Produced by Chris Curnow, Reiner Ruf, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)





                        Transcriber's Note:
                        ###################

    This e-text is based on the 1897 edition of the book. Minor
    punctuation errors have been tacitly corrected. Inconsistencies in
    hyphenation and spelling have been retained.

    Italic text has been symbolised by underscores (_italic_); forward
    slashes represent small caps (/small caps/). Caret symbols (^)
    signify subsequent superscript characters; oe ligatures have been
    substituted by the symbol [oe].

    The following passages have been corrected or need to be commented:

    # p. vii (List of Illustrations and Maps; RIVERS OF CORNWALL: 'New
      Bridge' has been removed; there is no such Illustration.
    # p. 38: 'as you please': 'e' had been printed upside down; this
      has been corrected
    # p. 64 (caption): 'p. 658' --> 'p. 65'
    # p. 147: 'seige' --> 'siege'
    # p. 268: 'muninipal' --> 'municipal'
    # p. 276: 'page 223' --> 'page 273'
    # p. 307: 'are still call' --> 'are still called'
    # p. 308: 'an the bullocks' --> 'and the bullocks'; 'owers' -->
      'towers'
    # p. 376 (Index): 'Wynn, Sir Watkin Willliams' --> 'Wynn, Sir
      Watkin Williams'




                      THE RIVERS OF GREAT BRITAIN




_UNIFORM WITH THIS WORK._


    THE ROYAL RIVER: /The Thames from Source to Sea/. With
    Several Hundred Original Illustrations. _Original Edition_,
    £2 2s.

"Its illustrations surpass all that have previously adorned any book on
the same subject"--_Daily Telegraph._


    RIVERS OF THE EAST COAST. With numerous highly finished Engravings.
    _Original Edition_, £2 2s.

"We have read with the greatest interest 'The Rivers of the East Coast
of Great Britain.' All the articles are by pleasant writers, and the
pages are lavishly illustrated by engravings after photographs."--_The
Times._


_Popular Editions of the above can also be obtained._


CASSELL & COMPANY, /Limited/, _London; Paris and Melbourne._




[Illustration]




                                  THE
                       /Rivers of Great Britain/

                  DESCRIPTIVE, HISTORICAL, PICTORIAL


                 _RIVERS OF THE SOUTH AND WEST COASTS_


                            [Illustration]


                    /CASSELL and COMPANY, Limited/
                      _LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE_
                                 1897

                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




[Illustration]




CONTENTS.


    THE SOUTHERN CHALK STREAMS.--_By WILLIAM SENIOR._          PAGE

    General Characteristics--The /Canterbury Stour/ and its Branches:
    Ashford and Jack Cade--Horton and Lyminge--Canterbury--Fordwich
    and Izaak Walton--Isle of Thanet--Minster. The /Lesser Stour/:
    "Bourne Ground"--Sandwich. The /Brede/. The /Rother/:
    Bodiam--Isle of Oxney--Winchelsea--Seaford. The /Cuckmere/:
    Alfriston and Lullington. /The Ouse/: St. Leonard's
    Forest--Fletching--Maresfield--Lewes. The /Adur/:
    Bramber--Shoreham. The /Arun/: Amberley--Arundel--Littlehampton.
    Hampshire Rivers--The /Arle/: The Meon District--Wickham
    and the Bishop-Builder--Titchfield. The /Itchen/: A Curious
    Example of Instinct--Alresford Pond--Cheriton--Tichborne--The
    Winnal Reaches--Winchester and Izaak Walton--St. Cross--St.
    Catherine's Hill--Southampton. The /Test/: Romsey and its
    Abbey. The /Beaulieu/: Beaulieu Abbey. The /Lymington/
    and the /Medina/--The /Hampshire Avon/ and the /Stour/:
    Christchurch--Salisbury--Wimborne. The /Frome/: Dorchester--Mr.
    Hardy's Country--Poole Harbour                                     1


    RIVERS OF DEVON.--_By W. W. HUTCHINGS._

    General Characteristics--Sources of the Devon Streams: Exmoor
    and Dartmoor. The /Otter/: Ottery Saint Mary and Samuel
    Taylor Coleridge. Exmoor Streams:--The /Exe/: Its Source
    in The Chains--The Barle--The Batherm--Tiverton and Peter
    Blundell--Bickleigh Bridge and the "King of the Gipsies"--The
    Culm--Exeter--Countess Weir--Exmouth. The /Lyn/:
    Oareford--The Doone Country--Malmsmead--Watersmeet--Lyndale--Lynton
    and Lynmouth. Dartmoor Streams:--The /Teign/:
    Wallabrook--Chagford--Fingle Bridge--Chudleigh--The
    Bovey--Newton Abbot--Teignmouth. The /Dart/: Holne
    Chase--Buckfast Abbey--Dartington Hall--Totnes--The Lower
    Reaches--Dartmouth. The Tavy. The /Taw/: Oxenham and
    its Legend--Barnstaple--Lundy. The /Torridge/: The
    Okement--Great Torrington--Bideford--Hubbastone. The Avon, Erme,
    and Yealm. The /Plym/: Dewerstone--The Meavy and Plymouth
    Leat--Plympton St. Mary and Plympton Earl--The Three Towns        25


    RIVERS OF CORNWALL.--_By HUGH W. STRONG._

    The Minor Streams of Cornwall--The /Tamar/:
    Woolley Barrows--Morwellham and Weir Head--Morwell
    Rocks--Harewood--Calstock--Cotehele--Pentillie--Confluence
    with the Tavy--Saltash--The Hamoaze. The /Fowey/: A Change
    of Name--St. Neot--Lostwithiel--Fowey. The /Fal/: Fenton
    Fal--Tregony--Truro--Tregothnan--Falmouth                         54


    THE PARRET AND THE LOWER AVON.--_By HUGH W. STRONG._

    The /Parret/: Its Source--Muchelney Abbey--The
    Tone and Taunton--Athelney Island and Alfred the
    Great--Sedgemoor--Bridgwater--Burnham. The /Lower Avon/: Escourt
    Park--Malmesbury--Chippenham--Melksham--Bradford-on-Avon--Bath--The
    Frome--Beau Nash--Bridges at Bath--The Abbey Church--Bristol--St.
    Mary Redcliffe and Chatterton--The Cathedral--"The Chasm"--Clifton
    Suspension Bridge--The Lower Reaches--Avonmouth                   67


    THE SEVERN.--_By the REV. PROFESSOR BONNEY, D.Sc., F.R.S._

    CHAPTER I.--/From the Source to Tewkesbury./--Birthplace of the
    Severn--Plinlimmon--Blaenhafren--Llanidloes--Caersws--Newtown--
    Montgomery--Welshpool--Powys Castle--The Breidden Hills--The
    Vyrnwy. Distant Views--Shrewsbury--Haughmond Hill--The Caradoc
    Hills--Atcham--Wroxeter--Condover--The Wrekin--Benthall and Wenlock
    Edges--Buildwas Abbey--Coalbrook Dale--Ironbridge--Broseley
    and Benthall--Coalport--Bridgnorth--Quatford--Forest of
    Wyre--Bewdley--Stourport--Worcester--The Teme--Ludlow--Tewkesbury
                                                                      82

    CHAPTER II.--/The Upper or Warwickshire Avon./--The
    Watershed of Central England--Naseby--Rugby--The Swift--Lutterworth
    and Wiclif--Stoneleigh Abbey and Kenilworth Castle--Guy's
    Cliff--The Leam--Warwick and its Castle--Stratford-on-Avon and its
    Shakespeare Associations--Evesham--Pershore--Tewkesbury          107

    CHAPTER III.--/From Tewkesbury to the Sea./--Deerhurst--
    Gloucester--The "Bore"--May Hill--Minsterworth--Westbury-on-Severn
    --Newnham--Berkeley Castle--Lydney--Sharpness--The Severn Tunnel--
    The Estuary--A Vanished River                                    119


    THE WYE.--_By E. W. SABEL._

    "The Notorious Hill of Plinlimmon"--The Stronghold of Owen
    Glendower--Llangurig--Rhayader Gwy--Llyn-Gwyn--The Elan, the Ithon,
    and the Yrfon--Llandrindod--Builth--Aberedw and the Last Prince of
    Wales--Hay--Clifford Castle and the Fair Rosamond--Hereford--The
    Lug--"The Wonder"--Ross and John Kyrle--Goodrich Castle--Coldwell
    Rocks--Symond's Yat--Monmouth--The Monnow, the Dore, and
    the Llonddu--Wordsworth's Great Ode--Tintern Abbey--The
    Wyndcliff--Chepstow--The Lower Reaches                           124


    THE USK.--_By E. W. SABEL._

    The Black Mountains--Trecastle--The Gaer--Brecon--The Brecknock
    Beacons--Crickhowell--Abergavenny--Usk--Caerleon and the Arthurian
    Legend--Christchurch--Newport                                    149


    RIVERS OF SOUTH WALES.--_By CHARLES EDWARDES._

    Brecknock Beacons--The /Taff/: Taff Fawr and Taff Fechan--Cardiff
    Reservoirs--Merthyr--The Dowlais Steel and Iron Works--The
    Rhondda--Pontypridd--Castell Coch--Llandaff and its
    Cathedral--Cardiff and its Castle. The /Neath/: Ystradfellte--The
    Mellte and its Affluents--The Cwm Porth--Waterfalls and
    Cascades--The Sychnant--Pont Neath Vaughan--Neath and
    its Abbey--The Dulas and the Clydach. Swansea and its
    Docks--Morriston Castle--Swansea Castle--The Mumbles and
    Swansea Bay. The /Tawe/: Craig-y-Nos--Lly-Fan Fawr. The /Towy/:
    Ystradffin--Llandovery--Llandilo--Dynevor Castle--Carmarthen
    and Richard Steele--Carmarthen Bar. The /Taff/: Milford
    Haven--Carew Castle--Pembroke Castle--Monkton Priory--New Milford
    and Old Milford--Haverfordwest. The /Teifi/: Strata Florida
    Abbey--Newcastle Emlyn--Cenarth--Cardigan. The /Ystwith/: The Upper
    Waters--Aberystwith                                              159


    RIVERS OF NORTH WALES.--_By AARON WATSON._

    CHAPTER I.--/The Dovey, the Dysynni, the Mawddach./--Glories of a
    Wet Autumn in North Wales. The /Dovey/: Source of the Stream--Dinas
    Mowddwy--Mallwyd--Machynlleth. The /Dysynni/: Tal-y-Llyn--The "Bird
    Rock"--Towyn. The /Mawddach/: The Estuary--The Wnion--Torrent
    Walk--Dolgelley--Precipice Walk--The Estuary--Barmouth--Harlech
    Castle--Portmadoc--Glaslyn--Tremadoc and Shelley--The Traeth Bach
                                                                     193

    CHAPTER II.--/The Seiont, the Ogwen, the Conway./--The /Seiont/:
    Llanberis Pass--Lakes Peris and Padarn--Dolbadarn Castle and
    Cennant Mawr--Carnarvon and its Castle. The /Ogwen/: Llyn Ogwen
    and Llyn Idwal--Bethesda--Penrhyn Castle. The /Llugwy/: Capel
    Curig--Moel Siabod--Pont-y-Cyfing--Swallow Falls--The Miners'
    Bridge--Bettws-y-Coed. The /Lledr/: Dolwyddelen--Pont-y-Pant. The
    /Machno/ and its Fall. The /Conway/: Fairy Glen--Llanrwst--Gwydir
    Castle--Llanbedr--Trefriw--Conway Marsh--Conway Castle and
    Town--Deganwy--Llandudno                                         205

    CHAPTER III.--/The Clwyd and the Dee./--The /Clwyd/: Rhyl--Rhuddlan
    Castle--The Elwy--A Welsh Gretna Green--St. Asaph--Denbigh--Ruthin.
    The /Dee/: Bala Lake--Corwen--Vale of Llangollen and Valle Crucis
    Abbey--Dinas Bran--The Ceiriog--Chirk Castle and Wynnstay--The
    Alyn--Eaton Hall--Chester--Flint                                 223


    THE MERSEY.--_By W. S. CAMERON._

    A Modern River--Derivations--The Tame, the Goyt, and
    the Etherow--Stockport--Northenden--The Irwell and its
    Feeders--Manchester and Salford--The Ship Canal--Bridges over the
    Irwell--Ordsall--Eccles--Barton--Warburton--Irlam--Warrington--
    Latchford--Runcorn and Widnes--The Weaver--Eastham Locks--Liverpool
    and its Growth--Its Docks and Quays--Birkenhead and its
    Shipbuilding Yards--New Brighton--Perch Rock Lighthouse          242


    RIVERS OF LANCASHIRE AND LAKELAND.--_By WILLIAM SENIOR._

    A Birthplace of Rivers--The /Ribble/: Ribblehead--
    Horton-in-Ribblesdale--Survival of Old Traditions--Hellifield--The
    Hodder--Stonyhurst and its College--The Calder--Burnley--Towneley
    Hall--Preston--Its Development as a Port. The /Wyre/:
    Poulton-le-Fylde. The /Lune/: Kirkby Lonsdale--The Greta and the
    Wenning--Hornby Castle--Lancaster--Morecambe Bay--The Journey
    from Lancaster to Ulverston in Coaching Days--Shifting Sands.
    The /Kent/: Kentmere--Kendal. The Gilpin and the Winster. The
    /Rothay/ and the /Brathay/. Grasmere and Wordsworth--Rydal
    Water--Ambleside--Windermere. Troutbeck. Esthwaite Water. The
    /Leven/: Newby Bridge--The Estuary. The /Crake/: Coniston
    Water--Coniston Hall--Brantwood and Mr. Ruskin. The /Duddon/:
    Wordsworth's Sonnets. The /Esk/ and the /Irt/: Wastwater. The
    /Liza/: Ennerdale Water. The /Ehen/: Egremont Castle. The
    /Derwent/: The Vale of St. John's--The Greta and Keswick--The View
    from Castlerigg top--Derwentwater                                271


    RIVERS OF THE SOLWAY FIRTH.--_By FRANCIS WATT._

    The Firth--A Swift Tide. The /Eden/: The Eamont--Eden
    Hall--Armathwaite--John Skelton--Wetheral and Corby Castle--The
    Caldew and the Petteril--Greystoke Castle--Carlisle, its
    Romance and History--_Serva Pactum_--"Kinmont Willie" and the
    "bauld Buccleuch"--Executions of Jacobites--The Carlisle of
    To-day--The Sark--Gretna Green. The /Liddel/--Hermitage Water and
    Castle. The /Esk/: The Tarras--Gilnockie Tower--Carlenrig and
    Johnnie Armstrong--Young Lochinvar--Kirtle Water and its Tragic
    Story. The /Annan/: The Land of the Bruces--Thomas Carlyle.
    The /Nith/: Dumfries--Burns's Grave--Robert Bruce and the Red
    Cumyn--Drumlanrig and Caerlaverock Castles--The Cairn and its
    Associations--The New Abbey Pow and Sweetheart Abbey. The /Dee/:
    Douglas Tongueland--Threave Castle. The /Cree/: Newton Stewart--The
    "Cruives of Cree." The /Bladenoch/: The Wigtown Martyrs          301


    RIVERS OF AYRSHIRE.--_By JOHN GEDDIE._

    Poetic Associations--Headstreams of the Ayrshire Rivers--"The Land
    of Burns"--The Ayr and the Doon--Sorn--Catrine--Ballochmyle--
    Mossgiel--Mauchline--Barskimming--Coilsfield House and the Fail
    Water--The Coyl--Auchencruive--Craigie--Ayr--The Doon            328


    THE CLYDE.--_By JOHN GEDDIE._

    Clydesdale and its Waters--"The Hill of Fire"--Douglasdale--"Castle
    Dangerous"--Bonnington Linn--Corra Linn and "Wallace's
    Tower"--Lanark--The Mouse Water--Stonebyres Linn--The Nethan
    and "Tillietudlem"--"The Orchard of Scotland"--Hamilton and its
    Palace--Cadzow Castle and its Associations--Bothwell Brig and
    Castle--Blantyre--Cambuslang--Rutherglen--Glasgow--The City and
    its History--The Quays, Docks, and Shipbuilding Yards--The Work
    of the Clyde Navigation Trust--Govan and Partick--The White
    Cart--Dumbarton Rock and Castle--The Leven Valley--Ben and Loch
    Lomond--Greenock--Gourock--The Firth at Eventide                 342




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS.


    /Cader Idris, from the Dolgelley Road/   _Frontispiece._


    _THE SOUTHERN CHALK STREAMS_:--

                                                                   PAGES

    Distant View of Canterbury--Rivers of Kent and Sussex(_Map_)
    --Arundel Castle--Sandwich: The Old Bridge and Barbican--General
    View of Winchester--St. Catherine's Hill--Winchester Cathedral--
    Southampton Docks--The Royal Pier, Southampton--Southampton
    from the Water--Romsey Abbey--Christchurch Abbey--Rivers
    of Hants and Dorset (_Map_)--A New Forest Stream--The Avon
    at Amesbury--Salisbury Cathedral--The Frome at Frampton
    Court--Dorchester from the Frome--Poole Harbour--Wimborne Minster
                                                                    1-24


    _RIVERS OF DEVON_:--

    Bideford Bridge--Rivers of Devon (_Map_)--The Wear Water--
    Exeter--Exmouth, from the Beacon--Watersmeet--Lynmouth and
    Lynton--"Clam" Bridge over the Wallabrook--Fingle Bridge--
    Teignmouth--New Bridge--Buckfastleigh--Staverton--The Island,
    Totnes--Totnes--Dittisham--Mouth of the Dart--Barnstaple, from the
    South Walk--The Torridge near Torrington--The Plym from Cadaford
    Bridge--In Bickleigh Vale--Plympton Earl--The Hoe, Plymouth    25-53


    _RIVERS OF CORNWALL_:--

    Danescombe--Rivers of Cornwall (_Map_)--Tavistock New
    Bridge--Morwell Rocks--Cargreen--The Hamoaze, from Saltash--The Fal
    from Tolverne--Falmouth Harbour--Falmouth, from Flushing       54-66


    _THE PARRET AND THE LOWER AVON_:--

    The Isle of Athelney--The Parret and the Lower Avon (_Map_)
    --Taunton Church--Malmesbury Abbey--The Avon near Tetbury--
    Bradford-on-Avon Church, from the North-East--The Avon at Bath--
    View from North Parade Bridge, Bath--View from the old City Bridge,
    Bath--Bristol, from the Site of the old Drawbridge across the
    Harbour--Clifton Suspension Bridge                             67-81


    _THE SEVERN_:--

    CHAPTER I.--/From the Source to Tewkesbury./--Source of the
    Severn, Plinlimmon--The Severn, from the Source to Tewkesbury
    (_Map_)--Valley of the Severn, from Plinlimmon--The First House
    on the Severn, Blaenhafren--Moel-y-Golfa and Breidden, from
    Welshpool--The Vyrnwy Embankment, before the flooding of the
    Valley--A Quiet Nook on the Vyrnwy--The Boat-house Ferry, between
    Welsh and English Bridges--Shrewsbury Castle--Quarry Walk,
    Shrewsbury--English Bridge, Shrewsbury--Buildwas Abbey--The Severn
    from Benthall Edge--Ironbridge--The Severn in Wyre Forest--Near
    Shrawley--Old Houses at Bewdley--Worcester Cathedral, from the
    Severn--Ludlow--The Severn at Tewkesbury                      82-106

    CHAPTER II.--/The Upper or Warwickshire Avon./--The Avon near
    Rugby--The Warwickshire Avon (_Map_)--Warwick Castle--The Avon from
    Warwick Castle--Stratford-on-Avon Church--Shakespeare's House--The
    Avon at Stratford--Evesham--The Avon at Tewkesbury           107-118

    CHAPTER III.--/From Tewkesbury to the Sea./--Distant View
    of Tewkesbury--The Severn, from Tewkesbury to the Sea
    (_Map_)--Gloucester--The Severn Bridge, Sharpness            119-123


    _THE WYE_:--

    A Bend of the Wye--Views in the Lower Elan Valley--The Wye and the
    Usk (_Map_)--Pont-Hyll-Fan, in the Elan Valley--The Shaky Bridge,
    Llandrindod--The Wye Bridge and Hereford Cathedral--Goodrich
    Castle--Ross Church--Symond's Yat and the Ferry--Monmouth--The
    Monnow Bridge and Gate-house, Monmouth--Tintern Abbey, from the
    Wye--The Nave, Tintern Abbey--Gateway at Chepstow--Chepstow
    Castle--View from the Wyndcliff--Old Monastery on the Wye    124-148


    _THE USK_:--

     Near the Source of the Usk, Talsarn-side--The
    Usk at Brecknock--Bit of the Roman Wall at
    Caerleon--Usk--Caerleon--Newport: The Bridge and Castle      149-158


    _RIVERS OF SOUTH WALES_:--

    The Brecknock Beacons, from the Taff--Llandaff Cathedral: The
    West Front; The Nave and Choir; The West and North Doors--Rivers
    of South Wales (_Map_)--The Bishop's Gateway, Llandaff--Cardiff
    Castle--St. Mary Street, Cardiff--The Drawing Room, Cardiff
    Castle--In the Vale of Neath--Neath Abbey--Outskirts of
    Neath--North Dock, Swansea--Morriston--The Mumbles--Carew
    Castle--Carmarthen Quay--Pembroke Castle and Monkton Priory--The
    Royal Dockyard, Pembroke Dock--Haverfordwest--Milford Haven--The
    Teifi at Kilgerran--Aberystwith                              159-192


    _RIVERS OF NORTH WALES_:--

    CHAPTER I.--/The Dovey, the Dysynni, the Mawddach./--
    Dolgelley--Rivers of North Wales (_Map_)--Torrent Walk,
    Dolgelley--The Lower Bridge, Torrent Walk--Between Dolgelley
    and Barmouth--Barmouth Bridge and Cader Idris--Snowdon, from
    Crib-Goch--The Estuary, Barmouth                             193-204

    CHAPTER II.--/The Seiont, the Ogwen, the Conway./--Pass of
    Llanberis--Carnarvon Castle--The Swallow Falls--Miners' Bridge,
    Bettws-y-Coed--Moel Siabod, from the Llugwy--Pont-y-Pair--On
    the Lledr--Another View in the Lledr Valley--Fairy Glen,
    Bettws-y-Coed--On the Conway--The Conway, from Conway
    Castle--Conway Castle--The Bridge, from Conway Castle        205-222

    CHAPTER III.--/The Clwyd and the Dee./--View from Rhuddlan
    Castle--Rhuddlan Castle--St. Asaph--Denbigh--Bala Lake--Valle
    Crucis Abbey--Llangollen--Eaton Hall--The Roodee, Chester--The
    Dee at Chester, from the Walls--Chester Cathedral, from the
    South-West--Swing Bridge over the Dee near Hawarden--The Sands of
    Dee                                                          223-241


    _THE MERSEY_:--

    The Mersey at Stockport--The Mersey (_Map_)--Northenden--On the
    Irwell--Pendleton, from the Crescent--Manchester, from the Grammar
    School, showing the Cathedral, the Exchange, the Town Hall, etc.
    --Victoria and Blackfriars Bridges--Steamer passing through
    Trafford Road Swing Bridge--The Old and the Swing Aqueducts,
    Barton--The Irwell at Ordsall, with Worrall's Works--Runcorn
    Bridge--The Locks at Eastham--St. George's Landing-Stage,
    Liverpool--Swing Bridge over the Entrance to Stanley Dock,
    Liverpool--Liverpool, from Birkenhead--St. George's Hall and Lime
    Street, Liverpool--The Perch Rock Lighthouse                 242-270


    _RIVERS OF LANCASHIRE AND LAKELAND_:--

    Stainforth Bridge--Towneley Hall, Burnley--Rivers of Lancashire
    and Lakeland (_Map_)--Preston, from the West--Lancaster--
    Windermere--Rydal Water--Grasmere--Newby Bridge--Another Bit
    of the Leven--The Liza flowing into Ennerdale Water--The
    Liza at Gillerthwaite--Coniston Water--Ennerdale--The Greta
    between Threlkeld and Keswick--The Derwent, with Keswick in
    the Distance--The Derwent at Crosthwaite--Derwentwater and
    Skiddaw--Derwentwater from Scafell--The Cocker flowing from
    Crummock Lake--The Cocker at Kirkgate                        271-300


    _RIVERS OF THE SOLWAY FIRTH_:--

    The Annan, near Annan Town--The Eden, the Petteril, and the Caldew
    (_Map_)--Eden Hall--The Weir at Armathwaite--Wetheral Bridge--View
    from Brackenbank looking towards Cotehill--Cotehill Island--View
    from the Long Walk, Corby Castle--Rock Stairway to the Boathouse,
    Corby Castle--Greystoke Castle--Carlisle, looking East--Carlisle,
    looking West--Rivers flowing South into Solway Firth (_Map_)--The
    Esk, near Gilnockie--High Street, Dumfries--Lincluden
    Abbey--Drumlanrig Castle--Caerlaverock Castle--The Dee at Douglas
    Tongueland--The Cree at Newton Stewart                       301-327


    _RIVERS OF AYRSHIRE_:--

    The Ayr above Muirkirk--Sorn--Rivers of Ayrshire (_Map_)--
    Ballochmyle--The Ayr at Barskimming--Auchencruive--The Twa Brigs of
    Ayr--The Dam at Ayr--The Doon: The New and the Auld Brig--Ayrmouth
                                                                 328-341


    _THE CLYDE_:--

    One of the Sources of the Clyde--The Clyde (_Map_)--Douglas
    Castle--Bonnington Linn--Corra Linn--Roman Bridge near Lanark--
    Stonebyres Linn--Bothwell Castle--Glasgow University--The
    Broomielaw Landing-Stage--The Clyde at Glasgow--Partick--Paisley--
    Dumbarton Rock--Loch Lomond--Greenock--Gourock               342-369




/Rivers of Great Britain./

[Illustration: _Photo: G. W. Wilson & Co., Aberdeen._

DISTANT VIEW OF CANTERBURY (_p. 3_).]




THE SOUTHERN CHALK STREAMS.

    General Characteristics--The /Canterbury Stour/ and its Branches:
    Ashford and Jack Cade--Horton and Lyminge--Canterbury--Fordwich
    and Izaak Walton--Isle of Thanet--Minster. The /Lesser
    Stour/: "Bourne Ground"--Sandwich. The /Brede/. The
    /Rother/: Bodiam--Isle of Oxney--Winchelsea--Seaford. The
    /Cuckmere/: Alfriston and Lullington. /The Ouse/: St.
    Leonard's Forest--Fletching--Maresfield--Lewes. The /Adur/:
    Bramber--Shoreham. The /Arun/: Amberley--Arundel--Littlehampton.
    Hampshire Rivers--The /Arle/: The Meon District--Wickham
    and the Bishop-Builder--Titchfield. The /Itchen/: A Curious
    Example of Instinct--Alresford Pond--Cheriton--Tichborne--The
    Winnal Reaches--Winchester and Izaak Walton--St. Cross--St.
    Catherine's Hill--Southampton. The /Test/: Romsey and its
    Abbey. The /Beaulieu/: Beaulieu Abbey. The _Lymington_
    and the /Medina/--The /Hampshire Avon/ and the /Stour/:
    Christchurch--Salisbury--Wimborne. The /Frome/: Dorchester--Mr.
    Hardy's Country--Poole Harbour.


The long and strong backbone of the North Downs extends, roughly
speaking, from Kent, by way of Dorking and Guildford, to the source of
the Avon, north of Salisbury Plain; and the South Downs run parallel,
more or less, through Sussex and Hants to the Dorset heights. From
these green hills spring the streams which will be briefly traced from
source to sea in this chapter. They are not rivers of first account in
their aid to commerce; even the pair which combine in the formation
of Southampton Water have never been reckoned in the nomenclature of
dock or port. To the angler, however, some of these chalk streams are
exceedingly precious--as they indeed ought to be, when a rental varying
from fifty to a hundred pounds per mile per annum is gladly paid
(and taken) for the right of fishing with rod and line. Such choice
preserves are stocked with trout of aristocratic quality, trout which
can only be reared in streams issuing from the chalk; their water, when
unpolluted by contact with towns, is crystal clear; and the beds of
gravel and fine sand favour the growth of typical vegetation, which in
its turn favours typical water insects and other food suitable for the
highest class of non-migratory salmonidæ.

Wholly different from such noisy, turbulent, masterful rivers as those
which distinguish North Britain, these chalk streams enter into the
very spirit of that sweet pastoral scenery which suggests repose,
peace, and plenty. They maintain for the most part an even course,
tranquilly flowing without fret or violence through level land,
and pursuing their tireless journey seawards, unobstructed by the
rugged rocks, obstinate boulders, and uneven beds which provoke your
mountain-or moorland-born waters into thunderous roar, angry swirl, and
headlong rapidity. For foam-flecked pools, and mighty leaps in romantic
gorges, the South-country chalk stream offers forget-me-nots by the
margin, and beds of flowers blossoming from its harmless depths. It is
with rivers of this class we have now to deal, presenting such features
as may be noticed within the limits which have been assigned to the
present chapter.

[Illustration: RIVERS OF KENT AND SUSSEX.]

Beginning, as the sun in its progress would have us do, from the east,
we introduce the reader to the fair county of Kent. There are at least
half-a-dozen Stours, great and small, in England; and though the stream
with which we start is entirely Kentish (and might, therefore, take
the name of the county), it is commonly distinguished by the name of
the /Canterbury Stour/. There are others of its namesakes--one
of which we shall meet with towards the end of our journey--of greater
watershed, but there is no more interesting member of the family. As
a rule, a river, with its tributaries, as seen on the map, offers
the appearance of the root of a tree, with its branches gracefully
following in a common direction towards the parent stream, on the
principle that, as the main river ever has marching orders towards the
ocean, all its feeders, in the same spirit, loyally join in a forward
movement. Our Stour, however, is a notable exception. It assumes a
respectable magnitude at Ashford, but near that town, and almost at
right angles to the subsequent direction of the main stream, two
distinct branches join issue. The main stream from Ashford to the Isle
of Thanet runs almost due north-east; branch number one, that comes
from the hills in the direction of Maidstone, travels to Ashford almost
due south-west, and the other branch that rises north of Hythe flows
in a diametrically opposite course. These little rivers are of equal
length, and flow, in their unpretending fashion, through purely rural
country.

The first-named of these branches rises near Lenham, which takes its
name from a feeder of the great river of the northern watershed of
the county. Visitors to the seat of the Dering family at Surrenden,
where there have been Derings since the time of the Conqueror, and to
Little Chart Church, will be, at the latter place, not far from what
is regarded as the real source of the river Stour, but this brook must
not be confounded with the Beult at Smarden, which belongs to the
Medway. Our stream flows the other way, passing Cale Hill, Hothfield,
and Godinton. Hereabouts--if there is anything in tradition--is the
country of troublesome Jack Cade, who must have known a good deal about
the river, for the story is that he was born at Ashford, and that the
squire who had the honour of taking him into custody lived on the
estate known in these days as Ripley Court Farm.

The southern branch takes its rise near Postling, on the famous
Stone Street, or Roman road, which from Westenhanger is a straight
northerly highway to Canterbury. The farmhouse at Horton was a priory
founded in the time of Henry II. Naturally, in this part of England,
where Augustine landed, the countryside is rich in the earliest
ecclesiastical reminiscences. At Lyminge, for example, hard by, was
one of the Benedictine nunneries, and the church where the daughter
of Ethelbert was buried is often visited by admirers of Roman and
Anglo-Saxon masonry, for it is believed that the Saxon church was built
on the site of a basilicon. There are many parish churches in Kent
which are of exceptional interest, but that at Lyminge is generally
accepted as the first of them.

The entire course of the Stour is about forty-five miles, and its
valley from Ashford to Canterbury is one of the loveliest features of
a lovely county. Overlooking it is Eastwell Park, which for many years
was the country-house of the Duke of Edinburgh. The valley of the
Stour, seen from one of its higher knolls as on a chart, is not always
so open as it is in this neighbourhood, though its narrowing means but
the concentration of charming scenery, with wooded heights on the one
side and open downs on the other. For a considerable distance the Stour
follows the railway line, and at Wye, where there is one of the most
lovely miniature racecourses in the kingdom, it is crossed by a bridge
of five arches. Thenceforth, it is a notable trout stream, gradually
widening until it forms the distinctive feature of the well-known
meadows, with the square-towered cathedral always a prominent object of
the landscape.

Canterbury has been so often described, for it is frequently the scene
of great ceremonials (as witness the impressive burial of Archbishop
Benson in 1896, and the enthronisation of his distinguished successor
in 1897), that a few sentences only are required as we muse by the
riverside. But it is impossible to visit Canterbury without recalling
its stirring and suggestive associations, and the distinction it had
in times when other parts of the country were obscure. It was too
near the water to escape the ravages of the sea-kings, who liked to
land at Sheppey and Thanet, and it was more than once devastated by
the Danes. In 1011 it was taken by storm amidst scenes of death and
desolation during which the cathedral and monastery were burnt, the
inhabitants slaughtered in masses, and women and children carried
away into captivity. There is no need to re-tell the story of that
different kind of landing, glorified by the arrival of St. Augustine
and his missionaries. This also honoured the Isle of Thanet, which the
Saxon chronicle mentions as the place of disembarkation of Hengist and
Horsa on their heathen mission to Vortigern. The Stour in its terminal
portion has probably become much cabined and confined since that
period, when it must have been a broad estuary.

[Illustration: _Photo: J. White, Littlehampton._

ARUNDEL CASTLE (_p. 11_).]

About two miles below Canterbury is the village of Fordwich, on the
opposite bank of the Stour. As the tide in old days reached thither,
it ranked as a Cinque Port. According to Izaak Walton, the old name
of Fordwich was "Fordidge," and as such he immortalised it in the
"Compleat Angler" as the home of the Fordidge trout, about which there
was some mystery, until in the present century it was proved to be one
of the migratory salmonidæ. An occasional specimen is now found. This
fish does now and then run into some of our south-east rivers, and no
doubt at the time when the Thames was a salmon river and the waters
were unpolluted, it was common in the Stour, which throughout is an
excellent trout stream.

[Illustration: _Photo: Poulton & Son, Lee._

SANDWICH: THE OLD BRIDGE AND BARBICAN (_p. 7_).]

Below Canterbury, where the water becomes brackish and the conditions
prosaic, the trout gives place to the ordinary coarse fish of our
streams. Grove Ferry is one of the favourite holiday resorts of the
citizens. At Sarr, a few miles from Fordwich, the ferry which now plies
at Grove Ferry was formerly the means of communication with the Isle
of Thanet. This historic island is formed by the Stour separating right
and left, the arm to the north finding the sea a little east of the
Reculvers; while the branch flowing in the opposite direction marks
the boundary of the promontory which includes the watering-places
of Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Margate, and Birchington, and has for the
extreme tip of its snout the lonely North Foreland. This divergence,
which, on a smaller scale, corresponds with the curious right-angled
course of the brooks at the source, used to have a name of its own: it
was called the Wantsum, with a well-known ford at St. Nicholas-at-Wade;
and no doubt this channel was once an arm of the sea. The lesser Stour,
of which something will presently be said, falls into the navigable
portion of the parent river below Sarr. The lower branch runs through
marshes by Minster, which is a deservedly popular village to tourists
exploring Kent who are specially on the lookout for interesting relics
of the past. King Egbert, one of the Christian kings of Kent, founded
a nunnery here by way of atonement for the murder of a couple of
princely cousins, and he agreed to endow it with as much land as a
hind would cover in one course. The Danes had their will of the place.
The restored church in its present form has a Norman nave, with Early
English transepts and choir. Minster is a favourite ramble for seaside
visitors to Ramsgate; it is well situated, and its high ground affords
views of distant Canterbury, the ruins of Richborough Castle, the coast
country about Deal, and a proper expanse of marsh. The Stour, when
nearly opposite the point of coast where it eventually falls into the
Straits of Dover, takes a turn to the east, calling, as it were, at the
ancient town of Sandwich, and then proceeds due north to Pegwell Bay.

Rising somewhere near the source of the lower arm of Stour major,
the /Lesser Stour/ is another charming Kentish trout stream.
It flows through what may be designated bourne ground, as the names
of many of its villages testify. The source is near Bishopsbourne
Church, where the judicious Hooker, a native of the place, performed
the duties of parish priest. There are also Patrixbourne, Bekesbourne,
Nailbourne, and Littlebourne. The last named is well known to tourists,
for the village has a traditional association with the monks of St.
Augustine; here are an Early English church with monuments, and the
park at Lee Priory where Sir Egerton Brydges worked his press; and
within a quarter of an hour's walk is an old church formerly belonging
to some of the Canterbury priors. On the banks of the stream at
Bekesbourne are the remains of a palace of Archbishop Cranmer; and
when the Parliamentarians, according to their custom, laid it under
contribution, in their ransacking they discovered the Primate's will
behind an old oak wainscoting. Wickham Breaux is another of the Lesser
Stour villages, and all around are the fruit orchards and occasional
hopfields which give a distinctive and agreeable character to the
entire watershed. The Lesser Stour for a while runs parallel with its
companion, which it joins at Stourmouth, to assist in outlining the
Isle of Thanet, and mingling therefore with the current which goes
the round of Sandwich to Pegwell Bay. It seems almost incredible that
Sandwich was once a great port, but if a quiet hour be spent in what
is left of it, the town will be found to repay careful inspection. The
Barbican, as the old gateway tower is called, and the bridge indicate
the haven in which refugees from France and the Low Countries found a
safe home.

