goes up an aqueous mountain, and then down into one of those cursed maritime valleys where there is no rest as on shore ! At last, after they had pulled me enough about, and sold me all the boxes of specimens, I was permitted to land at the spot whence we set out, and whence, though we had been rowing for an hour, we had never been above five hundred yards distant. Let all cockneys take warning from this ; let the solitary one caught issuing from the back door of the hotel, shout at once to the boatmen to be gone — that he will have none of them. Let him, at any rate, go first down to the water to determine whether it be smooth enough to allow him to take any decent pleasure by riding on its surface. For after all, it must be remembered that it is pleasure we come for — that we are not obliged to take those boats. — Well, well ! I paid ten shillings for mine, and ten minutes after would cheerfully have paid five pounds to be allowed to quit it ; it was no hard bargain after all. THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY IO9 As for the boxes of spar and specimens, I at once, being on terra firma, broke my promise, and said I would see them all — first. It is wrong to swear, I know ; but sometimes it relieves one so much ! The first act on shore was to make a sacrifice to Sanctis- sima Tellus ; offering up to her a neat and becoming Tag- lioni coat, bought for a guinea in Covent Garden only three months back. I sprawled on my back on the smoothest of rocks that is, and tore the elbows to pieces : the guide picked me up ; the boatman did not stir, for they had their will of me ; the guide alone picked me up, I say, and bade me follow him. We went across a boggy ground in one of the little bays, round which rise the green walls of the cliff, terminated on either side by a black crag, and the line of the shore washed by the poluphloisboiotic, nay the pol- uphloisboiotatotic sea. Two beggars stepped over the bog after us howling for money, and each holding up a cursed box of specimens. No oaths, threats, entreaties, would drive these vermin away ; for some time the whole scene had been spoiled by the incessant and abominable jargon of them, the boatmen, and the guides. 1 was obliged to give them money to be left in quiet, and if, as no doubt will be the case, the Giant's Causeway shall be a still greater re- sort of travellers than ever, the county must put police- men on the rocks to keep the beggars away, or fling them in the water when they appear. And now, by force of money, having got rid of the sea and land beggars, you are at liberty to examine at your leisure the wonders of the place. There is not the least no THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY need for a guide to attend the stranger, unless the latter have a mind to listen to a parcel of legends, which may be well from the mouth of a wild simple peasant who believes in his tales, but are odious from a dullard who narrates them at the rate of sixpence a lie. Fee him and the other beggars, and at last you are left tranquil to look at the strange scene with your own eyes, and enjoy your own thoughts at leisure. That is, if the thoughts awakened by such a scene may be called enjoyment ; but for me, I confess, they are too near akin to fear to be pleasant ; and I don't know that I would desire to change that sensation of awe and terror which the hour's walk occasioned, for a greater familiarity with this wild, sad, lonely place. The solitude is awful. I can't understand how those chattering guides dare to lift up their voices here, and cry for money. It looks like the beginning of the world, somehow : the sea looks older than in other places, the hills and rocks strange, and formed differently from other rocks and hills — as those vast dubious monsters were formed who possessed the earth before man. The hilltops are shattered into a thousand cragged fantastical shapes ; the water comes swelling into scores of little strange creeks, or goes off with a leap, roaring into those mysterious caves yonder, which penetrate who knows how far into our common world. The savage rock-sides are painted of a hundred colours. Does the sun ever shine here ? When the world was moulded and fashioned out of formless chaos, this must have been the bit over — a remnant of chaos ! Think THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY III of that ! — it is a tailor's simile. Well, I am a cockney : I wish I were in Pall Mall ! Yonder is a kelp-burner : a lurid smoke from his burning kelp rises up to the leaden sky, and he looks as naked and fierce as Cain. Bubbling up out of the rocks at the very brim of the sea rises a little crystal spring : how comes it there ? and there is an old grey hag beside, who has been there for hundreds and hun- dreds of years, and there sits and sells whisky at the ex- tremity of creation ! How do you dare to sell whisky there, old woman ? Did you serve old Saturn with a glass when he lay along the Causeway here ? In reply, she says, she has no change for a shilling : she never has ; but her whisky is good. This is not a description of the Giant's Causeway (as some clever critic will remark), but of a Londoner there, who is by no means so interesting an object as the natural curiosity in question. That single hint is sufficient ; I have not a word more to say. " If," says he, " you cannot describe the scene lying before us — if you cannot state from your personal observation that the number of basaltic pillars composing the Causeway has been computed at about forty thousand, which vary in diameter, their surface presenting the appearance of a tesselated pavement of polygonal stones — that each pillar is formed of several dis- tinct joints, the convex end of the one being accurately fitted in the concave of the next, and the length of the joints varying from five feet to four inches — that although the pillars are polygonal, there is but one of three sides in the whole forty thousand (think of that !), but three of nine 112 THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY sides, and that it may be safely computed that ninety-nine out of one hundred pillars have either five, six, or seven sides ; if you cannot state something useful, you had much better, sir, retire and get your dinner." Never was summons more gladly obeyed. The dinner must be ready by this time ; so, remain you, and look on at the awful scene, and copy it down in words if you can. If at the end of the trial you are dissatisfied with your skill as a painter, and find that the biggest of your words cannot render the hues and vastness of that tremendous swelling sea — of those lean solitary crags standing rigid along the shore, where they have been watching the ocean ever since it was made — of those grey towers of Dunluce standing upon a leaden rock, and looking as if some old old princess, of old old fairy times, were dragon-guarded within — of yon flat stretches of sand where the Scotch and Irish mermaids hold conference — come away, too, and prate no more about the scene ! There is that in nature, dear Jenkins, which passes even our powers. We can feel the beauty of a magnificent landscape, perhaps : but we can describe a leg of mutton and turnips better. Come, then, this scene is for our betters to depict. If Mr. Tenn- yson were to come hither for a month, and brood over the place, he might, in some of those lofty heroic lines which the author of the Morte d' Arthur knows how to pile up, convey to the reader a sense of this gigantic desolate scene. What ! you, too, are a poet ? Well, then Jenkins, stay ! but believe me, you had best take my advice, and come ofF. The Irish Sketch-Book (London, 1843). THE GREAT GLACIER OF THE SELKIRKS ( CANADA ) DOUGLAS SLADEN IF Banff represents the Rocky Mountains made easy, the Glacier House represents the Selkirks made easy — a much more notable performance, for these mountains had long been regarded as impassable by engineering. The Glacier House is a few miles beyond Rogers' Pass, in the midst of the line's greatest marvels of nature and engineer- ing. Just before comes the monarch of snow sheds ; just above the monarch of glaciers ; just below the monarch of viaducts. The Great Glacier of the Selkirks comes to a conclusion within a couple of miles above it. The moraines and splintered forests at its foot tell a frightful tale of de- struction, and the glacier advances every year; but only a few inches, so the hotel is safe for the present. The hotel is a pretty little chalet, mostly dining-room, with a trim, level lawn in front containing a fine fountain. Eighteen miles broad is the great Glacier of the Sel- kirks, one foot of which is planted so threateningly above the hotel and the railway station, that it looks as if it meant to stamp them out of existence with the stealth of a thief in the night. A marvellous and delightful walk it is from the hotel to the Glacier — at first through dry woods of fir and spruce, 1 14 THE GREAT GLACIER OF THE SELKIRKS and balsam and tamarack, carpeted, wherever the sun breaks through, with purple blueberries, wild raspberries, pigeon and salmon berries. Here you might meet a grizzly bear any minute. You pause, if you are only a man and a woman, on the lovers' seat under the thousand-ton boulder hurled down by the Glacier in the childhood of the earth. Then you pass the fierce glacial torrent of grey-green water, so cold or charged with impurities that fish refuse to live in it, swelling, as all snow-fed rivers do, as the heat of a summer's day waxes. Some of its pools are huge and deep ; some of its falls and rapids as fierce as the cataract at Lorette, rounded boulders and splintered trunks every- where attesting its fury. The path crosses and recrosses the river over bridges of tree-trunks, with smaller trunks loosely pinned across them, like the little straw mats in which cream cheeses are wrapped. As the path mounts, the scenery becomes more open, and you are greeted, ac- cording to the season, with Canada's gorgeous lily or Canada's prodigality of wild fruits ; for you are in the track of the glacier and the avalanche, and in the death of the forest is the birth of blossoms and berries. All around you now is a scene of awful grandeur — boulders as big as settlers* huts, and giant tree trunks, many of them blackened with fire, tossed together like the rubbish on a dust-heap, and, brooding over all, the great Glacier like a dragon crouching for the spring. One can hardly believe it is the Glacier ; the transitions are so abrupt. A turn of a path brings you almost in contact with a piece of ice larger than any lake in the British Islands. From under its skirts THE GREAT GLACIER OF THE SELKIRKS II5 trickle tiny rills ; a few feet below, the rills league them- selves into a river. Even a first-class glacier is a disap- pointing affair if you go too close. Its blueness disappears, also its luminosity, except in crevasses deep enough to show you the pure heart of the ice. The surface is a dirty- looking mixture of ice and snow. There were two lovely horizontal crevasses, one so spacious and shining that it is called the Fairy Cavern. The pleasure of standing in them is spoilt, because they look all the time as if they were going to close on you. At another foot of the Glacier there are immense moraines, looking like the earthworks of Dover Castle. I examined them one October day when I went with a guide to the top of the Glacier, eight thousand feet above sea-level, to see the splendid Glacier-girdled head of Mount Fox on the other side of the abyss. I never intend to do any more mountain climbing through deep, fresh snow. For the last hour or two of the ascent the snow was as deep as one's thighs at every step, and though the guide was towing me by a rope tied round my waist, it was intolerably wearisome. To begin with, he had to sound with his staff at every step and see that we were on terra firma^ and not on the soufflet of a crevasse ; and though there had been such a snowfall the night be- fore, the sun was as hot as summer overhead. The sight was worth doing once, with the miles and miles of the sea of ice all round one, and the long white slopes of virgin snow. If it had not been for the aggressive vis^e of Mount Fox, it would have answered to the description of the in- Il6 THE GREAT GLACIER OF THE SELKIRKS terior of Greenland given me by Dr. Nansen, where the world consists of yourselves, the sun, and the snow. We started at eight o'clock in the morning, but in some way or other I was not quite as rapid as the guide had calculated, for a couple of hours before nightfall he began to get ex- cited, if not alarmed. We were at the time clear of the deep snow, and muddling about in a mixture of drifts and moraines; but after dark he was not sure of his way until we struck the path at the foot of the Glacier. The Glacier House has not only its noble and easily ac- cessible glacier; it is in the very heart of the finest mountain scenery in the Selkirks, which is so different to the scenery of the Rockies. The Canadian Rockies are blunt-topped fisty mountains, with knuckles of bare rock sticking out everywhere. The Selkirks are graceful pyra- mids and sharp sierras, up to their shoulders in magnificent forests of lofty pines. The trees on the Rockies are much smaller and poorer. Right above the hotel, to the left of the overhanging Glacier, is the bare steeple of Sir Donald, one of the monarchs of the range ; Ross Peak and Cheops frown on the descent of the line to the Pacific ; and the line of the Atlantic is guarded by the hundred pinnacles of the rifted mountain, formerly known as the Hermit, and now, with singular infelicity, re-christened, in an eponymous fit. Mount Tupper. Sir Charles Tupper is one of Canada's greatest men, but his name is more suitable for a great man than a great mountain, especially since there is a very perfect effect of a hermit and his dog formed by bouxders near the top of "^p ■■J ^^^^^E ' -^''''l^^iflPfi^B^^^^^^^^^^^I '^i^^l ^^^^^^^H'- 'iJ^r ' ' ^^Hl^M^aH 1' i 