       *       *       *       *       *

From Hythe to the ancient and always interesting town of Rye, stretches
the Royal Military Canal; the first stream to claim attention is the
/Brede/, though it is scarcely entitled to river rank. It takes
its rise a few miles from Battle, and its course is held to have been
the old channel of the Rother, near Winchelsea. The "Groaning Bridge"
is on the Brede, and it was on this spot that the Oxenbridge ogre of
ancient legend was said to have been disposed of once for all by being
divided across the middle with a wooden saw.

[Illustration: _Photo: Poulton & Son, Lee._

GENERAL VIEW OF WINCHESTER (_p. 16_).]

[Illustration: _Photo: Poulton & Son, Lee._

ST. CATHERINE'S HILL (_p. 17_).]

But the principal river in the Rye and Winchelsea district, so full
of suggestion in its evidences of past prosperity and present decay,
is the /Rother/, known as the Eastern, to distinguish it
from another of the same name in the western part of the county. At
Bodiam is a famous foss, fed by the river, encircling the excellently
preserved castle, with its round tower, great gateway approached by
a causeway, spacious central court, outer portcullis, and portions
of hall, chapel, and kitchen. This is held by antiquaries to be one
of the best of the feudal fortresses in Sussex. In monkish days the
stream was no doubt one of great value. Near the source, at Gravel
Hill, is Robertsbridge, or Rotherbridge, where a Cistercian abbey,
secluded almost from the world by the river, was visited by Edward II.
and Edward III. There are still fragments of the abbey on a farm which
occupies at least a portion of the site. The Rother is a river of many
tributaries, one of them acting partly as the boundary of Sussex and
Kent. Its scenery is somewhat commonplace, but it is navigable for a
considerable portion of its course, which has much altered since the
old chronicles were inscribed. Two of its branches enclose the Isle of
Oxney, a flat so easily flooded that the villagers within its bounds
often find the use of a boat a necessity.

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL (_p. 16_).]

The railway crosses the Rother by a stone bridge, then comes Rye
Harbour, and at a distance of two miles, set upon a hill so that it
cannot be hid, is the old-world borough of Winchelsea, which the sea
has left high and dry, though it had been the abode of great kings, and
the witness of battles by sea and land. At Hastings the Downs supply
sufficient rivulet-power to maintain glen, waterfall, and dripping
well, for sea-side visitors. Following the coast-line to Seaford, the
quiet and unpretending watering place which was once a Cinque Port, and
which returned members to Parliament until it was disfranchised by
the Reform Act, a short walk over the Downs brings the tourist to the
pretty broken country of East and West Dean.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: _Photo: F. G. O. Stuart, Southampton._

SOUTHAMPTON DOCKS (_p. 19_).]

The stream crossed by Exceat Bridge is the /Cuckmere/, of which
it need only be said that it has ceased to be a feature of importance
to shipping people. It is worth while, nevertheless, to follow it up
from the reaches where barges still find resting-place. At Alfriston
British, Roman, and Saxon coins have been found; there is a rare
sixteenth-century inn, supposed to have been built as a house of call
for Canterbury pilgrims, a market cross, a church on the plan of a
Greek cross, sometimes designated "the cathedral of the South Downs," a
parish register dating from 1512--possibly the oldest in England--and a
half-timbered rectory of still earlier date. There is some doubt as to
which is now the smallest church in Great Britain, but the claim has
been made for Lullington, which is on the slope of Cuckmere vale. In
rambling by this little river the tourist will make acquaintance with
the South Downs free and unadulterated. The Cuckmere flows into the sea
about two miles from Seaford, having escaped through the opening which
takes the name of Birling Gap.

       *       *       *       *       *

Within an area of four square miles, and almost in touch with St.
Leonard's Forest, three important Sussex streams take their rise--the
Ouse, Adur, and Arun. This was the centre of the ancient iron industry
of Sussex, and the position would not have been possible without water
supply for the hammer ponds. The /Ouse/ is crossed by the London
and Brighton Railway a little north-west of Lindfield. The river
afterwards winds round the well-wooded seat of the Earl of Sheffield;
and at Fletching Common, hard by, the baronial army spent the night
before fighting the battle of Lewes. Gibbon the historian was buried
in the church, which is noted also for an ancient rood screen and the
mausoleum of the Neville family. Maresfield, where the furnaces and
forges of the old Sussex iron-masters clustered thick, retains vast
expanses of the cinder and slag they created centuries ago. It is
beautified by the trees of Ashdown Forest, and sends a tributary to the
Ouse; another tributary presently arrives from Buxted, where the first
cast cannon ever seen in Europe was made in 1543.

The Ouse is the river of the pleasant county town of Lewes. This rare
old town, on its chalk hill, with downs surrounding it, and with the
Ouse, on whose right bank it is spread, adding to its attractions,
ranks in interest with Chester and Durham. The great battle which was
fought on May 14th, 1264, is the event of which the local historians
are most proud. As we have seen, it was at Fletching Common that De
Montfort encamped his soldiers, and thence he sent a couple of bishops
the day before the battle on a fruitless errand to the king, who was
quartered at the priory. The most sanguinary slaughter appears to have
taken place south of the town, where the Ouse was crossed by a bridge;
and the river with its marshy flats assisted in the destruction, for
many knights were discovered after the battle stuck in the swamp,
"sitting on their horses, in complete armour, and with drawn swords in
their lifeless hands." The Ouse cannot be said to be picturesque; at
Lewes it has long lost the sparkle which characterised it in the forest
outskirts; but from any elevated point of Lewes Castle, notably the
western keep, the easy stream may be seen as it is about to disappear
between the hills. The disestablished locks between Cuckfield and
Lewes indicate a brisk bygone barge traffic. Early in the present
century the river was navigable for barges of forty tons burden for
ten miles without interruption, and thence beyond Lindfield in the
Hayward's Heath country. In early times it was probably a broad estuary
extending to Lewes itself, and at some time found an outlet to the sea
at Seaford, three miles to the east. This, however, is very ancient
history, for the river was brought back to its present channel in the
sixteenth century.

Shoreham, the humble and dull attendant upon Brighton, has an advantage
over the great watering-place--which is streamless--in being situated
on a river. It is not a beautiful place, but it has something of a
harbour, in which you may find port in a storm, and it has a bridge
across the /Adur/. This river comes down from openings in
the hills, having passed through pretty country, with such villages
as Bramber (where there was once a broad estuary in which vessels
anchored) and Steyning. The source of the Adur on the borders of St.
Leonard's Forest has been previously mentioned; but there are at least
two other rills that have an equal claim. From Henfield the river
runs south, through pasture land, and, as we have seen, winds past
Bramber, supposed to be the Portus Adurni of the Romans. There is very
little of the castle left, and that is almost hidden by trees. At New
Shoreham the Adur turns eastward, and runs for a while parallel with
the seashore.

These Sussex rivers which are projected from the neighbourhood of St.
Leonard's Forest can scarcely be considered as akin to the pure, bright
chalk stream which was described at the commencement of this chapter;
and the most important of the trio, the /Arun/, does not in this
respect differ from its fellows. Something more than passing glimpses
of it are obtained from the carriage windows by the railway traveller
as he speeds through the imposing scenery around Arundel. It is
navigable for an unusual distance, and whatever beauty it possesses it
owes to its surroundings. Of late years the river has become the Mecca
of members of the London angling clubs, who charter special trains and
invade the districts by hundreds on Sundays. The first stopping-place
of any account from this point of view is Pulborough, the site of an
old Roman settlement, with traces of camp and buildings, which will
not, however, be found on Arun-side, but at Hardham and elsewhere.
Amberley was rescued from oblivion, and from the desertion enforced
upon it by neighbouring marshes, by the railway; and the scenery
between it and Arundel has always been prized and worked at by artists.
Swanbourne Mill as a picture is probably familiar to many who have
never entered the county.

The splendidly kept castle at Arundel has not been dwarfed by the
cathedral-like Roman Catholic church built by the Duke of Norfolk,
and dedicated to St. Philip Neri. Even now it looks like the splendid
stronghold that it was, and the most venerable in the land that it
is, on its commanding terminal of swelling down, with the stream from
the Weald narrowing between the hills through its beautiful valley,
to the characteristic marsh flats beyond. The river hence to the sea
does not call for admiration or comment, save that there is a remnant
of a priory at Tortington, a point of view from which Arundel with its
castle-crowned heights looks its best. Littlehampton, four miles from
Arundel, is better known as a port of departure for steamships than as
a watering-place competing with the pleasure resorts in more favoured
situations on the coast.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hampshire is a well-watered county, and classic ground for that new
school of anglers who are classified as "dry-fly" men. The masters
thereof graduated on the Itchen and the Test, most famous of all
South-country chalk streams, and honourably mentioned in angling
literature. To know that a man is a successful fisher upon either is
tantamount to a certificate of the highest skill. The Hampshire rivers,
other than these celebrated feeders of the Southampton water, are few,
and modest in character. There is, it is true, a small trout stream at
Fareham, a busy little seaport which owes its standing to its proximity
to Portsmouth Harbour, and its attractions as a district abounding
in country seats to the rampart of Portsdown Hill, affording at once
protection from the north and opportunity for overlooking the Solent
and the Isle of Wight. Less than three miles west, across the peninsula
that sustains Gosport, is a considerable stream, little known outside
the county, but an ever-present delight to the villages through which
it lightly flows to the eastern shore of Southampton water. This is the
Arle, or Titchfield river.

[Illustration: _Photo: Perkins, Son, & Venimore, Lewisham._

THE ROYAL PIER SOUTHAMPTON (_p. 19_).]

[Illustration: SOUTHAMPTON FROM THE WATER.]

In its course of some score of miles the /Arle/ takes its share
in a diversity of scenery of a soothing rather than romantic character.
Rising in the South Downs, it begins by mingling with village and
hamlet life in a sequestered valley; then it proceeds through an open
forest country, and becomes navigable at Titchfield. The source of
the stream is but a few miles west of Petersfield, but it begins with
a sweep to the north and a loop round a southerly point, passing so
much in the Meon district that it is often marked on the maps by that
name, which was probably its only one in the past. Meonware was a
Pictish province when there was a king of the South Saxons, and Saint
Wilfrid preached Christianity to the British heathen. Indeed a portion
of Corhampton Church, across the stream, is ascribed to that prelate.
Wickham, most beautifully situated on the Arle, is celebrated as the
birthplace of William of Wykeham, the great bishop-builder. Warton the
poet lived his last days at Wickham, and died there in the first year
of the century.

[Illustration: _Photo: A. Seeley, Richmond._

ROMSEY ABBEY (_p. 19_).]

References to William of Wykeham continually occur in county Hants:
thus in the district under consideration there are a Wykeham chancel
at Meonstoke, a Wykeham foundation of five chantries near the coast at
Southwick, and a reputed Wykeham aisle in the church at Titchfield.
The remains of Funtley Abbey are naturally not far from the stream.
They are close to Titchfield, and mark the site of a Priory founded
by Bishop de Rupibus in the reign of Henry III. The house which Sir
Thomas Wriothesley built upon the place acquired in the usual way at
the Dissolution was "right statelie" when Leland described it; and this
was the Titchfield House where poor Charles Stuart found temporary
refuge between the flight from Hampton Court and the grim lodging of
Carisbrooke.

The /Itchen/, as next in order on our westward progress, must
receive first consideration, though it is the smaller of the streams
which pay tribute to the Solent at Calshot Castle. The Itchen and the
Test have many things in common: they both rise out of the chalk downs
which stretch from the Stour in Kent, through Hants, to the confines
of Wilts; they both give Southampton importance; they are both salmon
rivers, but to so unimportant a degree that they have never yet been
considered worthy of governance by a Board of Conservators; and they
have the distinction of being the only salmon rivers in England that
may be fished without a rod licence. But these rivers are so distinct
in one characteristic that they may be quoted as evidence of almost
miraculous instinct. The salmon of the Test hold no communion with
those of the Itchen; no fisherman acquainted with the rivers would be
likely to mistake the one for the other; yet, while the Itchen fish, on
return from the salt water, unerringly turn to the right, and pass the
Docks on their way to Woodmill, the salmon of the Test swim straight
ahead, and pause not till they reach their own river beyond the
furthest of the western suburbs of Southampton.

[Illustration: _Photo: Poulton & Son, Lee._

CHRISTCHURCH ABBEY (_p. 22_).]

When a river issues from a lake it is the custom to regard the latter
as the headwaters. In this sense Alresford Pond may be set down as the
source of the Itchen. Locally, a brook at Ropley Dean, about eleven
miles from Winchester as the crow flies, has been nominated for the
distinction, but there are other rivulets from the high land between
Alresford and Alton which might be brought into competition. The
Bishops of Winchester formerly had a summer palace at Bishop's Sutton,
and it is somewhat of a coincidence that in our own times Archbishop
Longley was one of its vicars. There are stores of pike and mammoth
trout in Alresford Pond, and no doubt they had ancestors there when
Richard I. was king. Even now, in its reduced size, this beautiful
sheet of clear water covers sixty acres.

[Illustration: RIVERS OF HANTS AND DORSET.]

The tributaries are inconsiderable; but it is a land of innumerable
watercourses, and of carriers, kept in action for the flooding of the
pastures. Hence the meads are found in a perpetual freshness of "living
green," and the verdant pastures in the late spring are magnificent
with their marsh-marigolds and cuckoo flowers marking the lines of
the meadow trenches, while the hedges and coppices are a dream of
May blossom. Noble country houses are set back on the slopes, real
old-fashioned farmhouses and thatched cottages are embowered in every
variety of foliage, and the background is frequently filled in by
gently ranging upland clothed with the softest herbage. Here a village
with its mill, and there a hamlet with its homely old church, mark the
stages of the crystal clear river, every foot of which is the treasured
preserve of some wealthy angler. There are golden trout upon the
gravel, and in the deeps, while the shallows, many of which have been
fords from time immemorial, are open to the eye of the wayfarer who
quietly pauses on the rustic bridges to watch the spotted denizens as
they cruise and poise.

At Cheriton the Royalists received a crushing blow on the March day
when Lords Hopton and Forth led their army of 10,000 men against
an equal force of Waller's Roundheads. The engagement was fatal
to the Royal cause, and it gave Winchester and its fort to the
Parliamentarians. Of Tichborne this generation heard somewhat in the
seventies, and the notorious trials brought for many years an increase
of visitors, who would interrupt the discourse upon Sir Roger de
Tychborne, and the Tychborne Dole founded by the Lady Mabell (whose
monument is in the church on the hill), with questions about the
Claimant and the lost Sir Roger. Martyr's Worthy, King's Worthy, and
Abbot's Worthy are within sound of the sonorous Cathedral bells; and
after these villages are the loved Winnal reaches of the stream, one
of them sadly marred by the Didcot and Newbury Railway, which, within
the last few years, has been opened with a station south of the town.
The Nun's Walk is to the right as you follow the Itchen downwards,
often over planks half-hidden in sedges. Sleek cattle graze in the
water-meads; beyond them is the clustering city and its Cathedral,
which at a distance resembles nothing so much as a long low-lying
building that has yet to be finished, the squat tower seeming a mere
commencement. The bye-streams, of which there are several, meet at the
bottom of the town, and the strong, rapid, concentrated current has
much mill work to do before it recovers perfect freedom.

[Illustration: A NEW FOREST STREAM (_p. 20_).]

Izaak Walton lived a while at Winchester, in the declining years of
his long and--who can doubt?--tranquil life. He had friends among the
bishops and clergy, and wrote the lives of contemporary divines. So
he came to Winchester, where a room was kept for him in the Bishop's
Palace, and in this city he died on December 15th, 1683. His grave is
in the Cathedral, marked by a black marble slab, and within the last
few years a memorial statue has been placed in one of the niches of the
newly-erected screen.

[Illustration: THE AVON AT AMESBURY (_p. 22_).]

The ancient hospital of St. Cross is one of the best-known features
of the Itchen in the neighbourhood of Winchester, but there are
charming country-seats along the whole remaining course--fair homes
of English gentlemen, planted above the grass land whence the evening
mists of summer rise to shroud the winding stream and far-stretching
water-meads, and adorned with smooth-shaven lawns intersected by
gravel-walks, winding amidst shrubberies and parterres to the sedgy
banks of the silently gliding river. But St. Cross is unique with its
gateway tower and porter's hutch, where the wayfarer may even now make
the vagrant's claim for dole of beer and bread, the former no longer
brewed on the spot, and for its own sake not worth the trouble often
taken by sentimental visitors to obtain it. Fine old elms surround the
venerable home of the brethren of this cloistered retreat; the river
flows close to its foundations; and, facing you across the stream,
rises the bold rounded steep surmounted by the clump of beech-trees on
St. Catherine's Hill. The speculative builder, however, has long been
pushing his outworks towards this breezy eminence where the Wykeham
College boys of past generations trooped to their sports.

[Illustration: SALISBURY CATHEDRAL (_p. 22_).]

The Itchen as it narrows to serve the South Stoneham water-wheels loses
much of its beauty, and is finally, after its course of twenty-five
miles, abruptly stopped at the flour-mill. Through artificial outlets
it tumbles into the tideway, and becomes at a bound subject to the
ebb and flow of the Solent. Southampton, after a temporary depression
due to the withdrawal of the Peninsular and Oriental Company to other
headquarters, has launched out into renewed enterprise; great docks
have been added, and the extension is likely to continue in the future.
Queen Victoria opened the Empress Docks in 1890; the graving docks were
the next scheme, and in 1893 the new American line of steamers began to
run. In 1833 her Majesty, then the Princess Victoria, opened the Royal
(or Victoria) Pier, which was rebuilt in 1892 and re-opened by the Duke
of Connaught; and from it and other vantage points commanding views are
to be had of the estuary, and of the New Forest on the further side. To
meet this vigorous revival of commercial development, the suburbs have
pushed out in all directions, and the estuary of the Itchen, from the
Salmon Pool at South Stoneham to the Docks, is now bordered by modern
dwellings, and presents an appearance of life in marked contrast to the
dreariness of a quarter of a century ago.

In its general characteristics the Test resembles the Itchen. It is ten
miles longer, and has a tributary assistance which its sister stream
lacks; but there are in its valley similar country mansions, ruddy
farm-houses, picturesque cottages and gardens, water-meads and marshy
corners, mills and mill-pools, rustic bridges, and superb stock of
salmon in the lower, and of trout and grayling in the higher, reaches.
It springs from the foot of the ridge on the Berkshire border, and is
joined below Hurstbourne Park by a branch from the north-east. For
the first few miles it is the ideal of a small winding stream, and is
established as a chalk stream of the first class at Whitchurch. It
skirts Harewood Forest, and takes in a tributary below Wherwell. The
principal feeder is the Anton, which is of sufficient magnitude to
be considered an independent river. For quite sixteen miles the Test
runs a sinuous course, as if not certain which point of the compass
to select, but eventually it goes straight south. Stockbridge is the
only considerable town, and that owes its reputation to ample training
downs, and to the periodical races which rank high in that description
of sport. Between this and Romsey there are many bye-waters, and it
requires one accustomed to the country to distinguish the main river.

Occasionally a salmon, taking advantage of a flood, will ascend as
high as Stockbridge, but this does not happen every year. At Romsey,
however, gentlemen anglers find their reward, though anything more
unlike a salmon river could not be found, unless, indeed, it should be
the Stour and the Avon, to which we shall come presently. The Test in
its upper and middle reaches is seldom so deep that the bottom, and the
trout and grayling for which it is justly celebrated, cannot be clearly
seen. It gets less shallow below Houghton Mill, and at Romsey there
is water enough for salmon of major dimensions. But the current is
even and stately, salmon pools as they are understood in Scotland and
Ireland do not exist, and there are forests of weeds to assist the fish
to get rid of the angler's fly. The most noted landmark on the banks
of the stream is Romsey Abbey, long restored to soundness of fabric,
yet preserving all the appearance of perfect Norman architecture. Near
it the first Berthon boats were built and launched on the Test by the
vicar, whose name is borne by this handy collapsible craft. The Test
enters Southampton Water at Redbridge, which is in a measure the port
of lading for the New Forest.

[Illustration: _Photo: W. Pouncy, Dorchester._

THE FROME AT FRAMPTON COURT (_p. 24_).]

There are tiny streams in the recesses of the New Forest little known
to the outer world. The /Beaulieu/ river is worthy of mark on
the maps, and when the tide is full it is a brimming water-way into
the heart of the forest. The acreage of mud at low-water, however,
detracts from its beauty, and the upper portion, from near Lyndhurst to
the tidal limit, is small and overgrown. The ruins of Beaulieu Abbey,
set in the surroundings of an exquisite New Forest village, far from
the shriek of the locomotive whistle, or the smoke and bustle of a
town, are truly a "fair place." Beaulieu is one of the most entrancing
combinations of wood, water, ruins, and village in the county, and the
Abbey is especially interesting from its establishment by King John,
after remorse occasioned by a dream.

The /Lymington/ river, the mainland channel opposite Yarmouth,
in the Isle of Wight, is tidal to the town, a tortuous creek in
low-water, the course, however, duly marked by stakes and beacons. The
great Poet Laureate, Tennyson, used to cross to his Freshwater home by
this route, and in the late 'fifties the writer of these words often
took passage by the Isle of Wight boats for the privilege of gazing
from a reverent distance at the poet, whose cloak, soft broad-brimmed
hat, and short clay pipe filled from a packet of bird's-eye, filled the
youthful adorer with unspeakable admiration.

[Illustration: DORCHESTER FROM THE FROME (_p. 21_).]

The Isle of Wight, garden of England though it has been called, is
poverty-stricken in the matter of running water, and it is not rich
in woods. Tho principal river is the Medina, which, flowing from the
foot of St. Catherine's Down to the Solent at East Cowes, divides the
island into two hundreds. The pretty village of Wootton is situated on
Fishbourne creek, also called Wootton river. There are two Yars--the
Yar which rises at Freshwater, and is tidal almost throughout to
Yarmouth Harbour; and the eastern Yar, at the back of Niton.

       *       *       *       *       *

The famous salmon of Christchurch, so much in request in the spring,
when the end of the close time brings out the nets in the long open
"run" between the town and the bay, come up from the English Channel on
their annual quest of the spawning grounds of the Avon and the Stour.
These rivers unite almost under the shadow of the splendidly situated
church and the priory ruins. The church was restored by the architect
who performed a similar office for Romsey; and it is under the tower
at the west end of the nave that the singular Shelley memorial is
erected. The Avon has the finest watershed in the South of England,
and its feeders water much of Hampshire and a large portion of Wilts.
Its tributaries are numerous; even one of the two branches of its
headwaters is formed by the junction of minor streams at Pewsey. It
has a winding way from Upavon, becomes a goodly stream at beautiful
Amesbury, where it traverses the pleasure grounds of the Abbey, and
crosses direct south by Salisbury Plain to Old Sarum. The Wiley and
Nadder are the largest tributaries, the former entering the Avon
near the seat of the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton. The valleys of main
stream and tributaries alike are a succession of fine landscapes, made
distinctive by the downs of varying height, rising on either side,
clothed at intervals with grand woods, and protecting sequestered
villages and hamlets nestling at their feet.

The environs of Salisbury are intersected in all directions by the
abundant water of Avon or its feeders, and the clear murmuring runnels
are heard in its streets. The lofty tapering spire of the glorious
cathedral is the landmark of Avon-side for many a mile around, but the
river equally forces itself upon the notice of the stranger. There is
no cathedral in England better set for a landmark than this, and of
none can it be more literally said that distance lends enchantment. It
is on the watermead level, and probably owes its position to the river.
Old Sarum, perched upon its conical hill, had its fortified castle and
many an intrenchment for defence, had its Norman cathedral and the pomp
and power of a proud ecclesiastical settlement; but it was exposed to
the wind and weather, and the Sarumites looked with longing eye at the
fat vale below and its conjunction of clear streams. Wherefore, under
Richard Le Poer, its seventh bishop, there was migration thither; the
present cathedral was commenced, the site, according to one legend,
being determined by the fall of an arrow shot as a token from the Old
Sarum ramparts; and the new town soon gathered around it. At first
the cathedral had no spire; that crowning glory of the structure was
added nearly a hundred years later, and about the time when the work of
demolition at Old Sarum had been concluded. The stone used in the new
cathedral was brought from the Hindon quarries a few miles distant, and
Purbeck supplied the marble pillars. The best view of the cathedral,
and of the straight-streeted and richly-befoliaged city, is from the
north-eastern suburb; and so gracefully is the building proportioned
that it is hard to realise that the point of the spire is 400 feet in
air.

[Illustration: POOLE HARBOUR (_p. 24_).]

The /Stour/ rises at Six Wells, at Stourhead, in Wiltshire,
and joins the Hampshire Avon, as previously stated, at Christchurch,
but is essentially a Dorsetshire river. It touches Somersetshire, and
receives the Cale from Wincanton, and other small tributaries, passing
Gillingham, Sturminster, Blandford, and Wimborne, where it receives the
Allen, which flows through More Critchell. Canford Hall, an Elizabethan
mansion which received many of the Assyrian relics unearthed by Layard;
Gaunt's House and Park; and St. Giles' Park, reminiscent of "Cabal"
Cooper and the other Earls of Shaftesbury, are also features of the
Stour country. The clean little town of Wimborne, where Matthew Prior
was born, is made rich and notable by its ancient Minster, which as it
stands retains but little of the original foundation, though the fine
central tower dates from about 1100, and the western tower from the
middle of the fifteenth century.

The next river in Dorsetshire is the /Frome/, formed, as
seems to be the fashion in Wessex, of two branches, both uniting at
Maiden Newton. Frampton Court, the seat of the Sheridans, is in this
neighbourhood. The county town of Dorchester rises from the bank of the
river, and has magnificent avenues as high-road approaches. The Black
Downs that interpose between the country that is fairly represented
by the Blackmore vale of the hunting men further north, and the sea
at Weymouth, are bare enough; Dorchester is surrounded by chalk
uplands, and it is, no doubt, because there were few forests to clear
that the entire neighbourhood is remarkable for its Roman and British
remains. The trees around the town have fortunately been sedulously
planted and preserved, and the avenues of sycamores and chestnuts on
the site of the old rampart have somewhat of a Continental character.
The well-defined remains of ancient camps are numerous on the slopes
overlooking the Frome, Maiden Castle and the Roman amphitheatre being
wonderfully perfect in their typical character. Yet, old-world as
Dorchester is in its associations, it has few appearances of age,
standing rather as a delightful example of the clean, healthy, quiet,
well-to-do country town of the Victorian era, pleasantly environed, and
boasting several highways that were Roman roads.

Flowing through the sheep country so graphically described by Mr.
Hardy in his novels, the Frome arrives, after an uneventful course, at
Wareham, and is discharged into Poole Harbour, a place of creeks and
islands, sand and mud banks, regularly swelling with the incoming tide
into a noble expanse of water.

    /William Senior./

[Illustration: WIMBORNE MINSTER.]




[Illustration: BIDEFORD BRIDGE (_p. 48_).]




RIVERS OF DEVON.

    General Characteristics--Sources of the Devon Streams: Exmoor
    and Dartmoor. The /Otter/: Ottery Saint Mary and Samuel
    Taylor Coleridge. Exmoor Streams:--The /Exe/: Its Source
    in The Chains--The Barle--The Batherm--Tiverton and Peter
    Blundell--Bickleigh Bridge and the "King of the Gipsies"--The
    Culm--Exeter--Countess Weir--Exmouth. The /Lyn/: Oareford--The
    Doone Country--Malmsmead--Watersmeet--Lyndale--Lynton and Lynmouth.
    Dartmoor Streams:--The /Teign/: Wallabrook--Chagford--Fingle
    Bridge--Chudleigh--The Bovey--Newton Abbot--Teignmouth. The
    /Dart/: Holne Chase--Buckfast Abbey--Dartington Hall--Totnes--The
    Lower Reaches--Dartmouth. The Tavy. The /Taw/: Oxenham and its
    Legend--Barnstaple--Lundy. The /Torridge/: The Okement--Great
    Torrington--Bideford--Hubbastone. The /Avon/, Erme, and Yealm. The
    /Plym/: Dewerstone--The Meavy and Plymouth Leat--Plympton St. Mary
    and Plympton Earl--The Three Towns.


Among the charms which make Devonshire, in Mr. Blackmore's words, "the
fairest of English counties," one need not hesitate to give the first
place to its streams. They who know only its coasts, though they know
them well, may walk delicately, for of much that is most characteristic
of its loveliness they are altogether ignorant. But anyone who has
tracked a typical Devon river from its fount high up on the wild and
lonely moorland to the estuary where it mingles its waters with the
inflowing tide, following it as it brawls down the peaty hillsides, and
winds its way through glen and gorge until it gains the rich lowlands
where it rolls placidly towards its latter end, may boast that his
is the knowledge of intimacy. Commercially, the Devonshire streams
are of little account, for Nature has chosen to touch them to finer
issues. Yet, for all their manifold fascinations, they have had but
scant attention from the poets, who, instead of singing their graces
in dignified verse, have left them, as Mr. J. A. Blaikie has said, to
be "noisily advertised in guide-books." At first sight the omission
seems curious enough, for the long roll of Devonshire "worthies" is
only less illustrious for its poets than for its heroes. Perchance
the explanation of what almost looks like a conspiracy of silence is
that the streams, full of allurement as they may be, are not rich in
associations of the poetic sort. Of legend they have their share, but
for the most part it is legend uncouth and grotesque, such as may
not easily be shaped into verse. Their appeal, in truth, is more to
the painter than to the poet. For him they have provided innumerable
"bits" of the most seductive description; and neither against him nor
against the angler--the artist among sportsmen--for whom also bountiful
provision has been made, can neglect of opportunity be charged.

[Illustration: THE RIVERS OF DEVON.]

It is in the royal "forests" of Exmoor and Dartmoor that nearly all the
chief rivers of Devon take their rise. Of these moorland tracts, the
one extending into the extreme north of the county from Somersetshire,
the other forming, so to speak, its backbone, Dartmoor is considerably
the larger; and in High Willhayse and in the better known Yes Tor,
its highest points, it touches an altitude of just over 2,000 feet,
overtopping Dunkery Beacon, the monarch of Exmoor, by some 370 feet.
Between the two moors there is a general resemblance, less, however,
of contour than of tone, for while Exmoor swells into great billowy
tops, the Dartmoor plateau breaks up into rugged "tors"--crags of
granite that have shaken off their scanty raiment and now rise bare
and gaunt above the general level. Both, as many a huntsman knows
to his cost, are beset with treacherous bogs, out of which trickle
streams innumerable, some, like the Wear Water, the chief headstream
of the East Lyn, soon to lose their identity, others to bear to the
end of their course names which the English emigrant has delighted to
reproduce in the distant lands that he has colonised. Not strange is it
that with loneliness such as theirs, Exmoor and Dartmoor alike should
be the haunt of the mischief-loving pixies, who carry off children and
lead benighted wayfarers into quagmires; of the spectral wish-hounds,
whose cry is fearsome as the wailing voice which John Ridd heard "at
grey of night"; and of the rest of the uncanny brood who once had all
the West Country for their domain. Exmoor, too, is almost the last
sanctuary, south of the Tweed, of the wild red-deer; and hither in
due season come true sportsmen from far and near to have their pulses
stirred by such glorious runs as Kingsley has described.

[Illustration: THE WEAR WATER.]

Of the streams that have their springs elsewhere than in the moors,
the Axe, which belongs more to Dorset and Somerset than to Devon, may,
like the Sid, be passed over with bare mention. But the /Otter/
must not be dismissed so brusquely, for though it cannot vie with
its moorland sisters in beauty of aspect, it has other claims to
consideration. Rising in the hills that divide Devon from South
Somerset, it presently passes Honiton, still famous for its lace, and a
few miles further on flows by the knoll which is crowned by the massive
towers of the fine church of Ottery St. Mary, the Clavering St. Mary
of "Pendennis." It was here, in 1772, that Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
most gifted scion of a gifted stock, was born. His father, vicar of the
parish and headmaster of the Free Grammar School, and withal one of
the most amiable and ingenuous of pedants, whose favourite method of
edifying his rustic congregation was to quote from the Old Testament
in the original Hebrew, as "the immediate language of the Holy Ghost,"
died when Samuel Taylor was in his ninth year; and the pensive child,
who yet was not a child, was soon afterwards entered at Christ's
Hospital. A frequent resort of his was a cave beside the Otter, known
as "The Pixies' Parlour," where his initials may still be seen. Nor
is this his only association with the stream. "I forget," he writes,
"whether it was in my fifth or sixth year ... in consequence of some
quarrel between me and my brother, in the first week in October I
ran away from fear of being whipped, and passed the whole night, a
night of rain and storm, on the bleak side of a hill on the Otter, and
was there found at day-break, without the power of using my limbs,
about six yards from the naked bank of the river." The experience may
well have left its mark upon his sensitive nature, but it is clear
that he carried with him from his native place a store of agreeable
recollections of the stream, of whose "marge with willows grey" and
"bedded sand" he afterwards wrote in affectionate strains.

[Illustration: _Photo: Denney & Co., Exeter._

EXETER (_p. 31_).]

       *       *       *       *       *

Leaving the Otter to pursue its pleasant, but not exciting, course
to the English Channel, we pass at a bound from the sunny south to
one of the weirdest parts of Exmoor, where the most important of the
streams that rise in the northern "forest" have their birth. The chief
of them, and, indeed, the longest of all the Devonshire rivers, the
/Exe/, which has a course five-and-fifty miles long, oozes out
of a dismal swamp known as The Chains, in Somerset county, some two or
three miles north-west of Simonsbath; and within a space of not more
than two miles square are the sources of three other streams--the
Barle, which merges with the Exe near Exbridge; the West Lyn, which
flows northwards to the finest spot on the Devon coast; and the Bray,
a tributary of the Taw. Looking around, one sees in every direction a
waste of undulations rolling away to the horizon like a deeply-furrowed
sea. Far away eastwards rises Dunkery, his mighty top now, as often,
obscured by clouds which the western winds are slowly driving before
them; on the other hand stretches the North Molton Ridge, culminating
in Span Head, which comes within about fifty feet of the stature of
Dunkery himself.

[Illustration: _Photo: H. T. Cousins, Exmouth._

EXMOUTH, FROM THE BEACON (_p. 34_).]

The infant Exe and the Barle are both brown, peaty streams, and their
valleys, separated from each other by one of the Exmoor ridges, and
following the same general south-easterly trend, have much in common,
though that of the Barle is the less regular and more picturesque of
the two. It is when they have each sped in the merriest-hearted fashion
somewhere about a score of miles that they meet, forming a current
which, as it rushes tumultuously beneath the arches that give to
Exbridge its name, must be a full fifty yards wide. Now the Exe becomes
a Devonshire stream, with a predominantly southerly course; but as it
approaches Oakford Bridge it bends to the west, then curving round to
the east to meet the Batherm, fresh from its contact with Bampton, an
old market town celebrated all over the West Country for its fairs and
markets, whereat are sold the shaggy little Exmoor ponies and the bold
and nimble Porlock sheep. The main stream still shows no disposition
to play the laggard, but by this time it has left the moorland well
behind, and, as we follow it among luxuriantly timbered hills, it
presently brings us to Tiverton, agreeably placed on its sloping left
bank. Here it takes toll of the Loman, which has been in no haste to
complete its course of ten miles, or thereabouts, from the Somerset
border.

Of Twy-ford-town--for so the place was called in former days, in
allusion to its fords across the Exe and the Loman at the points where
now the streams are spanned by bridges--the most salient feature from
the banks of the larger water is the Perpendicular tower of the Church
of St. Peter. The body of the church was virtually reconstructed in
the 'sixties, with the fortunate exception of its most interesting
feature, the Greenaway Chapel, founded nearly four hundred years ago
by the merchant whose name it shares with the quaint almshouses in
Gold Street. What remains of the ancient castle, which stood hard by
the church, has been converted into a modern dwelling and a farmhouse.
The old Grammar School, too, on Loman Green, is now divided up into
private houses, a more commodious structure, in the Tudor style,
having been reared a mile or so out of the town to take its place.
Who will begrudge good old Peter Blundell the immortality which this
famous school has conferred upon his honest-sounding name? A native of
Tiverton, he began life as an errand-boy. With his carefully-hoarded
earnings, as Prince tells the story in his "Worthies," he bought a
piece of kersey, and got a friendly carrier to take it to London and
there sell it to advantage. So he gradually extended his operations,
until he was able to go to town himself, with as much stock-in-trade
as a horse could carry. In London he continued to thrive, and in due
course was able to fulfil the ambition of his life by establishing
himself in the town of his birth as a manufacturer of kerseys; and here
he remained until his death, at the ripe age of eighty.