'v" -' 1 iJH -, y^e^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^kjm^^^^^^^m^^^ THE GREAT GLACIER OF THE SELKIRKS I 1 7 the mountain. The men in the railway camp have got over this difficulty with the doggerel : " That's Sir Charles Tupper Going home to his supper." We made two long stays at the Glacier House, and I never enjoyed anything more in my life than the effect of the snug little chalet, with its velvety lawn, in the strong- hold of the giant mountains, brought into touch with the great world twice a day by the trains east and west, which echoed their approach and departure miles on miles through the ranges. On the Cars and Off (London, 1895). MAUNA LOA ( HA WAin LADY BRASSEY AT 6:30 A. M., we made the island of Hawaii, rather too much to leeward, as we had been carried by the strong current at least eighteen miles out of our course. We were therefore obliged to beat up to windward, in the course of which operation we passed a large bark running be- fore the wind — the first ship we had seen since leaving Tahiti — and also a fine whale, blowing close to us. We could not see the high land in the centre of the island, owing to the mist in which it was enveloped, and there was great excite- ment and much speculation on board as to the principal points which were visible. At noon the observations taken proved that Tom was right in his opinion as to our exact position. The wind dropped as we approached the coast, where we could see the heavy surf dashing against the black lava cliffs, rushing up the little creeks, and throwing its spray in huge fountain-like jets high above the tall cocoanut- trees far inland. We sailed along close to the shore, and by two o'clock were near the entrance to the Bay of Hilo. In answer to our signal for a pilot, a boat came off with a man who said he knew the entrance to the harbour, but informed us that the proper pilot had gone to Honolulu on a pleasure trip. MAUN A LOA MQ It was a clear afternoon. The mountains, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, could be plainly seen from top to bottom, their giant crests rising nearly 14,000 feet above our heads, their tree and fern clad slopes seamed with deep gulches or ravines, down each of which a fertilizing river ran into the sea. Inside the reef, the white coral shore, on which the waves seemed too lazy to break, is fringed with a belt of cocoanut palms, amongst which, as well as on the hill- sides, the little white houses are prettily dotted. All are surrounded by gardens, so full of flowers that the bright patches of colour were plainly visible even from the deck of the yacht. The harbour is large, and is exposed only to one bad wind, which is most prevalent during the winter months. It was half-past nine before we were all mounted and fairly off. The first part of our way lay along the flat ground, gay with bright scarlet Guernsey lilies, and shaded by cocoanut-trees, between the town and the sea. Then we struck off to the right, and soon left the town behind us, emerging into the open country. At a distance from the sea, Hilo looks as green as the Emerald Isle itself; but on a closer inspection the grass turns out to be coarse and dry, and many of the trees look scrubby and half dead. Except in the "gulches" and the deep holes, between the hills, the island is covered with lava, in many places of so recent a deposit that it has not yet had time to decompose, and there is consequently only a thin layer of soil on its surface. The soil being, however, very rich, vegetation flourishes luxuriantly for a time ; but as soon as the roots 120 MAUNA LOA have penetrated a certain depth, and have come into con- tact with the lava, the trees wither up and perish, like the seed that fell on stony ground. The ohia trees form a handsome feature in the landscape, with their thick stems, glossy foliage, and light crimson flowers. The fruit is a small, pink, waxy-looking apple, slightly acid, pleasant to the taste when you are thirsty, The candle-nut trees attain to a large size, and their light green foliage and white flowers have a very graceful ap- pearance. Most of the foHage, however, is spoiled by a de- posit of a black dust, not unlike what one sees on the leaves of a London garden. I do not know whether this i caused by the fumes of the not far-distant volcano, or whether it is some kind of mold or fungus. After riding about ten miles in the blazing sun we reached a forest, where the vegetation was quite tropical, though not so varied in its beauties as that of Brazil, or of the still more lovely South Sea Islands. There were ferns of various descriptions in the forest, and many fine trees, entwined, supported, or suffocated by numerous climbing plants, amongst which were blue and lilac convolvulus, and magnificent passion-flowers. The protection from the sun afforded by this dense mass of foliage was extremely grate- ful ; but the air of the forest was close and stifling, and at the end of five miles we were glad to emerge once more into the open. The rest of the way lay over the hard lava, through a desert of scrubby vegetation, occasionally re- lieved by clumps of trees in hollows. More than once we had a fine view of the sea, stretching away into the far dis- MAUNA LOA 121 tance, though it was sometimes mistaken for the bright blue sky, until the surf could be seen breaking upon the black rocks, amid the encircling groves of cocoanut-trees. The sun shone fiercely at intervals, and the rain came down several times in torrents. The pace was slow, the road was dull and dreary, and many were the inquiries made for the *' Half-way House," long before we reached it. Directly we had finished our meal — about three o'clock — the guide came and tried to persuade us that, as the baggage mules had not yet arrived, it would be too late for us to go on to-day, and that we had better spend the night where we were, and start early in the morning. We did not, how- ever, approve of this arrangement, so the horses were sad- dled, and leaving word that the baggage-mules were to fol- low us on as soon as possible, we mounted, and set off^ for the " Volcano House." We had not gone far before we were again overtaken by a shower, which once more drenched us to the skin. The scene was certainly one of extreme beauty. The moon was hidden by a cloud, and the prospect lighted only by the red glare of the volcano, which hovered before and above us like the Israelites' pillar of fire, giving us hope of a splendid spectacle when we should at last reach the long wished-for crater. Presently the moon shone forth again, and gleamed and glistened on the raindrops and silver grasses till they looked like fireflies and glowworms. When we emerged from the wood, we found ourselves at the very edge of the old crater, the bed of which, three of 122 MAUNA LOA four hundred feet beneath us, was surrounded by steep and in many places overhanging sides. It looked like an enor- mous caldron, four or five miles in vv^idth, full of a mass of coloured pitch. In the centre was the still glowing stream of dark red lava, flowing slowly towards us, and in every direction were red-hot patches, and flames and smoke issu- ing from the ground. A bit of the " black country " at night, with all the coal-heaps on fire, would give you some idea of the scene. Yet the first sensation is rather one of disappointment, as one expects greater activity on the part of the volcano ; but the new crater was still to be seen, con- taining the lake of fire, with steep walls rising up in the midst of the sea of lava. . . . The grandeur of the view in the direction of the volcano increased as the evening wore on. The fiery cloud above the present crater augmented in size and depth of colour; the extinct crater glowed red in thirty or forty different places ; and clouds of white vapour issued from every crack and crevice in the ground, adding to the sulphurous smell with which the atmosphere was laden. Our room faced the volcano : there were no blinds, and I drew back the curtains and lay watching the splendid scene until I fell asleep. Sunday, December 24th (Christmas Eve). I was up at four o'clock, to gaze once more on the won- drous spectacle that lay before me. The molten lava still flowed in many places, the red cloud over the fiery lake was bright as ever, and the stream was slowly ascending in every MAUNA LOA 1 23 direction, over hill and valley, till, as the sun rose, it became difficult to distinguish clearly the sulphurous vapours from the morning mists. We walked dovv'n to the Sulphur Banks, about a quarter of a mile from the " Volcano House," and burned our gloves and boots in our endeavours to procure crystals, the beauty of w^hich generally disappeared after a very short exposure to the air. We succeeded, hov^^ever, in finding a few good specimens, and, by wrapping them at once in paper and cotton-wool and putting them into a bottle, hope to bring them home uninjured. On our return we found a gentleman who had just ar- rived from Kan, and who proposed to join us in our expedi- tion to the crater, and at three o'clock in the afternoon we set out, a party of eight, with two guides, and three porters to carry our wraps and provisions, and to bring back specimens. Before leaving the inn the landlord came to us and begged us in an earnest and confidential manner to be very careful to do exactly what our guides told us, and es- pecially to follow in their footsteps exactly when returning in the dark. He added : " There never has been an acci- dent happen to anybody from my house, and I should feel real mean if one did : but there have been a power of narrow escapes." First of all we descended the precipice, 300 feet in depth, forming the wall of the old crater, but now thickly covered with vegetation. It is so steep in many places that flights of zigzag wooden steps have been inserted in the face of the clifF in some places, in order to render the descent practicable. At the bottom we stepped straight on 124 MAUNA LOA to the surface of cold boiled lava, which we had seen from above last night. Even here, in every crevice where a few grains of soil had collected, delicate little ferns might be seen struggling for life, and thrusting out their green fronds towards the light. It was the most extraordinary walk imaginable over that vast plain of lava, twisted and distorted into every conceivable shape and form, according to the temperature it had originally attained, and the rapidity with which it had cooled, its surface, like half-molten glass, cracking and breaking beneath our feet. Sometimes we came to a patch that looked like the contents of a pot, sud- denly petrified in the act of boiling ; sometimes the black iridescent lava had assumed the form of waves, or more frequently of huge masses of rope, twisted and coiled to- gether ; sometimes it was piled up like a collection of organ-pipes, or had gathered into mounds and cones of various dimensions. As we proceeded the lava became hotter and hotter, and from every crack arose gaseous fumes, affecting our noses and throats in a painful manner; till at last, when we had to pass to leeward of the molten stream flowing from the lake, the vapours almost choked us, and it was with diflSculty we continued to advance. The lava was more glassy and transparent-looking, as if it had been fused at a higher temperature than usual ; and the crystals of sulphur, alum, and other minerals, with which it abounded, reflected the light in bright prismatic colours. In places it was quite transparent, and we could see beneath it the long streaks of a stringy kind of lava, like brown spun glass, called " Pele's hair." MAUNA LOA 1 25 At last we reached the foot of the present crater, and commenced the ascent of the outer wall. Many times the thin crust gave way beneath our guide, and he had to retire quickly from the hot, blinding, choking fumes that immedi- ately burst forth. But we succeeded in reaching the top ; and then what a sight presented itself to our astonished eyes ! I could neither speak nor move at first, but could only stand and gaze at the terrible grandeur of the scene. We were standing on the extreme edge of the precipice, overhanging a lake of molten fire, a hundred feet below us, and nearly a mile across. Dashing against the cliffs on the opposite side, with a noise like the roar of a stormy ocean, waves of blood-red, fiery, liquid lava hurled their billows upon an iron-bound headland, and then rushed up the face of the cliffs to toss their gory spray high in the air. The restless, heaving lake boiled and bubbled, never remaining the same for two minutes together. Its normal colour seemed to be a dull, dark red, covered with a thin grey scum, which every moment and in every part swelled and cracked, and emitted fountains, cascades, and whirlpools of yellow and red fire, while sometimes one big golden river, sometimes four or five flowed across it. There was an island on one side of the lake, which the fiery waves seemed to attack unceasingly with relentless fury, as if bent on hurling it from its base. On the other side was a large cavern, into which the burning mass rushed with a loud roar, breaking down in its impetuous headlong career the gigantic stalactites that overhung the mouth of the cave, and flinging up the liquid material for the formation of fresh ones. 126 MAUNA LOA It was all terribly grand, magnificently sublime ; but no words could adequately describe such a scene. The preci- pice on which we were standing overhung the crater so much that it was impossible to see what was going on im- mediately beneath ; but from the columns of smoke and vapour that arose, the flames and sparks that constantly drove us back from the edge, it was easy to imagine that there must have been two or three grand fiery fountains be- low. As the sun set, and the darkness enveloped the scene, it became more awful than ever. We retired a little way from the brink, to breathe some fresh air, and to try and eat the food we had brought with us ; but this was an impossibility. Every instant a fresh explosion or glare made us jump up to survey the stupendous scene. The violent struggles of the lava to escape from its fiery bed, and the loud and awful noises by which they were at times accompanied, suggested the idea that some impris- oned monsters were trying to release themselves from their bondage with shrieks and groans, and cries of agony and despair, at the futility of their efforts. Sometimes there were at least seven spots on the borders of the lake where the molten lava dashed up furiously against the rocks — seven fire-fountains playing simultane- ously. With the increasing darkness the colours emitted by the glowing mass became more and more wonderful, varying from the deepest jet-black to the palest grey, from darkest maroon through cherry and scarlet to the most delicate pink, violet, and blue ; from the richest brown, through orange and yellow, to the lightest straw-colour. And there was yet an- MAUN A LOA 127 Other shade, only describable by the term " molten-lava col- our." Even the smokes and vapours were rendered beautiful by their borrow^ed lights and tints, and the black peaks, pin- nacles, and crags, which surrounded the amphitheatre, formed a splendid and appropriate background. Sometimes great pieces broke off and tumbled with a crash into the burning lake, only to be remelted and thrown up anew. I had for some time been feeling very hot and uncomfort- able, and on looking round the cause was at once appar- ent. Not two inches beneath the surface, the grey lava on which wc were standing and sitting was red-hot. A stick thrust through it caught fire, a piece of paper was immedi- ately destroyed, and the gentlemen found the heat from the crevices so great that they could not approach near enough to light their pipes. One more last look, and then we turned our faces away from the scene that had enthralled us for so many hours. The whole of the lava we had crossed, in the extinct crater, was now aglow in many patches, and in all direc- tions flames were bursting forth, fresh lava was flowing, and smoke and steam were issuing from the surface. It was a toilsome journey back again, walking as we did in single file, and obeying the strict injunctions of our head guide to follow him closely, and to tread exactly in his foot- steps. On the whole it was easier by night than by day to distinguish the route to be taken, as we could now sec the dangers that before we could only feel ; and many were the fiery crevices we stepped over or jumped across. Once I slipped, and my foot sank through the thin crust. Sparks 128 MAUNA LOA issued from the ground, and the stick on which I leaned caught fire before I could fairly recover myself. Monday, December 25th, (Christmas Day). Turning in last night was the work of a very few minutes, and this morning I awoke perfectly refreshed and ready to appreciate anew the wonders of the prospect that met my eyes. The pillar of fire was still distinctly visible, when I looked out from my window, though it was not so bright as when I had last seen it : but even as I looked it began to fade, and gradually disappeared. At the same moment a river of glowing lava issued from the side of the bank which we had climbed with so much difficulty yester- day, and slowly but surely overflowed the ground we had walked over. I woke Tom, and you may imagine the feelings with which we gazed upon this startling phenom- enon, which, had it occurred a few hours earlier, might have caused the destruction of the whole party. A Voyage in the Sunbeam (London, 1878). TROLLHATTA HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN WHbM did we meet at Trollhatta ? It is a strange story. We will relate it. We landed at the first sluice and immediately stood in a kind of English garden ; the broad pathways are covered with gravel and rise in low terraces between the green sun- lit greensward. It is charming and delightfi'l here, but by no means imposing; if one desires to be excited in this manner, he must go a little higher up to the old sluices, that have burst, deep and narrow, through the hard rock. Nature is magnificent here, and the water roars and foams in its deep bed far below. Up here one looks over valley and river ; the bank of the river on the other side rises in green undulating hills, with clusters of leafy trees and wooden houses painted red ; rocks and pine forests hem in the land- scape. Through the sluices steamboats and sailing vessels are ascending ; the water itself is the attendant spirit that must bear them up above the rock. And from the forest it issues, buzzing, roaring, and blustering. The din of the Trollhatta Falls mingles with the noise of the sawmills and the smithies. " In three hours we shall be through the sluices," said the Captain, " and then you shall visit the Falls. We shall meet again at the inn above." t^o trollhAtta We went along the path that led through the forest and thickets ; a whole fiock of bare-headed boys surrounded us, all wishing to be our guides ; each one outscreamed the other, and each gave contradictory explanations of how high was the water and how high it did not or could rise ; and here was also a great difference of opinion among the learned. Soon we came to a halt on a large heather- covered rock, a dizzying eminence. Before us, but deep below, the foaming, roaring water — the Hell Fall, and over this, cascade after cascade, the rich, swelling, rushing river, the outlet of the largest lake in Sweden. What a sight, what a foaming above and below ! It is like the waves of the sea, or like effervescing champagne, or like boil- ing milk ; the water rushes around two rocky islands above so that the spray rises like mist from a meadow, while below, it is more compressed, and, hurrying away, returns in circles ; then it rolls down in a long wave-like fall, the Hell Fall. What a roaring storm in the deep — what a spectacle ! Man is dumb. And so were also the scream- ing little guides ; they were silent, and when they renewed their explanations and stories, they did not get far before an old gentleman, whom none of us had noticed, although he was here among us, made himself heard above the noise with his peculiarly shrill voice ; he spoke of the place and its former days as if they had been of yesterday. " Here on the rocky isles," said he, " here in olden times the warriors, as they are called, decided their dis- putes. The warrior, Starkodder, dwelt in this region, and took a fancy to the pretty maid Ogn j but she fancied trollhAtta 131 Hergrimer the more, and in consequence he was challenged by Starkodder to a duel here by the Falls and met his death ; but Ogn sprang towards them, and, seizing her lover's bloody sword, thrust it into her heart. Starkodder did not get her. So a hundred years passed and another hundred ; the forest became heavy and thick, wolves and bears prowled here summer and winter, and wicked robbers hid their booty here and no one could find them ; yonder, by the Fall before Top Island, on the Norwegian side, was their cave ; now it has fallen in — the clifF there overhangs it ! " " Yes, the Tailors' ClifF! " screamed all the boys. " It fell in the year 1755 ! " " Fell ! " cried the old man as if astonished that any one could know of it but himself. " Everything will fall : the tailor also fell. The robbers placed him upon the clifF and told him that if he v.ould be liberated for his ransom he must sew a suit of clothes there ; he tried to do it, but as he drew out his thread at the first stitch, he became dizzy and fell into the roaring water, and thus the rock got the name of The Tailors' ClifF. One day the robbers caught a young girl, and she betrayed them ; she kindled a fire in the cavern, the smoke was seen, the cavern was dis- covered, and the robbers imprisoned and executed ; that outside there is called The Thieves' Fall, and below, un- der the water, is another cave ; the river rushes in there and issues out foaming ; you can see it well up here and hear it too, but it can be heard better under the stony roof of the mountain sprite." And we went on and on along the waterfall towards Top 132 trollhAtta Island, always on smooth paths covered with saw-dust to Polhelm's-Sluice ; a cleft has been made in the rock for the first intended sluice-work, which was not finished, but on account of which has been shaped the most imposing of all the Trollhatta Falls ; the hurrying water falls perpen- dicularly into the dark depth. The side of the rock here is connected with Top Island by means of a light iron bridge, which seems to be thrown over the abyss ; we venture on this swaying bridge above the rushing, whirling water, and soon stand on the little rocky island between firs and pines that dart out of the crevices ; before us rushes a sea of waves, broken as they rebound against the rock on which we stand, spraying us with their fine eternal mist ; on each side the torrent flows as if shot from a gigantic cannon, waterfall upon waterfall ; we look above them all and are lulled by the harmonic tone that has existed fo*- thousands of years. " No one can ever get to that island over there," said one of our party, pointing to the large island above the highest fall. " I know one who got there ! " exclaimed the old man, and nodded with a peculiar smile. "Yes, my grandfather got there ! " said one of the boys, *' but for a hundred years scarcely any one else has reached it. The cross that stands there was set up by my grand- father. It had been a severe winter, the whole of Lake Venern was frozen, the ice dammed up the outlet, and for many hours the bottom was dry. Grandfather has told us about it : he and two others went over, set up the cross, and returned. Just then there was a thundering and crack- ing noise just like cannon, the ice broke up and the stream trollhAtta 133 overflowed meadows and forest. It is true, every word I say ! " One of the travellers cited Tegner : " Vildt Gota stortade fran Fjallen, Hemsk TroUet fran sat Toppfall rot ! Men Snillet kom och sprangt stod Hallen, Med Skeppen i sitt skot ! " " Poor mountain sprite," he added, " thy power and glory are failing ! Man flies beyond thee — Thou must learn of him ! " The garrulous old man made a grimace, and muttered something to himself — but we were now by the bridge be- fore the inn, the steamboat glided through the open way, every one hurried on board and immediately it shot above the Fall just as if no Fall existed. It was evening ; I stood on the heights of Trollhatta's old sluices, and saw the ships with outspread sails glide away over the meadows like large white spectres. The sluice-gates opened with a heavy, crashing sound like that related of the copper gates of the Vehmgericht ; the evening was so still ; in the deep silence the tone of the Trollhatta Fall was like a chorus of a hundred water-mills, ever one and the same tone and sometimes the ringing of a deep and mighty note that seemed to pass through the very earth — and yet through all this the eternal silence of Nature was felt ; — suddenly a great bird with heavily flapping wings flew out of the trees in the deep woods towards the water- fall. Was it the mountain sprite ? We must believe so. Pictures oy Sweden (Leipzig^ 1851). THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO iVNITED STATES) C. F. GORDON-CUMMING PROBABLY the greatest chasm in the known worlc is the grand canyon of the Colorado river (the Rio Colorado Grande), which is a gorge upward of two hun- dred miles in length, and of tremendous depth. Through- out this distance its vertical crags measure from one to up- wards of six thousand feet in depth ! Think of it ! The highest mountain in Scotland measures 4,418 feet. The height of Niagara is 145 feet. And here is a narrow, tor- tuous pass where the river has eaten its way to a depth of 6,200 feet between vertical granite crags ! Throughout this canyon there is no cascade ; and though the river descends 16,000 feet within a very short distance, forming rushing rapids, it is nevertheless possible to de- scend it by a raft — and this has actually been done, in defi- ance of the most appalling dangers and hardships. It is such a perilous adventure as to be deemed worthy of note even in this country, where every prospector carries his life in his hand, and to whom danger is the seasoning of daily life, which, without it, would appear positively monotonous. I suppose no river in the world passes through scenery so extraordinary as does the Colorado river, in its journey of 2,000 miles from its birthplace in the Rocky mountains, THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO 1 35 till, traversing the burning plains of New Mexico, it ends its course in the Gulf of California. Its early career is uneventful. In its youth it bears a maiden name, and, as the Green river, vi^ends it way joyously through the upper forests. Then it reaches that ghastly country known as the mauvaises terres of Utah and Arizona — a vast region — extending also into Nevada and Wyoming, which, by the ceaseless action of water, has been carried into an intricate labyrinth of deep gloomy caverns. For a distance of one thousand miles the river winds its tortuous course through these stupendous granite gorges, receiving the waters of many tributary streams, each rush- ing along similar deeply hewn channels. In all the range of fiction no adventures can be devised more terrible than those which have actually befallen gold- seekers and hunters who, from any cause, have strayed into this dreary and awesome region. It was first discovered by two bold explorers, by name Strobe and White, who, be- ing attacked by Indians, took refuge in the canyons. Pre- ferring to face unknown dangers to certain death at the hands of the enemy, they managed to collect enough tim- ber to construct a rude raft, and determined to attempt the descent. Once embarked on that awful journey, there was no re- turning — they must endure to the bitter end. On the fourth day the raft was upset. Strobe was drowned, and the