"Though I am not myself a scholar," the good old man would say with
proud humility, "I will be the means of making more scholars than any
scholar in England." And the school founded under his will in 1604 has
not failed to justify his boast. The roll of "Blundell's boys" includes
a brace of bishops and an archbishop, the present occupant of the
throne of Canterbury, who, before his translation to London, ruled with
abundant vigour the diocese to which Tiverton belongs. Yet, without
disrespect to spiritual dignities, one may be pardoned for remembering
with deeper interest that it was here that "girt Jan Ridd" had his
meagre schooling, and fought his great fight with Robin Snell. John,
by the way, who left Blundell's at the age of twelve, must have been
considerably less stupid than he appeared to his contemporaries, for
when long afterwards he came to describe the combat he was able to say
that he replied to his antagonist "with all the weight and cadence of
penthemimeral cæsura"; and although he modestly protests that he could
"never make head or tail" of the expression, it is clear from his
epithets that he knew perfectly well what he was writing about.

But we have paused at the town of the fords too long, and must gird
up our loins to follow the Exe southwards to the county town, through
scenery which, if on the whole less picturesque than that above
Tiverton, is pleasing as one of the most fertile of Devonshire vales
cannot but be. Four miles lower down we find ourselves at Bickleigh
Bridge, one of the prettiest spots in this part of the Exe valley.
Close by is Bickleigh Court, long a seat of the Devonshire Carews,
and still belonging to members of the family, though sunk to the uses
of a farmhouse. Bickleigh is of some note as the birthplace, towards
the end of the seventeenth century, of Bampfylde Moore Carew, "King
of the Beggars." Son of the rector of the parish, he was sent to
Blundell's School, whence he ran away to avoid punishment for some
trifling escapade, and threw in his lot with a tribe of gipsies.
Next he emigrated to Newfoundland, but after a time came back, and
soon signalised himself by eloping from Newcastle-on-Tyne with an
apothecary's daughter, whom, however, he was afterwards good enough to
marry. Having rejoined the gipsies, he became their king, and ruled
over them until he was transported to Maryland as an incorrigible
vagrant. Before long he contrived to escape, and lived for a while with
a band of Red Indians. When he returned to civilisation it was in the
guise of a Quaker, a part which he successfully played until he grew
weary of it, and once more came back to his native land and his nomadic
life. Some say that he was afterwards prevailed upon to adopt more
settled habits, but of his closing years little is known.

The hill to the right, a little below Bickleigh Bridge, is known as
Cadbury Castle, a Roman encampment, and from its summit may be seen,
away to the south-east, athwart the river, Dolbury Hill, which,
according to the legend, shares with Cadbury a treasure of gold,
guarded by a fiery dragon, who spends his nights flying from one
hoard to the other. Now the Exe, flowing with a dignity befitting
its maturity, receives the tribute of the Culm, which comes from
the Blackdown Hills, on the Somerset border, passing Culmstock and
Cullompton, and Killerton Park, a finely placed and magnificently
wooded demesne of one of the most honourable of Devonshire houses,
the Aclands. Over against the point of junction is Pynes, the seat of
another family of high repute, the Northcotes, now Earls of Iddesleigh,
looking down on the one side upon the valley of the Exe, and on the
other upon that of the Creedy, a western affluent after which the town
of Crediton is named.

As it approaches the ever-faithful city, lying like Tiverton on the
left bank, the Exe is bordered by a green strath, with swelling hills
on either hand. No sooner is the suburb of St. David passed than there
comes into view the eminence which formed the limits of the ancient
Exeter, its summit crowned with trees that half conceal the meagre
remains of the Norman castle, while from its southern slope rise the
mighty towers of the Cathedral. Pointing out that, although surrounded
by hills higher than itself, Exeter is seated on a height far above
river or railway, Freeman remarks that we have here "what we find so
commonly in Gaul, so rarely in Britain, the Celtic hill-fort, which
has grown into the Roman city, which has lived on through the Teutonic
conquest, and which still, after all changes, keeps to its place as the
undoubted head of its own district. In Wessex such a history is unique.
In all Southern England London is the only parallel, and that but an
imperfect one." And he goes on to say that the name teaches the same
lesson of continuity that is taught by the site. It has been changed in
form but not in meaning. Caerwise, "the fortress on the water," as it
was in the beginning of things, "has been Latinised into Isca, it has
been Teutonised into Exanceaster, and cut short into modern Exeter; but
the city by the Exe has through all conquests, through all changes of
language, proclaimed itself by its name as the city on the Exe."

[Illustration: _Photo: E. D. Percival, Ilfracombe._

WATERSMEET (_p. 35_).]

[Illustration: _Photo: E. D. Percival, Ilfracombe._

LYNMOUTH AND LYNTON (_p. 36_).]

The Castle of Rougemont is represented by not much more than an
ivy-clad gateway tower of Norman date, and portions of the walls, which
on one side have been levelled, and the timbered slopes converted into
a pretty little recreation ground, known as Northernhay, where, among
the statues of men whom Devonshire delights to honour, is one of the
first Earl of Iddesleigh, gentlest of protagonists. Of the cathedral
little can be said in this place except that it admirably exemplifies
the development of the Decorated style, which here reaches its
culmination in the venerable west front, its lower stage enriched with
figures of kings and apostles and saints. The massive transeptal towers
that distinguish Exeter from all other English cathedrals, and, indeed,
from all other English churches, with the single exception of that of
Ottery St. Mary, built in imitation of this, are much earlier than the
rest of the fabric, for they were reared early in the twelfth century
by Bishop Warelwast, nephew of the Conqueror, and were left standing
when, towards the end of the thirteenth century, the reconstruction of
the rest of the fabric was begun. Disproportionately large they may be,
in relation both to their own height and to the body of the church;
but, if they cannot be said to contribute to the harmony of the design,
it must be allowed that in themselves they are exceedingly impressive.

The transformation of the cathedral, begun by Bishop Bronescombe, was
continued by his successor, Peter Quivil, whose plans appear to have
been pretty faithfully followed by those who came after him. Not until
the year 1369 was the nave finished, under Grandisson, the bishop who
re-built the church of Ottery St. Mary in its present form; and even
then it was left to Bishop Brantyngham to add the rich west front. What
most strikes one about the interior, which was restored with no lack
of vigour by Sir Gilbert Scott, is the prolonged stretch of graceful
vaulting, extending through all the fourteen bays of nave and choir,
with, of course, no central tower to break the line. There is much
beautiful carving, both ancient and modern, in the church, but the
bishop's throne, attributed to Bishop Stapledon (1307-26), is perhaps
of rather diffuse design, although the craftsmanship merits all the
admiration that has been lavished upon it.

Around the Close, and in a few of the older streets, some interesting
specimens of domestic architecture are to be seen; but, the cathedral
and its adjuncts apart, Exeter is less rich than might be expected in
memorials of the distant past. Of its public buildings, the only one
which may not be ignored is the Guildhall, a stone structure dating
from the end of the sixteenth century, with a balustraded façade
resting on substantial piers, and projecting over the pavement. The
ancient bridge over the Exe, connecting the city with St. Thomas, its
western suburb, was destroyed in 1770, and replaced by the present one.

Hundreds of years have come and gone since the cliffs of Exeter were
lapped by salt water. Towards the end of the thirteenth century
Isabella de Redvers, Countess of Devon, was pleased to cut off the city
from the sea by forming the weir which has given name to the village of
Countess Weir, and it was not till the reign of Henry VIII. that, by
means of a canal to Topsham, communication was re-established. Early
in the present century this waterway was widened, and now Exeter is
accessible to vessels of about 400 tons. It is at Topsham, four miles
below the city, that the river, augmented by the waters of the Clyst,
expands into an estuary. From this point to the embouchure its course
lies through delightful scenery. On the right bank are the woods of
Powderham Castle, the ancestral seat of the Earls of Devon, stretching
from the water's brink to the summit of the high ground behind; away to
the west, Haldon's long ridge rises as a sky-line, dividing the valley
of the Exe from that of the Teign; and finally comes Starcross. On the
left bank, about midway between Topsham and Exmouth, is Lympstone, a
pretty, straggling fishing village. To Exmouth, lying over against
Starcross, belongs the distinction of being the oldest of the numerous
tribe of Devonshire watering-places. A port of some consequence in very
early days, it presently fell into an obscurity from which it was only
rescued in the last century through the agency of one of the judges
of assize, who, sojourning here for the good of his health while on
circuit, was so advantaged by its genial breezes that he spread abroad
its praises, and so gave it another start in life. Its attractions may
be less insistent than those of other places that were mere fishing
villages long after it had become a popular resort, but it has a
pleasant beach and a very respectable promenade, and with still more
reason is it proud of the views to be had from The Beacon.

       *       *       *       *       *

The /Lyn/, sometimes called the East Lyn, to distinguish it from
the West Lyn, is one of the shortest as it is one of the most wilful
of the Devonshire streams, its length not exceeding a dozen miles,
while in a direct line its outlet is only half that distance from its
source. Rising on Exmoor, a little to the north of Black Barrow Down,
its upper valley is bleak and bare, and in this part of its career
there is little to differentiate it from other moorland waters that
hurriedly leave the dreary solitudes in which they have their birth.
Above Oareford it dashes and splashes along over boulders and rocky
ledges, the hills that rise from either bank being bare of aught but
ling and brake and heather, save that the lower slopes bear here and
there a group of wind-swept scrub-oaks; it is only lower down that the
ravine assumes the combination of wildness and luxuriance in which Lyn
is excelled by none of its sister streams. How can we pass Oareford
without recalling that we are in the country of John Ridd and the
Doones? It was in the parish of Oare that the giant yeoman was born and
bred; it was in the little Perpendicular church of St. Mary that he
married the lovely but elusive Lorna Doone; it was from its altar that
he sallied forth to pursue the man whom he believed to have slain his
bride, his only weapon the limb of a gnarled oak which he tore from its
socket as he passed beneath it. Many there be who come into these parts
to spy out the land, and to such it is a pleasant surprise to find that
there are still Ridds of the Doones engaged upon the soil at Oare.
Less palatable is the discovery that Mr. Blackmore has thought fit to
mix a good deal of imagination with his word-pictures. The Badgworthy
"slide," in particular, which the hero was wont to climb in order to
get speech of the captive maiden, has been the occasion of grievous
disappointment. It is at Malmsmead that the Badgworthy Water--the
dividing line between Devon and Somerset--falls into the Lyn, and
"makes a real river of it"; the "slide," a mile or so up the "Badgery"
valley, as they call it hereabouts, is simply a succession of minute
cascades formed by shelving rocks over which a little tributary stream
glides down out of the Doone Valley.

The novelist has not scrupled to take ample liberties with such of his
characters as are not purely imaginary, as well as with his scenes;
but, unless tradition is a very lying jade, the Doone Valley really
sheltered a gang of robbers, said to have been disbanded soldiers who
had fought in the Great Rebellion. One may still see traces of what
are believed to have been their dwellings, though one writer profanely
identifies them with pig-sties; and it is credibly stated that the
destruction of the miscreants by the country-folk was provoked by the
cruel murder of a child, as described in the romance. Nor may one doubt
that the mighty John was an actual personage, though it were vain to
seek for his history in biographical dictionaries. As to Lorna, what
if Mr. Blackmore has invented her? Is that to be counted to him for
unrighteousness?

[Illustration: _Photo: Chapman & Son, Dawlish._

"CLAM" BRIDGE OVER THE WALLABROOK.]

From Malmsmead, with its primitive bridge of two arches, to Watersmeet,
where the Brendon Water plunges down a charming glen on the left to
lose itself in the larger stream, the Lyn ravine is a very kaleidoscope
of beauty and grandeur. Watersmeet, "an exquisite combination of wood
and stream, the one almost hiding the water, the other leaping down
over rocky ledges in a series of tiny cascades," must tax the painter's
pencil, and is certainly no theme for a prosaic pen; and of Lyndale the
same despairing confession must be made. Every turn in this lovely glen
reveals some new beauty, until, with Lynton lying in the cup of a hill
on the left, one reaches Lynmouth, where, just before the river plunges
into the sea, it receives the waters of the West Lyn as they merrily
tumble out of Glen Lyn. Southey, whose description of these and other
features of the place has been quoted to the point of weariness, was
one of the first to "discover" Lynmouth; and in these days it has no
reason to complain that its unrivalled attractions are not appreciated.
For some years it has had its little mountain railway, to spare those
whose chief need is exercise the fatigue of walking up the hill to
Lynton; and now the lines have been laid which bring it into touch
with the South Western and Great Western systems at Barnstaple. Let
us hope that it will not presently have to complain of defacement at
the hands of the lodging-house builder, and of desperation inflicted
upon it by hordes of day-trippers, with their beer-bottles and greasy
sandwich-papers!

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

FINGLE BRIDGE (_p. 38_).]

Dartmoor is a much more prolific "mother of rivers" than Exmoor. In
one of the loneliest and dreariest regions of the southern "forest,"
no great way from its northern extremity, is the quagmire known as
Cranmere Pool, and from this and the sloughs that surround it ooze all
the more important of the Devonshire streams except the Exe and the
Torridge. Out of Cranmere Pool itself--a prison, according to local
legend, of lost spirits, whose anguished cries are often borne on the
wings of the wind--the West Okement drains, to flow northwards to
the Torridge; and at distances varying from half a mile to a couple
of miles, the Teign, the Dart, the Tavy, and the Taw have their
birth. The Okement will be noticed presently, when we have to do with
the Torridge; of the other rivers, the /Teign/ rises in two
headstreams, the North and the South Teign, near Sittaford Tor. As is
the way of these moorland waters, they are soon reinforced by tributary
rills, among them the Wallabrook, which flows by Scorhill Down to join
the North Teign. Scorhill Down has in its stone circle one of the
most remarkable of those mysterious relics of an immemorial past in
which Dartmoor abounds. At one time all such remains were regarded,
like those at Stonehenge, as Druidical monuments, but this theory of
their origin is no longer in fashion, and antiquaries now prefer to
say nothing more specific than that they usually have a sepulchral
significance, and betoken that regions now abandoned to the curlew
and the buzzard once had a considerable population. Near Scorhill the
Wallabrook is bestridden by a "clam" bridge, which, interpreted, means
a bridge of a single slab of unhewn stone resting on the ground, as
distinguished from a "clapper" bridge, consisting of one or more such
slabs pillared on others, with no aid from mortar.

The North and the South Teign merge at Leigh Bridge, close by Holy
Street and its picturesque mill, which has furnished a theme for the
pencil of many an artist besides Creswick. Then the Teign flows under
the old bridge at Chagford, a village overhung on one side by two rocky
hills. The fine air of the place and its convenient situation for the
exploration of Dartmoor bring to it many visitors in the summer; but it
is certainly no place for a winter sojourn. The story goes--and racy
of the soil it is--that if a Chagford man is asked in summer where he
lives, he replies, as saucily as you please, "Chaggyford, and what d'ye
think, then?" But if the question is put to him in winter, he sadly
answers, "Chaggyford, good Lord!"

At Chagford the valley broadens out, but soon it again contracts,
and, sensibly quickening its speed, Teign plunges headlong into what
is perhaps the very finest of all the gorges in Devonshire. Near the
entrance is a "logan" stone, a huge boulder of granite about a dozen
feet long, so finely poised that it may with a very moderate exercise
of force be made to rock, though it is less accommodating than when
Polwhele, a century ago, succeeded in moving it with one hand. The
finest view of the gorge is that to be got from Fingle Bridge, a couple
of miles lower down, where, looking back, one sees how the stream
has wound its way amid the interfolded hills, of which the steep
slopes are clad with coppice of tender green. Here, on the left, is
Prestonbury, and on the right the loftier Cranbrook, each crowned with
its prehistoric "castle." Of the narrow, ivy-mantled bridge, simple
and massive, an illustration is given (p. 57) showing the wedge-shaped
piers which serve to break the fury of the torrent in time of spate.

But we must hurry on past Clifford Mill and its bridge to Dunsford
Bridge, another spot of singular beauty. On the right Heltor, on the
left Blackstone, exalt their towering heads, both crowned with large
"rock basins," in which the rude fancy of our forefathers saw missiles
that King Arthur and the Great Adversary hurled at each other athwart
the intervening valley. So, passing more and more within the margin
of cultivation, we come to Chudleigh, with its Rock, yielding a blue
limestone, known to the builder as Chudleigh marble, and its lovely,
richly-wooded glen, down which a little tributary dances gaily into
the Teign. Not a great way beyond, our river is swollen by the waters
of a more important affluent, the Bovey, which, from its source on
Dartmoor, has followed a course not dissimilar from that of the Teign,
lilting along through a rich and often spacious valley, past North
Bovey, Manaton, Lustleigh, with its "Cleave," and Bovey Tracy. At
Newton Abbot, pleasantly placed a little to the south of the Teign,
in a vale watered by the Lemon, we may have fine views of the valleys
of the Teign and the Bovey by ascending the hills up which this neat
little town has straggled. Its most memorable association is with the
glorious Revolution, and there still stands in front of a Perpendicular
tower, which is all that is left of the old Chapel of St. Leonard, the
block of granite from which the Prince of Orange's proclamation was
read.

[Illustration: _Photo: G. Denney & Co., Teignmouth._

TEIGNMOUTH (_p. 40_).]

Now swerving sharply to the east, the Teign develops into an estuary,
and with a background of hills on either hand, those on the left
rising into the broad downs of Haldon, hastens to discharge itself into
the sea, flowing beneath what claims to be the longest wooden bridge
in England, which connects Teignmouth on the north with Shaldon on the
south. Teignmouth is an ancient fishing-village which has grown into a
watering-place. If the story that it suffered at the hands of Danish
pirates in the eighth century is an error due to confusion between
Teignmouth and Tynemouth, it was indubitably ravaged by the French at
the end of the seventeenth century. In these days its chief feature is
the Den, a sandbank due to the shifting bar that obstructs the mouth of
the river, but now converted into an esplanade, whence, looking inland,
one sees the twin peaks of Heytor and other outlying hills of Dartmoor,
while to the south, along the shore-line, appears the bold promontory
known as The Ness, and on the north stand out the quaint pinnacles of
red rock which the patient waves have carved into shapes that have won
for them the designation of the "Parson and the Clerk."

[Illustration: NEW BRIDGE.]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: BUCKFASTLEIGH.]

The /Dart/ may be said to attain to self-consciousness at
Dartmeet, where in a deep and lovely valley the rapid East and West
Dart mingle their foaming waters. The two streams rise at no great
distance from each other, in the neighbourhood, as we have seen, of
Cranmere Pool; and they are never far apart, but the western water
follows a somewhat less consistently south-east course, past Wistman's
Wood--a grim assemblage of stunted, storm-beaten oaks, springing up
amidst blocks of granite--and Crockern Tor and Two Bridges; while the
eastern stream, from its source at Dart Head, speeds by Post Bridge
and Bellaford, crossed at both places by "clam" bridges. Hurrying
impetuously along over a shallow rocky bed, with a monotonous clatter
which is locally known as its "cry," Dart washes the base of Benjay
Tor, and rushing beneath New Bridge--a not unpicturesque structure,
despite its unpromising name--enters a richly timbered glade.
Presently, as its valley deepens, it makes a wide circuit to wander
past the glorious demesne of Holne Chase. Beyond the woods which
stretch away for miles to the north-east, Buckland Beacon rears his
giant form; on the other side of the stream is the little village of
Holne, birthplace of Charles Kingsley, whose father was rector here.
A mile or so above Buckfastleigh, on the right bank, are the ruins
of Buckfast Abbey, consisting of little more than an ivy-clad tower
and a spacious barn. Originating in the tenth century, this house was
re-founded in the reign of Henry II., and grew to be the richest
Cistercian abbey in all Devon. From the Dissolution till the beginning
of the present century the site remained desolate. Then a mansion in
the Gothic style was built upon it, and this is now occupied by a
community of Benedictine monks from Burgundy, who have in part re-built
the monastery on the old foundations.

[Illustration: STAVERTON.]

Beyond smoky Buckfastleigh and its spire, the Dart flows among lush
meadows and around wooded hills, past Dean Prior, with its memories of
Herrick, and Staverton, where it is crossed by a strongly buttressed
bridge. Now it again makes a bend eastwards to enclose the fine grounds
of Dartington Hall. The house, partly in ruins, is commandingly placed
high above the densely wooded right bank; and the oldest part of the
structure, the Great Hall, dates from the reign of Richard II., whose
badge, a white hart chained, appears on one of the doorways. Soon
Totnes comes into view, climbing the steep right bank and spreading
itself over the summit, its most salient features the ruined ivy-draped
shell of the Norman castle on the crest of the hill, and the ruddy
pinnacled tower of the church.

Totnes has not scrupled to claim to be the oldest town in England, and,
quite half way up the acclivity, far above the highest water-mark of
the Dart, they show the stone on which Brute set foot at the end of
his voyage from ruined Troy. Few places can better afford to dispense
with fabulous pretensions, for the evidences of its antiquity declare
themselves on every hand. Its name is allowed to be Anglo-Saxon, and
it is thought to be not improbable that its castle mound was first a
British stronghold. A considerable part of the ancient wall is left
standing, and the East Gate still divides High Street from Fore Street.
Very quaint and charming are many of the old houses in the High Street,
with their gables and piazzas; and the venerable Guildhall preserves
its oaken stalls for the members of the Corporation, with a canopied
centre for the Mayor. Below the town is the graceful three-arched
bridge which connects it with Bridgetown Pomeroy, on the left bank; and
from this one may descend by steps to the tiny island in mid-stream,
some years ago laid out as a public garden.

[Illustration: THE ISLAND, TOTNES.]

[Illustration: TOTNES.]

It is the ten miles or so of river between Totnes and Dartmouth
that have earned for the Dart the title of "the English Rhine." The
absurdity of likening the inconsiderable Dart, with its placid current
and its backing of gently-sloping hills, to the broad and rushing
Rhine, flanked by lofty, castle-crowned steeps, has before been
exposed, but the nickname is still current, and while it remains so the
protest must continue. Yet how manifold and bewitching are the graces
of the stream in these lower reaches, where it curves and doubles until
from some points of view it appears to be resolved into a series of
lakes, embosomed among hills of softest contour, their braes either
smooth and verdant as a lawn or rich with foliage! Not long after
leaving Totnes one sees, on the right, Sharpham House, surrounded
by lawns and parterres and by magnificent woods, which border the
stream for at least a mile. Sandridge House, on the opposite bank, is
notable as the birthplace of John Davis, the Elizabethan navigator,
who discovered the Straits which are known among men by his name; and
presently we shall pass the well wooded grounds of Greenway, where
was born Sir Humphrey Gilbert, another of the heroes of great Eliza's
"spacious days," who established the Newfoundland fisheries. Between
these two points comes Dittisham, with its grey church tower, its
famous plum orchards, and its bell, which is rung when one wants to be
ferried over to Greenway Quay. Soon the Dart begins to widen out, and,
threading our way among yachts and skiffs, we come within sight of the
_Britannia_ training-ship, and find ourselves betwixt Dartmouth on the
right, and Kingswear on the left.

[Illustration: DITTISHAM.]

Dartmouth, rising from the bank in terraces, wears an aspect hardly
less ancient than that of Totnes. It was incorporated in the fourteenth
century, but for hundreds of years before that was of note as a
harbour. William the Conqueror is said to have sailed herefrom on
his expedition for the relief of Mans; a century later the English
fleet, or a part of it, gathered here for the third Crusade; and did
not Chaucer think that probably his shipman "was of Dertemuthe"? The
castle, close to the water's edge, at the mouth of the harbour, is
something more than the picturesque remnant of an ancient fortress, for
the wall and foss which surround it enclose also a casemated battery of
heavy guns. On the crest of the hill behind are the ruins of Gallant's
Bower Fort. Nearly opposite is Kingswear Castle, which claims an even
more remote origin; and crowning the hill at whose base it lies are
some remains of Fort Ridley, which, like Gallant's Bower, was wrested
from the Parliamentarians by Prince Maurice, both strongholds, however,
being afterwards stormed by Fairfax. The harbour, though a fine, broad
sheet of water, is almost landlocked, and the entrance to it is through
a strait channel known as "The Jawbones," which in more primitive days
than these was protected by a strong chain stretching from one bank to
the other.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: MOUTH OF THE DART.]

Of the two remaining streams that rise in the morasses around Cranmere
Pool, the /Tavy/ runs a course which, though not long, is
remarkable for the grandeur and the richness of its scenery. Did space
permit, one would be glad to follow it from its peaty spring under
Great Kneeset Tor, through the grand defile known as Tavy Cleave, on
between Peter Tavy and Mary Tavy to Tavistock, with its statue of
Drake, who was born hard by, and its associations with the author of
the "Pastorals"; thence past Buckland Abbey, rich in memories of Sir
Francis and of the Cistercian monks from whom the neighbouring village
of Buckland Monachorum gets its distinctive appellation, and so to
Tavy's confluence with the Tamar. Pleasant also would it be to trace
its principal tributary, the Walkham, down its romantic valley, nor
less so to track the Lid from its source, a few miles above Lidford,
through its magnificent gorge, and onwards to its union with Tamar.
But the sands are fast running out, and we must pass on to sketch very
rapidly the career of the Taw as it flows first north-eastwards, then
north-westwards, to meet the Torridge in Barnstaple Bay.

In the first part of its course the /Taw/, which the Exe exceeds
in length by only five miles, is as frisky and headstrong as the rest
of the moorland streams, but as soon as it has got well within the line
of civilisation it sobers down, and thereafter demeans itself sedately
enough. The first place of interest which it passes is South Tawton,
where is Oxenham, now a farmhouse, but formerly the seat of a family
of this name who lived here from the time of Henry III. until early in
the present century. Of these Oxenhams it is an ancient tradition that
a white-breasted bird is seen when the time has come for one of them to
be gathered to his fathers. The last appearance of the portent was in
1873, when Mr. G. N. Oxenham, then the head of the house, lay dying at
17, Earl's Terrace, Kensington. His daughter and a friend, the latter
of whom knew nothing of the legend, were sitting in the room underneath
the chamber of death when, to quote from Murray's "Handbook," their
attention "was suddenly roused by a shouting outside the house, and
on looking out they saw a large white bird perched on a thorn tree
outside the window, where it remained for several minutes, although
some workmen on the opposite side of the road were throwing their hats
at it in the vain effort to drive it away." An interesting occurrence,
certainly; but if we are to see in it more than a coincidence, what is
to be said of the puffin, the only one of its tribe ever recorded to
have visited London, which, having found its way so far inland, flew
into the rooms of the President of the British Ornithologists' Union?
Must we believe that the adventurous bird was moved to call there in
order that its feat might be duly recorded in the Proceedings of the
Institution?

It is below Nymet Rowland that Taw changes its course. Thenceforward it
placidly flows amid rich meadows agreeably diversified with woodland.
At Eggesford it is overlooked by the Earl of Portsmouth's seat,
peeping out from the trees which climb the left bank. At Chulmleigh
it gathers up the Little Dart; and beyond South Molton Road Station
the Mole, which gives name to North Molton and South Molton, brings in
its tribute from the border of Exmoor. Having laved the foot of Coddon
Hill, from whose rounded top one may have far views of the valley in
both directions, the Taw flows by the cosy little village of Bishop's
Tawton on the right; along the other bank stretches Tawstock Park, the
demesne of the Bourchier-Wreys, set about with fine old oaks. Then
with a sudden bend it comes within sight of Barnstaple Bridge, and
beyond the South Walk, on the right bank, bordering a pretty little
park, appear the graceful tower of Holy Trinity Church--an unusually
effective piece of modern Perpendicular work--and the ugly warped spire
of the mother church.

The "metropolis of North Devon," as this comely and lusty little town
proudly styles itself, is a very ancient place, which had a castle and
a priory at least as far back as the time of the Conqueror; but these
have long since vanished, and save for a row of cloistered almshouses
dating from 1627, and its bridge of sixteen arches, built in the
thirteenth century, it is indebted for its savour of antiquity mainly
to the venerable usages that have survived the changes and chances of
the centuries. Like Bideford, long its rival among North Devon towns,
it fitted out ships for the fleet which gave so good an account of
the Spanish Armada. During the Civil War it declared for the popular
cause, but was captured by the king's forces in 1643; and although it
soon succeeded in flinging off the royal yoke, it was re-captured, and
remained in the king's hands until nearly the close of the war.

Just below the hideous bridge which carries the South Western line
across the Taw is the Quay, on the right bank, and beyond it, lined
by an avenue of ancient elms, is the North Walk, now unhappily cut up
for the purposes of the new railway from Lynton. The stream, by this
time of considerable breadth, widens out yet more during the five or
six remaining miles of its course; but its channel is tortuous and
shifting, and only by small vessels is it navigable. A few more bends,
and Instow and Appledore are reached, and Torridge is sighted as it
comes up from the south to blend its waters with those of the sister
stream. Then far away over the curling foam of Barnstaple Bar we get a
full view of Lundy, its cliffs at this distance looking suave enough,
though in truth they are not less jagged than when the Spanish galleon
fleeing from Amyas Leigh's _Vengeance_ was impaled upon their granite
spines; while on the left Hartland Point boldly plants its foot in the
Atlantic, and on the right Baggy Point marks the northern limit of
Barnstaple Bay.

[Illustration: _Photo: Vickery Bros., Barnstaple._

BARNSTAPLE, FROM THE SOUTH WALK (_p. 47_).]

It is at no great distance from Hartland Point that the
/Torridge/, most circuitous of Devonshire rivers, rises. First
flowing in a south-easterly direction past Newton St. Petrock and
Shebbear and Sheepwash, it presently makes a bend and follows an almost
precisely opposite course north-westwards. In about the middle of the
loop which it forms in preparing to stultify itself, it is augmented
by the Okement, which has come almost due north from Cranmere Pool,
brawling down a valley which, near Okehampton and elsewhere, is finely
wooded. Past Yew Bridge and Dolton and Beaford, Torridge continues its
sinuous course; and as it approaches Great Torrington, set on a hill
some 300 feet above its right bank, its valley presents the combination
of smooth haugh and precipitous rock shown in our view (page 49).
Torrington has a history, and little besides. Even the church, enclosed
in a notably pretty God's acre, graced with avenues of beeches and
chestnuts, has no special interest save that it contains the carved oak
pulpit in which the great John Howe preached before his ejectment in
1662; for it had to be rebuilt after the Civil War, having been blown
up by the accidental explosion of a large quantity of gunpowder while
it was being used as a magazine and prison. Two hundred Royalists were
confined in the building at the time, and these, with their guards, all
perished. Winding round Torrington Common, gay in due season with gorse
and bracken, our river glides on past Wear Gifford--an idyllically
beautiful spot incongruously associated with a melancholy tragedy--to
the "little white town" described by Charles Kingsley in the opening
paragraph of his one great story. White it hardly is in these days,
but this is the only qualification that strict accuracy requires. The
famous bridge of four-and-twenty arches dates from about the same
period as that at Barnstaple, which it considerably exceeds in length.
The town itself lays claim to a much higher antiquity, for it traces
its origin to a cousin of the Conqueror, founder of the illustrious
line which came to full flower in the Richard Grenville who, as he lay
a-dying, after having matched the _Revenge_ against the whole Spanish
fleet of three-and-fifty sail, was able proudly to say, in a spirit not
unlike that of a later naval hero, that he was leaving behind him "an
everlasting fame of a valiant and true soldier, that hath _done his
duty_ as he was bound to do." He it was who revived the fortunes of
Bideford after a period of decline, and so increased its prosperity
by attracting to it trade from the settlements in the New World that
it was able to send seven ships to join the fleet that gathered in
Plymouth Harbour to fight the Spaniard. With memories such as these,
the town may surely abate its eagerness to have accepted as Armada
trophies the old guns which have been unearthed from its dustheap.

Pleasant the course of the stream continues to be, past "the charmed
rock of Hubbastone," where sleeps an old Norse pirate, with his crown
of gold, till, with Instow on the right and Appledore on the left,
Torridge meets her sister Taw, and the two with one accord turn
westward and roll towards "the everlasting thunder of the long Atlantic
swell."

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: THE TORRIDGE NEAR TORRINGTON (_p. 47_).]

[Illustration: THE PLYM FROM CADAFORD BRIDGE.]

[Illustration: IN BICKLEIGH VALE.]

Of the streams that have their fountains on Dartmoor, the longer ones
rise, as we have seen, in the northern division of the "forest"; the
shorter ones, the Avon, the Erme, the Yealm, and the Plym, come to
being in the southern division, at no great distance from each other,
and amid surroundings not unlike those of Cranmere Pool; and all of
them flow into the Channel on the western side of Bolt Head. Neither
of them is without charms of its own; but the /Plym/ is easily
chief among them, and with a rapid sketch of its course from Plym Head,
some three miles south of Princetown, to the Sound, the present chapter
must end. Flowing by rugged, flat-topped Sheepstor on the right, and
Trowlesworthy Tor on the left, Plym presently reaches Cadaford Bridge,
where it plunges into a rocky ravine, the precipitous hillside on the
left crowned by the church of Shaugh Prior, while from the hill on the
right, smothered with oak coppice, projects a huge crag of ivy-clad
granite, the Dewerstone, celebrated for its views. At Shaugh Bridge
the stream is swollen by the Meavy, which, not far from its source
on the moorland, is tapped to supply Plymouth Leat--a work for which
the Plymouth folk are indebted to Sir Francis Drake. Afterwards the
Meavy runs by the grey granite church of Sheepstor, where, under the
shadow of a noble beech, is the massive tomb of Sir James Brooke, of
Sarawak fame. Richly-wooded Bickleigh Vale is one of the beauty spots
of the Plym; another lovely scene is that at Plym Bridge, where, close
to the mossy bridge, is the ruined arch of a tiny chantry, built
by the monks of Plympton Priory that travellers might here pray to
Heaven for protection before adventuring into the wilds beyond. Of the
Priory, founded in the twelfth century to replace a Saxon college of
secular canons, nothing remains but the refectory and a kitchen and a
moss-grown orchard, which may be seen close to the lichened church of
Plympton St. Mary, if we care to wander a little eastwards from the
river. Not far off is the other Plympton, with its scanty fragments of
a castle of the de Redvers, Earls of Devon. More memorable is Plympton
Earl from its association with Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was born
here, and sat at his father's feet in the quaint cloistered Grammar
School, where, too, three other painters of note were educated--Sir
Joshua's pupil and biographer, Northcote, the luckless Haydon, and the
fortune-favoured Eastlake. Reynolds was not without honour in his own
country, at any rate during his life. The Corporation of Plympton once
chose him mayor, and he declared to George III. that the election was
an honour which gave him more pleasure than any other which had ever
come to him--"except," he added as an afterthought, "that conferred
on me by your Majesty." A portrait of himself, which he painted for
his native town, was long treasured in the ancient Guildhall, but the
virtue of the Corporation was not permanently proof against temptation,
and at last the picture was sold, for £150. This happened a good many
years ago.

Below Plym Bridge the river begins to expand into the estuary, known
in the upper part as the Laira and in the lower as the Catwater, the
division between the two sections being marked by the Laira Bridge,
five hundred feet long. Of "Laira" various derivations have been
suggested, the most ingenious, and perhaps, therefore, the least
likely, being that since "leary" in the vernacular means "empty,"
the name may be taken as pointing to the large expanses of mud and
sedge left bare by the tide--larger in the days before the stream was
embanked than they are now. Saltram, a seat of the Earls of Morley, the
first of whom both built the bridge and constructed the embankment, is
on the left shore, embosomed in woods. Below the bridge the estuary
curves round northwards, and, sweeping by Sutton Pool, its waters lose
themselves in one of the noblest havens in the world, studded with
craft of all shapes and sizes, from the grim battleship and the swift
liner to the ruddy-sailed trawler.

To get a _coup d'[oe]il_ of Plymouth and its surroundings, let us take
our stand on the limestone headland known as The Hoe, where, according
to the tradition which Kingsley has followed, Drake was playing bowls
with his brother sea-dogs when the Armada was descried, and refused
to stop until the game was ended. In these days it is surmounted
by a statue of the hero, by the Armada Memorial, and by Smeaton's
lighthouse, removed from the Eddystone from no defect of its own,
but because the rock on which it was based was becoming insecure. On
the east The Hoe terminates in the Citadel, an ancient fortification
which has been adapted to modern conditions; on the low ground behind
crouches Plymouth, effectually screened from the sea-winds; on the
west, beyond the Great Western Docks, lies Stonehouse, and west of this
again is Devonport, its dockyards lining the Hamoaze, as the estuary of
the Tamar is called. Seawards, restraining the rush of the broad waves
of the Sound, is the Breakwater, a lighthouse at one end, a beacon of
white granite at the other, and in the middle, as it seems at this
distance, but really on an island just within it, a mighty oval fort
of granite cased in iron. About half-way to the Breakwater is Drake's
Island, another link in a chain of defences which has, one may hope,
rendered the Three Towns invulnerable to assault either from sea or
from land; and over against this, bordering the Sound on the west, are
the woods and grassy slopes of Mount Edgcumbe, the noble domain which
the Spanish Admiral, Medina Sidonia, is said to have designed for
himself. Away in the dim distance the new Eddystone rears its lofty
head. How the first of the four lighthouses which have warned mariners
of this dangerous reef was washed away, and the second fell a prey
to the flames, every schoolboy knows. Familiar, too, is the story of
the third; yet as we turn to look at it, now that it is retired from
active service, we may be pardoned for recalling how, from this very
spot, Smeaton was wont to watch the progress of the work which was to
be his title to enduring fame. "Again and again," says Dr. Smiles,
"the engineer, in the dim grey of the morning, would come out and peer
through his telescope at his deep-sea lamp-post. Sometimes he had to
wait long until he could see a tall white pillar of spray shoot up
into the air. Then, as the light grew, he could discern his building,
temporary house and all, standing firm amidst the waters; and thus far
satisfied, he could proceed to his workshops, his mind relieved for the
day."