little store of provisions and ammunition was lost. White contrived to right the raft, and for ten days the tushing waters bore him down the frightful chasm, 136 THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO seeing only the perpendicular cliffs on either side, and the strip of sky far overheard — never knowing, from hour to hour, but that at the next winding of the canyon the stream might overleap some mighty precipice, and so end his long anguish. During those awful ten days of famine, a few leaves and seed-pods, clutched from the bushes on the rocks, were his only food. At length he reached a wretched settlement of half- bred Mexicans, who, deeming his escape miraculous, fed him ; and eventually he reached the homes of white men, who looked on him (as well they might) as on one returned from the grave. The life thus wonderfully saved, was, however, sacrificed a few months later, when he fell into the hands of his old Indian foes. The story of White's adventure was confirmed by vari- ous trappers and prospectors, who, from time to time, ven- tured some little way into this mysterious rock-labyrinth ; and it was determined to attempt a government survey of the region. Accordingly, in 1869, a party, commanded by Major J. W. Powell, started on this most interesting but dangerous expedition. Warned by the fate of a party who attempted to explore the country in 1855, ^'^^ who, with the exception of two men (Ashley and another), all perished miserably, the government party started with all possible precautions. Four light Chicago-built boats were provisioned for six months, and, with infinite difficulty, were transported 1,500 miles across the desert. On reaching their starting-point, they were lowered into the awful ravines, from which it THE GRAND CANON OF THE COLORADO. THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO 1 37 was, to say the least, problematic whether all would emerge alive. The dangers, great enough in reality, had been magnified by rumour. It was reported, with every sem- blance of probability, that the river formed terrible whirl- pools — that it flowed underground for hundreds of miles, and emerged only to fall in mighty cataracts and appalling rapids. Even the friendly Indians entreated the explorers not to attempt so rash an enterprise, assuring them that none who embarked on that stream would escape alive. But in the face of all such counsel, the expedition started, and for upwards of three months the party travelled, one may almost say in the bowels of the earth — at least in her deepest furrows — through canyons where the cliffs rise, sheer from the water, to a height of three-quarters of a mile ! They found, as was only natural, that imagination had exaggerated the horrors of the situation, and that it was possible to follow the rock-girt course of the Colorado through all its wanderings — not without danger, of course. In many places the boat had to be carried. One was totally wrecked and its cargo lost, and the others came to partial grief, entailing the loss of valuable instruments, and almost more precious lives. Though no subterranean pas- sage was discovered, nor any actual waterfall, there were, nevertheless, such dangerous rapids as to necessitate fre- quent troublesome portage; and altogether, the expedition had its full share of adventure. The ground was found to vary considerably. In some places the rock is so vivid in colour — red and orange — that 138 THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO the canyons were distinguished as the Red Canyon and the Flaming Gorge. Some are mere fissures of tremendous depth ; while in other places, where the water has carved its way more freely, they are broad, here and there expand- ing into a fertile oasis, where green turf and lovely groves are enclosed by stupendous crags — miniature Yosemites — which to these travellers appeared to be indeed visions of Paradise. Granite Crags (Edinburgh and London, 1884). THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR (.SPAIN) AUGUSTUS J, C. HARE IT was a lovely day, and a calm sea, which was a great subject of rejoicing, for even as it was the rickety Spanish vessel rolled disagreeably. Owing to the miser- able slowness of everything, we were eleven hours on board. There was little interest till we reached the yellow headland of Trafalgar. Then the rugged outlines of the African coast rose before us, and we entered the straits, be- tween Tarifa sleeping amid its orange groves on the Span- ish coast, and the fine African peak above Ceuta. Soon, on the left, the great rock of Gibraltar rose from the sea like an island, though not the most precipitous side, which turns inwards towards the Mediterranean. But it was al- ready gun-fire, and too late to join another steamer and land at the town, so we waited for a shoal of small boats which put out from Algeciras, and surrounded our steamer to carry us on shore. Here we found in the Fonda Inglesa (kept by an Eng- lish landlady), one of the most primitive but charming little hotels we ever entered. The view from our rooms alone decided us to stay there some days. Hence, framed by the balcony, Gibraltar rose before us in all the glory of its rugged sharp-edged cliffs, grey in the morning, pink in 140 THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR the evening light, with the town at its foot, whence, at night, thousands of h'ghts were reflected on the still water. In the foreground were groups of fishing-boats at anchor, and, here and there, a lateen sail flitted, like a white albatross, across the bay. On the little pier beneath us was endless life and movement, knots of fishermen, in their blue shirts and scarlet caps and sashes, mingling with solemn-looking Moors in turbans, yellow slippers, and flowing burnouses, who were watching the arrival or em- barcation of their wares ; and an endless variety of trav- ellers from all parts of Europe, waiting for different steamers, or come over to see the place. Here an invalid might stay, imbibing health from the fine air and sunshine, and never be weary of the ever changing diorama. In every direction delightful walks wind along the cliffs through groves of aloes and prickly-pear, or descend into little sandy coves full of beautiful shells. Behind the town, a fine old aqueduct strides across the valley, and be- yond it the wild moors begin at once sweeping backwards to a rugged chain of mountains. Into the gorges of these mountains we rode one day, and most delightful they are, clothed in parts with magnificent old cork-trees, while in the depths of a ravine, overhung with oleander and rhododendron, is a beautiful waterfall. It was with- real regret that we left Algeciras and made the short voyage across the bay to Gibraltar, where we in- stantly found ourselves in a place as unlike Spain as it is possible to imagine. Upon the wharf you are assailed by a clamour of English-speaking porters and boatmen. THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR I4I Passing the gates, you come upon a barrack-yard swarming with tall British soldiers, looking wonderfully bright and handsome, after the insignificant figures and soiled, shabby uniforms of the Spanish army. Hence the Waterport Street opens, the principal thoroughfare of the town, though from its insignificant shops, with English names, and its low public-houses, you have to look up at the strip of bright blue sky above, to be reminded that you are not in an English seaport. Just outside the principal town, between it and the suburb of Europe, is the truly beautiful Alameda, an im- mense artificial garden, where endless gravel paths wind through labyrinths of geraniums and coronella and banks of flame-coloured ixia, which are all in their full blaze of beauty under the March sun, though the heat causes them to wither and droop before May. During our stay at Gibraltar, it has never ceased to surprise us that this Alameda, the shadiest and pleasantest place open to the public upon the Rock, should be almost deserted ; but so it is. Even when the band playing affords an additional attraction, there are not a dozen persons to listen to it ; whereas at Rome on such occasions, the Pincio, exceed- ingly inferior as a public garden, would be crowded to suffocation, and always presents a lively and animated scene. One succession of gardens occupies the western base of the Rock, and most luxuriant and gigantic are the flowers that bloom in them. Castor-oil plants, daturas, and daphnes, here attain the dignity of timber, while geraniums 142 THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR and heliotropes many years old, so large as to destoy all the sense of floral proportions which has hitherto existed in your mind. It is a curious characteristic, and typical of Gibraltar, that the mouth of a cannon is frequently found protruding from a thicket of flowers. The eastern side of the Rock, in great part a per- pendicular precipice, is elsewhere left uncultivated, and is wild and striking in the highest degree. Here, beyond the quaint Jewish cemetery of closely set gravestones, bear- ing Hebrew inscriptions on the open hillside, a rugged path winds through rocks and tangled masses of flowers and palmists, to a curious stalactitic cavern called Martin's Cave. On this side of the clifF a remnant of the famous " apes of Tarshish " is suffered to remain wild and unmolested, though their numbers, always very small, have lately been reduced by the very ignorant folly of a young officer, who shot one and wounded nine others, for which he has been very properly impounded. On the northern side of the Rock are the famous galleries tunnelled in the face of the precipice, with cannon pointing towards Spain from their embrasures. Through these, or, better, by delightful paths, fringed with palmettos and asphodel, you may reach El Hacho, the signal station, whence the view is truly magnificent over the sea, and the mountain chains of two continents, and down into the blue abysses beneath the tremendous precipice upon which it is placed. The greatest drawback to the charms of Gibraltar has seemed to be the difficulty of leaving it. It is a beautiful THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR 1 43 prison. We came fully intending to ride over the moun- tain passes by Ronda, but on arriving vi^e heard that the whole of that district was in the hands of the brigands under the famous chief Don Diego, and the Governor posi- tively refused to permit us to go that way. Our lamentations at this have since been cut short by the news of a double murder at the hands of the brigands on the way we wished to have taken, and at the very time we should have taken it. So we must go to Malaga by sea, and wait for the happy combination of a good steamer and calm weather falling on the same day. Late in the afternoon of the 15th of March we em- barked on board the Lisbon in the dockyard of Gibraltar. It had been a lovely day, and the grand Rock had looked its best, its every cleft filled with flowers and foliage. The sun set before we had rounded Europe Point, and the pre- cipitous cliffs of the eastern bay rose utterly black against the yellow sky. Wanderings in Spain (London, 1873). THINGVALLA (.ICELAND} LORD DUFFERIN AT last I have seen the famous Geysers, of which every one has heard so much ; but I have also seen Thingvalla, of which no one has heard anything. The Geysers are certainly wonderful marvels of nature, but more wonderful, more marvellous is Thingvalla; and if the one repay you for crossing the Spanish Sea, it would be worth while to go round the world to reach the other. Of the boiling fountains I think I can give you a good idea, but whether I can contrive to draw for you anything like a comprehensible picture of the shape and nature of the Almanna Gja, the Hrafna Gja, and the lava vale, called Thingvalla, that lies between them, I am doubtful. Before coming to Iceland I had read every account that had been written of Thingvalla by any former traveller, and when I saw it, it appeared to me a place of which I had never heard ; so I suppose I shall come to grief in as mel- ancholy a manner as my predecessors, whose ineffectual pages whiten the entrance to the valley they have failed to describe. After an hour's gradual ascent through a picturesque ravine, we emerged upon an immense desolate plateau of lava, that stretched away for miles and miles like a great THING VALLA 145 stony sea. A more barren desert you cannot conceive. Innumerable boulders, relics of the glacial period, encum- bered the track. We could only go at a foot-pace. Not a blade of grass, not a strip of green, enlivened the pros- pect, and the only sound we heard was the croak of the curlew and the wail of the plover. Hour after hour we plodded on, but the grey waste seemed interminable, boundless : and the only consolation Sigurdr would vouch- safe was that our journey's end lay on this side of some purple mountains that peeped like the tents of a demon leaguer above the stony horizon. As it was already eight o'clock, and we had been told the entire distance from Reykjavik to Thing valla was only five- and-thirty miles, I could not comprehend how so great a space should still separate us from our destination. Con- cluding more time had been lost in shooting, lunching, etc., by the way than we supposed, I put my pony into a canter, and determined to make short work of the dozen miles which seemed still to lie between us and the hills, on this side of which I understood from Sigurdr our encampment for the night was to be pitched. Judge then of my astonishment when, a few minutes afterwards, I was arrested in full career by a tremendous precipice, or rather chasm, which suddenly gaped beneath my feet, and completely separated the barren plateau we had been so painfully traversing from a lovely, gay, sunlit flat, ten miles broad, that lay, — sunk at a level lower by a hundred feet, — between us and the opposite mountains. I was never so completely taken by surprise ; Sigurdr's 146 THING VALLA purposely vague description of our halting-place was ac- counted for. We had reached the famous Almanna Gja. Like a black rampart in the distance, the corresponding chasm of the Hrafna Gja cut across the lower sloop of the distant hills, and between them now slept in sunshine and beauty the broad verdant plain ' of Thingvalla. Ages ago, — who shall say how long, — some vast com- motion shook the foundations of the island, and bubbling up from sources far away amid the inland hills, a fiery del- uge must have rushed down between their ridges, until, escaping from the narrow gorges, it found space to spread itself into one broad sheet of molten stone over an entire district of country, reducing its varied surface to one vast blackened level. One of two things then occurred : either the vitri- fied mass contracting as it cooled, — the centre area of fifty square miles burst asunder at either side from the adjoining plateau, and sinking down to its present level, left the two paralleled Gjas,or chasms, which form its lateral boundaries, to mark the limits of the disruption ; or else, while the pith or marrow of the lava was still in a fluid state, its upper surface became solid, and formed a roof beneath which the molten stream flowed on to lower levels, leaving a vast cavern into which the upper crust subsequently plumped down. But to return where I left myself, on the edge of the > The plain of Thingvalla is in a great measure clothed with birch brushwood. THING VALLA 1 47 clifF, gazing down with astonished eyes over a panorama of land and water imbedded at my feet. I could scarcely speak for pleasure and surprise ; Fitz was equally taken aback, and as for Wilson, he looked as if he thought we had arrived at the end of the world. After having allowed us sufficient time to admire the prospect, Sigurdr turned to the left, along the edge of the precipice, until we reached a narrow pathway accidentally formed down a longitudinal niche in the splintered face of the cliff, which led across the bottom, and up the opposite side of the Gja, into the plain of Thingvalla. Independently of its natural curiosities, Thingvalla was most interesting to me on account of the historical asso- ciations connected with it. Here, long ago, at a period when feudal despotism was the only government known throughout Europe, free parliaments used to sit in peace, and regulate the affairs of the young Republic ; and to this hour the precincts of its Commons House of Parliament are as distinct and unchanged as on the day when the high-hearted fathers of the emigration first consecrated them to the serv- ice of a free nation. By a freak of nature, as the subsid- ing plain cracked and shivered into twenty thousand fissures, an irregular oval area, of about two hundred feet by fifty, was left almost entirely surrounded by a crevice so deep and broad as to be utterly impassable ; — at one extremity alone a scanty causeway connected it with the adjoining level, and allowed of access to its interior. It is true, just at one point the encircling chasm grows so narrow as to be within the possibility of a jump j and an ancient worthy, 148 THING VALLA named Flosi, pursued by his enemies, did actually take it at a fly : but as leaping an inch short would have entailed certain drowning in the bright green waters that sleep forty feet be- low, you can conceive there was never much danger of this entrance becoming a thoroughfare. I confess that for one moment, while contemplating the scene of Flosi's exploit, I felt, like a true Briton, — an idiotic desire to be able to say that I had done the same ; — that I survive to write this letter is a proof of my having come subsequently to my senses. This spot, then, erected by nature almost into a fortress, the founders of the Icelandic constitution chose for the meetings of their Thing, or Parliament ; armed guards de- fended the entrance, while the grave bonders deliberated in security within : to this day, at the upper end of the place of meeting, may be seen the three hummocks, where sat in state the chiefs and judges of the land. But those grand old times have long since passed away. Along the banks of the Oxeraa no longer glisten the tents and booths of the assembled lieges ; no longer stalwart berserks guard the narrow entrance to the Althing ; ravens alone sit on the sacred Logberg ; and the floor of the old Icelandic House of Commons is ignominiously cropped by the sheep of the parson. For three hundred years did the gallant little Republic maintain its independence — three hundred years of unequalled literary and political vigour. At last its day of doom drew near. Like the Scotch nobles in the time of Elizabeth, their own chieftains intrigued against the liberties of the Icelandic people; and in 1261 the island became an appendage of the Norwegian crown. THINGVALLA 149 Yet even then the deed embodying the concession of their independence was drawn up in such haughty terms as to resemble rather the offer of an equal alliance than the re- nunciation of imperial rights. As I gazed around on the silent, deserted plain, and paced to and fro along the untrodden grass that now clothed the Althing, I could scarcely believe it had ever been the battle-field where such keen and energetic wits encoun- tered, — that the fire-scathed rocks I saw before me were the very same that had once inspired one of the most suc- cessful rhetorical appeals ever hazarded in a public assem- bly. From the Althing we strolled over to the Almanna Gja, visiting the Pool of Execution on our way. As I have already mentioned, a river from the plateau above leaps over the precipice into the bottom of the Gja, and flows for a certain distance between its walls. At the foot of the fall, the waters linger for a moment, in a dark, deep, brimming pool, hemmed in by a circle of ruined rocks ; to this pool, in ancient times, all women convicted of capital crimes were immediately taken, and drowned. Witchcraft seems to have been the principal weakness of ladies in those days, throughout the Scandinavian countries. For a long period, no disgrace was attached to its profession. Odin himself, we are expressly told, was a great adept, and always found himself very much exhausted at the end of his performance; which leads me to think that, perhaps, he dabbled in electro-biology. Turning ^ide from what, I dare say, was the scene of 150 THINGVALLA many an unrecorded tragedy, we descended the gorge of the Almanna Gja, towards the lake ; and I took advantage of the opportunity again to examine its marvellous construction. The perpendicular walls of rock rose on either hand from the flat greensward that carpeted its bottom, pretty much as the waters of the Red Sea must have risen on each side of the fugitive Israelites. A blaze of light smote the face of one clifF, while the other lay in the deepest shadow ; and on the rugged surface of each might still be traced cor- responding articulations, that once had dovetailed into each other, ere the igneous mass was rent asunder. So un- changed, so recent seemed the vestiges of this convulsion, that I felt as if I had been admitted to witness one of nature's grandest and most violent operations, almost in the very act of its execution. A walk of about twenty min- utes brought us to the borders of the lake — a glorious ex- panse of water, fifteen miles long, by eight miles broad, occupying a basin formed by the same hills, which must also, I imagine, have arrested the further progress of the lava torrent. A lovelier scene I have seldom witnessed. In the foreground lay huge masses of rock and lava, tossed about like the ruins of a world, and washed by waters as bright and green as polished malachite. Beyond, a bevy of distant mountains, robed by the transparent atmos- phere in tints unknown to Europe, peeped over each other's shoulders into the silver mirror at their feet, while here and there from among their purple ridges columns of white vapour rose like altar smoke towards the tranquil heaven. The next morning we started for the Geysers ; this time THING VALLA I51 dividing the baggage-train, and sending on the cook in light marching order, with the materials for dinner. The weather still remained unclouded, and each mile we ad- vanced disclosed some new wonder in the unearthly land- scape. A three hours' ride brought us to the Rabna Gja, the eastern boundary of Thingvalla, and, winding up its rugged face, we took our last look over the lovely plain beneath us, and then manfully set across the same kind of arid lava plateau as that which we had already traversed before arriving at the Almanna Gja. Letters from High Latitude^ being some account of a voyage in the schooner yacht Foam in 18 j6 (London, 1859). LAND'S END AND LOGAN ROCK i ENGLAND) JOHN AYRTON PARIS " The sunbeams tremble, and the purple light Illumes the dark Bolerium ; — seat of storms, High are his granite rocks ; his frowning brow Hangs o'er the smiling ocean. In his caves, Where sleep the haggard spirits of the storm. Wild dreary are the schistose rocks around. Encircled by the waves, where to the breeze The haggard cormorant shrieks ; and far beyond Are seen the cloud-like islands, grey in mists." Sir H. Davy. IN an excursion to the Land's End the traveller will meet with several intermediate objects well worthy his at- tention, more worthy, perhaps, than the celebrated promon- tory itself, as being monuments of the highest antiquity in the kingdom. They consist of Druidical circles, cairns, or circular heaps of stones, cromlechs, crosses, military entrenchments, and the obsure remains of castles. Having arrived at the celebrated promontory, we descend a rapid slope, which brings us to a bold group of rocks, composing the western extremity of our island. Some years ago a military officer who visited this spot, was rash enough to descend on horseback j the horse soon became unruly, plunged, reared, and, fearful to relate, fell back- wards over the precipice, and rolling from rock to rock was LAND'S END AND LOGAN ROCK 153 dashed to atoms before it reached the sea. The rider was for some time unable to disengage himself, but at length by a desperate effort he threw himself off, and was happily caught by some fragments of rock, at the very brink of the precipice, where he remained in a state of insensibility until assistance could be afforded him ! The awful spot is marked by the figure of a horseshoe, traced on the turf with a deep incision, which is cleared out from time to time, in order to preserve it as a monument of rashness which could alone be equalled by the good fortune with which it was attended. Why any promontory in an island should be exclusively denominated the Land's End, it is difHcult to understand j yet so powerful is the charm of a name, that many persons have visited it on no other account ; the intelligent tourist, however, will receive a much more substantial gratification from his visit ; the great geological interest of the spot will afford him an ample source of entertainment and instruc- tion, while the magnificence of its convulsed scenery, the ceaseless roar, and deep intonation of the ocean, and the wild shrieks of the cormorant, all combine to awaken the blended sensations of awe and admiration. The cliff which bounds this extremity is rather abrupt than elevated, not being more than sixty feet above the level of the sea. It is composed entirely of granite, the forms of which present a very extraordinary appearance, assuming in some places the resemblance of shafts that had been regularly cut with the chisel ; in others, regular equi- distant fissures divide the rock into horizontal masses, and 154 LAND'S END AND LOGAN ROCK give it the character of basaltic columns ; in other places, again, the impetuous waves of the ocean have opened, for their retreat, gigantic arches, through which the angry bil- lows roll and bellow with tremendous fury. Several of these rocks from their grotesque forms have acquired whimsical appellations, as that of the Armed Knight^ the Irish Lady^ etc. An inclining rock on the side of a craggy headland, south of the Land's End, has obtained the name of Dr. "JohnsorCs Head^ and visitors after having heard the appellation seldom fail to acknowledge that it bears some resemblance to the physiognomy of that extraordi- nary man. On the north, this rocky scene is terminated by a prom- ontory 229 feet above the level of the sea, called Cape Corn- wall^ between which and the Land's End, the coast retires, and forms IVhitesand Bay; a name which it derives from the peculiar whiteness of the sand, and amongst which the naturalist will find several rare microscopic shells. There are, besides, some historical recollections which invest this spot with interest. It was in this bay that Stephen landed on his first arrival in England ; as did King John, on his return from Ireland; and Perkin Warbeck, in the prosecu- tion of those claims to the Crown to which some late writers have been disposed to consider that he was entitled, as the real son of Edward the Fourth. In the rocks near the southern termination of IVhitesand Bay may be seen the junction of the granite and slate; large veins of the former may also be observed to traverse the latter in all directions. LAND'S END AND LOGAN ROCK 155 We now return to the Land's End, — from which we should proceed to visit a promontory called " Castle Treryn," where is situated the celebrated " Logan Stone." If we pursue our route along the cliffs, it will be found to be several miles southeast of the Land's End, although by taking the direct and usual road across the country, it is not more than two miles distant ; but the geologist must walk, or ride along the coast on horseback, and we can assure him that he will be amply recompensed for his trouble. From the Cape on which the signal station is situated, the rock scenery is particularly magnificent, exhibiting an admirable specimen of the manner, and forms, into which granite disintegrates. About forty yards from this Cape is the promontory