[Illustration: PLYMPTON EARL. (_p. 51_).]

[Illustration: _Photo: W. Heath, Plymouth._

THE HOE, PLYMOUTH.]

Plymouth, beginning as Sutton Prior, an appanage of the Augustinian
Monastery at Plympton, the original harbour being what is now known
as Sutton Pool, has a history extending at least as far back as the
Domesday Survey. Stonehouse is a comparatively modern extension; and
Devonport, though its dockyards date from the days of William III.,
was long in growing into the consequence which now it possesses.
Those who know their Boswell well will remember that Johnson, coming
into Devonshire with Sir Joshua, visited Plymouth at a time when
great jealousy was being felt of the pretensions of Devonport, then
just beginning to assert itself. Half in jest and half in earnest he
vigorously espoused the prejudices of the older town; and when, in time
of drought, Devonport applied to Plymouth for water, he burst out, "No,
no. I am against the dockers; I am a Plymouth man. Rogues! let them
die of thirst! They shall not have a drop!" Since then Devonport has
gone to Dartmoor for a water supply of its own; and Plymouth, while not
oblivious of its glorious memories, is well content to take a maternal
pride in the prosperity of the younger towns.

    / W. W. Hutchings./




[Illustration: DANESCOMBE (_p. 58_).]




RIVERS OF CORNWALL.

    The Minor Streams of Cornwall--The /Tamar/:
    Woolley Barrows--Morwellham and Weir Head--Morwell
    Rocks--Harewood--Calstock--Cotehele--Pentillie--Confluence
    with the Tavy--Saltash--The Hamoaze. The /Fowey/: A Change
    of Name--St. Neot--Lostwithiel--Fowey. The /Fal/: Fenton
    Fal--Tregony--Truro--Tregothnan--Falmouth.


Comparatively insignificant though they may be, the rivers of Cornwall
have peculiar interest alike for the geographer and the geologist, and
are rife with the charms of natural scenery which attract every lover
of the beautiful. If we except the Camel, which is the only river
worthy of mention that flows into the Bristol Channel, the county has
a southern drainage, this arising from the fact that the watershed of
Cornwall is almost confined to the country contiguous to the north
coast. Perhaps it is by way of compensation to the Camel, or Alan, that
it has two sources. By Lanteglos and Advent its course runs through a
romantic country of wood and vale, and it meets the tide at Egloshayle,
thence passing Wadebridge, eight miles below which it falls into
Padstow Harbour.

Of the streams possessing something of historic interest and scenic
charm, the Looe must be mentioned because of the lovely vale through
which it flows between Duloe and Morval and the association of the
river with the ancient Parliamentary boroughs of East and West Looe at
its mouth. The Seaton, the St. Austell river, the Hayle, the Gannel,
and the Hel, each and all have their individuality, owing allegiance to
no other river tyrannous of its tributaries; but the three principal
streams of the county, the Tamar, the Fowey, and the Fal, which have
been selected for special notice here, have a virtual monopoly of
interest and attention. The /Tamar/ possesses, in a singular
degree, the more striking characteristics of the Cornish rivers, and
is fairly entitled to the distinction of first consideration at our
hands. Having its rise at Woolley Barrows, in the extreme east of the
westernmost county, a short distance from its source Tamar becomes the
boundary between the counties of Devon and Cornwall, and so continues
during nearly the whole of its course, some forty miles. Flowing
distinctly southward, the river leads a quiet life for at least a
league, till, gaining in size and importance, it gives its name to the
pretty village and parish of North Tamerton. Thenceforth

                          "Its tranquil stream
    Through rich and peopled meadows finds its way."

At St. Stephen's-by-Launceston it receives the Werrington stream, and
expands into a beautiful lake in Werrington Park. Below the lake the
impetuous Attery stream joins the now brimming river, which, passing
under Poulston and Greston, reaches Tavistock New Bridge, where we are
on the "scientific frontier" of Devon and Cornwall. At this point,
too, the Tamar enters upon a new stage of its existence, leaving its
lowly moorland birth and quiet ordinary youth behind it, and beginning
a career which is henceforth the cynosure of all eyes. Hurrying by
Gunnislake, the busy little hamlet of workers in clay and stone, at
Weir Head the river literally leaps into fame.

From the coaching hamlet it has slided on through a woodland glade of
bewitching beauty, which wins a spontaneous outburst of admiration from
the visitor who, haply, has chosen to approach the favoured scene by
the serpentining sylvan walk from Morwellham to Weir Head. Here its
waters break in a pretty cascade over the artificial ridge of rocks
that reaches from bank to bank. Then they prettily describe a circle
about the islet in mid-stream, gaining new life and movement from the
impetus. With the briskness of a waterslide the Tamar rushes on to
Morwellham. A charming variety of river-glimpses may be gained through
the luxuriant foliage at Weir Head, the views hereabouts having become
the objective of the highly popular steamer-trips from Plymouth,
Devonport, and Saltash, which have constituted "Up the Tamar" quite a
colloquialism in the West.

The winding river gains a new glory from its beautiful and impressive
surroundings as it flows at the base of Morwell Rocks, those wonderful
examples of Nature's carvings, set in the midst of luxuriant foliage
that here hides their shaggy sides and there throws into bold relief
an awe-inspiring pile. The Rocks are unique in their romantic beauty,
even though they figure among the many objects of interest in a highly
picturesque neighbourhood. The Chimney Rock and the Turret Rock are
happier instances of descriptive nomenclature than usual. Bolder
still is that most striking specimen of natural architecture, Morwell
Rock, the massiveness of which doubtless gained for it the capital
distinction. To the giddy height of the topmost rock, above the
far-stretching woodland of Morwellham, scarce a sound of the rippling
river comes; but the silver thread of its serpentine course may be
traced afar through the romantic valley, winding about Okel Tor and the
great bend that forms the peninsula between Morwellham and Calstock,
and then taking its favoured way through cherry orchard-groves on to
the haven under the hill.

[Illustration: THE RIVERS OF CORNWALL.]

The river is navigable to Weir Head, but Morwellham is the highest
point reached by the steamers. Pursuing the line of least resistance,
the Tamar now makes a tremendous sweep about the hill on which Calstock
Church stands. But ere the first view of the "two-faced church" is
caught, an interesting riparian residence is skirted--Harewood, the
scene of Mason's play of _Elfrida_, now the office of the Duchy of
Cornwall, but formerly one of the Trelawny properties. Calstock, if
it please you, is the centre of the old "cherry picking" district,
though to-day its strawberry gardens must rival the orchards in their
remunerative return to the industrious population of the quaint little
town that seems to have grown away from the water's edge to the
pleasant Cornish country beyond Tamar bank. Still, if you would see
Calstock in its daintiest garb and most delightful beauty, come you
when the pretty cherry blossom decks the groves by the river, and the
tender pink and white clothes the orchard lawns to the uplands.

[Illustration: TAVISTOCK NEW BRIDGE (_p. 55_).]

From Calstock on to Cotehele, and thence almost to the junction of
the Tamar and the Tavy, the same delightful eccentricity of the
river-scenery presents itself--every prominent feature re-appearing in
an entirely different aspect, scarce five minutes of the river-trip
passing without a variation of the point of view. A last glimpse of
Calstock Church, and we are encompassed by woodland. Everywhere a
luxuriant living green meets the eye. Apparently, the swelling woods
and orchard lawns approach ahead and form a _cul-de-sac_; but the Tamar
makes a sharp detour to the right or to the left, and another glory
of the leafy way bursts upon the sight. Again and again the pleasing
experience is repeated ere a human habitation relieves a monotony that
for once is wholly charming.

Beyond the limekilns of Cotehele appears the lodge gate of Cotehele
House, one of the residences of the Edgcumbe family, and a place of
some historic interest. By far the most prominent feature in the
fine landscape which may be viewed from a tower at the highest point
of the grounds is Kit Hill, the loftiest eminence on Hingston Down,
which was the scene of a last desperate battle between the Britons of
Cornwall and the invading Saxons in the year 835. A beautiful valley
near Cotehele, known as Danescombe to this day, is said to have taken
its name from the allies whom the Cornish called to their aid in this
sanguinary struggle.

Immediately below Cotehele the zig-zag course of the Tamar is most
strongly marked, and nowhere are its revelations of new views and fresh
charms more entrancing than where it winds about the extensive grounds
of Pentillie. Shortly after we have doffed our caps in deference to
the pious Sir Richard Edgcumbe, devout worshipper of the Holy Mother,
who erected a church by the river-bank to commemorate his miraculous
escape from the soldiers of the royal Richard, we catch a fleeting but
impressive glimpse of another stately residence of a county family, on
a hilly eminence clothed to its crown with thickly grown woods, the
castellated mansion emerging from dense leafy environs well towards the
crest. All suddenly the coquetting stream swerves to the Devonshire
side, as speedily returns to caress the fair meads of Cornwall, and
another glorious prospect is disclosed. A nearer view is now to be had
of Pentillie Castle, lying embowered in the far-stretching woodland,
the Gothic features of the lordly pleasure-house which the late owner,
Mr. John Tillie Coryton, built for himself admirably harmonising with
its beautiful surroundings.

Below Pentillie, the Tamar, in its ampler waters and wider course,
has to be satisfied with less interesting associations. A last big
bend in the river, and, past the pretty hamlet of Cargreen, we shortly
find ourselves abreast of the church of St. Dilpe, at Landulph,
erected very near the river-bank, on the Cornish side. The tower of
St. Budeaux Church, whose melodious bells chime cheerily across the
water, rises high above the Devon bank. Here the Tavy makes common
cause with the Tamar, and the twin rivers flow on by Saltash into the
Hamoaze. Nearly opposite the mouth of the Tavy, on the Cornish side,
is the ecclesiastical parish of St. Stephen-by-Saltash, with the ruins
of Trematon Castle at the summit of a well-wooded hill. The castle is
believed to have been built at the period of the Conquest, and was
subsequently held by the Earls of Cornwall.

[Illustration: MORWELL ROCKS (_p. 55_).]

At Saltash--as the Western men will not forget to remind the boasting
Cockney--the Tamar is wider than the Thames at Westminster. Saltash
itself, by the way, was originally (according to Carew) Villa de
Esse, after a family of that name, and to this was added "Salt," on
account of its "marine situation." The busy little waterside town has
this great dignity--that its Mayor and Corporation take precedence
of those of Plymouth and Devonport. Saltash has gradually, through
many generations, built itself up a steep, rocky acclivity until the
habitations extend to the summit of the hill at Longstone, from which
favoured eminence the prospect is very fine. Here may we see the
broadened river where the ebbing tide swirls by the _Mount Edgcumbe_
training-ship, that is swinging round on its tidal pivot just above
Brunel's great bridge; thence, flowing beneath the wondrous iron link
of the two westernmost counties with which the engineer spanned the
river, here half a mile across, the Tamar, now joined by the Lynher
from the West, loses its identity in the all-embracing Hamoaze, with
its wood-fringed shores; the river passing unremarked into Plymouth
Harbour, from the Harbour to the Sound, and from the Sound to the
Channel--forgotten now in the great affairs of navies, and the
thrilling stories of the seas on which Drake and Hawkins, Raleigh and
Grenville, sailed to fight the Spaniard. From haunts of peace, the
Tamar, itself a pleasant stream, has flowed through scenes of rare
beauty to these so warlike surroundings, where its current eddies about
the decaying hulks on whose decks the old sea-dogs died, where its
waters wash arsenal, dock, and victualling yard, and where it oft bears
on its broad bosom a mighty fleet of men-of-war.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: CARGREEN (_p. 58_).]

At the foot of Brown Willy, Cornwall's highest hill, in the parish of
St. Breward, there is an aqueous locality in which the water-finder
might exercise his art of divination with the utmost confidence, if,
indeed, he did not find his occupation gone by reason of the abundance
of the surface water. This is Foy-Fenton, and here the /Fowey/
rises. As, to this day, Fowey becomes "Foy" in the naming of the boats
that boast the prettiest harbour in the county for their port, one may
easily discover a close association in the nomenclature of the sites
and scenes at the beginning and the end of this very charming stream.
In its course, curiously enough, the river changes its name. Where it
flows southward through the moorlands between St. Neot and St. Cleer,
it is called the Dranes (or Dreynes) river; and fishermen from the
"model borough" of Liskeard, who love to flog its pleasant waters for
the toothsome trout that they harbour, would be prepared to contend,
in the face of the maps and in the presence of geographers, that it
is the Dranes river, and no other. In flood-time a strong stream that
gives the road-surveyor endless trouble, the Fowey, leaping along its
bouldered way, here and there lightening its journey by falling in
picturesque cascades, scattering its showers of iridescent spray over
the thick foliage that everywhere clothes its banks, runs almost level
with the main road to St. Neot--a village noted for its window-pictured
legend of St. Neot and the miraculous supply of fish, in the parish
church--where it receives a goodly stream of that name. Increasing the
beauty and interest of its course with every mile it travels, the river
by-and-by glides into the far-stretching woodland of Glynn, the seat
of Lord Vivian, and then becomes one of the principal contributors to
the scenic charms of the railway-side from Devonport to Par, which Miss
Braddon describes as the most delightful of all journeys by rail.

[Illustration: THE HAMOAZE FROM SALTASH (_p. 59_).]

After leaving its moorland haunts, and in order to reach Glynn, the
Fowey took a westerly turn, but, Bodmin once skirted, the river runs
directly southward again, under Resprin bridge and past Lanhydrock
House, the Cornish home of that Lord Robartes who was the leader of
the Parliamentarian forces in these parts. The ancient mansion, of the
Tudor period, passed through many crises, and, together with modern
additions, was practically destroyed by fire in 1881, and rebuilt in
1883-4. The next object of interest seen from the river is the ruin
of Restormel Castle, on the summit of a bold headland a mile from
Lostwithiel. The building of the castle is ascribed to the Cardenhams,
who flourished hereabouts in the reign of the first Edward; and it was
once the residence of the Earls of Cornwall.

At Lostwithiel--the Uzella of Ptolemy--the Fowey is crossed by an
ancient and narrow bridge of eight pointed arches, erected in the
fourteenth century. The bridge is very strongly buttressed, and over
each buttress is an angular niche. A silver oar, which is among the
insignia of the Corporation, bears the inscription: "_Custodia aquæ de
Fowey_." The celebrated Colonel Silas Titus, author of "Killing noe
Murder," Member of Parliament for the borough 1663-79, was the donor of
the oar. Lostwithiel, where the river meets the tide, at once becoming
navigable for small vessels, boasts great antiquity, and in 1664 was
the headquarters of the Parliamentarian forces in Cornwall.

Here, below Lostwithiel's ancient bridge, let us take boat and taste of
the ineffable enjoyment which laureates of the Fowey have attributed to
a sail or a row down the romantic stream to the mouth of the harbour,
where the sailors sing their chanties as they work the merchantmen out
between the old towers whence chains were stretched across the harbour
in the stirring days when the Spaniard sailed the main. Sing hey, sing
ho, for indeed life is worth living when the soft zephyrs blow, and
we glide by the prettily placed church of St. Winnow, and catch the
musical chiming of its melodious peal of bells. "Youth on the prow,
and Pleasure at the helm," our delight knows no surcease, but rather
grows as, something less than three miles below the old Parliamentary
borough, the banks open out, and we behold that daydream of scenic
beauty, the sunlit reaches of the river winding away toward the sea.
One branch of this estuary, by-the-by, flows to St. Veep, which has an
interesting church. The Lerrin and St. Cadoc creeks yet further enrich
a river which Nature has endowed with charms so abundant. Bodinnoc
Ferry is a name to conjure with in yachting circles, since there is not
one log among the many of the pleasure-boats that make for the "little
Dartmouth" of the Far West in the height of summer but contains some
fine compliment to the rare beauty of the view, landward and seaward,
from this familiar tacking point. No wonder that Fowey Harbour shares
with its Devonshire rival the generous tribute of sportsmen, who have
lavished upon each of these picturesque ports effusive praise that has
its point in the proud title of the "Yachtsman's Paradise." Long ere
these pleasure-seeking days was the discovery of Fowey's possession
of a safe and commodious harbour made: "The shippes of Fowey sayling
by Rhie and Winchelsey, about Edward the III^{rd} tyme, would vayle
no bonnet beying required, whereupon Rhie and Winchelsey men and they
fought, when Fowie men had victorie, and thereupon bare their arms mixt
with the arms of Rhie and Winchelsey, and then rose the name of the
Gallants of Fowey." But Leland knew that they deserved the title long
years before, as "the glorie of Fowey rose by the warres in King Edward
I. and III. and Henry V.'s day, partly by feats of warre, partly by
piracie, and so waxing rich fell all to merchandize."

Fowey took so naturally and keenly to the practice of piracy that the
"gallants" had a little affair at sea with the French on their own
account and against the King's treaty and commandment, in the reign of
the fourth Edward, who appears not to have been well pleased, since he
took the head of one of their number, imprisoned the captains, and sent
men of Dartmouth down to seize their ships and remove the chain then
drawn across the mouth of the haven. But the "gallants" were nothing
daunted, and in the time of Charles II. their successors beat off
eighty Dutch ships of war that, greatly daring, had chased a fleet of
merchantmen into Fowey Harbour. St. Finbarrus, first Bishop of Cork,
is said to have been buried in the church, which is dedicated to him,
and is a handsome structure. Place House, the seat of the Treffry
family, besides being a noble mansion, gloriously dight with very
fine specimens of Cornish granite and porphyry, is of great historic
interest. It was Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Treffry--an ancient statue
of whom stands in the grounds--who, in the absence of her husband,
headed his men and beat off the French in an assault on Place House in
July, 1457.

       *       *       *       *       *

Along its course of but twenty miles, four of which are tidal, the
/Fal/ divides the county into two nearly equal parts. Fenton
Fal, in Tregoss Moor, is the birthplace of the stream; and from the
moorland it receives the tributary waters of many peaty rivulets before
gaining entrance to the romantic vale of Treviscoe, which gives us a
foretaste of that feast of the beautiful which the Fal affords in its
lower reaches. Compared with what goes before and follows after, the
course of the stream by Grampound (the Voluba of Ptolemy), through
Creed valley, where it leaves Tregony on its left bank, and on to Ruan,
is somewhat lacking in interest, and the river itself is of no great
strength. Ere tin-streaming and the sandbanks had done their mischief,
you might have reached Tregony on the top of the tide; nowadays the ebb
and flow affect the river no farther than Ruan. Yet this has sufficed
to gain for the Fal a glorious name. Perhaps the finest compliment ever
paid to the river fell from royal lips. When the Queen, accompanied by
the Prince Consort, made the trip down the Fal from Truro in 1864, she
was visibly impressed with the beauty and splendour of the scenery, and
particularly charmed with the view about Tregothnan. Her Majesty was
reminded by it of the Rhine, but thought it almost finer where winding
between woods of stunted oaks, and full of numberless creeks.

At Truro, the two little rivers, Kenwyn and Allen, flow through the
city into a creek of the Fal, known as Truro river; the first-named
separates St. Mary's from St. Paul's, while the second divides the
parish of St. Mary from that of St. John. The little Kenwyn is
"personally conducted" through the streets of the cathedral town by
the Corporation, in open conduits, and forms a not unpleasant feature
of the tiny city in Western Barbary whose inhabitants were once said
to have a good conceit of themselves: "The people of this town dress
and live so elegantly that the pride of Truro is become a by-word in
the county." The most modern of our English cathedrals is a monument
to the pious zeal, marvellous industry, and unquenchable enthusiasm
of Dr. Benson, the first Bishop of Truro, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury. The Prince of Wales laid the foundation stone in 1880,
and its consecration took place seven years later. The style is Early
English of the thirteenth century, and at present the cathedral but
partially realises the ambitious design of the architect, who planned a
very imposing edifice, which, in the event of its ultimate completion,
must inevitably challenge comparison with the most notable of modern
achievements in the Gothic. Already it possesses several splendid
windows and many beautiful specimens of modern sculpture.

[Illustration: _Photo: F. Argall, Truro._

THE FAL FROM TOLVERNE (_p. 65_).]

The prettiest parts of our river lie between King Harry's Passage and
Roseland. Below Tregothnan, where the Fal unites with the Truro river
and St. Clement's creek, both shores are beautifully clothed with
wood, and the fine expanse of water at high tide lends a nobility
and magnificence to the scene which affords ample occasion for the
high-flown descriptions and lavish praise bestowed upon the Fal. On the
right are the grounds of Trelissick; and a picturesque glimpse of the
stream may be caught near the estuary called Malpas Road, by the ferry
at Tolverne. After dividing Mylor from St. Just, the river loses its
identity in forming Carrick Road, and shortly expands into the splendid
haven of Falmouth Harbour. The inner part, between Trefusis Point,
Pendennis, and the town, is called King's Road. Carrick Road, where the
river enters, forms the middle of the harbour, and midway between the
entrance--which is from Pendennis Point to St. Anthony's Head--there
lies the ominously-named Black Rock, around which the Mayor of Truro
sailed in June, 1709, when he sought to exercise jurisdiction over the
port and harbour of Falmouth. But the citizens of the port themselves
had had a powerful friend at Court, in the person of King Charles II.,
who had given Falmouth a charter overriding the ancient claims of
Truro, by which the Mayor of the latter town had levied dues on all
goods laden or unladen in any part of the Fal, from Truro to the Black
Rock; and a trial at law in the same year finally established home rule
in Falmouth Harbour.

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

FALMOUTH HARBOUR.]

Though to-day its prosperity is scarcely commensurate with its natural
advantages, the harbour still remains almost unrivalled. First port
of call for homeward-bound vessels, with a depth of water and safe
anchorage that many another harbour might envy, and sheltered from
all the winds that blow save those from the south-south-east, it is
so capacious that the whole British fleet could ride at anchor in
its waters. Falmouth as a town owes its existence to these striking
features of its harbour. Beholding them, it struck the shrewd sons of
the House of Killigrew, Lords of Arwenack (there is an Arwenack Street
to this day), who flourished in the time of James I., that there was no
earthly reason why vessels should go seven miles to Truro, or two miles
to Penryn, for a port when an infinitely better one might be created at
the very mouth of the harbour. Vested interests, as represented by the
communities of Truro, Penryn, and Helston, offered stout opposition.
But the silver-tongued Lords of Arwenack prevailed in the argument
before King James, and it was not long ere Falmouth was the first port
in Cornwall. Its great era of prosperity exemplifies the adage that
it's an ill wind that blows nobody good, for, during our wars with
the French, Falmouth became a mail packet station, and flourished
exceedingly on "Government service."

It was the boast of proud Falmouthians that a hundred vessels could
ride in the creeks of Falmouth Harbour and yet that no two should be
in sight of each other. How this might be may be understood in part
when it is explained that, besides many smaller arms, there are five
principal creeks. Of these branches not the least is that which was
probably the earliest used, to Penryn; there is a second to Restronguet
and Perranarworthal; a third, also of ancient use, to Truro and
Tresillian Bridge; a fourth running up to St. Mawes and Gerrans; and
the fifth and greatest, to King Harry's Reach, toward Tregony, which is
the main stream of our Fal.

    /Hugh W. Strong./

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

FALMOUTH, FROM FLUSHING.]




[Illustration: THE ISLE OF ATHELNLY (_p. 68_).]




THE PARRET AND THE LOWER AVON.

    The /Parret/: Its Source--Muchelney Abbey--The
    Tone and Taunton--Athelney Island and Alfred the
    Great--Sedgemoor--Bridgewater--Burnham. The /Lower Avon/: Escourt
    Park--Malmesbury--Chippenham--Melksham--Bradford-on-Avon--Bath--The
    Frome--Beau Nash--Bridges at Bath--The Abbey Church--Bristol--St.
    Mary Redcliffe and Chatterton--The Cathedral--"The Chasm"--Clifton
    Suspension Bridge--The Lower Reaches--Avonmonth.


Of the even, placid course of the /Parret/ one sententious
writer has said, "There is nothing remarkable in it, the country being
flat." A spark of imagination and the merest glimmering of historic
interest would have spared us this dull commonplace. Surely the stream
which saw the dawn of intellect in England, which witnessed the very
beginnings of our modern civilisation, which watered the self-same
mead where walked the first royal patron of learning that the country
boasted, is notable, even if it does not attain to higher rank among
our English rivers.

The Parret--Pedred of the Saxon Chronicle--is not of native Somerset
birth, since it has its uprising a mile over the southern boundary,
at Cheddington Copse, in the Dorsetshire parish of South Perrott.
Flowing in a south-easterly direction, by Crewkerne and the Dorsetshire
border, its basin occupies that portion of the Bridgwater Level lying
between the Mendips and the Quantock Hills. At Crewkerne we have wide
glimpses of its broad green valley, the busy little market town itself
rising in the midst of the natural amphitheatre formed by the distant,
unpretentious hills, lying low, like shadows on the horizon. The fine
cruciform church of St. Bartholomew, whose only real rival among
Somersetshire churches is that at Ilminster, in precisely the same
style of architecture, occupies a pleasant situation westward of the
river.

The ruins of Muchelney Abbey rise above the marshy banks of the river
in the hamlet bearing the same name, which the ancient chronicler would
have us accept as a facile corruption of "Muckle Eye," or Great Island.
Of Athelstan's Abbey there are but scant remains, though these are most
suggestive of a structure of imposing size and great architectural
interest and beauty. By the interesting little town of Langport the
dividing hills are broken, and the Parret receives the waters of the
Isle from the left, and of the Yeo (so common a river name, with
its obvious derivation), or Ivel, from the right. Swollen by these
tributaries, the Parret's lazy waters now creep on under a bridge which
unites the banks that marked the limits of the dominions of the Belgic
and Danmonian tribes.

[Illustration: THE PARRET AND THE LOWER AVON.]

Hereabouts we do indeed appear to be at the very beginnings of
English history, for but a little below the confluence, at Aller, the
Danish king, Guthrum, is said to have received the rite of baptism in
the river, his conqueror, Alfred the Great, magnanimously standing
sponsor to the fallen foe; whilst eight centuries later a fiercer
warrior, filled with zeal for what he conceived to be his righteous
cause--Fairfax, to wit--routed the Royalist forces, giving no quarter,
as he had asked none. Before we take up the other thread of the
historical tale, there is the Tone to be reckoned with. Born in a bog
on the Brendon Hills, this most important of the affluents of the
Parret is seen at its greatest in the picturesque vale of Taunton
Dean. Imparting its name to the handsome town of Taunton, it passes
at least one splendid specimen of ecclesiastical architecture in St.
Mary's Church, which rears its lofty tower in the midst of a delightful
neighbourhood, of which Taunton is the attractive capital.

Below the hill-top village of Boroughbridge the Tone joins forces with
the Parret, and in the slack water at their confluence rises that
little plot of ground made for ever sacred in English eyes by reason
of its being the remote retreat of Alfred the Great when he sought to
escape the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune. Hurrying thither
from his fierce enemies, the Danes--and, if the fable is in the least
to be trusted, from the equally-to-be-feared anger of the neatherd's
wife--he found a peaceful haven, where he might heal him of his
wounds, recruit his resources, and lay his plans for the meditated
rally. And so, by bold forays from this natural stronghold, he regained
the confidence of his adherents, won over the waverers, and paved
the way for his eventual triumph over the pagan foe and the complete
recovery of his power.

[Illustration: TAUNTON CHURCH (_p. 68_).]

To the honour of St. Saviour and St. Peter, his patron saints, the
pious hero of Athelney raised a monastery on the island, where, in
their holy orisons, the monks chanted the praises of the God who
had so confused the heathen by the shores of the river that stayed
its course and stagnated where the reeds and rushes caught the
water-sprite, heavy with sleep, in their toils. Barely two acres in
William of Malmesbury's day, yet covered by "a forest of alders of vast
extent"(!), the historic spot is now known as Athelney Farm, a stone
pillar telling its great story in this concise inscription: "King
Alfred the Great, in the year of our Lord 879, having been defeated
by the Danes, fled for refuge to the Forest of Athelney, where he lay
concealed from his enemies for the space of a whole year. He soon after
regained possession of his throne; and, in grateful remembrance of
the protection he had received under the favour of Heaven, he erected
a monastery on the spot, and endowed it with all the lands contained
in the Isle of Athelney. To perpetuate the memory of so remarkable an
incident in the history of the illustrious prince, this edifice was
founded by John Slade, Esq., of Maunsell, the proprietor of Athelney,
and lord of the manor of North Petherton, /A.D./ 1801."

[Illustration: _Photo: William Hanks, Malmesbury._

MALMESBURY ABBEY (_p. 72_).]

History in its heroic elements still clings to Parret's banks, for, as
the river flows on near Weston-Zoyland, washing the parish on the south
and south-west, Sedgemoor, the Duke of Monmouth's fatal field, comes
into view, and one looks upon the scene of what in Macaulay's words was
"the last fight deserving the name of a battle that has been fought on
English ground." Emerging from the marsh of Sedgemoor, the Parret now
takes upon itself the new office of patron and benefactor of populous,
busy Bridgwater, two miles to the south-west of "Sowyland." It is the
river which at ebb and flood tide deposits that peculiar sediment of
clay and sand that goes to make "the Bath brick," of which product
Bridgwater has the monopoly. But why "Bath"? Well, presumably, because
the best market for the brick was originally found in Beau Nash's town,
with the result that it eventually became the principal centre of
trading in the commodity. From half a mile above to half a mile below
the three-arched bridge which Walter de Briwere--the first of that
ilk--commenced, and Sir Thomas Trivet completed, in the reign of Edward
I., the brickworks stretch, giving employment to a large number of
hands, and forming a source of considerable revenue.

The current which nearly overwhelmed General Fairfax in Bridgwater's
stirring days of 1645 is said to advance with such rapidity and
boldness on the Parret as to rise no less than two fathoms on one wave.
But, judging from the statement of another authority, this must be but
a moderate estimate of the dimensions to which the bore occasionally
attains, since it is asserted that the upright wave-phenomenon of the
Parret has repeatedly reached nine feet in height! This much, however,
is positively ascertained--that spring-tides in the Bristol Channel
rise a full 36 feet at the mouth of the Parret.

King John gave Bridgwater its charter in 1200, but the Briwere family,
one of whom began the building of the great bridge over the Parret,
were the real founders of the town and the actual authors of its
commercial prosperity. The most striking landmark in the birthplace
of Admiral Blake, the great Republican commander, whose glorious
achievement it was to defeat the "invincible" Van Tromp, is the tall
tower and fine spire of the parish church of St. Mary, 174 feet in
height, and, therefore, one of the loftiest in England. A splendid
altar-piece, said to have been taken from a Spanish privateer, is one
of the features of the church.

Six miles from the sea at Bridgwater, the Parret, as if loth to lose
its individuality, lingers in the rich valley, doubling the distance
by its circuitous course to the Bristol Channel. At Burnham, just
before the Severn Sea claims them, its waters are still further swollen
by those of the Brue, a considerable stream, which, like the Parret,
has a wealth of historical association, and is of some commercial
significance. To the wharves at Highbridge, above Burnham, vessels
of many tons burthen are borne by the tide; here also are the gates
and sluice-locks of the Glastonbury canal navigation. Then the united
streams fall into that part of the Bristol Channel which is known as
Bridgwater Bay. A few miles to the north the Axe indolently pours into
Uphill Bay the waters which it has brought from the flanks of the
Mendips, where it runs a subterranean course some two miles long before
issuing forth in a copious flood from Wookey Hole--a cavern famous for
the prehistoric treasures which it has yielded to the explorer--to flow
through a picturesque glen, and presently to drain the level plains of
West Somerset.

       *       *       *       *       *

Watering three counties, to the scenic interest and beauty of each of
which it lends an infinitude of charms, the /Lower Avon/ is not
to be measured for its importance by its length (seventy-five miles),
since there are far longer streams that one would willingly exchange
for half the romantic valleys and the rich country of this river, which
has its source in a piece of ornamental water at Escourt Park, in the
neighbourhood of Great Thurston, where the boundaries of Wiltshire and
Gloucestershire almost meet.

Distinction is immediately given to the stream. Just below the
village it enters the grounds of Pinckney House, and after it has
passed Eastongrey and a dozen little thorpes, the river claims proud
association with historic Malmesbury--the British Caer Bladon, and
the Anglo-Saxon Ingelburne--which it enters on the west. This ancient
town stands on the ridge of a narrow hill, sloping down steeply on its
southern and northern sides, and is nearly surrounded by two streams
which, uniting at its southern extremity, form the Avon. On the highest
point of the ridge are seen the ruins of the famous Malmesbury Abbey,
which once covered forty-five acres of ground. Leland, writing in the
time of Henry VIII., described it as a "right magnificent thing." The
present remains are small; but the south porch is one of the finest
specimens of Norman work in the country. A portion of the structure
is still used as a church. Another notable feature of the town in
which William of Malmesbury, the historian, was educated, is a quaint
fifteenth-century market-cross, to which also Leland gave none but
honest praise when he styled it "a righte faire piece of worke."
Malmesbury--which, by the way, was the birthplace of "Leviathan"
Hobbes--has been built on the peninsula between the Tetbury stream,
flowing down from the Gloucestershire town, and the first beginnings of
the Avon, which here accepts its earliest tributary.

[Illustration: _Photo: J. Clark, Tetbury._

THE AVON NEAR TETBURY.]

Bending southward at Somerford, another branch is caught up, this
subsidiary stream hailing from the neighbourhood of Wootton Bassett.
By this time the Avon has become no mean river, and in its course
by Dauntsey and Seagry to woody Christian Malford it forms a very
prominent feature in the fine landscape that may be viewed from the
high hill to the eastward, on the summit of which stood Bradenstoke
Priory, now converted to the use--we will not say ignoble--of a
comfortable farmhouse. Fast gathering its supplementary forces, the
Avon after passing Kellaways and before reaching Chippenham welcomes
the waters of the Marlan. Chippenham, pleasant in itself, but made
still more interesting by reason of its surroundings in the fertile
valley, is well nigh compassed about by the Avon, which here is a clear
stream and of sweet savour. Later in its history it may deserve the
description of a dark and deep river, except where shallows interfere.
In its lower reaches it will be largely affected in colour by storms,
Wiltshire floods tinging it with the whitish hue of the chalk hills,
and the Somersetshire rains with the red of the ochre beds. But here
it is a placid, pleasant stream, which makes a bold sweep round the
environs of the town, driving its mill-wheels and lending that dignity
and interest which a river peculiarly affords.

[Illustration: _Photo: R. Wilkinson, Trowbridge._

BRADFORD-ON-AVON CHURCH, FROM THE NORTH EAST (_p. 74_).]

Hitherto the Avon's gliding way has lain by the low-lying dairy lands
of North Wiltshire, through peaceful pastoral scenes, its banks clothed
with the brightest flowers of the field, and here and there shaded
with willows and elms, But now, beyond Chippenham, it embarks upon the
chequered and romantic phase of its career. The country becomes more
hilly directly we near the clothing district of Wiltshire. For a short
space the Avon renders the useful service of a boundary, effectually
dividing Wilts and Somerset. The scenery of Chippenham Vale, through
which the river flows on to Melksham, Trowbridge, and Bradford--a trio
of interesting towns, each watered by the same stream--is extremely
beautiful.

Melksham, a town of one long principal street, is flanked by rich
meadows, through which meanders the Avon. The quaint, old-fashioned
houses are built on the acclivity of an eminence which may fairly
be ascribed to the river's wearing work through the ages; and the
inhabitants are not without reason proud of their handsome four-arched
bridge.

Again there comes a season of increase, in which the river gains,
from this source and that, a considerable addition to its volume. At
Broughton Gifford a brook by that name surrenders to the brimming river
from the west, whilst from the east enters the Whaddon streamlet.
Then, again, near Staverton the little Biss joineth the great Avon.
So our river swells with importance as it approaches romantic
Bradford-on-Avon. The name of this town--from the "broad ford" over the
river--is by no means its only indebtedness to the Avon, for the highly
picturesque situation of Leland's "clooth-making" centre is entirely
the outcome of Nature's handiwork. Immediately on the north side of
the river a hill abruptly rises, and it is on the brow and along the
sloping declivity of this eminence that most of the tastefully-designed
dwellings have been erected. The deep and hollow valley of the Avon
now extends between two ranges, the hills here and there richly wooded
to their summits; and pretty villages have scattered themselves along
these bold acclivities.