called Tol-Pedn-Penwith, which in the Cornish language signifies the holed headland in Penwith. The name is derived from a singular chasm, known by the appellation of the Funnel Rock ; it is a vast perpendicular excavation in the granite, resembling in figure an inverted cone, and has been evidently produced by the gradual de- composition of one of those vertical veins with which this part of the coast is so frequently intersected. By a circui- tous route you may descend to the bottom of the cavern, into which the sea flows at high water. Here the Cornish chough [Corvus Graculus) has built its nest for several years, a bird which is very common about the rocky parts of this coast, and may be distinguished by its red legs and bill, and the violaceous blackness of its feathers. This promontory forms the western extremity of the Mount's Bay. The antiquary will discover in this spot, the vestiges of one of 156 LAND'S END AND LOGAN ROCK the ancient " Cliff Castles," which were little else than stone walls, stretching across necks of land from cliff to cliff. The only geological phenomenon worthy of particu- lar notice is a large and beautiful contemporaneous vein of red granite containing schorl ; is one foot in width, and may be seen for about forty feet in length. Continuing our route around the coast we at length ar- rive at Castle Treryn. Its name is derived from the sup- position of its having been the site of an ancient British fortress, of which there are still some obscure traces, although the wild and rugged appearance of the rocks in- dicate nothing like art. The foundation of the whole is a stupendous group of granite rocks, which rise in pyramidal clusters to a pro- digious altitude, and overhang the sea. On one of those pyramids is situated the celebrated " Logan Stone," which is an immense block of granite weighing about sixty tons. The surface in contact with the under rock is of very small extent, and the whole mass is so nicely balanced, that, notwithstanding its magnitude, the strength of a single man applied to its under edge is sufficient to change its centre of gravity, and though at first in a degree scarcely perceptible, yet the repetition of such impulses, at each re- turn of the stone, produces at length a very sensible oscillation ! As soon as the astonishment which this phenomenon excites has in some measure subsided, the stranger anxiously inquires how, and whence the stone originated — was it elevated by human means, or was it produced by the agency of natural causes ? Those who 06 O u a Q J a ?: o H a u o oi LAND'S END AND LOGAN ROCK I57 are in the habit of viewing mountain masses with geolog- ical eyes, will readily discover that the only chisel ever em- ployed has been the tooth of time — the only artist engaged, the elements. Granite usually disintegrates into rhomboidal and tabular masses, which by the farther operation of air and moisture gradually lose their solid angles, and approach the spheroidal form. De Luc observed, in the giant moun- tains of Silesia, spheroids of this description so piled upon each other as to resemble Dutch cheeses j and appearances, no less illustrative of the phenomenon, may be seen from the signal station to which we have just alluded. The fact of the upper part of the clifF being more exposed to at- mospheric agency, than the parts beneath, will sufficiently explain why these rounded masses so frequently rest on blocks which still preserve the tabular form; and since such spheroidal blocks must obviously rest in that position in which their lesser axes are perpendicular to the horizon, it is equally evident that whenever an adequate force is ap- plied they must vibrate on their point of support. Although we are thus led to deny the Druidical origin of this stone, for which so many zealous antiquaries have con- tended, still we by no means intend to deny that the Druids employed it as an engine of superstition ; it is indeed very probable that, having observed so uncommon a property, they dexterously contrived to make it answer the purposes of an ordeal, and by regarding it as the touchstone of truth, acquitted or condemned the accused by its motions. Mason poetically alludes to this supposed property in the following lines : 158 LAND'S END AND LOGAN ROCK " Behold yon huge And unknown sphere of living adamant, Which, pois'd by magic, rests its central weight On yonder pointed rock : firm as it seems, Such is its strange, and virtuous property, It moves obsequious to the gentlest touch Of him whose heart is pure, but to a traitor, Tho' e'en a giant's prowess nerv'd his arm, It stands as fix'd as — Snowdon." The rocks are covered with a species of Byssus long and rough to the touch, forming a kind of hoary beard ; in many places they are deeply furrowed, carrying with them a singular air of antiquity, which combines with the whole of the romantic scenery to awaken in the minds of the poet and enthusiast the recollection of the Druidical ages. The botanist will observe the common Thrift {Statice Armer'ta) imparting a glowing tinge to the scanty vegeta- tion of the spot, and, by growing within the crevices of the rocks, affording a very picturesque contrast to their massive fabric. Here, too, the Daucus Maritimus^ or wild carrot •, Sedum Telephium^ Saxifrage Stellaris^ and Asplenium Mar'tnum^ may be found in abundance. The granite in this spot is extremely beautiful on ac- count of its porphyritic appearance ; the crystals of feldspar are numerous and distinct ; in some places the rock is traversed by veins of red feldspar, and of black tourmaline, or schorl, of which the crystalline forms of the prisms, on account of their close aggregation, are very indistinct. Here may also be observed a contemporaneous vein of schorl rock in the granite, nearly two feet wide, highly in- clined and very short, and not having any distinct walls. LANDS END AND LOGAN ROCK I59 On the western side of the Logan Rock is a cavern, formed by the decomposition of a vein of granite, the feldspar of which assumes a brilliant flesh-red and lilac colour; and, where it is polished by the sea, exceeding even in beauty the Serpentine caverns at the Lizard. J Guide to the Mount's Bay and the Land's End (London, 2d £d., 1824). MOUNT HEKLA> i ICELAND^ SIR RICHARD F. BURTON THE Hekla of our ingenuous childhood, when we be- lieved in the "Seven Wonders of the World," was a mighty cone, a " pillar of heaven," upon whose dreadful summit white, black, and sanguine red lay in streaks and patches, with volumes of sooty smoke and lurid flames, and a pitchy sky. The whole was somewhat like the im- possible illustrations of Vesuvian eruptions, in body-colours, plus the ice proper to Iceland. The Hekla of reality. No. 5 in the island scale, is a commonplace heap, half the height of Hermon, and a mere pigmy compared with the Andine peaks, rising detached from the plains, about three and a half miles in circumference, backed by the snows of Tindafjall and Torfajokull, and supporting a sky-line that varies greatly with the angle under which it is seen. Travellers usually make it a three-horned Parnassus, with the central knob highest — which is not really the case. From the south-west, it shows now four, then five, distinct ' Heklu-fjall derives from Hekla (akin to HSkull, a priest's cope), mean- ing a cowled or hooded frock, knitted of various colours, and applied to the " Vesuvius of the North " from its cap and body vest of snow. Icelanders usually translate it a chasuble, because its rounded black shoulders bear stripes of white, supposed to resemble the cross carried to Calvary. MOUNT HEKLA l6l points; the north-western lip of the northern crater, which hides the true apex ; the south-western lip of the same ; the north-eastern lip of the southern crater, which appears the culminating point, and the two eastern edges of the south- ern bowls. A pair of white patches represents the " eternal snows." On the right of the picture is the steep, but utterly unimportant Thrihyrningr, crowned with its bench- mark; to the left, the Skardsfjall, variegated green and black ; and in the centre, the Bjolfell, a western buttress of the main building, which becomes alternately a saddleback, a dorsum, and an elephant's head, trunk, and shoulders. We came upon the valley of the Western Ranga ^ at a rough point, a gash in the hard yellow turf-clad clay, dotted with rough lava blocks, and with masses of conglomerate, hollowed, turned, and polished by water: the shape was a succession of S, and the left side was the more tormented. Above the ford a dwarf cascade had been formed by the lava of '45, which caused the waters to boil, and below the ford jumped a second, where the stream forks. We then entered an Iceland " forest," at least four feet high ; the *' chapparal " was composed of red willow {Salix purpurea), of Gra-vidir, woolly-leaved willow {Sulix lapponurn), the *' tree under which the devil flayed the goats " — a diabolical difficulty, when the bush is a foot high — and the awful and venerable birch, *' la demoiselle des forets" which has so often " blushed with patrician blood." About mid- • Ringi ( " wrong," or crooked stream) is a name that frequently oc- curs, and generally denotes either that the trend is opposed to the general water-shed, or that an angle has been formed in the bed by earthquakes or eruptions. 1 62 MOUNT HEKLA afternoon we reached Naefrholt (birch-bark hill), the *' fashionable " place for the ascent, and we at once in- quired for the guide. Upon the carpe diem principle, he had gone to Reykjavik with the view of drinking his late gains ; but we had time to organize another, and even alpenstocks with rings and spikes are to be found at the farm-house. Everything was painfully tourist. In the evening we scaled the stiff slope of earth and Palagonite which lies behind, or east of Naefrholt ; this crupper of Bjolfell, the Elephant Mountain, gives perhaps harder work than any part of Hekla on the normal line of ascent. From the summit we looked down upon a dwarf basin, with a lakelet of fresh water, which had a slightly (carbonic) acid taste, and which must have contained lime, as we found two kinds of shells, both uncommonly thin and fragile. Three species of weeds floated oflF the clean sandstrips. Walking northward to a deserted byre, we found the drain gushing under ground from sand and rock, forming a distinct river-valley, and eventually feeding the Western Ranga. This " Vatn " is not in the map ; though far from certain that it is not mentioned by Mackenzie, we named it the " Unknown Lake." Before night fell we re- ceived a message that three English girls and their party proposed to join us. This was a " scare," but happily the Miss Hopes proved plucky as they were young and pretty, and we rejoiced in offering this pleasant affront of the feminine foot to that grim old solitaire^ Father Hekla. Before the sleep necessary to prepare for the next day's work, I will offer a few words concerning the " Etna of MOUNT HEKLA 163 the North," sparing the reader, however, the mortification of a regular history. It was apparently harmless, possibly dormant, till A. D. 1104, when Saemund, the " Paris clerk," then forty-eight years old, threw in a casket, and awoke the sleeping lion. Since that time fourteen regular erup- tions, without including partial outbreaks are recorded, giving an average of about two per century. The last was in 1845. ^^^ ^'J" ^t Reykjavik was flavoured, it is said, like a gun that wants washing j and the sounds of a distant battle were conducted by the lava and basaltic ground. The ashes extended to Scotland. When some writers tell us that on this occasion Hekla lost 500 feet in height, " so much of the summit having been blown away by the ex- plosions," they forget or ignore the fact that the new crater opened laterally and low down. Like Etna, Vesuvius, and especially Stromboli, Hekla became mythical in Middle-Age Europe, and gained wide repute as one of the gates of " Hel-viti." Witches' Sab- baths were held there. The spirits of the wicked, driven by those, grotesque demons of Father Pinamonti which would make the fortune of a zoological society, were seen trooping into the infernal crater; and such facts as these do not readily slip off the mind of man. The Danes still say " Begone to Heckenfjaeld ! " the North Germans, " Go to Hackelberg ! " and the Scotch consign you to " John Hacklebirnie's house." Even Goldsmith (Animated Nature, i. 48) had heard of the local creed, " The inhabi- tants of Iceland believe the bellowings of Hekla are noth- ing else but the cries of the damned, and that its eruptions 164 MOUNT HEKLA are contrived to increase their tortures." Uno Van Troil (Letter I.) who in 1770. together with those " inclyti Brit- tannici," Baron Bank and Dr. Solander, ''gained the pleas- ure of being the first who ever reached the summit of this celebrated volcano," attributes the mountain's virginity to the superstitions of the people. He writes soberly about its marvels; and he explains its high fame by its position, skirting the watery way to and from Greenland and North America. His companions show less modesty of imagination. We may concede that an unknown ascent "required great circumspection " ; and that in a high wind ascensionists were obliged to lie down. But how explain the " dread of being blown into the most dreadful preci- pices," when the latter do not exist ? Moreover, we learn that to " accomplish this undertaking " they had to travel from 300 to 360 miles over uninterrupted bursts of lava, which is more than the maximum length of the island, from northeast to southwest. As will be seen, modern travellers have followed suit passing well. The next morning (July 13) broke fair and calm, re- minding me " Del bel paese la dove il si suona" The Miss Hopes were punctual to a minute — an excel- lent thing in travelling womanhood. We rode up half-way somewhat surprised to find so few parasitic craters ; the only signs of independent eruption on the western flank were the