Bradford-on-Avon Church is of considerable interest, and is remarkable
for the success of its highly sympathetic restoration by Canon Jones,
the vicar, a distinguished archæologist. Two bridges here cross the
Avon; the most ancient, in the centre of the town, being described by
Aubrey, two centuries since, as "a strong handsome bridge, in the midst
of which is a chapel for Mass." Bradford gained its original eminence
in the woollen trade mainly from the introduction of "spinners" from
Holland in the seventeenth century, and lost it with the development of
the greater Bradford of the North, in the midst of the coalfields.

Before, following the more impetuous course of the now considerable
river, we quit Bradford and its seductive scenes, the peculiar
loveliness of the valley of the Avon in the vicinity of the town, and
more particularly at such fascinating spots as Freshfield, Limpley
Stoke--just where the river leaves Wiltshire and enters Somerset--and
Claverton, to name but a few, must be remarked upon. Then Bladud's
creation, "Queen of all the Spas in the World," "City of the Waters of
the Sun," "Queen of the West," "King of the Spas," gives greeting to
the noble river that plays so great a part in the beautification of
the historic city lying at the foot of the valley of the Avon, whence
it has grown up its steep banks. Below Bradford the Frome has become
a tributary of the Avon, bringing, besides its goodly stream, many
most interesting reminiscences of its course. After flowing through the
lower part of the agreeably situated town to which it gives its name,
the Frome adds its charms to the manifold attractions of the scenery of
Vallis Bottom. Just half a mile beyond the time-worn Priory of Hinton,
which rears its ivy-clad tower amidst a grove of venerable oaks, Frome
merges itself in the Avon.

As if Nature were here conspiring to make the river worthy of the
city of "Bladud, eighth in descent from Brutus," at Bathford the Avon
receives the Box brook, from the vale of that name in Wiltshire, and,
after a loop to the west, is joined at Batheaston by another small
stream, the Midford, which has enhanced the romantic interest of the
Vale of Claverton; whilst a third brook descends from the heights of
Lansdowne, the fatal battlefield of Sir Basil Grenville and his Cornish
friends, who lost their lives for the Parliamentary cause under the
ill-starred leadership of Sir William Waller.

Approaching the city of "Beau Nash" from the east, and passing between
Bathwick and Bath proper, the Avon washes "Aqua Solis" (or "Sulis")
of the Romans on the south, and plays its part in the fair scene
which, "viewed under the influence of a meridian sun, and through the
medium of an unclouded atmosphere, presents to sight and imagination
everything that is united with the idea of perfect beauty." And yet,
with all the natural advantages of its situation, Bath long awaited the
touch of the wand of the modern magician--the man of enterprise and
speculation. There lay the deep romantic valley, gloriously encircled
by the triple band of splendid hills--towering Lansdowne to the north,
813 feet above the sea; Claverton and Bathwick to the east, some 600
and 400 feet in height respectively; with Beechen Cliff, Sham Castle,
Camden Crescent, and Lansdowne Crescent, all fine natural view-points,
below. Compare with the Bath of to-day the overgrown village to the
practical government of which the famous Beau Nash succeeded in 1704,
when he followed the notorious gambler, Captain Webster, as Master of
the Ceremonies, and you have some idea of the miracle of change and
growth which has been performed. It was after the death of Beau Nash
that the city, waxing great, extended its borders to Bathwick, on
the country side of the river. Towards the close of the seventeenth
century, private munificence caused a bridge to be thrown across the
river, and Bathwick itself, from being a daisied meadowland, became a
thickly populated suburb. And even the bridge thus built was shortly
occupied with rows of dwelling houses and shops, so that the connection
between Bath and Bathwick was complete. Long prior to the building of
this, the Poulteney bridge--nearly five centuries before, in point of
fact--the Avon was crossed by the St. Lawrence's, or the Old Bridge, as
it is now usually called. Originally built in 1304, it became a prey to
the fever of building speculation which had marked the career of the
elder Wood, of the famous family of Bath architects. Out of date, and,
we may presume, somewhat out of repair also, it was rebuilt in 1754.
The Poulteney Bridge, crossing to Bathwick, followed in 1769; and half
a century's growth of the popular lower suburb revealing the need
for further means of communication that would relieve the congested
traffic, the Bathwick, or Cleveland, Bridge was added in 1827. Some
years later the North Parade Bridge was built. With the advent of the
iron horse there had, by this time, arisen a newer necessity still.
In comparatively rapid succession the Midland Railway and the Skew
Bridge--which justifies its name by the remarkable angle at which it
crosses the Avon--with three suspension bridges and a foot-passengers'
bridge near the station, have followed.

[Illustration: _Photo: J. Dugdale & Co., Bath._

THE AVON AT BATH.]

Bath boasts at least one ecclesiastical structure of great interest,
in the "Lantern of England," as the tower of the Abbey Church has been
styled, because of the unusual number and size of its windows. In the
exceptional height of the clerestory and the oblong shape of the tower,
the church is also distinguished from the general.

Out by the Western Gate the Avon runs, with Holloway Hill and Beechen
Cliff conspicuous landmarks on its left. By Twerton--"the town on the
banks of the Avon"--there are large cloth-mills on the riverside,
relics of the monastic industries established by the monks of Bath so
far back as the fourteenth century. Fielding Terrace, in this town, is
the reputed neighbourhood of the residence of the novelist, who is said
to have written a part of "Tom Jones" during his stay.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM NORTH PARADE BRIDGE, BATH.]

[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE OLD CITY BRIDGE, BATH.]

Now the Avon is in its beloved valley, deep and green again. Three
miles, or a little more, from the city, a beautiful circling knoll
seems to shut in the vale. The hill is crowned with a handsome house,
and ornamented with woodland and lawn. Kelston Round Hill, as this
impressive eminence is called, is 730 feet above the sea-level, the
Avon winding at its foot and the ascending groves of Newton Park
reaching to the fine prospect and the highest hill in this part of
Somerset. Ere, at this point, we bid a reluctant adieu to the beauties
of Bath, it should be pointed out that in most of the commanding
and delightful views obtainable from all the vantage points in
and about the city the Avon and its fertile valley conspicuously
figure, heightening the interest of each entrancing scene. It is no
exaggeration to say that the neighbourhood of Bath is rife with scenic
charms. The cliffs, ravines, and deep excavations in the strata lend
endless variety to the landscape, which is finely compact of hill,
vale, rock, wood and water, the striking beauties of the Avon's course
ever and anon lending a crowning grace to the view.

Below Kelston the more expanded vale of the Keynsham Hams succeeds.
Flowing round this rich tract of land, the Avon becomes the dividing
line between Gloucester and Somerset. Just beyond, within the parish of
Keynsham, and midway between the sister cities of Bath and Bristol, the
waters of yet another tributary, the Chow, a stream which has come down
from the north side of the Mendip Hills, are gathered up.

Contracted in its channel for more than a mile between lofty rocks at
Hanham, the Avon, emerging from its straitened circumstances, diverts
itself with the strikingly sinuous course which it then follows between
Brislington and St. George's, ere it is sobered and dignified by its
contact with the traditional Caer Oder, "the City of the Chasm," the
birthplace of Sebastian Cabot, of Southey, and of Chatterton. Before
the river begins to be tidal, it has another, perhaps its greatest,
recruit in the Lower Frome. After a picturesque course, the Frome
washes the Bishop's Palace at Stapleton, enters Bristol, and there
loses itself in the Lower Avon.

Between modern Bristol and the great port of the "spacious times" the
difference is one of degree only, for the commercial spirit is still
strong in the sons of Cabot and Canynge; and, amid the thick smoke
that overhangs the very centre of the city, there rise e'en to-day
the tall spars, fluttering pennons, and the rigging of the ships of
the mercantile marine that made the name of the opulent city known
in every port and on every sea, and brought to Bristol by the tidal
river the trade that trimmed her sails to the breeze of fortune and
set her course fair on the voyage to fame and prosperity. One of the
earliest chapters of the history of the city is connected with the
river. It records the building of the first bridge over the Avon in
1247, an undertaking mentioned in a charter of Henry II. This bridge
united the city with what was then the suburb of Redcliffe. To-day,
this association is splendidly preserved by that golden historical
link, the "finest and stateliest parish church in England," as Queen
Elizabeth pronounced the edifice of St. Mary Redcliffe on her visit
to Bristol in 1753. The style is the Early English, though the richly
sculptured northern doorway and some other portions belong rather to
the Decorated Period. The structure was founded about the year 1300,
but was enlarged, beautified, and, in fact, refounded by William
Canynge, whose effigy, with that of his wife Joan, will be found at
the end of the south transept. The upper part of the stone steeple
was struck down by lightning in 1445, and not rebuilt for upwards of
four hundred years. It was in the muniment room of this church that
young Thomas Chatterton professed to have found a number of curious
MSS. in prose and poetry, the boy-poet's ingenious deception long
escaping detection. Such success, which might never have attended the
confessed productions of his own precocious genius, gave the gifted
lad of seventeen the necessary stimulus, and his growing ambition led
him to London, where he became a mere literary hack, and took a life
threatened by starvation. A handsome monument in St. Mary Redcliffe
churchyard pays Bristol's tribute to her great, but unhappy, son. Of
St. Mary Redcliffe, the "pride of Bristowe," Camden said it was "the
most elegant of all the parish churches I have ever seen."

The present bridge replaced the thirteenth-century causeway in 1768.
It was in 1247 that the course of the Frome was diverted to a new
channel. Anciently, the city boundaries were the two confluent rivers
which environed it with a natural defence on all sides save one, where
a castle stood, protected by a broad deep moat supplied with water from
the Frome, which at that time flowed by its northern walls. In Bristol
Castle the son of the Conqueror, Robert, was shut up by his brother
Henry.

Though it has been justly said of the Cathedral that it is remarkable
neither for antiquity nor beauty, being far inferior to St. Mary
Redcliffe in at least one of these respects, the Berkeley chapel,
forming the north aisle of the choir, is worthy of note as an elegant
example of Early English. The spacious nave, with side aisles and
clerestory in the Early Decorated style, is a modern addition. Among
the animated busts are those of Joseph Butler, of "Analogy" fame--one
of Bristol's famous line of bishops, two of whom were of the "glorious
company" of seven--Robert Southey, and the "Dorcas" of the city, Miss
Mary Carpenter.

In 1809 our river became a fellow-sufferer with the Frome. The course
of the Avon lay through the city, but now a new channel was dug for it
on the south side, leaving the river to fall into its original bed at
Rownham Ferry. For the rest, the old channels of both the Frome and the
Avon were converted into a fine floating harbour, which, at Cumberland
Basin, will accommodate some of the largest vessels afloat.

"The Chasm" itself, or, as it is more familiarly known, the Gorge of
the Avon, lying just below the Basin, is bridged by a triumph of modern
engineering art. The Clifton Suspension Bridge--our English "Bridge of
Sighs" for suicides--admits to a magnificent view of the Avon where it
flows through the romantic defile of St. Vincent's Rocks. As the story
runs, St. Vincent, a rival, caught the Giant Goram asleep, and once
and for ever determined the course of the river by cleaving the ravine
through which the Avon now runs to the sea. Brunel's Bridge, after a
remarkably chequered history--its construction being actually suspended
for a period of nearly thirty years!--was completed for the visit of
the British Association in 1864. The foundations had been laid in 1836.
The chains of Hungerford Suspension Bridge at Charing Cross were taken
down and here re-hung. The centre span--one of the longest in the
world--is 676 feet in extent, and the entire length of the bridge is
1,352 feet. Fifteen hundred tons in weight, the stupendous structure is
a wonderful combination of strength and grace, adding a new interest
and beauty to the impressive view rather than detracting from its great
natural charm.

[Illustration: _Photo: Harvey Barton, Bristol._

BRISTOL, FROM THE SITE OF THE OLD DRAWBRIDGE ACROSS THE HARBOUR.]

When "Cook's Folly" and the "Pitch and Pay" gate, of mournful memory,
have been passed, and we have reached Sea Mills on the right bank,
there is a distinct softening in the character of the scenery. Here is
the supposed site of the Roman station Abona. The Avon at this point is
joined by the small river Trym. Leland, having the St. Vincent legends
clearly in remembrance, wrote of it: "Some think a great piece of the
depeness of the haven, from St. Vincent to Hungo-rode, hath been made
by hande." As we pass Pill, which furnishes pilots for the port of
Bristol, its ancient fish-like smell forces itself upon our attention.
Now we near the last reach of the Avon, Broad Pill, where the river
widens greatly. Sinuous as well may be, and running between low banks,
those "sea-walls" of rich marshland that lie about Birchampton, the
river's course beyond that pretty neighbourhood changes fast, and
gathers a new and picturesque interest when the tide comes in. Now we
are at the mouth of the Avon, and in that fine roadstead which the
loyal Bristol seamen would have styled King's Road.

From the decks of the great ships that here ride out the light gale
in safety a glorious view, up river, along shore, and about the fine
anchorage in the estuary of the Avon and the Severn, may be enjoyed.
The pier and docks at Avonmouth form another splendid enterprise,
which, if it has not come too late, may retain for Bristol something
more than a remnant of its ancient glory as the first port of the
kingdom, a training ground for the British Navy, the haunt and home
of sea-dogs who added many a gallant deed to the proud annals of our
island story.

    /Hugh W. Strong./

[Illustration: CLIFTON SUSPENSION BRIDGE (_p. 79_).]




[Illustration: SOURCE OF THE SEVERN, PLINLIMMON.]




THE SEVERN




CHAPTER I.

FROM THE SOURCE TO TEWKESBURY.

    Birthplace of the Severn--Plinlimmon--Blaenhafren--Llanidloes
    --Caersws--Newtown--Montgomery--Welshpool--Powys Castle--The
    Breidden Hills--The Vyrnwy--Distant Views--Shrewsbury--Haughmond
    Hill--The Caradoc Hills--Atcham--Wroxeter--Condover--The
    Wrekin--Benthall and Wenlock Edges--Buildwas Abbey--Coalbrook
    Dale--Ironbridge--Broseley and Benthall--Coalport--Bridgnorth--
    Quatford--Forest of Wyre--Bewdley--Stourport--Worcester--The
    Teme--Ludlow--Tewkesbury.


The Severn, though a much longer river than the Dee, for it is the
second[1] in Britain, is born among less striking scenery. The latter
issues from an upland lake, enclosed by the peaks of the Arans and the
craggy slopes of the Arenigs. But south of Cader Idris the mountains
become less striking in outline, the cliffs fewer and lower, the
summits tamer. It is a region not so much of mountains as of great
hills, which stretch away into the distance, range after range, like
rollers on the Atlantic after a storm. The central point of this
region, the loftiest summit of Mid-Wales, is Plinlimmon, which, though
so insignificant in outline, attains to a height of 2,463 feet, and
is the parent of quite a family of rivers. Of these, one is the Wye,
the other the Severn; the sources of the two, though their paths are
distinct unto the end, when they mingle their waters in the Bristol
Channel, are some couple of miles apart. Nor is the distance very great
between the founts of the Severn and the Dee. If we suppose, as is
generally done, the actual head of the latter to be on the flank of
Aran Benllyn, the interval between the two is less than twenty-three
miles.

[Illustration: THE SEVERN, FROM THE SOURCE TO TEWKESBURY.]

But to return to the Severn, which rises on the north-east side of
Plinlimmon, at Maes Hafren. Our first illustration gives a good idea of
the scenery near its source: not, indeed, striking in outline--upland
moors without trees, hills nearly without crags, covered for the most
part with herbage, coarse on the lower ground near the rivulets, rank
in the not unfrequent bogs, but finer on the upper slopes; somewhat
monotonous in its tints, yet not without a charm of its own--a sense of
freedom and expansion, which is sometimes felt to be wanting among the
towering peaks and precipitous ravines of the grander mountain ranges.
At first, as is the wont of rivers among such surroundings, the Severn
wanders idly through the moorland, a mere brook rippling among stones
and boulders; then by degrees it begins to fray out a path for itself
and to cut down into the underlying rocks. The second illustration
shows it at this stage of life--the child just beginning to feel its
strength--and, besides this, gives a good idea of the character of the
hill scenery in Mid-Wales, of which we have already spoken. The little
Severn has now begun to strike out a way for itself on its journey to
the sea; the general plan of its course curiously resembling that of
the Dee. Though the two rivers ultimately flow in opposite directions,
and finish their courses at opposite ends of the Principality, yet each
rises well on the western side of Wales--each, though here and there
with some flexures, maintains for long an eastward direction; their
paths only diverging when they arrive at the margin of the lowland
among the foothills of the more mountainous region. But for some
distance there is little material change in the general character of
the scenery, except that the valleys gradually become more clearly
defined. The next picture shows the youthful Severn about a mile
and a half below its source, at Blaenhafren, the first house in the
neighbourhood of its banks, the earnest of many a "thorpe and town" by
which its waters will flow. A flattish valley bed, a few rather stunted
trees, some stone walls, and a rough-built cottage, with great billowy
hills behind, make up a scene which is characteristic of a good many
square miles in Central Wales.

[Illustration: VALLEY OF THE SEVERN, FROM PLINLIMMON (_p. 83_).]

This is, as we have said, a comparatively humble beginning for the
second in length among the rivers of Britain--for a stream which passes
more towns of historic and antiquarian interest than any other in the
land, and has been always the delight of poets. The Britons knew it
as Hafren, the Romans as Sabrina, from which, obviously, the present
name has arisen. For several miles from its birthplace its descent is
comparatively rapid, but gradually the slope diminishes, the stream
ceases to brawl among rocks and stones, the valley widens, and after
a course of from a dozen to fifteen miles, according as its path is
estimated, it arrives at its first town, Llanidloes, where it is joined
on the northern side by the Clywedog, which flows through a pretty
valley and seems to be a longer stream than the Severn itself.

At Llanidloes the Severn plunges abruptly into the bustle of life, for
this is a town with some ten thousand inhabitants, which carries on
a brisk trade in flannels. But, except for its church, which is one
of the finest in Wales, and has a handsome carved oak roof, there is
nothing to hinder the uncommercial traveller. For another ten miles
or so there is little to note along the course of the river; but
on approaching a station rejoicing in the modern name of Moat Lane
Junction, where the line from Machynlleth, descending the wooded valley
of the Carno, joins that which comes down from Llanidloes, one comes
to two places which will repay a halt. Here we are carried back over
seventeen centuries of history. Here Briton and Roman in former days
looked at one another with no friendly eyes across the river; the one,
as was his wont, clinging to the mountains, the other to the valley and
the river-side. The gods of the one were gods of the hills, those of
the other loved the plain. The one preferred the eyrie from which, like
the vulture, he could swoop to plunder, and to which he could fly for
safety. The other made his hold sure on the fields, the river, and the
roads; for where he came there he meant to stay.

[Illustration: THE FIRST HOUSE ON THE SEVERN: BLAENHAFREN (_p. 84_).]

The British earthwork, Cefn Carnedd by name, from its bastion-like hill
between the Carno and the Severn, commands a beautiful view overlooking
both valleys. In plan it is a blunt-ended oval, the longer axis lying
nearly east and west; on the latter side and towards the north it is
enclosed by a triple ditch and rampart, but on the southern side a
single entrenchment, owing to the steepness of the hill, suffices for
defence. The enclosed area, about 300 yards in length, rises slightly
towards the west, and at this end about one-third of the whole is cut
off by a ditch and rampart, apparently with the intention of forming a
kind of keep. Entrances may still be found and the approaches traced;
these evidently were cunningly devised so as to be commanded by the
defences; in fact, this must formerly have been one of the strongest
and most formidable among the hill-forts of Britain. There are others
in the neighbourhood, though these are inferior to Cefn Carnedd.

The Roman fortress, Caersws by name, is in the valley on the opposite
bank of the Severn, at a distance of some 300 yards from the river.
This, too, must have been in its day a place of great strength. It was
enclosed by a high quadrangular rampart, with a ditch outside, which
still remains in most places, though they have been injured here and
there, and one angle of the _vallum_ has been destroyed to make a site
for the railway station. Caersws, the Mediolanum of Tacitus, evidently
was once a stronghold of great importance, for three Roman roads
converge to it. The strategic advantages of the position are obvious.

The valley of the Severn is now broadening, and its scenery becomes
richer and more fertile, although bare hills still rise in the
background. About four miles lower down another manufacturing town is
reached, which, however, is considerably smaller than Llanidloes. This
is Newtown, a place comparatively modern--as the name implies--which,
however, has a certain commercial status as the recognised centre of
the Welsh flannel trade, but is otherwise uninteresting, except for
a carved rood screen and one or two more relics of an older building
preserved in its modern church, and for being the place where Robert
Owen, the father of modern socialism, was born and was buried.

Wandering on through scenery generally similar in character, pleasant,
pretty, and hilly, but without any very bold features, the Severn in a
few miles reaches Montgomery, a town which is peaceful enough now, but
in former days was not at all suited for people desirous of a quiet
life, for it was one of the fortresses of the Marches, over which Welsh
and English fought like dogs over a bone. As can be readily seen,
the castle was a place of considerable strength, for it stands on a
scarped, rocky headland, overlooking the valley. But of its walls and
towers not much remains. Near at hand is a British camp, but the first
castle was built in the days of William the Norman. After being thrice
demolished by the Welsh, it became the residence of a noted family,
the Herberts of Cherbury. The last episode of interest in its history
was a struggle for its possession in the time of the Civil War. The
Royalists were defeated, and the castle was ultimately "slighted" by
the victors. At that time it was owned by Edward, first Lord Herbert of
Cherbury, the eccentric philosopher, statesman, and gallant; and within
its walls, his brother George was born, as noted for the strictness as
the other was for the laxity of his religious views. In fact, this is
the cradle of a distinguished race. The church is cruciform in plan,
and contains old monuments of the Herbert and the Mortimer families. A
romantic story is, or was, told about a bare cross visible in the grass
of the churchyard; it marks the grave of one Newton, who was hanged on
a charge of robbery and murder. He died protesting his innocence, and
prayed that the grass might never grow about his burial-place, as a
witness to the injustice of his doom.

Near Montgomery the Severn begins to change its course, and to trend
more towards the north. Down a fertile valley it makes its way towards
Welshpool, practically the capital of the shire, for it is almost
double the size of Montgomery, and is the assize town. Place and church
date from olden times. Near to the town--approached through a gateway
in the main street--is the family seat of Castell Coch (the Red Castle,
from the stone of which it is built), but more commonly called by the
simpler title of Powys Castle. It has been greatly modernised, but a
good deal is of Elizabethan or of Jacobean date, and some goes back to
the thirteenth century. The site, a rocky knoll, descending steeply in
natural terraces, has been occupied from the beginning of the twelfth
century, and the earlier building had, of course, its due share of
sieges, for, as the centre of the old district of Powysland, it was a
place of some importance. In the surrounding park are some fine old
oaks, and the views from the terraces under the castle are noted for
their beauty; they look over the wooded lowland and down the valley
of the Severn to the arched back of the Long Mountain, and the bolder
outlines of the Berwyns, of which one mass is foreshortened to be like
a huge tumulus and the other forms a sharp pyramid. Entrenchments of
various kinds and sizes show that all the district round was formerly
one of importance. The noted "Offa's Dyke" is only a very few miles
away, and interest is added to the sometimes monotonous aspect of the
Long Mountain by a large earthwork on the summit, where, according to
tradition, was fought in 1294 the last battle for the independence of
Wales.

The Severn, still working in a direction more northerly than easterly,
leaves the Long Mountain at the gap through which a railway passes
towards Shrewsbury, and then sweeps back into its former course as
it rounds the feet of the Breidden Hills. It needs but a glance at
their bold and rugged outlines to see that they must be carved from a
different rock to that of which the Long Mountain and its neighbours
is formed. They consist of masses of lava and of hard slaty rock, of
a more ancient date than the mudstones of the adjoining district,
forming, in fact, a kind of outpost of the Ordovician or Lower Silurian
rocks of the west. The highest point, Moel-y-golfa, is as nearly as
possible 1,200 feet above sea-level, and its pyramidal outline adds
to its apparent elevation. Another, the Breidden proper, is a heavy
mass like a flattened dome; it bears a pillar to commemorate Rodney's
victory in 1782. The hills are well suited for a watch-tower, for they
command a view far and wide--in one direction over the Welsh hills, in
another towards the Shropshire lowlands.

Two or three miles further a tributary enters the Severn, larger than
any which it has hitherto received. This is the Vyrnwy, which drains a
considerable area south of a watershed extending from near Aran Mowddwy
to the Berwyn Hills, though now a heavy tribute has been exacted from
its waters by the town of Liverpool. This great feat of engineering was
completed, after years of labour, in 1890. Up to that time Liverpool
had drawn its main supply from reservoirs on Rivington Pike. A huge
dam, as our illustration (page 89) shows, has been built across the
narrowest part of the Vyrnwy valley. It is 1,255 feet in length and
60 in height; the foundations, which at some parts had to be carried
down to a depth of 50 feet, resting on the solid rock. By this means
a lake has been formed, four miles in length, which hides beneath its
waters--800 feet above sea-level--a little village and its church. A
curious mound rises near the junction of the two rivers, designed, as
some think, to guard the passage; and then the Severn, turning again to
the east, passes on towards Shrewsbury. Its valley now has become more
open: parks and country houses here and there dapple the gentler slopes
within no great distance of the river, and the views of the hills are
always beautiful.

[Illustration: MOEL-Y-GOLFA AND BREIDDEN, FROM WELSHPOOL (_p. 87_).]

[Illustration: _Photo: J. Maclardy, Oswestry._

THE VYRNWY EMBANKMENT, BEFORE THE FLOODING OF THE VALLEY.]

[Illustration: _Photo: Robinson & Thompson, Liverpool._

A QUIET NOOK ON THE VYRNWY.]

The group of the Breiddens is gradually left behind, then rises the
steep mass of Pontesbury Hill, backed by the long ridge of the Stiper
Stones, with their broken crests of rugged and hard white rock, and
behind them the broad backs of the Longmynds or the distant pyramid
of Corndon. But, of course, to enjoy to perfection views of the land
which feeds the upper waters of the Severn, it is necessary to quit
the valley and obtain a Pisgah sight from some commanding hill. Thence
we look over mile after mile of lowland, woodland, cornfield, and
pasture, undulating downwards from bare rough hillsides on which the
copses often are thickly clinging, to the margins of brooks and to the
bed of the main river. To the west, line after line of hills recedes
more dimly into the distance, till at last one shadow is pointed out
as Plinlimmon, and another, yet fainter, as Cader Idris, and sometimes
an apex of a far-off pyramid is said to be Snowdon. South of us, and
yet more to the east, lie the nearer masses already mentioned, while
in these directions the eye may detect, from some points of view, the
peaked summits of the Caradoc Hills, or may rest upon the huge hog's
back of the Wrekin as it rises abruptly from the Shropshire lowland.
There are few prettier districts in our country than the borderland
between England and Wales; and that part of which we now speak can
hold its own with most others. Here and there, perhaps, the hills are
a little bare, and we seldom find much boldness of outline. In the
Shelve district also, the lead mines with their white spoil-banks
are distinctly an offence to the eye; but the wooded glens are often
singularly beautiful, and the outlook from the heath-covered moorlands
gives a sense of breadth and freedom, like the open sea.

As it nears Shrewsbury, the Severn quits for a time the hill-country,
though it is only near the waterside that the land is distinctly a
plain. The town itself is at the edge of a low plateau, and some of
its streets are fairly steep, though the ascents are not long. The
situation is fine, and in former days, when the town was restricted
to narrower limits, must have been much more striking than it is at
present. The river bends in sharp curves, like a reversed S, as though
the hills had made a final struggle to hold it in bondage. Of these
loops, that on the eastern side is the larger; and it forms a kind of
horseshoe, almost enclosing a hilly headland of moderate elevation,
which shelves down towards the neck of the isthmus, but falls steeply,
sometimes almost precipitously, towards the river brink. Thus, with the
Severn for a moat on more than three sides, and a comparatively narrow
and defensible approach on the fourth, the position is almost a natural
stronghold, and it was selected at a comparatively early date as the
site of a fortified town.

If we could believe certain chroniclers, the history of Shrewsbury
would begin more than four hundred years before the Christian era;
but we can hardly doubt that the town existed in the days of the
Romans. Towards the close of the sixth century English invaders came
marauding up the valley of the Severn, and destroyed the old city of
Wroxeter. For a time the fugitives found a refuge in the fortified
palace of the Princes of Powis, which then stood on the headland now
occupied by Shrewsbury; but before long that stronghold also became
a prey to the plunderers, and the Britons were forced to seek safety
among the fastnesses of Wales. Then Pengwern, as it had been called,
became Scrobesbyrig--"the burgh of bushes"--from which obviously
it has obtained its present name. Before very long its importance
as a frontier town was fully recognised, but at first it remained
small--probably because it was too near Wales for merchants or for
men of peace--so that at the date of Domesday Book, though it had
four churches, it contained only 252 houses. The castle was built a
few years later by Roger de Montgomery, a Norman earl, and a gateway
leading to the inner court is a relic of his work. The enclosing wall
of the town was completed in the reign of Henry III. This follows, as
far as possible, the line of the ancient river-cliff, which on the
southward side is parted from the Severn by a strip of level land.
Portions of this wall still remain, and it can be traced more or less
perfectly along the southern and eastern sides.

The fortress resisted Stephen, who besieged it in 1138; on its fall,
by way of reading a lesson to his enemies, he hanged ninety-four of
the defenders. Later on, Shrewsbury was twice betrayed by the Welsh,
and had one or two other "sensational" experiences, till the famous
fight "for a long hour by Shrewsbury clock." It was a race for the
fortress between Hotspur and Henry IV., which was won by the king,
who succeeded next day in forcing an action at a place since called
Battlefield, about a league north of the town, and a mile from the
Severn. The river figures more than once in the accounts of the
marching and counter-marching connected with the battle, in which, as
everyone knows, the king gained a complete victory, Hotspur falling on
the field. Some of his principal associates felt the headsman's axe
a couple of days after the fight. In the Wars of the Roses the town
was for the House of York, and two sons were born to the Duke within
its walls: one died in infancy, and the other was the younger of the
two lads murdered in the Tower. In the great Civil War the townsmen
repaired their ruined walls and declared for King Charles, who spent
a short time in Shrewsbury early in the struggle; but, later on, they
were caught napping, for two parties of the Parliamentary Army effected
an entrance during the night, one of them by scaling the steep slope
below the old Council House. This daring band was headed by Captain
Benbow, who afterwards took part with Prince Charles, was captured at
Worcester, and was shot on the scene of his former exploit. He was
buried in St. Chad's Church, "October y^e 16th, 1651," as may still
be read on his tombstone. Since then Shrewsbury has dwelt in peace,
and during the last half-century has increased greatly and prospered
proportionally. It is now a very important railway junction; the
station, too small for its present needs, being on the lower ground on
the eastern side of the neck of land already mentioned.

In former days the river was crossed by two bridges only, giving access
to the headland--one from the eastern side, and so called the English
bridge; the other, from the north-western, which, of course, bore the
name of the Welsh bridge. Both were fortified in mediæval times, but
they were rebuilt in more modern fashion during the eighteenth century.
South of the Welsh bridge the plateau occupied by the old town slopes
more gently down to the brink of the Severn. This part--a grassy space,
planted with avenues of trees, which has long borne the name of the
Quarries, from some old excavations--now forms a public park, which,
as may be inferred from the illustration (p. 95), adds greatly to the
attractions of the town. Between the Welsh and English bridges is the
Boathouse Ferry.

Shrewsbury has produced its fair share of eminent men, among whom are
the fighting old admiral, Benbow, and the great naturalist, Charles
Darwin; but for many years past its school has been among its chief
glories. This was one of Edward VI.'s foundations, but it assumed its
present high position as a nursery of scholars under Dr. Butler, who
was appointed headmaster about the beginning of the present century.
A few years ago the ancient site had to be discarded, for more room
had become imperatively necessary, and new buildings were erected
on Kingsland, an excellent site near the edge of the plateau to the
south-west, looking towards the town across the Severn. The old school
buildings, which are on the left-hand side of the road going down to
the railway station, are of considerable architectural interest, for
they date from the end of the sixteenth century; they are now used for
a town museum and free library. But to a lover of architecture, the
especial charm of Shrewsbury lies in its old black-timbered houses. In
these it is richer than any town, even in the West of England, with
the sole exception of Chester. Indeed, even after the "improvements"
which have been rendered necessary by the development of commerce, the
street architecture of Shrewsbury is universally quaint and attractive;
for we find, shuffled together like the cards in a pack, houses of
all dates during the last three centuries. This gives a picturesque
irregularity both to the façades and the sky-lines in the streets.
But these black-timbered houses keep the chance visitor in a constant
state of quiet excitement; he never knows what may be disclosed at
the next turning, for Shrewsbury is pre-eminently a town of pleasant
architectural surprises. Some of the houses are dated; as is usual,
they generally belong to the later part of Elizabeth's reign, and all
probably were built during the half century centring on the year 1600.
The best specimens are Ireland's Mansion in the High Street, and the
group of old shops in Butcher Row, which is considered by Mr. Parker to
be the finest example of the kind in England.

[Illustration: THE BOATHOUSE FERRY, BETWEEN WELSH AND ENGLISH BRIDGES
(_p. 91_).]

[Illustration: SHREWSBURY CASTLE (_p. 90_).]

But if the antiquary halts in Shrewsbury he will not find it very
easy to take his departure. Two of the Shrewsbury churches are
unusually interesting; one, St. Mary's, the principal church of the
town, stands almost on the brink of the river-cliff, a little to the
south of the castle, and its tall tapering spire adds greatly to the
picturesque grouping, which, notwithstanding modern changes, the
town still presents on the eastern side. St. Mary's is a church of
various dates, impossible to describe in a few words; for it has been
altered and augmented repeatedly. There is Norman work in the north
and south porches of the nave and in the basement of the tower; Early
English in the transept; Decorated and Perpendicular in the body of
the church, the east window being a very fine example of the former
style. It has recently undergone considerable structural repairs,
for the upper part of the spire was blown down in a gale early in
the year 1894, and its fall greatly damaged the roof of the nave
and the fittings of the interior. Holy Cross, the other important
church, commonly called the Abbey, stands on the low ground, or in the
Foregate, on the English side of the fortress, on the right bank of
the Severn. It is a relic of an abbey founded by the first Norman lord
of Shrewsbury. The vicissitudes which it has experienced are obvious
at a glance. The rather low western tower, with the bays immediately
adjoining, are evidence of a reconstruction in the fourteenth century;
and Perpendicular work is, on the whole, the more conspicuous in the
western and older part. We rail often--and with good cause--at the
restorers of our own age, but they of the century and a half before
the Reformation were no whit better, as this church can testify. The
east end is modern, for it was destroyed after the dissolution of the
monasteries, and was only rebuilt in 1887; but some fine massive Norman
work remains inside the church, especially in the pillars of the nave,
and there are some interesting monuments. The conventual buildings have
been destroyed, except a stone pulpit, which was once in the refectory,
and now remains looking disconsolately at the rails and trucks in the
goods-yard of the railway; for this occupies the site of the monastic
buildings, and is on the opposite side of the Severn to the station.

[Illustration: QUARRY WALK, SHREWSBURY (_p. 91_).]

[Illustration: ENGLISH BRIDGE, SHREWSBURY (_p. 91_).]

On leaving Shrewsbury, the Severn still continues to wind. Immediately
below the town, it strikes off in a north-easterly direction for well
over a mile, then, again swinging to and fro, it almost touches the
foot of Haughmond Hill, from which it recoils, still oscillating, in
a direction rather east of south. It has now entered an undulating
and fertile district, where in one place its waters flow by some
river-cliff or wooded brae; in another, between fields which shelve
gently down to its brink; in a third, through flat meadows, over which,
as can sometimes be detected, it has taken in past ages more than
one course. Now more extensive views may be obtained, even from its
stream--views to which a distinctive character and a special charm is
often added by the peculiar shapes of the hills which here and there
rise quite suddenly from the lowlands. Of them, Haughmond Hill is one;
the Wrekin is another, but on a far larger scale; the Caradoc Hills are
a third instance, but these form quite a little range. All have the
same origin; they are wedge-like masses of very old and hard rock, the
relics of primæval volcanos, which crop out here and there among the
softer sandstones and marls from which the long-continued action of
rain, stream, and river has carved the Shropshire lowland. Haughmond
Hill looks down upon the scene of the battle between the forces of
Henry IV. and of Hotspur, and is associated with its memories, for
the Douglas, who had come to aid the Percies, while seeking to escape
along its craggy slopes, was so disabled by a fall that he was taken
prisoner. On the western side of the Hautmont--for that was the
original name--a priory was founded by William Fitzalan, in the days
of King Stephen. The monks soon found their way to royal, and even to
papal, favour, for they were permitted to say the divine office in
a low voice and with closed doors, even when the land lay under an
interdict. Then the priory became an abbey of the Augustinian order,
until at last it shared the fate of all others at the Reformation,
passing into lay hands and being cared for no longer. It is now a
complete ruin; the church is gone, though just enough remains to
show that it was cruciform in plan. The monastic buildings have been
nearly destroyed, though a couple of Norman doors remain, and the more
important structures can be identified. The best preserved part is
the chapter-house, in the west front of which are three fine arches
in the Transitional-Norman style. The views from the slopes above are
very attractive, as the eye ranges over the Shropshire lowlands, with
their rich alternations of pasture, cornfield, and wood, to the ridges
already named, and still further towards the Longmynds, the Breiddens,
the Berwyns, and the yet more distant ranges of Wales.

[Illustration: BUILDWAS ABBEY (_p. 98_).]

On winds the Severn, gliding with steady flow by meadows, shelving
fields or copses, till it comes at last to Atcham, with its bridge and
picturesque old church near the waterside. Here was born Ordericus,
afterwards historian of William the Conqueror. About a mile below,
the little Tern adds its waters to the Severn, near the home of the
Berwicks; and yet another mile, and the river glides by the parish
church of Wroxeter, with its interesting Norman work, and the site of
the Romano-British city of Uriconium, on the famous Watling Street
road; founded, as is supposed, about the reign of Trajan, to guard the
passages over the Severn and the outlets from Wales. In the year 577 a
band of West Saxons forced their way, plundering and destroying as they
went, up the rich valley of the Severn. Uriconium was taken, and, as
the bard lamented, "The white town in the valley went up in flames, the
town of white stone gleaming among the green woodland; the hall of its
chieftain left without fire, without light, without song: the silence
broken only by the eagle's scream--the eagle who had swallowed fresh
drink--heart's blood of Kyndylan the Fair." The walls of Uriconium
were three miles in extent, and the area enclosed was larger by nearly
a third than that of Pompeii. Excavations have been made which have
disclosed a basilica, or public hall, a hypocaust belonging to the
baths, and many foundations of houses; but no work of a high class,
either in architecture or in decorative art, has been discovered.
Uriconium at best was only a provincial city, and that in distant
Britain; and even if it had possessed any important buildings, they
would have perished, if not from the fury of the barbarian invaders,
at least by the hands of those in later days, who used it as a quarry.
Most of the things dug up are preserved in the museum at Shrewsbury.
"In the corner of the hypocaust three skeletons were found--one of a
man, and two of women; by the side of the former lay a heap of copper
coins, numbering a hundred and thirty-two, which belonged to the days
of the later emperors, and some bits of rotten wood and rusty iron,
which may have been the fragments of a box. It is supposed that some
poor wretches, perhaps servants at the baths, sought refuge here during
the sack of the city, and then perished, either suffocated by the smoke
of its burning or buried alive by the fallen ruins."[2]

[Illustration: THE SEVERN FROM BENTHALL EDGE (_p. 98_).]

Below Wroxeter, the undulation of the country through which the Severn
now flows, for a time with a straighter course, becomes rather
more strongly marked. The Cound brook joins the river on the right,
flowing down by Condover village, with its Hall, "a perfect specimen
of Elizabethan stonework," and its interesting church and monuments.
Then the Severn glides under a red sandstone cliff and beneath the
wooden bridge of Cressage, with its memories of old oak trees; then
through wooded ravines as the ground begins to rise. On its right bank
copse-clad slopes enrich the view, while in one direction or another
the great hill masses stand out against the sky. Among these the
Wrekin is generally the most conspicuous, and now for a time it rises
on the northern side of the river almost without a rival. It is the
Salopian's landmark--his Olympus or Parnassus--"all round the Wrekin"
is his toast. This is no wonder, for few hills in Britain, considering
its moderate elevation--1,320 feet above the sea--are more imposing in
aspect, because it rises so boldly and abruptly from the lowland; and
though the Salopian could not assert that "twelve fair counties saw the
light" of its beacon fire, as was said of the Malverns, still, from far
distances and from unexpected places the Wrekin is visible. In shape it
is a rather long ridge, steep on either side, capped by three fairly
distinct summits, of which the central is the highest. But from many
points the lower summits seem to be lost in the central one, and the
Wrekin assumes a form rudely resembling a huge tumulus. Like several of
the other hills, it is largely composed of very ancient volcanic rocks.

As we look down the stream, the view before long appears to be closed
by a wooded ridge, which seems at first to prohibit further progress.
This is Benthall Edge, which may be said to begin at Lincoln Hill, on
the left bank of the Severn, and on the opposite side to join on to
Wenlock Edge, to the south-west. It is formed of the Wenlock limestone,
belonging to the Silurian system, and so called from the townlet of
Much Wenlock. This owes its origin and part of its name--for "Much" is
a corruption of _monasterium_, like _moutier_ in French--to its priory,
once famed as "the oldest and most privileged--perhaps the wealthiest
and most magnificent--of the religious houses of Shropshire." Now it
is only a ruin, except that the priory-house is still inhabited, and
is a remarkably good instance of a domestic building of the fifteenth
century. The ruins, however, are very extensive, and in parts most
picturesque. But as they are a league away from the riverside, and
are hid by the wooded slopes of Wenlock Edge, we must turn to another
ruin, which stands on the level strath, almost by the waterside, just
before the hills close in upon the Severn. This is Buildwas Abbey,
formerly an abode of the Cistercians, which bears traces of that
strict order in the simplicity of its architecture. Still, its ruins
are admirable in their noble simplicity. "They impress us with the
power of its designer, who ventured to trust simply to the strength of
his composition and the grace of his outlines, so as to dispense with
almost all ornamentation whatever. It thus gives it a sense of calmness
and repose, for which we seek in vain in works of more modern date."[3]
The style indicates the passage from Norman to Early English; the
influence of the latter, on the whole, predominating. The church and
chapter-house are still in fair preservation. The abbot's house--mainly
thirteenth-century work--has been restored, and is inhabited. The date
of the foundation is a little uncertain; but it is believed to have
been about the middle of the twelfth century. Buildwas was a wealthy
abbey in its day, but made no figure in history.

Through the ridge of Benthall Edge the Severn has sawn its way, so that
the river-valley now becomes almost a gorge, along which, on the abrupt
southern side, the Severn Valley railway has been conducted, and this
not without considerable engineering difficulties. Wooded steeps and
grey crags on either side of the strong stream flowing at their feet
form a series of exquisite pictures, though unhappily not for long, for
a change comes where the dirty hand of man has smirched the face of
Nature. To the north and to the east of the limestone hills lies the
most noted of the Shropshire coalfields, that of Coalbrook Dale, which
is rich also in iron, though its mineral wealth is becoming exhausted.
Dismantled engine-houses and great piles of dark rubbish are only one
shade less unpicturesque than tall chimneys vomiting black fumes,
smelting furnaces, the apparatus of the pit-mouth, and smouldering
spoil-banks. But before the days of "smoke, and wealth, and noise,"
this part of the ravine of the Severn, and even Coalbrook Dale itself,
must have been very beautiful.

Ironbridge is a dingy-looking town, built on the steep hillside,
which gets its name from the metal arch--120 feet in span--by which
the Severn was bridged in the year 1779. On the opposite side of the
river, hardly more than a mile away, is Broseley, noted for pottery and
clay pipes; and another mile west of that, Benthall, equally noted for
encaustic tiles. The neighbourhood of the Severn, as far as Coalport,
has fallen off in beauty as it has increased in wealth. But soon, in a
geological sense, "the old order changeth, yielding place to new": the
Severn quits the coal-measures to enter once more upon the red rocks,
which belong to a more recent period. Smoking chimneys and spoil-banks
are left behind, the valley widens, though the scenery continues to be
far from tame, and we pass on by Linley and by Apley Park; the river
sometimes gliding beneath sandstone crags and steeply sloping woods,
till in about four miles we reach Bridgnorth.

The situation is a striking one: the Severn has carved out a deep and
rather narrow valley in the sandstone rock, and a tributary stream
has fashioned another after a like pattern. Between these the upland
forms a wedge-like promontory, defended on either side by a steep,
almost precipitous, scarp. On this, not very much less than a couple
of hundred feet above the river, the upper town, the church, and the
castle were built. The town has gradually climbed down the eastern
slope towards the Severn, it has spread out along its margin, it has
crossed the stream and has occupied the tract of level meadow on the
opposite side, the two portions being connected by a bridge which is
in part far from modern. From the lower town here to the upper one on
the plateau is a steep ascent, even though the principal road winds up.
The church stands near the edge of the scarp, on which the wall of
its graveyard is built. Needless to say, it commands a very striking
view--sandstone crags, and steeply shelving woods and green fields
beyond, with the river and the lower town in the glen beneath. The
most interesting part of Bridgnorth is its broad High Street, bounded
at one end by a gateway, with the old market hall--a black and white
structure, of the date 1652, which is supported on brick arches. This
street also contains one or two fine houses of about the same era.
Others, again, will be found in or near to the churchyard, and yet
another near the end of the street, which descends so steeply as the
main way to the lower town. This, which bears the date 1580, is a
particularly good specimen of the black-timbered houses so abundant
in the valley of the Severn. Here, in the year 1729, Percy was born,
the collector and editor of the "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry."
Bridgnorth Castle also must not be forgotten; occupying the extremity
of the promontory already mentioned, it was a place of great strength
in olden days, and stood more than one siege. It was destroyed after
holding out for a month for King Charles. The most conspicuous remnant
is a massive wall, a portion of the keep, which has heeled over to one
side, at so great an angle--about 17 degrees--that it looks actually
unsafe. The adjacent church was designed by Telford, the eminent
engineer, to whom we are more indebted for the suspension bridge over
the Menai Straits than for this rather ugly Renaissance building.

[Illustration: IRONBRIDGE (_p. 99_).]

[Illustration: 1. THE SEVERN IN WYRE FOREST. 2. NEAR SHRAWLEY. 3.
QUATFORD. 4. OLD HOUSES AT BEWDLEY (_p. 102_).]

For some miles below Bridgnorth the valley of the Severn is extremely
pretty, the banks half slopes of pasture, half masked with trees. "Now
it is a little wider, now a little narrower, the hills a little steeper
here or a little more wooded there, the grass by the riverside always
green, the Severn sweeping on as it swings from side to side of the
valley," and breaking here and there into a series of little rapids.
It passes Quatford, the site of a Saxon fortress, which was erected in
the tenth century, and through the Forest of Morf, long since brought
under cultivation. Quatford was a place of some importance till some
years after the Conquest, when Bridgnorth was built, and most of its
inhabitants removed to the new stronghold. The river leaves on its
western side the old Forest of Wyre, which, though it still retains
some pretty woods, had lost its best trees even so long ago as the days
of Camden. It is now better known as a coalfield, though it is not one
of much commercial importance.

The Severn glides on beneath the wide arch of an iron railway bridge
and across the parting of Shropshire and Worcestershire to Bewdley,
pleasantly situated on a slope by the river-bank, and well worthy
of its name, _Beau lieu_. In olden times it had an extensive trade
by means of the river, when it was a place of import and export,
especially for the Principality. All the country round is pretty,
notwithstanding occasional symptoms of factories. The lanes are
sometimes cut deep in the red sandstone, and here and there the rock is
hollowed out into dwellings after a primæval fashion. Three miles or so
away to the east is busy but unpicturesque Kidderminster, famed for its
carpets. Stourport follows, not less busy, and yet less picturesque,
where the Severn is joined by the river after which the place is named.
Here the construction of the Worcestershire and Staffordshire Canal has
turned a hamlet into a town. Undulating ground on either hand, the long
low line of the Lickey Hills some miles away to the east, the slightly
more varied forms of the Abberley Hills on the west, limit a piece of
country pleasant to the eye through which the Severn flows for several
miles, past Shrawley and Ombersley. Then the valley becomes a little
broader and flatter. The scarp of the Cotswolds, with Bredon Cloud as
an advanced bastion, replaces the Lickey Hills, and on the other side,
as the tower of Worcester Cathedral grows more and more conspicuous in
the view, the Malvern Hills, with their mountain-like outlines, divert
the attention from their humbler advanced post on the north. There are
no places of importance near the Severn, though Hartlebury Palace,
which has belonged to the See of Worcester for over a thousand years,
lies about a league away on the east.

Worcester has no special charm in point of situation, though the river
itself and the distant hills are always an attraction, but some of its
streets are quaint, and its cathedral is grand. The site, comparatively
level, but raised well above the river, early attracted settlers, and
it is believed to have been inhabited before the days of the Romans.
It figures from time to time in our history, but its most stirring
days were in the Civil War, when it took the king's side, was twice
besieged, twice compelled to surrender, and twice suffered severely
for its "malignity." But even the king's death did not bring peace to
Worcester, for it was occupied by the younger Charles, and the decisive
battle which crushed the hopes of the Cavaliers was fought in its
very streets. Since the Restoration it has been undisturbed, and has
prospered, especially since it added the manufacture of porcelain to
that of gloves, for which it has long been famed, the compounding of
sauce to the potting of lampreys, and took to making bricks and yet
more strongly scented chemicals.

[Illustration: _Photo: Harvey Barton, Bristol._

WORCESTER CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SEVERN.]

The cathedral overlooks the Severn, its precincts being almost bounded
by the river-bank. It is a noble pile, the tall central tower being a
conspicuous object for many a mile away in the valley, though it has
been, perhaps, overmuch restored. Parts, however, of the fabric had
become so decayed that it was thought necessary to re-build them. A
crypt belongs to a building erected soon after the Norman Conquest, but
the greater part of the present structure is Early English, and very
beautiful work of its kind, being begun about 1225. The nave, however,
is of later date, with the exception of one or two incorporated
fragments of the preceding cathedral. Some of the monuments also are
interesting. Though King John loved not churches, he lies in the
middle of the choir, where his effigy remains, the earliest one of a
royal personage in England; a beautiful chantry chapel commemorates
Prince Arthur, the elder brother of Henry VIII., and no visitor
is likely to forget the mysterious gravestone with its single and
sorrowful inscription, "_Miserrimus_." Cloisters, chapter-house, and
other portions of the conventual buildings still remain, though the
fine old Guesten Hall was destroyed not many years ago. The town also
retains some fairly interesting houses, though neither these nor the
twelve parish churches are likely to divert the visitors' attention
from the cathedral.

Below Worcester the Teme comes into the Severn from the west. Few
rivers of its size pass through more charming or more interesting
scenery. It collects a group of streams that have risen among the
great hill-masses on the edges of Radnor and Montgomery, and in the
southern part of Shropshire. They have flowed by craggy slopes and wild
moorland, by lonely farms and quiet villages, by ancestral oaks and
ancient halls, by ruined forts and many a relic of primæval folk. But
on these we must not linger; a glance at Ludlow must suffice. It is
one of the most attractive towns in England--church and castle crown
a hill between the Teme and the Corve, and from it the streets run
down the slope. In olden time Ludlow was a place of great importance,
for the castle was the chief of thirty-two that guarded the Welsh
Marches, and here the Lords Presidents of Wales held their courts.
Even after this state had passed away, the town was a centre of county
society. The castle, a picturesque ruin, crowns the headland, the
inner court occupying its north-western angle, and the main block
of buildings overlooks a wooded cliff. These are of various dates,
from Norman to Tudor; the most remarkable being a curious little
circular chapel of Late Norman work, which now stands alone, its small
chancel having disappeared. The castle witnessed sharp fighting more
than once in the Border Wars, and finally surrendered to the troops
of the Parliament. Here died Arthur, Prince of Wales, son of Henry
VII.; here also Milton wrote "The Masque of Comus" and Butler part of
"Hudibras." The church--a grand building in the Perpendicular style,
on a commanding site--is justly designated one of the noblest parish
churches in England. There are several good specimens of timber-work
among the older houses; the most striking, perhaps, being the Reader's
House in the churchyard, and the Feathers Inn. The grand old trees
in Oakley Park, the Clee Hills, Stokesay Castle, Tenbury Church, and
St. Michael's College, are but a few of the many attractions of the
surrounding district.

[Illustration: LUDLOW (_p. 104_).]

For some fourteen miles below Worcester the Severn flows through its
wide and pleasant valley without passing near any place of special
interest, unless it be Kemsey, with its fine church standing within
the enclosure of a Roman camp, or Upton, which makes much vinegar and
enjoys, besides, considerable traffic up and down the river; for its
bridge, in place of a central arch, has a platform which can be raised
to let vessels pass. But the foreground scenery, fertile and wooded,
is often very pretty: the scarp bounding the limestone uplands of the
Cotswolds is pleasant to see, and the range of the Malverns is always
beautiful. Passing thus through a fertile land, we come to Tewkesbury,
with its abbey church, less magnificent but hardly less interesting
than the Cathedral of Worcester, and its black-timbered houses not far
behind those of Shrewsbury. But as this town belongs to the Avon even
more than to the Severn, it shall be described in connection with the
former river.

[Illustration: THE SEVERN AT TEWKESBURY.]




[Illustration: _Photo: E. H. Speight, Rugby._

THE AVON NEAR RUGBY (_p. 108_).]




THE SEVERN.




CHAPTER II.

THE UPPER OR WARWICKSHIRE AVON.

    The Watershed of Central England--Naseby--Rugby--The
    Swift--Lutterworth and Wiclif--Stoneleigh Abbey and
    Kenilworth Castle--Guy's Cliff--The Leam--Warwick and
    its Castle--Stratford-on-Avon and its Shakespeare
    Associations--Evesham--Pershore--Tewkesbury.


The Avon is a typical river of the English lowlands, and it is
surpassed by few in the quiet beauty of its scenery or in the
places of interest on its banks. It rises in the northern part of
Northamptonshire, on an elevated plateau, the highest spot on which is
nearly 700 feet above sea-level. This forms the watershed of Central
England, for on it also the Welland and the Nen begin their courses
to the Wash. But it is not only the source of an historic stream, it
is also the scene of an historic event. Almost on the highest ground
is Naseby Church, and to the north of that, quite in the corner of
the county, is the fatal "field" where the forces of Charles and of
Cromwell met in a death-grip and the King's cause was hopelessly lost.
It was more than a defeat, it was an utter rout. Henceforth Charles was
"like a hunted partridge, flitting from one castle to another."

From this upland country--pleasantly varied by cornfield, pasture, and
copses--the Avon makes its way to the northern margin of the county,
and then, working round to the south-west, forms for a while the
boundary between it and Leicestershire. Entering Warwickshire, the Avon
passes near Rugby. All know the great railway junction, immortalised
by Charles Dickens, and the famous school, with its memories of old
Laurence Sheriffe the founder, and Dr. Arnold, its great headmaster.
Then the river is joined by the tributary Swift, which, while hardly
more than a brook, has rippled by the little town of Lutterworth.
There, higher up the slope, is the church where Wiclif ministered, the
pulpit from which he preached. There, spanning the stream, is a little
bridge, the successor of that from which the ashes, after his bones
had been dug up and burnt by order of the Council of Constance, were
flung into the water. So the Swift bore them to the Avon, and the Avon
to the Severn, and that to the sea, to be dispersed abroad into all
lands--"which things are an allegory."

[Illustration: THE UPPER OR WARWICKSHIRE AVON.]

The Avon flows on through the pretty, restful scenery of Warwickshire,
which has been rendered classic by the authoress of "Adam Bede,"
twisting in great curves gradually more and more to the south. It
leaves, some three miles away from its right bank, the spires and
ancient mansions of Coventry--once noted for its ribbons, now busy in
making cycles; it sweeps round Stoneleigh Abbey, with its beautiful
park and fine old oaks, where a comparatively modern mansion has
replaced a Cistercian monastery. On the opposite side, half a league
away, are the ruins of Kenilworth Castle, with their memories of
Leicester and Queen Elizabeth. It glides beneath Guy's Cliff, where
the famous Earl, the slayer of the Dun Cow, after his return from the
Holy Land, dwelt in a cave as a hermit, unrecognised, till the hour of
his death, by his own wife, though she daily gave him alms. A little
further, and a short distance away on the left, on the tributary Leam,
is the modern town of Leamington, which began a career of prosperity
just a century ago on the discovery of sundry mineral springs. Then the
Avon sweeps by the foot of the hill on which stands the old town of
Warwick. The site is an ideal one--a hill for a fortress, a river for
a moat--and has thus been occupied from a distant antiquity. Briton,
Roman, Saxon--all are said to have held in turn the settlement, till
the Norman came and built a castle. The town retains two of its gates
and several old timbered houses, one of which, the Leicester Hospital,
founded in 1571, is perhaps the finest in the Midlands; and on the top
of the hill, set so that "it cannot be hid," is the great church of St.
Mary. It is in the Perpendicular style, more or less, for the tower
and nave were rebuilt after a great fire in 1694, the choir escaping
with little injury. Two fine tombs of the Earls of Warwick are in this
part, but the glory of the church is the Beauchamp Chapel, with its
far-famed altar-tomb and effigy of Richard Beauchamp, the founder. He
died in 1439; and near him lie the Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth's
favourite, and other members of the house of Dudley.

[Illustration: WARWICK CASTLE.]

Warwick Castle is one of the most picturesquely situated mansions
in England. It stands on a rocky headland, which descends almost
precipitously to the Avon. One of our illustrations (p. 111) may give
some notion of the beauty of the view over the rich river-plain; the
other (p. 109) indicates the aspect of the castle itself. A mediæval
fortress has been gradually transformed into a modern mansion, yet it
retains an air of antiquity and not a little of the original structure.
It incorporates portions of almost all dates, from the Norman Conquest
to the present day. The oldest part is the lofty tower, called Cæsar's
tower, which must have been erected not many years after the victory
at Hastings. The residential part mostly belongs to the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, though alterations and additions have been
made, especially during the restoration, which was rendered necessary
by a lamentable fire in 1871. We must leave it to the guide-books to
describe the pictures, antiquities, and curiosities which the castle
contains--relics of the Civil War, when it was in vain besieged by the
king's forces, the sword and porridge-pot of the legendary Guy, and
the famous Warwick Vase, dug up near Tivoli at Hadrian's Villa. But
the view from the windows is so beautiful that the visitor will often
find a difficulty in looking at pictures on the walls; he will be well
rewarded if afterwards he stroll down towards the old mill by the
riverside.

After leaving Warwick the Avon keeps winding towards the south-western
boundary of the county till, before reaching this, it arrives at
another and yet more noted town. Stratford-on-Avon is a household word
wherever the English tongue is spoken. No American thinks his visit to
the country of his ancestors is complete till he has made a pilgrimage
to the birthplace and the grave of Shakespeare--nay, even our distant
kinsmen in Germany are not seldom drawn thither by the same magnetic
force. The town, till the days of railways, was a quietly prosperous,
old-fashioned place, in harmony with the scenery of the neighbourhood.
This is thoroughly characteristic of the Midlands, and exhibits one
of their most attractive types. "The Avon, a fairly broad bright
stream, sweeps silently along on its way to the Severn, through level
meadows, where the grass grows green and deep. The higher ground on
either side rolls gently down, descending sometimes to the margin of
the stream, but elsewhere parted from it by broad stretches of level
valley. The slopes are dotted with cornfields, and varied by clumps
of trees and lines of hedgerow timber. It is a peaceful, unexciting
land, where hurry would seem out of place."[4] The little house where
Shakespeare was born--in 1564, on the 23rd of April, as they say--after
many vicissitudes has been saved to the nation, and perhaps a little
over-restored. It is a parcel-timbered dwelling without enrichment--one
of those common in the Midlands--such as would be inhabited by an
ordinary burgess of a country town.

[Illustration: THE AVON FROM WARWICK CASTLE (_p. 110_).]

When Shakespeare returned, a prosperous man, to his birthplace, he
lived in a much better house near the church, which he purchased in
1597. This, however, was pulled down by an ill-tempered clerical
vandal in the middle of the last century. Shottery, where we can still
see the cottage of Anne Hathaway, whom Shakespeare loved not wisely
but too well, is a mile away; and about four times that distance is
the picturesque old brick and stone mansion of Charlecote, with its
beautiful park. Here dwelt Sir Thomas Lucy, with whose deer the youth
made too free, and on account of whose anger he ran away to London. The
dramatist, it is said, took his revenge on the knight in the portrait
of Justice Shallow, but when he looked back on the ultimate results of
his flight from Stratford he might have justly said, "All's well that
ends well!"

[Illustration: STRATFORD-ON-AVON CHURCH.]

[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE'S HOUSE (_p. 111_).]

In the month of his birth, 1616, Stratford Church received the body
of William Shakespeare. "Church and churchyard are worthy of being
connected with so great a memory. The former is a fine cruciform
structure, crowned with a central spire; the latter a spacious tract,
planted with aged trees. An avenue of limes leads up to the church
porch, between which, perhaps, the poet often passed to worship, and
whose quivering shadows may one sad day have fallen upon his coffin.
But there is a part of the God's acre where, perhaps, more than any
other, we may think of him, for it is one which can hardly have
failed to tempt him to musing. The Avon bounds the churchyard, and
by its brink is a terraced walk, beneath a row of fine old elms. On
the one hand, through the green screens of summer foliage, or through
the chequered lattice-work of winter boughs, we see the grey stones
of the church--here the tracery of a window, there a weather-beaten
pinnacle--then, through some wider gap, the spire itself. On the other
hand, beneath the terrace wall, the Avon slowly and silently glides
along by bridge and town, by water-meadows, bright with celandine in
spring and thick with lush grass in June."[5]

The church, once collegiate, is an unusually fine one, partly Early
English, partly Decorated, but mostly Perpendicular in style. To the
last belongs the chancel, where Shakespeare is buried, with his wife,
daughter, and other relations. His monument, with the bust, is on the
north wall, and his grave with the quaint inscription is near at hand,
both too well known to need description; but though this one great
memory pervades the place, almost to the exclusion of all beside, there
are other tombs of interest, and the church of itself is well worth a
visit.

About a league below Stratford, the Avon becomes a county boundary,
separating Warwickshire from the north of Gloucestershire. Then it
returns to the former county, and lastly enters Worcestershire. Its
valley becomes more and more definitely marked as the river cuts its
way through the upland, which forms the eastern limit of the broad Vale
of Severn. On a peninsula of Worcestershire made by a southward sweep
of the stream, near the boundary of the two other counties, stands an
historic town, Evesham, which gives its name to the beautiful vale.
A ruined archway and a noble tower are the sole relics of its once
famous abbey. This was founded early in the eighth century, on a spot
where they said both a swineherd and a bishop had seen a vision of the
Virgin. Ultimately it was attached to the Benedictine order, became
one of the most wealthy monasteries, with one of the grandest churches
in the West. It was exceptionally rich in relics and ornaments. The
shrine of the founder was a superb specimen of the goldsmith's work;
the forms of worship were unusually sumptuous. But at last the crash
came, and the spoiler's hand fell with exceptional weight on the abbey
of Evesham. "The estates were confiscated and parcelled out, and the
abbey was dismantled and given away to Sir Philip Hoby, a gentleman of
Worcestershire, who shortly afterwards seems to have leased out the
magnificent buildings of abbey and monastery as a quarry for stone,
and thus it continued to be for many a day." So now "it can hardly be
called a ruin";[6] but the beautiful tower still remains, which stood
at the entrance of the cemetery, and was meant for clock and bells.
This was only completed just before the surrender of the abbey. Near it
are two churches, each of fair size, each with its own steeple, chapels
founded by the monks for the use of the townsfolk. The three, as shown
in our illustration (p. 117), form a very striking group.

But this quiet town in a peaceful valley was once disturbed by the
noise of battle, and witnessed a crisis in English history. Prince
Edward, son of Henry III., had contrived by masterly generalship to
prevent the junction of the armies of Simon de Montfort and his son.
The former was encamped at Evesham. The Prince's army blocked his
one outlet by land; a detachment of it had cut off a retreat by the
bridges over the river. The fight from the first was hopeless; De
Montfort's troops were inferior: "The Welsh fled at the first onset
like sheep, and were cut ruthlessly down in the cornfields and gardens
where they had sought refuge. The little group of knights around Simon
fought desperately, falling one by one till the Earl was left alone.
So terrible were his sword-strokes that he had all but gained the
hill-top when a lance-thrust brought his horse to the ground; but Simon
still rejected the summons to yield, till a blow from behind felled
him, mortally wounded, to the ground. Then with a last cry of 'It is
God's grace,' the soul of the great patriot passed away."[7]

The beauty and richness of the Vale of Evesham are proverbial; it is
a land of corn and orchards, and it widens out as the Avon winds on
in rounding the northern extremity of the Cotswolds. After a time the
stream makes a great undulating sweep to the northward, as if to avoid
the outlying mass of Dundry Hill, and brings us to another country
town and another fragment of a grand church of olden time. Pershore
was founded in the tenth century, as was Evesham, and only a few years
afterwards; it too passed under the rule of the Benedictines, and
was richly endowed by a pious Saxon noble, not only with lands, but
also with relics. Pershore, however, was less uniformly prosperous
than Evesham. Edward the Confessor gave of its lands to his new abbey
at Westminster. William the Conqueror took of them for himself or
his courtiers. For all that, money was found for rebuilding, and for
rearing a glorious structure, resembling those at Gloucester and
Tewkesbury, in the latter part of the eleventh century. The choir was
again re-built in the thirteenth; the central tower dates from the
middle of the fourteenth. The Reformation here, as elsewhere, was
a time of plunder and destruction--nave, lady-chapel, and monastic
buildings were pulled down; the people of Pershore, to their honour,
purchased the rest of the church, and thus saved it from annihilation.
The north transept fell down at a later date; but what is left has been
carefully repaired and restored, and this fragment has been justly
called one of the noblest specimens of Norman and Early English work
that our country possesses.

Though the foreground scenery, as the two valleys merge, becomes less
striking, the more distant views are always attractive; for the scarp
bounding the limestone uplands of the Cotswolds forms a pleasant
feature, and the range of the Malverns is beautiful in its outline.
At last, just before its confluence with the Severn, the Avon brings
us to another interesting town--Tewkesbury, on the left bank of the
latter river, and within half a mile of the former one. Tewkesbury
has an abbey church, not so magnificent, but hardly less interesting
than that of Worcester, while it is not less rich than Shrewsbury in
black-timbered houses. Here the course of the Severn is interrupted by
a weir and a lock, constructed in order to make the river navigable
to Worcester for vessels of larger tonnage, and is crossed by a fine
bridge of iron. It receives the Avon, by the side of which the town
is built, and this stream is spanned by another and ancient bridge of
stone. The streets, with their old timbered houses, are a delight to
the antiquary: they usually have bay windows carried the whole height
of the front, the "Wheatsheaf Inn" being one of the best specimens.
The abbey, however, is the glory of the town, and in ancient days,
before Tewkesbury mustard became a proverb, made its name known all
over England. It claims as its founder two kings of Mercia, rather
more than eleven and a half centuries ago, and in any case appears to
carry back its history almost to this time. But the greater part of
the present church was erected early in the twelfth century, though
the choir was re-constructed about two centuries afterwards. Yet this,
though graceful Decorated work in the upper part, maintains the massive
Norman piers below, the combination producing a rather unusual effect.
But not only so, the choir terminates in an apse, a feature not very
common in our English churches, and certainly not the least among the
attractions of Tewkesbury. Central tower, transept, and nave are mainly
Norman; and the west end is peculiar, for it terminates in a huge arch,
which occupies almost the whole of the façade, and in which a great
Perpendicular window has been inserted. It has a curiously incomplete
look, so, possibly, the architect contemplated the addition of a façade
with towers. The church also is unusually rich in chantries and ancient
monuments, secular and ecclesiastical.

[Illustration: _Photo: Harvey Barton, Bristol._

THE AVON AT STRATFORD (_p. 110_).]

[Illustration: _Photo: Harvey Barton, Bristol._

EVESHAM (_p. 114_).]

Tewkesbury, too, has a place in English history, for on the meadows
south of the abbey was fought the last battle between the houses of
Lancaster and York, and the Red Rose was trampled in the mire. Margaret
of Anjou was taken prisoner; her only son, Edward, was stabbed by the
Yorkists--it is said after the Duke of York had struck him in the
face with his gauntlet; and a large number of the chief men on the
losing side were killed or were executed after the battle. Some of
them fled to the abbey for sanctuary. Edward and his soldiers came
in hot pursuit, but a priest, bearing the Host, confronted them on
the threshold, nor would he move until the victor promised to spare
the lives of the fugitives. But on the third day afterwards a troop
of soldiers broke into the building, dragged out the refugees, and
promptly struck off their heads. Revenge proved stronger than religion!

[Illustration: THE AVON AT TEWKESBURY.]

The young prince lies in a nameless grave beneath the central tower
of the abbey; and other illustrious victims of the battle were
buried within its walls. The building itself has had more than one
narrow escape from destruction: it was seriously injured by a fire
in the later part of the twelfth century; at the suppression of the
monasteries it was placed on the list of "superfluous" buildings and
doomed to be pulled down by the greedy vandals of that age. But the
good folk of Tewkesbury bought it for themselves, and thus preserved
one of the finest and most interesting ecclesiastical buildings in
the West Country. They have well earned the gratitude of posterity.
The monastic buildings, however, to a great extent have disappeared.
The cloisters, which seem to have resembled those at Gloucester, are
unfortunately gone, but the monks' infirmary, with some adjacent
buildings, has been incorporated into a mansion called Abbey House, and
the principal gateway still remains. Tewkesbury, in short, is to the
lover of architecture far the most interesting town of its size in the
valley of the Severn.




[Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF TEWKESBURY.]




THE SEVERN.




CHAPTER III.

FROM TEWKESBURY TO THE SEA.

    Deerhurst--Gloucester--The "Bore"--May Hill--Minsterworth--
    Westbury-on-Severn--Newnham--Berkeley Castle--Lydney--Sharpness
    --The Severn Tunnel--The Estuary--A Vanished River.


Below Tewkesbury several pleasant places, country-houses, parks
and quiet villages are situated on the lowland, or on the gentle
undulations which diversify the width of the valley, but few are of
special interest, except the little church of Deerhurst, standing
near the waterside, which was built, as an inscription now preserved
at Oxford has recorded, in the year 1056. The greater part of the
comparatively lofty tower, with some portions of the body of the
church, belongs to this age; but the latter to a considerable extent
has been rebuilt at various dates, and its plan altered. There was a
priory of earlier foundation, but of this nothing of interest remains.

But for some miles a great tower has been rising more and more
distinctly above the lush water-meadows, as did that of Worcester
on the higher reaches of the Severn. It is another cathedral, on a
scale yet grander than the former one, the centre of the old city of
Gloucester, which for not a few years has been rapidly increasing;
but all about the precincts and in the original streets are many
picturesque remnants of the last and preceding centuries, while its
churches surpass those of Worcester.

Gloucester, as it guards the Severn, and is one of the natural
approaches to Wales, very early became a place of mark. An important
station for the Roman troops, it was in the days of Bede a very notable
town, not only in the Mercian kingdom, but also in all Britain. At
Gloucester the first of its Christian kings founded a monastery about
eighty years after the landing of Augustine; and when the Dane began
to harry England the town had not seldom to fight and sometimes to
suffer. Saxon and the earlier Norman kings often visited it. Probably
in few cathedrals out of London--except, perhaps, Winchester--were
royal worshippers so frequent. Henry III., a boy of ten, was crowned
here, and had a particular affection for the town. Hither the murdered
Edward II. was brought for burial; Parliaments were held in the city;
and most of the kings up to the sixteenth century paid it at least one
visit. But when the great Civil War broke out, Gloucester took the
side of the Parliament. So, presently, the Royal troops and Charles
himself appeared before its walls. For about four weeks it was closely
invested, and its defenders were in sore straits, till Essex raised the
siege. As a penalty the walls were destroyed after the Restoration.
That did no real harm; the city was quietly prosperous, till it was
quickened to a more active life by becoming a railway junction, when
the "break of gauge" provided many a subject for _Punch_.

[Illustration: THE SEVERN, FROM TEWKESBURY TO THE SEA.]

The cathedral stands well within the old city, a good quarter of a mile
from the Severn. One rose on this site before the Norman Conquest, but
that was destroyed by fire--the crypt beneath the choir being the only
relic--and another building was erected in the last dozen years of the
eleventh century. Notwithstanding great and conspicuous alterations,
the shell of this structure is comparatively intact. The nave has
undergone the least change, and is a very fine example of the earlier
work in that style. It resembles Tewkesbury in the increased height
of the piers and consequent dwarfing of the triforium, thus differing
from, and not improving on, the great Norman cathedrals of Eastern
England; the choir is also of the same age, though the older work is
often almost concealed beneath a veil of Perpendicular tracery; and
the east window, of the latter date, is the largest in England. The
roof also is a magnificent piece of vaulting. In fact, all the eastern
part, including the transept, was remodelled between the years 1337
and 1377, but the roof of the nave had been already replaced nearly a
century earlier than the former date. The latest conspicuous changes
in the cathedral were the additions of the grand Lady Chapel and of
the central tower. The former was grafted on to its little Norman
predecessor in the last forty years of the fifteenth century, and its
great Perpendicular east window still preserves the stained glass with
which it was filled on the completion of the structure. The east window
of the choir also contains the original glass, which is a yet finer
specimen of the art, and is older by nearly a hundred and fifty years.
The central tower was begun at the same time, but was not completed
till some thirty years later. It has few rivals in Britain; some
prefer that in the same position at Lincoln, others Bell Harry Tower at
Canterbury. Gloucester, at any rate, is the most ornate, even if it be
not the most beautiful.