Raudkolar (red hills), as the people call their lava hornitos and spiracles, which arc little bigger than the bottle-house cones of Leith. MOUNT HEKLA 165 At an impassable divide we left our poor nags to pass the dreary time, without water or forage, and we followed the improvised guide, who caused not a little amusement. His general port was that of a bear that has lost its ragged stafF. — I took away his alpenstock for one of the girls — and he was plantigrade rather than cremnobatic ; he had stripped to his underalls, which were very short, whilst his stockings were very long and the heraldic gloves converted his hands to paws. The two little snow fonds (" steep glassy slopes of hard snow "), were the easiest of walking. We had nerved ourselves to " Break neck or limbs, be maimed or boiled alive," but we looked in vain for the " concealed abysses," for the " crevasses to be crossed," and for places where a " slip would be to roll to destruction." We did not sight the " lava wall," a capital protection against giddi- ness. The snow was anything but slippery ; the surface was scattered with dust, and it bristled with a forest of dwarf earth-pillars, where blown volcanic sand preserved the ice. After a slow hour and a half, we reached the cra- ter of '45, which opened at 9 a. m. on September 2, and discharged lava till the end of November. It might be passed unobserved by the inexperienced man. The only remnant is the upper lip prolonged to the right ; the dimen- sions may have been 120 by 150 yards, and the cleft shows a projecting ice-ledge ready to fall. The feature is well- marked by the new lava-field of which it is the source : the bristly " stone-river " is already degrading to superficial dust A little beyond this bowl the ground smokes, dis- charging snow-steam made visible by the cold air. Hence 1 66 MOUNT HEKLA doubtless those sententious travellers " experienced at one and the same time, a high degree of heat and cold." Fifteen minutes more led us to the First or Southern Crater, whose Ol-bogi (elbow or rim) is one of the horns conspicuous from below. It is a regular formation about lOO yards at the bottom each way, with the right (east) side red and cindery, and the left yellow and sulphury ; mosses and a few flowerets grow on the lips ; in the sole rise jets of steam and a rock-rib bisects it diagonally from northeast to southwest. We thought it the highest point of the vol- cano, but the aneriod corrected our mistake. From the First Crater we walked over the left or western dorsum, over which one could drive a coach, and we con- gratulated one another upon the exploit. Former travellers *' balancing themselves like rope-dancers, succeeded in pass- ing along the ridge of slags which was so narrow that there was scarcely room for their feet," the breadth being " not more than two feet, having a precipice on each side several hundred feet in depth." Charity suggests that the feature has altered, but there was no eruption between 1766 and 1845 ; moreover, the lip would have diminished, not in- creased. And one of the most modern visitors repeats the " very narrow ridge," with the classical but incorrect ad- juncts of"Scylla here, Charybdis there." Scylla (say the crater slope) is disposed at an angle of 30°, and Mr. Chap- man coolly walked down this " vast " little hollow. I descended Charybdis (the outer counterscarp) far enough to make sure that it is equally easy. Passing the " carriage road " (our own name), we crossed MOUNT HEKLA 1 67 a neve without any necessity for digging foot-holes. It lies where sulphur is notably absent. The hot patches which account for the freedom from snow, even so high above the congelation-line, are scattered about the summit : in other parts the thermometer, placed in an eighteen-inch hole, made earth colder than air. After a short climb we reached the apex ; the ruddy-walled northeastern lip of the Red Crater (No. 2) : its lower or western rim forms two of the five summits seen from the prairie, and hides the highest point. We thus ascertained that Hekla is a linear volcano of two mouths, or three including that of '45, and that it wants a true apical crater. But how reconcile the accounts of trav- ellers ? Pliny Miles found one cone and three craters i Madam Ida Pfeiffer, like Metcalfe, three cones and no crater. On the summit the guides sang a song of triumph, whilst we drank to the health of our charming companions and, despite the cold wind which eventually drove us down, care- fully studied the extensive view. The glorious day was out of character with a scene niente che Montagne^ as the unhappy Venetians described the Morea; rain and sleet and blinding snow would better have suited the picture, but happily they were conspicuous by their absence. Inland, beyond a steep snow-bed unpleasantly crevassed, lay a grim photograph all black and white ; Langjokull looking down upon us with a grand and freezing stare; the Hrafntinnu Valley marked by a dwarf cone, and beyond where streams head, the gloomy regions stretching to the Sprengisandur, dreary wastes of utter sterility, howling deserts of dark ashes. 1 68 MOUNT HEKLA wholly lacking water and vegetable life, and wanting the gleam and the glow which light up the Arabian wild. Skaptar and Oraefa were hidden from sight. Seawards, rang- ing from west to south, the view, by contrast, was a picture of amenity and civilization. Beyond castellated Hljodfell and conical Skjaldbreid appeared the familiar forms of Esja, and the long lava projection of the Gold Breast country, melt- ing into the western main. Nearer stretched the fair low- lands, once a broad deep bay, now traversed by the net- work of Olfusa, Thjorsa, and the Markarfljot ; while the sixfold bunch of the Westman Islands, mere stone lumps upon a blue ground, seemingly floating far below the raised horizon, lay crowned by summer sea.. Eastward we dis- tinctly traced the Fiskivotn. Run the eye along the southern shore, and again the scene shifts. Below the red hornitos of the slope rises the classical Three-horned, not lofty, but re- markable for its trident top ; Tindf jail (tooth-fell) with its two horns or pyramids of ice, casting blue shadows upon the untrodden snow ; and the whole mighty mass known as the Eastern Jokull Eyjafjall (island-fell), so called from the black button of rock which crowns the long white dorsum j Katla (Koltu-gja), Merkrjokull, and Godalands, all con- nected by ridges, and apparently neither lofty nor imprac- ticable. Ultima Thule i or a Summer in Ice/and (hondon and Edin- burgh, 1875). VICTORIA FALLS (.AFRICA) DAVID LIVINGSTONE WE proceeded next morning, 9th August, i860, to see the Victoria Falls. Mosi-oa-tunya is the Makololo name, and means smoke sounding ; Seongo or Chongwe, meaning the Rainbow, or the place of the Rain- bow, was the more ancient term they bore. We embarked in canoes, belonging to Tuba Mokoro, " smasher of ca- noes," an ominous name ; but he alone, it seems, knew the medicine which insures one against shipwreck in the rapids above the Falls. For some miles the river was smooth and tranquil, and we glided pleasantly over water clear as crystal, and past lovely islands densely covered with a tropical vegetation. Noticeable among the many trees were the lofty Hyphzene and Borassus palms ; the graceful wild date-palm, with its fruit in golden clusters, and the umbrageous mokononga, of cypress form, with its dark- green leaves and scarlet fruit. Many flowers peeped out near the water's edge, some entirely new to us, and others, as the convolvulus, old acquaintances. But our attention was quickly called from the charming islands to the dangerous rapids, down which Tuba might unintentionally shoot us. To confess the truth, the very ugly aspect of these roaring rapids could scarcely fail to lyo VICTORIA FALLS cause some uneasiness in the minds of new-comers. It is only when the river is very low, as it was now, that any one durst venture to the island to which we were bound. If one went during the period of flood, and fortunately hit the island, he would be obliged to remain there till the water subsided again, if he lived so long. Both hippo- potamus and elephants have been known to be swept over the Falls, and of course smashed to pulp. Before entering the race of waters, we were requested not to speak, as our talking might diminish the virtue of the medicine ; and no one with such boiling, eddying rapids before his eyes, would think of disobeying the orders of a " canoe-smasher." It soon became evident that there was sound sense in this request of Tuba's, although the reason assigned was not unlike that of the canoe-man from Sesheke, who begged one of our party not to whistle because whistling made the wind come. It was the duty of the man at the bow to look out ahead for the proper course, and when he saw a rock or snag to call out to the steersman. Tuba doubtless thought that talking on board might divert the at- tention of his steersman, at a time when the neglect of an order, or a slight mistake, would be sure to spill us all into the chafing river. There were places where the utmost exertions of both men had to be put forth in order to force the canoe to the only safe part of the rapid, and to prevent it from sweeping down broadside on, where in a twinkling we should have found ourselves floundering among the plotuses and cormorants, which were engaged in diving for their breakfast of small fish. At times it seemed as if VICTORIA FALLS I7I nothing could save us from dashing in our headlong race against the rocks which, now that the river was low, jutted out of the water; but just at the very nick of time, Tuba passed the word to the steersman, and then with ready pole turned the canoe a little aside and we glided swiftly past the threatened danger. Never was canoe more admirably managed : once only did the medicine seem to have lost something of its efficacy. We were driving swiftly down, a black rock, over which the white foam flew, lay directly in our path, the pole was planted against it as readily as ever, but it slipped just as Tuba put forth his strength to turn the bow off. We struck hard, and were half-full of water in a moment ; Tuba recovered himself as speedily, shoved off the bow, and shot the canoe into a still shallow place, to bale out the water. Here we were given to under- stand that it was not the medicine which was at fault ; that had lost none of its virtue ; the accident was owing en- tirely to Tuba having started without his breakfast. Need it be said we never left Tuba go without that meal again ? We landed at the head of Garden Island, which is situated near the middle of the river and on the lip of the Falls. On reaching that lip, and peering over the giddy height, the wondrous and unique character of the mag- nificent cascade at once burst upon us. It is a rather hopeless task to endeavour to convey an idea of it in words, since, as was remarked on the spot, an accomplished painter, even by a number of views, could but impart a faint impression of the glorious scene. The probable mode of its formation may perhaps help to the 172 VICTORIA FALLS conception of its peculiar shape. Niagara has been formed by a wearing back of the rock over which the river falls ; but during the long course of ages, it has gradually receded, and left a broad, deep, and pretty straight trough in front. It goes on wearing back daily, and may yet discharge the lakes from which its river — the St. Lawrence — flows. But the Victoria Falls have been formed by a crack right across the river, in the hard, black, basaltic rock which there formed the bed of the Zambesi. The lips of the crack are still quite sharp, save about three feet of the edge over which the river rolls. The walls go sheer down from the lips without any projecting crag, or symptoms of stratification or dislocation. When the mighty rift occurred, no change of level took place in the two parts of the bed of the river thus rent asunder, consequently, in coming down the river to Garden Island, the water suddenly disappears, and we see the opposite side of the cleft, with grass and trees grow- ing where once the river ran, on the same level as that part of its bed on which we sail. The first crack, is, in length, a few yards more than the breadth of the Zambesi, which by measurement we found to be a little over 1,860 yards, but this number we resolved to retain as indicating the year in which the Fall was for the first time carefully examined. The main stream here runs nearly north and south, and the cleft across it is nearly east and west. The depth of the rift was measured by lowering a line, to the end of which a few bullets and a foot of white cotton cloth were tied. One of us lay with his head over a projecting crag, and watched the descending calico, till, after his companions ^-N-/^' VICTORIA FALLS 173 had paid out 310 feet, the weight rested on a sloping pro- jection, probably fifty feet from the water below, the actual bottom being still further down. The white cloth now appeared the size of a crown-piece. On measuring the width of this deep cleft by sextant, it was found at Garden Island, its narrowest part, to be eighty yards, and at its broadest somewhat more. Into this chasm, of twice the depth of Niagara-fall, the river, a full mile wide, rolls with a deafening roar ; and this is Mosi-oa-tunya, or the Victoria Falls. Looking from Garden Island, down to the bottom of the abyss, nearly half a mile of water, which has fallen over that portion of the Falls to our right, or west of our point of view, is seen collected in a narrow channel twenty or thirty yards wide, and flowing at exactly right angles to its previous course, to our left ; while the other half, or that which fell over the eastern portion of the Falls, is seen in the left of the narrow channel below, coming towards our right. Both waters unite midway, in a fearful boiling waterfall, and find an outlet by a crack situated at right angles to the fissure of the Falls. This outlet is about 1,170 yards from the