[Illustration: _Photo: H. W. Watson, Gloucester._

GLOUCESTER.]

[Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._

THE SEVERN BRIDGE, SHARPNESS (_p 123_).]

The old stained glass, the exquisite tracery of its windows, walls and
roof, give exceptional richness to the eastern half of the cathedral,
but in addition to this, it possesses several remarkable monuments.
The luckless Robert Courthose, eldest son of the Conqueror, who died a
prisoner at Cardiff Castle, was buried before the high altar. His tomb
and effigy, contrary to the usual custom, are of wood (Irish oak), but
whether they are contemporaneous is uncertain. The yet more luckless
Edward II. was brought from Berkeley Castle to lie under the central
arch on the north side of the choir. There his son and successor raised
a memorial, which is not surpassed by any in England. Despised in
life, this Edward was honoured in death--such is the irony of fate.
A constant stream of pilgrims flocked to his grave as to that of an
uncanonised saint, and the magnificent reconstruction of the choir was
the fruit of their offerings.

Telford spanned the Severn with an arch of stone 150 feet in diameter,
and below Gloucester the railway runs on a viaduct across the meadows,
Alney Island, and the river. The valley now is becoming very wide, and
seems to hint that before long the Severn will broaden into an estuary.
The river begins to swing in huge curves through the level meadows.
The tidal wave, called "the bore," sometimes attains a considerable
height, and is one of its "wonders." The Malvern Hills have receded
into the background, and their place is taken by May Hill, famous among
geologists; on the opposite side the scarp of the Cotswolds continues,
though with a rather more broken outline; but outlying hills come
nearer to the city.

The Severn ebbs and flows by Minsterworth, where Gwillim is buried,
whose heraldry was beloved by country squires. The main high road,
when possible, keeps away from the stream, for the land lies low and
is liable to floods. Westbury-on-Severn is the first place of mark--a
small town with a rather large church noted for having a separate
steeple, the spire of which is of wood. The Severn here has pressed
against higher ground and has carved it into a low cliff, which affords
sections well known to every geologist; and in the neighbourhood iron
ore is worked, as it has been for many a century. Newnham comes next,
a market-town, and an outlet for the important mining district of the
Forest of Dean, which lies a few miles away to the west. It still
preserves a sword of state given to it by King John, and there is some
old Norman work in its church.

The Severn is now changing from a river to an estuary. No places of
importance lie near the riverside, and its scenery is becoming marshy
and monotonous; but some distance away to the east is Berkeley, an
old town with an old castle, memorable for the murder of the hapless
Edward; and on the other side is Lydney, a quaint little town with a
small inland harbour, a market cross, and a fine old church. In the
adjacent park, on a kind of elevated terrace overlooking the valley,
are the remains of a group of Roman villas, from which many coins,
pieces of pottery, and other relics have been unearthed.

At Sharpness, above Lydney, a railway crosses the Severn by a long
bridge of twenty-eight arches, a magnificent work; but below it
ferryboats were the only communication from shore to shore till in 1886
the completion of the Severn Tunnel linked Bristol and the West more
closely to the eastern part of South Wales. At this point the river
is more than two and a quarter miles across; but the tunnel itself
is about double that length. This, the greatest work of its kind in
Britain, was completed by the late Sir John Hawkshaw.

The banks become yet farther apart, the water is salt, the tide ebbs
and flows, as in the sea. The estuary, indeed, continues for many a
mile, still retaining the form of a river-valley. Very probably there
was a time when a Severn flowed along a broad valley, where now the
Bristol Channel parts England from South Wales, to join another stream
which had descended over land, now sunk beneath the Irish Sea, and the
two rivers discharged their united waters into a more distant Atlantic
Ocean; but that was very long ago, so that our task is now completed.
We have followed the Severn from its source to its ending--till our
brook has become a river, and our river has become a sea.

    /T. G. Bonney./




[Illustration: A BEND OF THE WYE.]




THE WYE.

    "The Notorious Hill of Plinlimmon"--The Stronghold of Owen
    Glendower--Llangurig--Rhayader Gwy--Llyn-Gwyn--The Elan, the Ithon,
    and the Yrfon--Llandrindod--Builth--Aberedw and the Last Prince of
    Wales--Hay--Clifford Castle and the Fair Rosamond--Hereford--The
    Lug--"The Wonder"--Ross and John Kyrle--Goodrich Castle--Coldwell
    Rocks--Symond's Yat--Monmouth--The Monnow, the Dore, and
    the Honddu--Wordsworth's Great Ode--Tintern Abbey--The
    Wyndcliff--Chepstow--The Lower Reaches.


Like many another thing of beauty, the /Wye/ is born amidst
surroundings dreary and dismal. Plinlimmon, the monarch of the vast
waste of hills that forms the southern portion of the Cambrian system,
has three heads. But no one can point the finger of scorn at him on
that account, for great are his cares as he stands there in that region
of morass and bog, the father of five rivers. His chief head, towering
to the sky, gathers from the heavy clouds as they drift across the land
the raindrops and the mist, and these, trickling down his shoulders,
are gathered into five different courses, and, hurrying on their way,
form the five rivers--the Severn, the Wye, the Rheidol, which flows
to Aberystwyth, and the Dulas and the Llyffnant, which by different
courses flow to the Dovey. Moreover, the rugged, austere mountain has
long been spoken lightly of; for a shepherd--it would never do to call
him an humble shepherd--who, in the early part of the present century,
had the right to sell ale and small beer in his cottage up amongst the
mountain-tops, had a board hung out with this modest sentence, which,
to be sure, soon became classic, painted upon it: "The notorious hill
of Plinlimmon is on these premises, and it will be shown with pleasure
to any gentleman travellers who wishes to see it." So, what with the
clouds and mists resting upon his head, the large family of rivers he
has to feed, and the slighting language that is held towards him, the
"notorious hill of Plinlimmon" is bald and sad and sodden. Unless,
therefore, the traveller is fond of dreariness and dankness, he will
scarcely find this a profitable journey to make--this climb to the very
source of the Wye.

[Illustration: _Photos: Hudson._

VIEWS IN THE LOWER ELAN VALLEY (_p. 128_).]

Legend, however, weaves a charm over many an else dreary waste, and
up amongst the scramble of hills of which Plinlimmon is monarch,
legend and history unapocryphal combine to fill the home of mists with
interest for all who love a stirring tale. Here, at the very source of
the Wye, Owain Glyndwr--the Owen Glendower of Shakespeare's _King Henry
IV._--who could call spirits from the vasty deep, had his stronghold,
and gathered around him his vicious little band of followers:--

    "Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head
    Against my power: thrice from the banks of Wye
    And sandy-bottomed Severn have I sent him
    Bootless home, and weather-beaten back."

This he truthfully told his fellow-conspirators. Plinlimmon and the
surrounding country is rich in records and legends concerning this
turbulent prince, whose very birth, on May 28th, 1354, is said to have
been attended by remarkable premonitions of coming trouble, for it is
told that on that eventful night his father's horses were found in
their stalls standing in a bath of blood that reached to their bellies.
This is the popular account, but Shakespeare's imagination created
other and farther-reaching warnings to the world concerning the fiery
spirit that had been ushered upon the scene:--

                        "At my nativity
    The front of Heaven was full of fiery shapes,
    Of burning cressets; and at my birth
    The frame and huge foundation of the earth
    Shak'd like a coward."

From this lofty region, half earth and half sky--for the Wye can lay
claim to trace its source to the very clouds that hang thick upon
Plinlimmon's head--the tiny rivulet bounds down the mountain-side, and
the Fates, catching at a myriad of still smaller rills, braid them
into the main stream, as the tresses of a maiden's hair are woven
together, till united they form a brook. For a number of miles the
land through which the Wye's course is laid continues to be melancholy
in the extreme, and the torrent, like all urchins brought up amidst
harsh, inclement surroundings, goes on its way brawling and turbulent,
playing leapfrog with rocks, flinging itself over precipices, swirling
in little maelstroms, and almost getting blown away in spray; and
it is not until the pretty village of Llangurig is reached that it
comes in part to its senses, and, although still boisterous, shows
itself amenable to the influence of civilisation. Not only does the
Wye here meet for the first time with civilisation, but here, too, it
becomes acquainted with that which later on in its life is one of its
glories, almost its crowning glory--trees. The head and shoulders of
mighty Plinlimmon afford no gracious foothold for these children of
fat lands and lusty air, scarcely a bush raising its branches in the
bog and marsh of the mountain. But up to Llangurig a few of them have
straggled, to break the monotony of the mountainous region. Here, too,
a bridge--one of the few works of man that sometimes add to rather than
detract from the effect of river-scenery, always provided that it is
not a modern railway bridge of iron--crosses the young stream; and a
church, the first of many on the banks of the Wye, stands near by. A
short distance below this village the stream spreads out in its valley,
and flows more gently amongst huge boulders that have been hurled down
from the sides of the mountains.

Between Llangurig and the next village of any importance, Rhayader Gwy,
to give it its full name, although most people are content to call
it by its "Christian" name only, leaving the "Gwy" to take care of
itself--between these two villages the Wye enters Radnorshire; and now
the scenery, although still wildly mountainous, is of a more subdued
description, trees becoming more plentiful, and the rocks, occasionally
shaking their heads free from the thick covering of spongy morass,
beginning to stand out bold and picturesque, and to take their proper
place in the composition of mountain-scenery. A short distance above
Rhayader Gwy the river Marteg pours its tiny volume into the Wye, and
here is one of the choicest bits of scenery in all the upper reaches of
our stream. Nannerth Rocks, lofty crags, confront the river, and narrow
the bed so that the combined waters can only squeeze through at the
expense of a mighty uproar and much plunging and dashing and flinging
of spray and foam, the brawl of the forced passage being audible for a
great distance. After its straitened course between these rocks, the
river enters an easier bed and flows sulkily down to Rhayader Gwy.

This village has a situation as wonderful as any in all the kingdom. On
every side tower the great hills, not harsh and gloomy now, but clothed
with oak forest thick and deep. Not so many years ago there were, as
the name of the village bears record, falls at Rhayader Gwy; but in
building the bridge that spans the stream the good people, little
caring for the picturesqueness of the place, removed the stones and
widened the channel, and so reduced the falls to rapids.

Although the place is of little note now, being only a lovely village,
once upon a time it was of considerable importance in the country, and
saw stirring times. Among other things, it had a strong fortress of
its own, erected by Rhys ap Gruffydd, the Prince of South Wales; but
this was so thoroughly rased to the ground by Llewelyn, in 1231, that
not a vestige remains. At a later day a successor to this stronghold
was built, but it, too, fell, in the stormy days of the Parliamentary
War, and only a mound marks the spot where it stood. Near to Rhayader
Gwy the Wye, like a mountain chief exacting tribute from his weaker
neighbours, secures the overflow from a quaint lake, said to be the
only beautiful lake in Radnorshire--the Llyn-Gwyn. In olden days many
a pilgrim, full of faith in the miraculous powers of this little lake,
made his way through the rugged district to bathe in its waters; and
there can be little wonder at the hope inspired in their breasts by the
sight of Llyn-Gwyn, for it is such a lake as is rarely found, dainty,
clear, cool, its high wooded banks rising nearly perpendicularly--a
veritable fairies' ocean. With the overflow from this the Wye tumbles
along, soon to find tributaries of much more importance.

[Illustration: THE WYE AND THE USK.]

The first of these is the Elan. This river receives the Claerwen; and
near to the juncture of the two streams is Nantgwillt, a house which,
in the momentous year 1812, was occupied by the poet Shelley, while at
Cwm Elan lived Harriet Grove. The journey from Rhayader to Cwm Elan,
a distance of five miles up the valley of the little river, is very
beautiful. Mountains rise on every side, as though guarding the privacy
of the delicious glen; inspiring sights are to be seen at every turn,
dainty views of the Wye and the Elan pleasantly breaking the green of
trees and grass, and the variegated colours of rocks. Further up the
valley is the scene chosen for the illustration on this page, where
the waters of the Elan splash along over the rocks that bestrew their
course, until they come to a sombre and forbidding pool, which might
well be bottomless.

[Illustration: _Photo: J. Owen, Newtown, North Wales._

PONT-HYLL-FAN, IN THE ELAN VALLEY.]

Next, the Ithon, its waters drawn from the Montgomeryshire hills, flows
into the Wye; and then, more considerable by far than any Brecknock
tributary, comes the Yrfon, whose fountain-head is some ten miles
from Llanwrtyd. Long time ago a cave near to the river-bank harboured
Rhys Gethin, an audacious freebooter, who levied contributions from
all and sundry, including his Majesty the King himself. At the Wolf's
Leap, a point on the Yrfon worthy of a visit, the river may be said
to run on edge, for the rocks close in so that the water, while some
30 feet deep, is only a few inches across. This is the place where,
if tradition is to be credited, the last Welsh wolf took matters
into his own paws, and committed suicide. The niche of land formed
by the junction of the Yrfon with the Wye is pointed to as the spot
where Llewelyn, in 1282, made his last stand against Edward I. and
his English hosts, and was there slain and buried. About an equal
distance from Rhayader and Builth, up the valley of the Ithon, is
Llandrindod, long famous for its pure air and healing wells. As long
ago as the seventeenth century, the waters of these wells were known
to have medicinal properties that made them of peculiar value to those
suffering from scrofula and kindred troubles. The water flows out of
the rock high up on a hillside, and guests at the pump-house and hotels
enjoy a magnificent panoramic view of the valleys of the Wye, Ithon,
and Yrfon. In the last century an hotel of extravagant luxury was
erected by the side of these wells, but, proving unprofitable, it soon
became a favourite resort of gamblers, and continued to be the scandal
of the country until a lady of practical piety became possessed of the
property, and, so that there should be no doubt about her ideas on the
subject of gambling, had the building torn down and utterly removed.
That happened long ago, and now other hotels have taken the place of
the one of evil repute; and Llandrindod, having railway communication
with the outside world, is prospering exceedingly. Let us add that it
has not, in its prosperity, come to feel ashamed of its Shaky Bridge--a
primitive arrangement of planks and stretched ropes, which will some
day, it is to be feared, be displaced by a more "imposing" structure.

[Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._

THE SHAKY BRIDGE, LLANDRINDOD.]

Builth, on the Wye, is a fisherman's paradise. Using the little town
as a base, he has within easy reach the waters of the Wye, the Yrfon,
the Edw, the Dihonw, and the Chweffru, all waters rich in sporting
fish; and in the seasons of the sport about as many artificial as
natural flies skim the waters, for anglers come from far and near to a
centre so celebrated. The authentic history of Builth reaches back to
Roman times; and in later days the Danes came with fire and sword, and
levelled the place with the ground. The Castle of Builth was stormed
and destroyed as often as it was rebuilt, the partisans of one chief
after another wreaking their rage upon it, and now nothing but a mound
marks the spot where once a succession of strongholds stood.

History has no more romantic tale to tell, nor one that is more
generally known, than that of the ride of the Prince of Wales,
Llewelyn, from Aberedw, where on the banks of the Wye he had a castle,
towards Builth, which refused to succour him. There is scarce an
elementary schoolboy who has not heard of the ingenious blacksmith who
hastily nailed to the hoofs of Llewelyn's horse the shoes reversed,
so that the tracks in the snow might mislead those who were in hot
pursuit; and alas! heard, too, that the blacksmith, clever as he was
at his trade, was not clever enough to keep the secret, but betrayed
his prince to the enemy, so that the last authentic Prince of Wales was
hounded to his death. It is a story destined to immortality, for it
has drifted into folklore, and, like the curiously barbarous tale of
Little Red Riding Hood, is crooned to each generation of children until
every Welsh child dreams at least once in its lifetime of the harried
prince and the foaming steed, the new-fallen snow, and the marks of the
seven-nailed shoes running, as it were, backwards. The tale has been
transplanted to many quarters of the globe, but the Wye knows that the
prince fled along its banks from the castle to the cruel, inhospitable
town. Of the castle--Llewelyn's--to be sure, almost nothing now
remains; but the village is delightfully situated, and is much resorted
to by anglers, and not by anglers only.

The next place of particular importance is Hay. From the river the
streets of this picturesque and thriving little town rise rather too
abruptly for the pleasurable convenience of vehicular traffic; but
picturesqueness and practicability seldom go hand in hand, and what Hay
streets lack in the latter is fully made up in the former virtue. To
crown them rises the ivy-clad fragments of the famous castle.

[Illustration: _Photo: J. Thirlwall, Hereford._

THE WYE BRIDGE AND HEREFORD CATHEDRAL (_p. 134_).]

It is often found that the same hero ciphers through the history of
a country or district with the persistence of a damaged note in an
organ, although usually with a less irritating effect. In this quarter
of the kingdom, which was once the buffer State between England and
Wales, the name of Owen Glendower crops up continually, and at Hay
among other places. At the head of his wild men from the hills, he
came down like an avalanche upon the castle at Hay; when he retired,
the pile was a mass of ruins, and now nothing stands of the ancient
fort but a gateway--the very stones grey with age--and part of a
tower. Legend, which has a pretty fancy and nimble brain, relates
that the castle was built in one night by the celebrated Maud de Saint
Wallery, alias Maud de Hain, alias Moll Walbee. "She built the Castle
of Hay" (to quote Jones's "Brecknock") "in one night, the stones for
which she carried in her apron. While she was thus employed, a small
pebble, of about nine feet long and one foot thick, dropped into her
shoe. This she did not at first regard; but in a short time finding it
troublesome, she indignantly threw it over the river Wye into Llowes
churchyard, in Radnorshire (about three miles off), where it remains
to this day, precisely in the position it fell, a stubborn memorial
of the historical fact, to the utter confusion of all sceptics and
unbelievers." Americans have long claimed for their Chicago belles the
largest feet; but from this well-substantiated fact it is doubtful if
any one of them ever wore so spacious a shoe as the fair Maud on the
banks of the Wye. King John, in revenge for succour refused, visited
the town with his vengeance; and altogether its early history is as
stirring as any to be met with in these parts.

[Illustration: GOODRICH CASTLE (_p. 138_).]

By the time Hay is reached the Wye is fast becoming a stream of
considerable size. Now entering Herefordshire, it flows through a broad
vale, cultivated and mellow, where Clifford Castle stands a hoary ruin.
Here, if history speak true, was born, in the reign of Henry II., one
of great and general notoriety, whose name--or _nom de guerre_, as
Dryden has it--is woven richly into the ballads of that and later days;
for doubtless her beauty, like her failings, was great, and her death
untimely and cruel:--

    "Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver;
    Fair Rosamond was but her _nom de guerre_."

Fair Rosamond was born about the year 1140. How much of the story
coming to us through the medium of ballads and folk-tales be true, it
is now quite impossible to discover, but popular fancy still clings
to the idea of a lonely and innocently unfortunate girl installed at
Woodstock, protected by a nurse who proved insufficient when pitted
against the cunning of a scandalised wife and queen. Fair Rosamond was
buried at Godstow, and upon her tomb was carved the famous epitaph:--

    "Hic jacet in tumba Rosa Mundi, non Rosa munda:
    Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet."

The railway has not improved the situation of this old castle:--

    "Clifford has fallen--howe'er sublime,
    Mere fragments wrestle still with time;
    Yet as they perish, sure and slow,
    And, rolling, dash the stream below,
    They raise tradition's glowing scene,--
    The clue of silk, the wrathful queen;
    And link in memory's firmest bond
    The love-lorn tale of Rosamond."

Passing between wooded eminences, broad fields, and peaceful farms,
the Wye at length reaches the suburbs, and then the ancient city of
Hereford.

[Illustration: ROSS CHURCH (_p. 136_).]

Hereford was a town of importance even at the dawn of English history.
Outside its walls stood the palace of Offa, the greatest of all the
Mercian princes; and during the reign of the Mercian kings it was the
principal town of Mercia. Ethelfleda, sister of Edward the Elder,
governed the place with great skill, and she it was who constructed
the castle that guarded the town, and constructed it so well that it
proved to be one of the strongest in all England. Leland has this to
say of the keep: "High, and very strong, having in the outer wall
ten semicircular towers, and one great tower within"; and adds that
"it hath been one of the largest, fayrest, and strongest castles in
England."

Here, again, the wily Llewelyn comes upon the scene, for he led his
men from the fastness of the Upper Wye, pillaged and burnt the place,
murdered the bishop and his assistants, set the cathedral ablaze, and
left what had been a fair town a mass of smouldering ruins.

A visitor to this ancient city will find it hard to realise that
anything but peace and goodwill ever reigned in all the district, for
in these days of bustle and worry it would be difficult to discover
in all Great Britain a more placid, steady-going, self-satisfied
city than Hereford. Well laid out, clean, at least reasonably
well-to-do--although it does not lay claim to be a place of great
industry, relying more upon the church and the market than upon the
manufactory--there seems to be a perpetual air of Sunday hovering over
the town. The very visitors--and they are many--move soberly about the
streets, and appear to have become imbued with the spirit of the place.
No one can be many minutes in Hereford without detecting that not
only the people but the very buildings take their key from the grand
cathedral that, calmly gazing into the face of Time, has seen of men
and houses generations come and generations go.

Hereford as an ecclesiastical centre is one of the most ancient in
Great Britain, but until the commission of Offa's grievous crime it
must have been comparatively unimportant, with a small wooden structure
for a church. Offa's perfidy changed all that. It will be remembered
that the ruthless prince treacherously induced Ethelbert, King of the
East Angles, to visit his Court, where he had him foully murdered, and
buried in the church. Offa, of course, then seized Ethelbert's crown.
Having secured this, and being safely installed in the place of his
murdered guest, he found time to repent; and that his repentance might
seem the more real, he endowed with great riches the church in which
lay the body of his victim, and soon the wooden building gave place
to a stone edifice. No doubt the king's offerings greatly assisted
in founding Hereford on a solid ecclesiastical basis, but the effect
of his gifts was evanescent, compared with the value of his victim's
bones, as an attraction to the devout. Ethelbert's remains had not long
been buried in the cathedral ere they began to work miracles, and soon
great numbers of people from near and from afar sought the good saint's
assistance, so that great riches flowed to the church and town; and
from that day to this Hereford has continued to prosper.

For two hundred years the church built over the bones of Ethelbert
stood, before the Welsh, as has been told, laid the place in ruins.
In 1079 Bishop Robert of Lorraine began to rebuild, and the work
was not completed until early in the sixteenth century. This is the
building--many times restored--that stands to the present day. More
than a hundred years ago (in 1786) the western tower collapsed,
bringing down with it most of the west front, and this, as well as many
other parts of the cathedral, was rebuilt.

Inside the cathedral are many interesting monuments of men who played
large parts in the history of England, and, besides these, the
cathedral has a unique treasure in the far-famed "Mappa Mundi," a
production of one De Haldingham, who lived in the fourteenth century.
This map, if not the oldest, is at least one of the very oldest in
the world. Havergal says of it: "The world is here represented as
round, surrounded by the ocean. At the top of the map is represented
Paradise, with its rivers and trees; also the eating of the forbidden
fruit and the expulsion of our first parents. Above is a remarkable
representation of the Day of Judgment, with the Virgin Mary interceding
for the faithful, who are seen rising from their graves, and being
led within the walls of Heaven. The map is chiefly filled with ideas
taken from Herodotus, Solinus, Isidore, Pliny, and other ancient
historians. There are numerous figures of towns, animals, birds, and
fish, with grotesque customs such as the mediæval geographers believed
to exist in different parts of the world. The four great cities are
very prominent--Jerusalem as the centre of the world; Babylon, with
its famous tower; Rome, the capital of the world ... and Troy.... In
Great Britain most of the cathedrals are mentioned, but of Ireland the
author seems to have known very little." Truly a wonderful record of
the geographical knowledge of the Middle Ages!

Hereford was the birthplace of Nell Gwynne, orange-seller, actress,
and Court favourite--short, red of hair or nearly so, and with feet
so small as to cause general amusement. The street in which she was
born is now called Gwynne Lane, and the place is still pointed out to
tourists who are interested in the story of the famous beauty. David
Garrick also was born in the city.

Before leaving Hereford, it may be worth while to note that here, as
at many other places, it was once the custom to insert a clause in the
indentures of apprentices "that they should not be compelled to live on
salmon more than two days in the week." Needless to say, no such clause
is now necessary. In 1234 the wolves became so numerous about the
outskirts of the city, that a proclamation called upon all the king's
liege people to assist in destroying them.

And now leaving the cathedral city, our river flows under the Wye
Bridge, built so long ago as 1490, with six noble arches, and proceeds
on its way towards Ross. Four miles below Hereford, the most important
of all the tributaries that spill their floods into the winding Wye is
met with. This is the Lug, which itself absorbs the waters of several
smaller rivers on its way southwards. The meeting of the Lug with the
Wye takes place at the little village of Mordiford, where once upon a
time an enormous serpent, winged and awful, used to betake itself from
feasting upon men and women and little children to drink of the waters
of the Wye. This terrible serpent was destroyed by a malefactor, who
was offered a pardon should he accomplish the task of ridding the good
people of the sore pest; and it is sad to learn that in killing the
serpent he inhaled so much of its poisonous breath that he died almost
at the same time as the monster he had brought low. But the results of
a later event, almost as important, and awe-inspiring, are to be seen
not far from this part of the Wye. They are known as "The Wonder," a
mile and a half from Woolhope, in a parish which, one would think,
should be called Miracle, but is really called Marcle. To best describe
what "The Wonder" is, we will quote Sir Richard Baker's "Chronicles
of England" as follows:--"In the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth
a prodigious earthquake happened in the east part of Herefordshire,
at a little town called Kinnaston. On the 17th of February, at six
o'clock in the evening, the earth began to open, and a hill, with a
rock under it, making at first a great hollowing noise which was heard
a great way off, lifted itself up and began to travel, bearing along
with it the trees that grew upon it, the sheepfolds, and flocks of
sheep abiding there at the same time. In the place from whence it was
first moved it left a gaping distance 40 foot broad and fourscore
ells long: the whole field was about twenty acres. Passing along, it
overthrew a chapel standing in the way, removed a yew-tree planted in
the churchyard from the west to the east; with the like force it thrust
before it highways, sheepfolds, hedges, the trees; made tilled ground
pasture, and again turned pasture into tillage. Having walked in this
sort from Saturday evening till Monday noon, it then stood still."
Surely, this is a record, even in the land of Saturday-to-Monday trips!

[Illustration: SYMOND'S YAT (_p. 140_).]

[Illustration: THE FERRY, SYMOND'S YAT.]

Between Hereford and Ross the Wye flows quietly, and without many
striking features, either as regards the scenery or the stream itself.
Upon its breast float pleasure-boats in great numbers, although in the
dry season of the year, unless the midmost channel is rigidly adhered
to, numbers of shallows interrupt the passage even of skiffs of light
draught, for the river occasionally spreads out to a great surface,
and runs proportionately shallow over rock and gravel. Indeed, it is
not until the ancient town of Ross is reached that the Wye becomes a
general favourite with the floating population.

Ross, as seen from the surrounding country, appears to be standing
a-tiptoe, trying to touch the sky with the tip of its beautiful
spire. The church with its slender spire attracts the eye from a
great distance--it is, to all appearances, the one prominent object
in all the country round about--and the first sight of it has caused
travellers to sigh, for to see it for the first time is to be a long,
long way from it. Here in this tiny town of Ross lived and died a man
whose name is known, one might say, not at all, but whose descriptive
appellation, given to him whilst he was still alive, will be recognised
the world over. This is John Kyrle, "The Man of Ross."

[Illustration: MONMOUTH (_p. 141_).]

The history of the town of Ross is principally a mass of details,
authentic and apocryphal, regarding the life, times, and labours, the
recreations, walks, works, and ways of "The Man of Ross." Few places
are so entirely given up to the memory of one man as is Ross to the
memory of John Kyrle. Everywhere in that quaint and clean little town,
"The Man of Ross," in some form or other, meets the eye. Here his
favourite walk, there the park he gave to the people, again the pew
in which he worshipped, the house in which he lived, the buildings he
reared, the streets he made--everything tells of John Kyrle. He was
born in the year 1637, and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford,
where is still to be seen a silver tankard bearing his name. As this
tankard holds five pints, it is to be inferred that the student who was
to become "The Man of Ross" was a lusty drinker, although in after-life
he proved himself to be a man of abstemious habits. His long life--he
died aged eighty-eight--was devoted to doing good to all whom he could
help, improving not only man but town and country as well:--

    "But all our praises why should lords engross?
    Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross:
    Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
    And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
    Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
    From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
    Not to the skies in useless columns tost,
    Or in proud falls magnificently lost,
    But, clear and artless, pouring through the plain,
    Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.
    Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
    Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
    Who taught the heaven-directed spire to rise?
    'The Man of Ross,' each lisping babe replies."

So says Pope in his "Moral Essays," and, in saying this and much more
about the good man, scattered the fame of John Kyrle far and wide. It
is pleasant to know that a man who showed himself so solicitous that
others should taste of enjoyment was able himself to take great delight
in simple things. "He dearly loved a goose," says Leitch Ritchie, "and
was vain of his dexterity in carving it. During the operation, which
he invariably took upon himself, he always repeated one of those old
sayings and standing witticisms that seem to attach themselves with
peculiar preference to the cooked goose. He never had roast beef on
his table save and except on Christmas day, and malt liquors and good
Hereford cyder were the only beverages ever introduced."

The good man's bones rest in Ross Church, the spire of which he had
repaired; and to this day are shown the trees that have forced a way
through chinks in the wall and floor of the building, so that their
branches and leaves might droop as though in the attitude of mourning
over his grave. From the churchyard there is to be had a magnificent
view of the Wye sweeping in a great curve far below, the waters
hastening on to lose themselves in the Severn. From Ross to the mouth
of the Wye, those who can afford the time should make the journey by
boat. It will be well to discard the use of adjectives and exclamations
in taking this trip, for the most gifted in the use of these parts of
speech will speedily find themselves at their wits' end for words to
express their admiration of the scenery.

[Illustration: _Photo: R. Tudor Williams, Monmouth._

THE MONNOW BRIDGE AND GATE-HOUSE, MONMOUTH (_p. 141_).]

Midway between Ross and Monmouth stands Goodrich Castle, grandly seated
upon a steep, heavily-wooded hill--a castle built so long ago that the
memory of its beginning is lost, in the haze of ancient days. During
the Civil War it was besieged and at length successfully stormed by
the Roundheads, in 1646. It is in form a parallelogram, having a tower
at each angle, and a keep in the south-west part of the enclosure;
and, viewed from the Wye, it is a splendid ruin, trees that cling to
the face of the cliffs heightening the effect of the picture. The Wye,
flowing swiftly, soon sweeps one's boat round its many bends, until
the district known as the Forest of Dean is reached, lying between the
Wye and the Severn. Striking scenes of stream and forest-clad cliffs,
of castles and courts, of abbeys haunted by memories of events rich
in historical interest, now follow one another as rapidly as changes
in a kaleidoscope. Courtfield claims the honour of being the place
where Henry V. was nursed; and there is a cradle to substantiate the
claim. After passing Mailscot Wood, the river forms itself into a loop
like an elongated horseshoe. On one side of the narrow neck of land
are the famous Coldwell Rocks, the beginning of the great limestone
cliffs that, onward to the sea, hem in the stream, and carry on their
rugged sides clinging woods and ivy. Rains and storms have beaten
these Coldwell Rocks into fantastic shapes, until to the traveller
who first sets eyes upon them they seem to be castles cut out of
stone by a race of mighty giants. "Castles and towers, amphitheatres
and fortifications, battlements and obelisks, mock the wanderer, who
fancies himself transported into the ruins of a city of some extinct
race."[8]

[Illustration: TINTERN ABBEY, FROM THE WYE (_p. 145_).]

Anyone who has seen the beauty of both the Moselle and the Wye must
be struck by the similarity between the two rivers. The Moselle, to
be sure, is in every way more important than the Wye--in depth and
breadth of stream, in height of the bluffs that at many points form
the banks, and in the number of castles that crown the hills; but,
notwithstanding these differences, they might almost be called twin
rivers. There are no neatly-trimmed vineyards sloping down the sides
of the Wye heights, but, on the other hand, the Moselle cannot show
such grand forests as can the English stream. And each river, at least
once in its course, doubles back upon itself, so that the spectator
can trace the loop, and see the stream flowing far beneath on either
hand. At Symond's Yat, a little below Coldwell Rocks, the neck of land
that divides the Wye from itself is only some 600 yards across; and by
standing on the rocky plateau, one may see the river flowing by on both
sides. The prospect, one of the finest in all England, embraces large
parts of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Monmouthshire, including
Coppet Hill, Huntsham, Rocklands, Whitchurch, Goodrich Castle, Coldwell
Rocks, the Forest of Dean, Courtfield, and--it is difficult to escape
this--the spire of Ross Church.

In hurrying between these gigantic cliffs, and sweeping round the loop,
it is only natural that the Wye, born with a turbulent disposition,
should have many savage encounters with the rocks; and, now grown
so mighty, the waters roar their anger in deep-lunged notes. Many
obstacles impede the course of the stream, for storms still continue
occasionally to hurl great masses of rock from their positions; and
altogether, were one to be given the choice of seeing only one part of
the Wye, Symond's Yat should be the chosen spot.

[Illustration: THE NAVE, TINTERN ABBEY.]

Passing between Lords Wood and Lady-Park Wood and skirting Greatwood
and Newton Court, the Wye arrives at Monmouth. Encircled by hills, and
itself seated high, this town, still unspoiled by the modern builder
and restorer, occupies a position between the Wye and the Monnow.
Monmouth has had its ups and downs; for long before the Conquest a
fortress existed here, and to build a castle has ever been to invite
a siege. In the days of Henry III. the castle was levelled with the
ground so effectively that Lambarde writes: "Thus the glorie of
Monmouth had clean perished; ne hade it pleased Gode longe after in
that place to give life to the noble King Henry V., who of the same
is called Henry of Monmouth." John of Gaunt lived here, and Henry
IV. also, and, as the ancient writer says, Henry V. was born in the
castle. This event has not been forgotten, for a statue of the popular
king stands opposite the Town Hall in Agincourt Square, the centre of
the town. In more ancient days Monmouth was a walled town, and one of
the four gates of the wall still stands; and a bridge built in 1272,
remarkably narrow, but sturdy and strong, still spans the Monnow;
while the meagre ruins of the castle look down from the brow of
the river-cliff on the meadows by this tributary stream. St. Mary's
Church has a spire 200 feet in height; St. Thomas's Chapel, dating
from the days of the Normans, stands in the centre of the part of the
town which used to be given up to the making of the renowned Monmouth
cap, of which Fuller, in his "Worthies," says: "These were the most
ancient, general, warm, and profitable coverings of men's heads in this
island. It is worth our pains to observe the tenderness of our kings to
preserve the trade of cap-making, and what long and strong struggling
our State had to keep up the using thereof, so many thousands of people
being thereby maintained in the land, especially before the invention
of fulling-mills, all caps before that time being wrought, beaten, and
thickened by the hands and feet of men, till those mills, as they eased
many of their labour, outed more of their livelihood." Not far from
the parish church is the picturesque remnant of a Benedictine priory,
founded in the reign of Henry I. by Wyhenoe, third Lord of Monmouth;
and here it is not improbable that Geoffrey of Monmouth, compiler of
the fabulous "History of the Britons," out of which grew the Poem of
the Table Round, was educated.

The Monnow, which flows into the Wye below Monmouth, has for its
chief tributary the Dore, which winds its way through that delightful
region known far and wide as the Golden Valley. This valley is
fitly styled Golden, though it has received its designation from a
mistaken derivation of its name, which means "water"--that and nothing
more--being but a form of the Welsh _dwr_. Round it ring the hills, not
bald and craggy, nor morass-bound, but gentle and lush and green, for
the valley lies just out of the grip of the mountainous districts of
Wales. Here the fields are fresh, the undulations capped with glorious
trees, and the whole valley is chequered with tints; for it is a region
rich of soil, and highly cultivated. One of the most interesting places
on the banks of the stream is the little village of Abbey Dore, where
is the remnant of an ancient abbey, now forming the parish church. It
was begun for the Cistercians, by Robert of Ewias, in the reign of
Henry I., but was only finished in the days of the third Henry. Not
less attractive to the antiquary is the tiny Norman church of Kilpeck,
celebrated for the richness of its decorations. Near by there once
stood a castle, but of this nothing now remains but the mound, a deep
moat, and fragments of the walls.