western end of the chasm, and some 600 from its eastern end ; the whirlpool is at its com- mencement. The Zambesi, now apparently not more than twenty or thirty yards wide, rushes and surges south, through the narrow escape-channel for 130 yards; then enters a second chasm somewhat deeper, and nearly parallel with the first. Abandoning the bottom of the eastern half of this second chasm to the growth of large trees, it 174 VICTORIA FALLS turns sharply off" to the west, and forms a promontory, with the escape-channel at its point, of 1,170 yards long, and 416 yards broad at the base. After reaching this base, the river runs abruptly round the head of another promontory, and flows away to the east, in a third chasm ; then glides round a third promontory, much narrower than the rest, and away back to the west, in a fourth chasm ; and we could see in the distance that it appeared to round still another promontory, and bend once more in another chasm toward the east. In this gigantic, zigzag, yet narrow trough, the rocks are all so sharply cut and angular, that the idea at once arises that the hard basaltic trap must have been riven into its present shape by a force acting from beneath, and that this probably took place when the ancient inland seas were cut off" by similar fissures nearer the ocean. The land beyond, or on the south of the Falls, retains, as already remarked, the same level as before the rent was made. It is as if the trough below Niagara were bent right and left, several times before it reached the railway bridge. The land in the supposed bends being of the same height as that above the Fall, would give standing-places, or points of view, of the same nature as that from the railway bridge, but the nearest would be only eighty yards, instead of two miles (the distance to the bridge) from the face of the cascade. The tops of the promontories are in general flat, smooth, and studded with trees. The first, with its base on the east, is at one place so narrow, that it would be danger- ous to walk to its extremity. On the second, however, we VICTORIA FALLS 1 75 found a broad rhinoceros path and a hut ; but, unless the builder were a hermit, with a pet rhinoceros, we cannot conceive what beast or man ever went there for. On reaching the apex of this second eastern promontory we saw the great river, of a deep sea-green colour, now sorely compressed, gliding away, at least 400 feet below us. Garden Island, when the river is low, commands the best view of the Great Fall chasm, as also of the promon- tory opposite, with its grove of large evergreen trees, and brilliant rainbows of three-quarters of a circle, two, three, and sometimes even four in number, resting on the face of the vast perpendicular rock, down which tiny streams are always running to be swept again back by the upward rush- mg vapour. But as, at Niagara, one has to go over to the Canadian shore to see the chief wonder — the Great Horse- shoe Fall — so here we have to cross over to Moselekatse's side to the promontory of evergreens, for the best view of the principal Falls of Mosi-oa-tunya. Beginning, there- fore, at the base of this promontory, and facing the Cata- ract, at the west end of the chasm, there is, first, a fall of thirty-six yards in breadth, and of course, as they all are, upwards of 310 feet in depth. Then Boaruka, a small island, intervenes, and next comes a great fall, with a breadth of 573 yards ; a projecting rock separates this from a second grand fall of 325 yards broad ; in all, upwards of 900 yards of perennial Falls. Further east stands Garden Island ; then, as the river was at its lowest, came a good deal of the bare rock of its bed, with a score of narrow falls, which, at the time of flood, constitute one enormous 176 VICTORIA FALLS cascade of nearly another half-mile. Near the east end of the chasm are two larger falls, but they are nothing at low water compared to those between the islands. The whole body of water rolls clear over, quite un- broken ; but, after a descent of ten or more feet, the entire mass suddenly becomes a huge sheet of driven snow. Pieces of water leap off it in the form of comets with tails streaming behind, till the whole snowy sheet becomes myriads of rushing, leaping, aqueous comets. This pecul- iarity was not observed by Charles Livingstone at Niagara, and here it happens, possibly from the dryness of the at- mosphere, or whatever the cause may be which makes every drop of Zambesi water appear to possess a sort of in- dividuality. It runs off the ends of the paddles, and glides in beads along the smooth surface, like drops of quicksilver on a table. Here we see them in a conglomeration, each with a train of pure white vapour, racing down till lost in clouds of spray. A stone dropped in became less and less to the eye, and at last disappeared in the dense mist below. Charles Livingstone had seen Niagara, and gave Mosi- oa-tunya the palm, though now at the end of a drought, and the river at its very lowest. Many feel a disappoint- ment on first seeing the great American Falls, but Mosi-oa- tunya is so strange, it must ever cause wonder. In the amount of water, Niagara probably excels, though not during the months when the Zambesi is in flood. The vast body of water, separating in the comet-like forms de- scribed, necessarily encloses in its descent a large volume of air, which, forced into the cleft, to an unknown depth, VICTORIA FALLS 177 rebounds, and rushes up loaded with vapour to form the three or even six columns, as if of steam, visible at the Batoka village Moachemba, twenty-one miles distant. On attaining a height of 200, or at most 300 feet from the level of the river above the cascade, this vapour becomes condensed into a perpetual shower of fine rain. Much of the spray, rising to the west of Garden Island, falls on the grove of evergreen trees opposite; and from their leaves, heavy drops are for ever falling, to form sundry little rills, which, in running down the steep face of rock, are blown off and turned back, or licked off their perpendicular bed, up into the column from which they have just descended. The morning sun gilds these columns of watery smoke with all the glowing colours of double or treble rainbows. The evening sun, from a hot yellow sky imparts a sul- phureous hue, and gives one the impression that the yawn- ing gulf might resemble the mouth of the bottomless pit. No bird sings and sings on the branches of the grove of perpetual showers, or ever builds his nest there. We saw hornbills and flocks of little black weavers flying across from the mainland to the islands, and from the islands to the points of the promontories and back again, but they uniformly shunned the region of perpetual rain, occupied by the evergreen grove. The sunshine, elsewhere in this land so overpowenng, never penetrates the deep gloom of that shade. In the presence of the strange Mosi-oa-tunya, we can sympathize with those who, when the world was young, peopled earth, air, and river, with beings not of mortal form. Sacred to what deity would be this awful 178 VICTORIA FALLS chasm and that dark grove, over which hovers an ever- abiding " pillar of cloud " ? The ancient Batoka chieftains used Kazeruka, now Garden Island, and Boaruka, the island further west, also on the lip of the Falls, as sacred spots for worshipping the Deity. It is no wonder that under the cloudy columns, and near the brilliant rainbows, with the ceaseless roar of the cataract, with the perpetual flow, as if pouring forth from the hand of the Almighty, their souls should be filled with reverential awe. The Zambeii and its Tributaries 18^8—186^ (London, 1865). THE DRAGON-TREE OF OROTAVA> ( CANAR Y ISLANDS ) ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT OROTAVA, the ancient Taoro of the Guanches, is situated on a very steep declivity. The streets seem deserted ; the houses are solidly built, and of gloomy appearance. We passed along a lofty aqueduct, lined with a great number of fine ferns ; and visited several gardens, in which the fruit trees of the north of Europe are mingled with orange trees, pomegranates, and date trees. We were assured, that these last were as little productive here as on the coast of Cumana. Although we had been made ac- quainted, from the narratives of many travellers, with the dragon-tree in M. Franqui's garden, we were not the less struck with its enormous size. We were told, that the trunk of this tree, which is mentioned in several very ancient docu- ments as marking the boundaries of a field, was as gigantic in the Fifteenth Century as it is in the present time. Its height appeared to us to be about fifty or sixty feet ; its circumference near the roots is forty-five feet. We could not measure higher, but Sir George Staunton found that, ten feet from the ground, the diameter of the trunk is still twelve English feet ; which corresponds perfectly with the statement of Borda, who found its mean circumference thirty-three feet, eight inches, French measure. The trunk 'This famous tree was blown down by a storm in 1868. Its age was estimated from five to six thousanJ years. — E. S. l8o THE DRAGON-TREE OF OROTAVA is divided into a great number of branches, which rise in the form of a candelabrum, and are terminated by tufts of leaves, like the yucca which adorns the valley of Mexico. This division gives it a very different appearance from that of the palm-tree. Among organic creations, this tree is undoubtedly, to- gether with the Adansonia or baobab of Senegal, one of the oldest inhabitants of our globe. The baobabs are of still greater dimensions than the dragon-tree of Orotava. There are some which near the root measure thirty-four feet in diameter, though their total height is only from fifty to sixty feet. But we should observe, that the Adansonia, like the ochroma, and all the plants of the family of bom- bax, grow much more rapidly than the dracaena, the vegeta- tion of which is very slow. That in M. Franqui's garden still bears every year both flowers and fruit. Its aspect forcibly exemplifies " that eternal youth of nature," which is an inexhaustible source of motion and of life. The dracana^ which is seen only in cultivated spots in the Canary Islands, at Madeira, and Porto Santo, presents a curious phenomenon with respect to the emigration of plants. It has never been found in a wild state on the continent of Africa. The East Indies is its real country. How has this tree been transplanted to Teneriff^e, where it is by no means common ? Does its existence prove, that, at some very distant period, the Guanches had connexions with other nations originally from Asia ? ^ ' The form of the dragon-tree is exhibited in several species of the genus Dracaena, at the Cape of Good Hope, in China, and in New Zea- THK DRAGON TREE. THE DRAGON-TREE OF OROTAVA l8l The age of trees is marked by .their size, and the union of age with the manifestation of constantly renewed vigour is a charm peculiar to the vegetable kingdom. The gigan- tic Dragon-tree of Orotava (as sacred in the eyes of the inhabitants of the Canaries as the olive-tree in the Citadel of Athens, or the Elm of Ephesus), the diameter of which I found, when I visited those islands, to be more than six- teen feet, had the same colossal size when the French ad- venturers, the Bethencourts, conquered these gardens of the Hesperides in the beginning of the Fifteenth Century; yet it still flourishes, as if in perpetual youth, bearing flowers and fruit. A tropical forest of Hymenaeas and Caesalpinieae may perhaps present to us a monument of more than a thousand years' standing. This colossal dragon-tree, Draceena draco, stands in one of the most delightful spots in the world. In June, 1799, when we ascended the Peak of TenerifFe, we measured the circumference of the tree and found it nearly forty-eight English feet. Our measurement was taken several feet above the root. Lower down, and nearer to the ground, Le Dru made it nearly seventy-nine English feet. The height of the tree is not much above sixty-nine English feet. According to tradition, this tree was venerated by land. But in New Zealand it is superseded by the form of the yucca ; for the Draceena borealis of Aiton is a Convallaria, of which it has all the appearance. The astringent juice, known in commerce by the name of dragon's blood, is, according to the inquiries we made on the spot, the produce of several American plants. At Laguna, toothpicks steeped in the juice of the dragon-tree are made in the nunneries, and are much ex- tolled as highly useful for keeping the gums in a healthy state. 1 82 THE DRAGON-TREE OF OROTAVA the Guanches (as was the ash-tree of Ephesus by the Greeks, or as the Lydian plane-tree which Xerxes decked with ornaments, and the sacred Banyan-tree of Ceylon), and at the time of the first expedition of the Bethencourts in 1402, it was already as thick and as hollow as it now is. Remembering that the Dracaena grows extremely slowly, we are led to infer the high antiquity of the tree of Orotava. Bertholet in his description of Teneriffe, says : " En com- parant les jeunes Dragonniers^ voisins de Harbre gigantesque^ les calcus qu* on fait sur P age de ce dernier effraient /' imagina- tion." (Nova Acta Acad. Leop. Carol. Naturae Curi- osorum 1827, vol. xiii., p. 781.) The dragon-tree has been cultivated in the Canaries, and in Madeira and Porto Santo, from the earliest times ; and an accurate observer, Leopold von Buch, has even found it wild in Teneriffe, near Igueste. The measurement of the dragon-tree of the Villa Fran- qui was made on Borda's first voyage with Pingre, in 177 1 ; not in his second voyage, in 1776, with Varela. It is affirmed that in the earlier times of the Norman and Spanish conquests, in the Fifteenth Century, Mass was said at a small altar erected in the hollow trunk of the tree. Unfortunately, the dragon-tree of Orotava lost one side of its top in the storm of the 21st of July, 18 19. Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America during the years /7pp-/