Another tributary of the Monnow is the Honddu, which flows down through
the Vale of Ewias, past the ruins of Llanthony Priory. This famous
house seems to have been founded in the early years of the twelfth
century by William de Lacy, a Norman knight, and Ernisius, chaplain
to Maud, wife of Henry I. At first it had a prosperous career, but
the wild Welshmen soon fell upon it, and the Prior and his brethren
were forced to betake themselves to the more peaceable regions of
Gloucestershire. When men and times became quieter, however, the monks
returned. The remains of the Priory are still beautiful. In 1809
Walter Savage Landor purchased the estate on which they stand, and
set about making great improvements. Mr. Colvin, in his "Landor,"
says: "He imported sheep from Segovia, and applied to Southey and
other friends for tenants who should introduce and teach improved
methods of cultivation. The inhabitants were drunken, impoverished,
and morose: he was bent upon reclaiming and civilising them. The woods
had suffered from neglect or malice: he would clothe the sides of the
valley with cedars of Lebanon. With that object, he bought two thousand
cones, calculated to yield a hundred seeds each, intending to do ten
times as much afterwards, and exulting in the thought of the million
cedar-trees which he would thus leave for the shelter and the delight
of posterity." All Landor's schemes, however, came to nought. Before
long he found himself in embarrassed circumstances: Llanthony was, by
arrangement, taken out of his hands and vested in those of trustees,
and his half-built mansion was pulled down.

[Illustration: GATEWAY AT CHEPSTOW.]

A little below Monmouth the Trothey, a much smaller stream than the
Monnow, also joins the Wye. The banks from Monmouth onwards to the
sea are steep and well wooded, and for the greater part of the way a
splendid and well-kept road winds along the side of the right bank.
Far below, the river is continually appearing and disappearing; and
the trees dig their feet into the rocks and seem precariously to
cling as they dip down towards the stream. Occasionally a cliff more
than usually near to the perpendicular has managed to ward off the
encroaching growths of forest and bush and ivy, and to stand bold-faced
to the sun; but generally there is foliage to make more refreshing to
the sight the precipitous banks.

Rivers have ever attracted to their banks poets, who of all men most
closely search the heart of Nature in her peaceful and gentle moods;
but few streams have enjoyed the good fortune of the Wye to have their
very spirit caught and shaped into imperishable verse. Wordsworth's
noble poem, "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on
revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13th, 1798,"
breathes the inmost soul of river and hills, and of the tranquil,
meditative atmosphere that fills the glorious valley. No poet has held
his ear so close to Nature's bosom as Wordsworth, and in these lines he
has pictured and glorified the Wye as no pen may hope to picture and
glorify it again. To quote but the opening score of lines:--

    "Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
    Of five long winters! and again I hear
    These waters, rolling from their mountain springs
    With a sweet inland murmur. Once again
    Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs
    That on a wild secluded scene impress
    Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
    The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
    The day is come when I again repose
    Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
    These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
    Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
    Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
    Among the woods and copses, nor disturb
    The wild green landscape. Once again I see
    These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
    Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
    Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
    Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!"

Meditation, contemplation, serenity, each not unmixed with pathos, are
the keynotes of this part of the Wye valley; and our river would have
done well enough if not another poet had ever afterwards sung of its
banks and flood. But this was not to be its fate: for has not Tennyson
told us in "In Memoriam" how "half the babbling Wye" is hushed by the
Severn, whose mightier tide drives back its flood?--

    "The Wye is hushed, nor moved along,
      And hushed my deepest grief of all
      When filled with tears that, cannot fall
    I brim with sorrow drowning song.

    "The tide flows down, the wave again
      Is vocal in its wooded walls;
      My deeper anguish also falls,
    And I can speak a little then."

It is at the Bargain Pool, past the pretty village of Llandogo, that
the Severn tide is first met. Now, although the scenery is sublime,
there can be no gainsaying that the rise and fall of the tide mars the
beauty of the Wye. Instead of the clear mountain water, the stream is
turbid, and at low tide the banks present great stretches of soft mud.
For the first time the stream now takes on a commercial aspect, lazy
barges floating up and down, and a few enterprising little steamers
making their cautious way round the sharp bends.

[Illustration: _Photo: Harvey Barton, Bristol._

CHEPSTOW CASTLE (_p. 146_).]

But forgetting the blemish, if blemish it be, the traveller can set his
thoughts upon and his face towards one of the most inspiring of all
the ancient memorials of England's past, the home of the Cistercian
monks dedicated to the Virgin Mary--Tintern Abbey. Coming round a bend
in the river one catches sight of the beautiful ruin with startling
suddenness. It stands close by the waterside, on what was once a
meadow stretching away from the Wye. Here the hills rise in a complete
circle, and nestling in the midst of this amphitheatre is the abbey,
a ruin, it is true, yet not so mutilated by the hand of Time as to
make it impossible or even difficult at this day to imagine it as it
stood in all its completeness and beauty. Whether Tintern, unspoiled
by Time and neglect, was as impressive as it is in its decay, though
the greenest of green grass now grows on the floor once trodden by the
white-robed monks, and the rooks sit in a jet-black line on the top of
the roofless walls--one may very well doubt. Those who have passed even
a day in and about the ancient abbey will find it easy to believe that
its history is one of serenity and peace. The hills that ring it round
stand like a cordon of mighty giants to beat back all worldliness that
would enter the charmed circle. The very air hangs heavy and still, and
the river, forgetting its wild youth and stormy middle age, passes by,
if one might so describe it, with bared head and hushed breath. Here
for hundreds of years lived successive generations of monks, having
little, wanting little, passing their days in the deepest peace and
solitude; and though they have long since vanished, they have left
behind them what is perhaps the finest monastic ruin in the kingdom.

Shortly after the dawn of the twelfth century one Walter de Clare
founded Tintern for Cistercian monks, and in the thirteenth century a
lord of Chepstow, Roger de Bigod, built the abbey. Cruciform in shape,
it was 228 feet in length, 70 feet high, and 37 feet in breadth, with
transepts 150 feet long. When King Henry VIII. took possession of the
monasteries, he allowed this to fall into rapid decay, and at length
presented it to the Earl of Worcester. The ruins now belong to the
Duke of Beaufort, and they are watched and guarded from further decay
with admirable vigilance, each particular stone being carefully noted,
and every moulded arch and mullioned window--indeed, the very ivy and
grass--receiving close attention. The magnificent eastern window, 64
feet in breadth, is but one feature of a ruin that attracts multitudes
of visitors to the valley of the Wye.

Between Tintern and the little metropolis of the lower Wye, Chepstow,
duty to one's sense of sight requires him to scale the summit of
Wyndcliff. Once on top, nine counties, according to Bevan, can be
seen--to wit, Gloucester, Somerset, Wilts, Devon, Glamorgan, Monmouth,
Brecknock, Hereford, and Worcester. Not only for the curiosity of a
prospect which in its sweep takes in so many shires, but also for the
beauty of the view, this ascent of the Wyndcliff should not be missed.
For an exquisite blending of rock and river, forests, mountains, and
plain, towns and villages, ruins and farmhouses, roads like white-silk
threads blown upon the face of the land, black railways, drifting
ships, it is not too much to say that the finest views in all the land
can do no more than claim to be its peer.

After we have passed on the left Llancaut and on the right Pierce
Woods, the sturdy old town of Chepstow comes into view. The castle,
from the river, seems to have grown out of the living rocks, which
here rise sheer from the water to a great height, and form a natural
defence that must have rendered the fortress impregnable to all attack
from the water. Supposed to have been built in the eleventh and rebuilt
in the thirteenth century, it experienced its most stirring times in
the days of the Civil War. It was held by the Royalists; and there
first appeared before it Colonel Morgan, who, with singular valour
and determination, carried it by assault. Later on Sir Nicholas Kemys
successfully surprised the place, which action brought before the
battlements Cromwell himself, who, however, could not spare the time
personally to direct the operations. His substitute, Colonel Ewer, with
great skill conducted the siege, and ultimately forced the king's men
to throw open the gates.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE WYNDCLIFF.]

[Illustration: OLD MONASTERY ON THE WYE.]

Several parts of an ancient wall that once surrounded Chepstow still
remain, with the watch-towers complete; and one gate dating from the
sixteenth century--the Town Gate--still stands, a curious archway
across the principal street, a thoroughfare that slopes steeply down
to the Wye. A church of great antiquity is Chepstow Church, built in
the days of the Normans, and containing several monuments of unusual
interest, with the grave of Henry Marten, one of the signatories of
King Charles's death-warrant, who spent many long years as a prisoner
in Chepstow Castle. One of the towers of the castle is called Marten's
Tower, an unintended commemoration of the Roundhead's imprisonment
within its walls.

Bidding a final good-bye to towns and tributaries, but still retaining
its rugged banks and, in a measure, its stately woods, the Wye
makes straight for the sea, where this child of the mountains, after
swallowing the largess brought down to it by a score of smaller
streams, is itself, in turn, swallowed in the greater flood of the
Severn. To the very last, however, the Wye retains its individuality
and character--picturesque ever, picturesque to the end. From its fount
on Plinlimmon to the end of its course of a hundred and thirty miles,
where it gracefully rolls into the broad estuary, it has scarcely ever,
even for a mile, been commonplace.

    /E. W. Sabel./

[Illustration]




[Illustration: NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE USK, TALSARN-SIDE.]




THE USK.

    The Black Mountains--Trecastle--The Gaer--Brecon--The Brecknock
    Beacons--Crickhowell--Abergavenny--Usk--Caerleon and the Arthurian
    Legend--Christchurch--Newport.


The wild and inclement Black Mountains, "Fforest Fawr," between
Carmarthenshire and Brecknockshire, collect the first drops that,
trickling down the side of the hills, gather volume and strength
and in time become rivers that are the delight and pride of a
country. Three springs, clear and tiny, away up the dark mountain
side, where Talsarn towers to an altitude of more than 2,500 feet,
are the fountain-heads of a river that, after an extended course of
seven-and-fifty miles in the general shape of a bow, joins the sea at
Newport--the /Usk/.[9] Not far away are the sources of many
another river--the Tawe and the Neath, to name but two; but of all the
streams that are born in this cheerless region the Usk is by far the
most important.

Hurrying on its way with the leaps and falls that are characteristic
of mountain streams, our river is first joined by the Henwen brook, a
tiny stream that has the honour of forming a part of the boundary-line
between two shires. Beyond the wooded vale of Cwm Wysc the Usk receives
the Hydfer, and at length comes to Trecastle, once a place of rare
show and importance, but now modest enough in all conscience. Here
may still be seen a mound and large earthworks of Bernard Newmarch's
Castle. Below this village the Usk receives the waters of Drayton's
"Cray," the first stream of real importance that flows into the
greater river; and, after leaping a ledge of rock in a beautiful fall,
continues its way through a tract of country once the hiding-place of
a swarm of determined robbers and outlaws--the Forest of Brecon. At
one time this region lay at the mercy of these desperadoes; and it
seems to have been necessary for Edward III. to build castles for the
protection of people compelled to journey through the forest. Henry
IV. sojourned in one of these fortresses in 1403, and thence issued a
general pardon to all the rebels who would cease from troubling; but
the chances are that this wild and well-nigh inaccessible district
offered more attractions to the turbulent robbers than did the prospect
of hard and honest work, coupled with the king's pardon. The Usk now
receives a goodly contribution from the Yscir; and between the two
streams are the remains of a Roman camp, the Gaer, rectangular in form
and believed to have been in command of Ostorius Scapula. The ruins of
this fort are remarkably well preserved, the walls in places standing
six feet high, although partly overgrown with bush. Many valuable coins
and other curiosities belonging to the Roman period have here been
excavated. Inclining to the south, the Usk now flows through a lovely
bit of wooded country, and reaches the village of Llanspyddid, where an
attractive view is to be had of the river, still in its youth, running
with merry song over shallows and between high picturesque banks.

Brecon, occupying a highly picturesque situation, is the first place of
any importance that the Usk comes to in its flight from the mountains.
Two streams join the river at this point, the Tarel and the Honddu;
and, as the town is ringed completely round with high mountains, it may
be said to lie in the bottom of a huge bowl. Near by, the Beacons, twin
peaks, the highest mountains in South Wales, tower to the sky, and add
grandeur to the beauty of the neighbouring hills. In the reign of good
Queen Bess, Churchyard was moved to verse at the sight of Brecon and
its surroundings. Thus he sings:--

    "The towne is built as in a pit it were
    By waterside, all lapt about with hill;
    You may behold a ruinous castle there,
    Somewhat defaste, the walles yet standeth still.
    Small narrowe streetes through all the towne ye have,
    Yet in the same are sundrie houses brave;
    Well built without, yea trim and fayre within,
    With sweete prospect, that shall your favour win.
    The river Oske and Hondie runnes thereby,
    Fower bridges good, of stone stands on each streame."

Though a town of great antiquity, Brecon, when compared with many
places in Wales, is almost modern, for it seems to have first come into
prominence in the days of the Normans, who out of the ruins of the old
Roman fortress already referred to built the first stronghold here.
It was, of course, a walled town, with ten turrets and five gates,
and traces of this old wall still exist. The castle was a strong one,
occupying a commanding position. In one of its towers Morton, Bishop of
Ely, lay in prison, given into the custody of the Duke of Buckingham
by Richard III., who was jealous of the bishop's power; and here the
gaoler and prisoner, neither of them well disposed towards the king,
plotted to marry Henry of Richmond with the Lady Elizabeth, and thus
heal the breach between the rival houses of York and Lancaster. So
Morton was allowed to escape, while Buckingham, marching against the
king, fell into his enemy's hands and lost his head at Salisbury. The
Castle of Brecon met its fate in sorry manner. When the great Civil War
broke out, and king and Parliament came to blows, the people of the
town, fearing that the fortress would be garrisoned by one party or the
other, and that the place would be besieged and themselves visited with
all the danger and suffering that waits upon active war, took matters
into their own hands by demolishing the stronghold, of which only some
ivy-clad walls, with the Ely tower, now remain, overlooking the Honddu.
Charles I., in his feverish flight, after the disastrous battle of
Naseby, put up for a time at Priory House; and in a humble hostelry
in High Street, then known as "The Shoulder of Mutton," Mrs. Siddons,
queen of actresses, was born in 1755, her parents being temporarily
resident here.

The chief glory of the town in these days is the Priory Church of St.
John, founded by Bernard Newmarch, in the reign of Henry I., in the
hope of atoning for the murders and other crimes that he had committed
in hewing his way to the place of power he occupied in this part of
Wales. It is a building of unusual interest, predominantly Norman in
style, but with Early English and Decorated additions. Another feature
of Brecon is the massive bridge of seven strongly buttressed arches
which spans the Usk.

Taking a south-easterly direction, the Usk flows away from the county
town, and soon receives a tiny river that comes from the towering
heights of the Beacons, locally called "Arthur's Chair," and forming
one of the finest of the sights which Wales offers to her lovers.
"Artures Hille," says Leland, "is three good Walche miles south-west
from Brekenok, and in the veri toppe of the hille is a faire welle
spring. This Hille of summe is countid the hiest Hille of Wales, and in
a veri cleere day a mannne may see from hit a part of Malvern hilles,
and Glocester, and Bristow, and part of Devenshire and Cornwale.
There be divers other hilles by Artures Hille, the wich, with hit, be
communely caullid Banne Brekeniane." Wood, in his "Rivers of Wales,"
declares that "the well here mentioned does not exist," so that it
would have been better, perhaps, if Leland had done as Churchyard did,
who wrote of nothing he had not seen--if his verse is to be taken quite
literally. He says:--

    "Nere Breaknoke Towne, there is a mountaine hye,
    Which shewes so huge, it is full hard to clime.
    The mountaine seemes so monstrous to the eye,
    Yet thousands doe repayre to that sometime.

    And they that stand right on the top shal see
    A wonder great, as people doe report;
    Which common brute and saying true may bee,
    But since, in deede, I did not there resort,
    I write no more, then world will witnesse well."

From the Brecknock Beacons there is a truly remarkable view; and for
those unable or unwilling to climb, there is the sight of the mountains
themselves.

[Illustration: THE USK AT BRECKNOCK.]

Continuing its course to the east and south, the Usk passes on,
skirting Bwlch, a mountain over which the main road runs, offering
glimpses on one hand of the valley of the Wye, and on the other of the
valley of the Usk. Presently, our stream passes by the meagre remains
of Dinas Castle, which had the honour of being stormed by Alfred the
Great's daughter, Ethelfleda, and taken too, although garrisoned at
the time by three-and-thirty valiant Welsh women; for the men were all
fighting far afield. Through a lovely valley the Usk reaches its second
town of consequence--Crickhowell. This "preatie tounlet stondith as in
a valley upon Wisk," Leland says; and, indeed, its situation on the
north-east bank of the river is beautiful. Whichever way one looks,
the scenery is charming in its attractiveness and rich in the romantic
and the picturesque. Close to the Abergavenny road stand the ruins of
what once must have been a castle of very considerable dimensions,
which covered as much as eight acres of ground. Even in the days of
Elizabeth this castle was nothing more than a ruin. No great distance
from Crickhowell is the Well of St. Cenau, eagerly sought for by the
newly-married, for to drink its waters first was to secure command of
the house for life:--

    "'You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes,'
      He to the countryman said;
    But the countryman smiled as the stranger spoke,
      And sheepishly shook his head.
    'I hasten'd as soon as the wedding was done,
      And left my wife in the porch;
    But, i' faith, she had been wiser than me,
      For she took a bottle to church.'"

[Illustration: BIT OF THE ROMAN WALL AT CAERLEON (_p. 155_).]

Farther down stream is Llangattoc Park, with its roomy cave, known
as Eglwys Faen, "the stone church"; and beyond is Llangwryney, where
Richard, Earl of Clare, passing through the wood, preceded by pipers,
was set upon by the Welsh and murdered. Here the Gwryney joins the Usk,
which, flowing through scenery that has been called the "Garden of
Wales," and passing from Brecknock into Monmouth, reaches the ancient
town of Abergavenny, lying in the shadow of the Sugar-Loaf Mountain
at the junction of the Usk and the Gavenny--"the brook that christneth
Abergeney." As is the case with so many Welsh towns, Abergavenny is
wholly surrounded by high hills, but here the valley is spacious and
fruitful. Of this place Churchyard, whose poetry is met with at every
turn, says:--

                      "Aborganie, behind I kept in store,
    Whose seat and soyle with best may well compare.
    The towne somewhat on steepe and mounting hill,
    With pastor grounds and meddowes great at will:
    On every side huge mountaines hard and hye,
    And some thicke woods, to please the gazer's eye."

"Hard and hye" the mountains do rise and tower above the luxurious
valley of "pastor grounds." Not so long ago all the streets of
Abergavenny were narrow and crooked, but of late years there has been
a great display of public enterprise. Whether the changes that have
been effected are to be regarded as improvements is questionable;
for with the widening of the thoroughfares and the building of a new
town hall and markets, and so forth, the individuality of a town is
apt to disappear; but the residents may be pardoned for thinking
themselves to be much better off than were their forefathers. To be
sure, the town has scanty remains of a castle rising from a tree-clad
hill to overlook the houses and the river. Part of the castle area is
covered with houses, and another part has been converted into public
gardens. The associations of the fortress are none of the noblest, for
historians tell us that "it was dishonoured by treason oftener than
any other castle in Wales." It seems to have been the practice of the
Norman lords of Abergavenny Castle to invite neighbouring Welsh chiefs
to feasts within the walls of the stronghold, and then treacherously
murder them. Wood tells of one of the most dastardly of these deeds.
"Soon after the murder of Trahaern Vechan, at Slansavaddon lake, by
William de Braose (lord of Abergavenny Castle), the Welsh, inflamed
with resentment and revenge, commanded by Sitsylt ap Dyfnwald and other
Welsh chieftains, surprised the Castle of Abergavenny, and took the
whole garrison prisoners. William de Braose recovered his castle by
composition; and after the reconciliation of the Welsh lords to King
Henry, /A.D./ 1175, he invited Sitsylt, his son Geofrey, and
other men of note to a feast, under pretence of congratulation upon the
late peace; when, contriving cause for dispute, he called upon his men,
who were ready for that purpose, and most treacherously murdered the
unsuspicious and unarmed Welsh; then proceeded to Sitsylt's house, slew
his son Cadwallader in his mother's presence, and, setting fire to the
house, carried her away to his castle."

Once upon a time Abergavenny was noted for flannels, but this industry
has been wrested from it by more enterprising competitors, while
the manufacture of wigs, for which it was once noted, has succumbed
to change of fashion. St. Mary's Church, a fine fourteenth-century
church, occupying the site of a Norman church which was attached to a
Benedictine priory, contains many ancient monuments, amongst others
that of Sir Richard Herbert of Coldbrook, who, together with his
brother, was beheaded, after the Battle of Banbury, in 1469; and in the
Herbert chapel is "a Jesse tree," of which Murray's "Handbook" says
that it is "perhaps one of the most perfect extant."

Leaving this lovely town, the Usk makes more directly for the sea. A
few miles away to the east, in the valley of one of its tributaries,
are the ruins of Raglan Castle, standing on a richly-wooded eminence
not far from the village of the same name. It was begun not earlier
than the reign of Henry V., and apparently not finished until the
time of Charles I.; and so strong was it that it had the distinction
of being one of the last fortresses in the kingdom to surrender to
Cromwell's men. It would be interesting to recall the story of the
siege which it endured, and to describe the lovely remains of it; but
it lies too far out of our course, and we must return to our river and
follow it through the pretty scenery it traverses to the town to which
it has lent its name. In days long gone by, Usk had to bear many a sore
blow from Owen Glendower, but now it has no more alarming invaders
than the placid, contemplative wielders of the rod--for here the Usk
is famous for its salmon and its trout. Standing upon a tongue of land
formed by the confluence of the Olwey with the main stream, Usk has
been identified with a Roman station; and though the evidences are
external rather than internal, the theory has been almost universally
accepted of antiquaries. Of its castle, occupying a commanding site
near the river, and still retaining its outer walls in very fair
preservation, with the gateway, towers, and keep, the precise origin
is not known; but in the reign of Henry III. it was in the hands of
Robert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. From this family it passed to the
Mortimers, Earls of March, and in the reign of Henry VI. was granted
to Richard, Duke of York, as nephew of the last of the Mortimers. It
became a favourite residence of this personage, and is believed to have
been the birthplace of Edward IV. and other princes. Of the scathe
which Owen Glendower had wrought at Usk we have already spoken, but
it remains to add that the citizens were at last avenged, for here he
sustained a crashing defeat and had to flee to the mountains.

Flowing beneath the ancient stone bridge shown in our view (page 156),
the river passes on, through scenery that is never less than pleasant,
to Caerleon, prettily placed on the right bank; and here the Usk
takes toll of the Afon. Caerleon is one of the most interesting spots
in all this part of Wales. Here was quartered the second Augustan
legion, and this was the principal Roman town in the country of the
Silures. In those days it must have been a place of great magnificence
and refinement as well as of war, for Giraldus Cambrensis, writing
in the twelfth century, tells of the remains of splendid palaces,
baths, theatres, and other public buildings; and though these have all
vanished, an abundance of Roman relics has been unearthed, which are
treasured in a museum that has been built by an antiquarian society;
and bits of the wall are still to be seen _in situ_. But the legendary
associations of Caerleon are even more memorable than its history; for
here it was, according to one version of the Arthurian myth, that the
British prince, when, after the withdrawal of the legions, the land
was laid waste by the "heathen hosts" and by the warfare of the native
princes--

    "Thro' the puissance of his Table Round
    Drew all their petty princedoms under him,
    Their king and head, and made a realm and reigned."

The Roman amphitheatre consists of a grassy hollow enclosed by a bank,
lying just outside the wall on the east; "Arthur's Round Table" is a
bank of earth some sixteen feet high. There is no reason to doubt that
after the Roman era Caerleon became the centre of one of the British
kingdoms. At a later time it was "threatened by the fleet of Alfred,
which, however, was recalled home before making an attack. In early
days it had its martyrs--St. Julius and St. Aaron--and afterwards it
became the seat of a bishopric, which for some time enjoyed the honour
of being the Metropolitan See of Wales. After the Norman Conquest
Caerleon was a frequent bone of contention between the Welsh and the
invaders, and was alternately taken and retaken. A castle was built
here by one of the Norman barons; but it was not until the reign of
Edward I. that the English obtained undisturbed possession of the town,
which, prior to the building of a castle at Newport, was a place of
considerable strategic importance."[10]

[Illustration: _Photo: A. Dunning, Usk._

USK (_p. 155_).]

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

CAERLEON.]

By this time the Usk has become a tidal stream with a rapidly widening
valley; and now it follows a devious course through rich meadows with
wooded hills on either hand. A tomb in Christchurch, on the road
connecting Caerleon and Newport, was long believed to have miraculous
powers of cure for sick children who touched the sepulchre on the eve
of the Ascension; and in 1770 as many as sixteen children were laid
upon it to pass the night. Newport, four miles from the mouth of the
river, owes its prosperity mainly to the great output of iron and coal
from the interior of Wales that comes here for shipment. It has many
railways to wait upon it, and its facilities in this kind have been
greatly increased by the construction of the Severn Tunnel; and it is
also furnished with abundant dock accommodation. Of the castle, built
by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, a natural son of Henry I., to command
the Usk, some of the walls and towers still remain, close to the famous
bridge of five arches, reared at the beginning of the century and
widened and improved in 1866; but the greater part of the stronghold
has been either demolished or converted into business premises. The
record of the town is, for the most part, one of peace and commercial
development, and contains few episodes of violence, except the attack
upon it by the Chartists led by John Frost in the year 1839. The tower
of the church of St. Woollos, standing on an eminence overlooking the
valley of the Usk and the Bristol Channel, is said by Wood to have been
built by Henry III. in gratitude to the inhabitants of this place and
surrounding districts, who, by a victory over his enemies, relieved
him from captivity. Newport may not have great attractions to offer to
the tourist, but in these later days it has not been mindful only of
money-making, as one may see from the many public buildings with which
it has provided itself.

[Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._

NEWPORT: THE BRIDGE AND CASTLE.]

Leaving Newport, the Usk wanders through a plain of no particular
interest, scenically speaking, and almost at its embouchure is joined
by the river Ebbw, which, rising on the border of Brecknockshire in
two headstreams that unite near Llanhilleth, has run a course some
twenty-four miles long. Thus reinforced, Usk merges itself in the
larger life of the Bristol Channel.

    /E. W. Sabel./




[Illustration: THE BRECKNOCK BEACONS, FROM THE TAFF.]




RIVERS OF SOUTH WALES.

    Brecknock Beacons--The /Taff/: Taff Fawr and Taff Fechan--Cardiff
    Reservoirs--Merthyr--The Dowlais Steel and Iron Works--The
    Rhondda--Pontypridd--Castell Coch--Llandaff and its
    Cathedral--Cardiff and its Castle. The /Neath/: Ystradfellte--The
    Mellte and its Affluents--The Cwm Porth--Waterfalls and
    Cascades--The Sychnant--Pont Neath Vaughan--Neath and
    its Abbey--The Dulas and the Clydach. Swansea and its
    Docks--Morriston Castle--Swansea Castle--The Mumbles and
    Swansea Bay. The /Tawe/: Craig-y-Nos--Lly-Fan Fawr. The /Towy/:
    Ystradffin--Llandovery--Llandilo--Dynevor Castle--Carmarthen
    and Richard Steele--Carmarthen Bar. The /Taf/: Milford
    Haven--Carew Castle--Pembroke Castle--Monkton Priory--New Milford
    and Old Milford--Haverfordwest. The /Teifi/: Strata Florida
    Abbey--Newcastle Emlyn--Cenarth--Cardigan. The /Ystwith/: The Upper
    Waters--Aberystwith.


The bold-headed, ruddy Brecknock Beacons and their neighbouring heights
of the Fforest Fawr are, between them, to be held responsible for the
nativity of three important streams of South Wales: the Taff, the
Neath, and the Tawe. Not one of these streams is navigable, and they
all have courses trivial enough compared with the Severn, the Usk,
or the Wye. They are, however, quite strangely remarkable for their
natural beauty, and for the scars on their beauty due to the mineral
wealth of the valleys they drain. Nowhere in Great Britain is there
more fascinating glen scenery or more sequestered and picturesque
waterfalls than on the Neath and its tributaries. Yet Neath itself
is a grimy town, and the river, which, ten miles to the north, wins
admiration from everyone, here flows discoloured amid ironworks and
coal mines, with all their ugly rubbish heaps. The Taff and the Tawe
begin among heather and bracken, loftily and crystal clear; and they
end alike, brown as canals in manufacturing districts, the one among
the shipping of Cardiff, and the other in the blackest and most
forbidding part of Swansea.

[Illustration: LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL: THE WEST FRONT (_p. 164_).]

In all Wales there is no finer little group of mountain-tops than the
Brecknock Beacons, as seen from the south. Pen-y-Fan, the highest
summit, stands 2,910 feet above sea-level, and 500 feet less above
the town of Brecon, some five miles to the north. The Beacons are an
isolated society, separated by the Usk and its valley from the Black
Forest Mountains east, and by the deep Glyn Tarel from the irregular
mountain mass whence Tawe springs to the light. Their bases lie set
among charming pastoral nooks. Above, they are good to see when autumn
has made tawny the acres of their bracken; and at the summits they vie
with each other in the redness of their precipices, that of Pen-y-Fan
rightly winning the day with a sheer slide of rock some 600 feet deep,
at an angle of about 70 degrees.

Many are the legends that animate the Beacons. Enough if we believe
with certain of the bards that it was here, on Pen-y-Fan, that Arthur
called his chivalry together, and initiated the Order of the Knights of
the Round Table. In the land of the Red Dragon, centuries ago, there
could be no higher dignity than to be associated with him who was to
appear for the glory of Britain: "the lamp in darkness":--

    "In forest, mountain, and in camp,
    Before them moved the Burning Lamp;
    In blackest night its quenchless rays
    Beckoned them on to glorious days."


[Illustration: _Photo: F. Bedford, by permission of Catherall &
Pritchard, Chester._

LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL: THE NAVE AND CHOIR (_p. 164_).]

Having clambered, not without considerable exertion, to Pen-y-Fan, the
traveller, if he feels thirsty, has but to turn his back to the north,
face the distant smoke clouds above the hills of Merthyr and Rhymney,
and walk a few yards down the western slope of the mountain. Here are
two ice-cold springs, the parents of baby rivulets. Below you see
how briskly these rivulets broaden and unitedly carry the pure water
to the south. This is, in fact, one of the two main sources of the
/Taff/. The other also is on the Beacons. The two streams, Taff
Fawr and Taff Fechan (the "Great" and "Little" Taff), run parallel, in
respective glens, among heather and rocks, for eight or ten miles, to
join just above Merthyr. Pollution of all kinds comes to the stream as
soon as it is thus fully entitled to be called the Taff.

Even before Merthyr is reached, Taff Fawr has learnt something of
the pains and penalties of an industrial district. Ere it has run
five miles from its source, it falls into the hands of the Cardiff
Corporation. Its valley is here a characteristic mountain glen, with
heathery solitudes on either side, and little clefts among the heather
by which nameless affluents bring their pure tribute to the main
stream. Houses there are none. But of a sudden, in all this loneliness,
you come to a huge dam built and building across the valley from east
to west, and beyond you perceive the goodly lake of which the rising
dam is to be the mighty northern boundary.

[Illustration: RIVERS OF SOUTH WALES.]

Yet farther south are other evidences of Cardiff's great thirst.
Our Taff is again enclosed, and flows through a second reservoir,
proceeding out of it by a series of prepared waterfalls, not
unpicturesque, though they have artificial flagged beds and precise
parapets. Here, however, one may almost look one's last at Taff the
pellucid. The area of toil and sophistication is at hand. Yet some
four miles above Merthyr the river has one notable reach of beauty.
There is a ruined turnpike house to hint of the time of "Rebecca," when
this part of Wales rose in arms and fought toll-bars as ancient Wales
fought the Normans of the Marches; and high above the wrecked house are
some precipitous limestone cliffs, with jackdaws always circling about
their crests. Taff lies in a deep bed here, with woods on the western
slopes where its waters wash them. It rose in the old red sandstone of
the Beacons: it has now come to the carboniferous limestone and to the
coal-measures to which South Wales owes its phenomenal prosperity.

Merthyr would be a pretty place if it were not sullied by smoke beyond
redemption. The hills, studded with chimneys, cumber each other; and
in all the adjacent hollows, high up and low down, are manufactories.
The people wear clogs. As in other such busy centres, they seem happy
enough, and by no means tearful about the local desecration of Nature.
But it must be admitted that they are grimy, like their environment.

Of all the large manufactories round Merthyr, those of the Dowlais
Steel and Iron Works, two miles away (a constant ascent), are the most
considerable. One may doubt, perhaps, if these are now the largest
of their kind in the world, but they are still very extensive. A
recent report tells us that they consist of eighteen blast furnaces,
producing about 700 tons of iron and 2,400 tons of steel rails per
week, and that their collieries can lift 3,700 tons of coal daily.
Founded about a hundred and fifty years ago, they have been a staff
of life to millions. Few sights of the kind are more impressive than
the manipulation here of the huge cruses of molten steel, and the
methodical treatment of the ores, which develop in a few hours into
red-hot steel rails from thirty to sixty yards long; or than the
cutting of these substantial rails into sections by a serrated disc
which makes some 1,600 revolutions a minute.

The "Dowlais Lights," as they are called, flash at times high over the
mountains to the north. The landlord of the little inn at Devynnock
called the writer out at night to see them. "It's a sign of rain, for
certain," he said. Tradition locally lays down this law; but tradition
often errs, and on this occasion the Dowlais lights, seen here twenty
miles away, were, as it chanced, the augurs of a glorious autumnal
morrow.

[Illustration: LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL]

[Illustration: NORTH DOOR]

From Merthyr downwards Taff flows fast, as if anxious to reach the sea
from the uncomely rows of colliers' cottages which rise so thickly
above it. It is still hedged about by mountains, but the mountains
are not now "things of beauty." Quaker's Yard, Aberdare Junction, and
Pontypridd are names of industrial value. At each of these places,
"coal" railways from lateral valleys join the Taff Vale line. With
these tributary railways descend tributaries for the Taff itself, the
river Rhondda (which itself bifurcates higher up into the Rhondda Fawr
and Fechan) being the most noteworthy for the volume of its water. The
scenery of these affluents is, like that of the Taff itself, imposing,
with deep glens and wooded dingles, but mercilessly cut about by
capitalists.

Pontypridd deserves particular mention for the famous bridge which
gives it its name. In the words of a specialist, this bridge "is a
perfect segment of a circle, and stretches its magnificent chord of
140 feet across the bed of the Taff, rising like a rainbow from the
steep bank on the eastern side of the river, and gracefully resting
on the western--the _beau idéal_ of architectural elegance." It is
the supreme achievement of a local stonemason named Edwards, who, a
hundred and fifty years ago, devoted himself to the construction of
bridges much as a mediæval artist devoted himself to the Madonnas of
his canvases or to his crucifixes. South Wales owes much to Edwards the
bridge-builder: we shall meet with his work on the Towy and the Teifi
as well as here. In 1755 this "_beau idéal_ of architectural elegance"
showed to better advantage than now, when it is surrounded by the
common buildings of a mining town; but it was never more useful than at
present.

[Illustration: THE PALACE GATEWAY, LLANDAFF (_p. 166_).]

Hence, now wide in a shallow bed, and now narrow and rushing deeply
between high banks, gaily wooded in places and mere refuse-heaps in
others, Taff speeds towards Llandaff. Three or four miles ere it comes
to this tranquil spot, a striking crag is seen on its left bank, with
glorious beech woods clothing the steep red slopes of the rock. This is
an historic spot: Castell Coch, or the Red Castle. It is such a site as
in Rhineland would at one time have given a robber-baron a superb base
for his depredations. As such, in fact, it was utilised. We read how,
in 1158, Ivor Bach of Castell Coch descended upon Cardiff Castle and
carried off the Earl and Countess of Gloucester as prisoners: the event
is set forth on canvas in the Cardiff Town Hall. Nowadays the turret
that rises above the topmost trees of the crag tells of other exploits.
Castell Coch belongs to the Marquess of Bute, and it is here that
the wine is grown which, in the opinion of some, is convincing proof
that England might, if she would, become a viniferous country. In the
Cardiff Exhibition of 1896 a stall was devoted to the sale of Castell
Coch wines.

But the graceful spire and tower of Llandaff soon appear, in the midst
of green meadows and lofty old trees, to tell of yet other aspirations,
with the myriad houses of expanding Cardiff beyond. Its name describes
it: Llan-ar-Daf, "the church on the Taff." It has been spoken of "as
the most ancient episcopal see remaining on its original site in Great
Britain." The old records go far to acclaim Llandaff as both venerable
and ancient. Lucius, the great-grandson of Caractacus, in the second
century /A.D./, endowed, we are told, four churches from the
royal estates, one being Llandaff. A bishop of Llandaff is also said
to have died a martyr in the Diocletian persecution. And yet, with
such high associations, forty years ago this cathedral was the most
desolate and neglected in the land. As it stands, it is eloquent of
the whole-hearted labours of two men, chiefly: Dean Conybeare and Dean
Williams. Previous to 1857, the cathedral was a picturesque ivied ruin
of Perpendicular tower and Early-English roofless walls, with a ghastly
eighteenth-century conventicle absorbing what is now half the nave and
the east end of the building. The grand old Norman doorways south,
north-east, and west, and also the tower, seemed to have outlived
their vocation; and the Norman arch of the interior, above the present
altar--perhaps the finest thing in Llandaff--was plastered up and
totally expunged. The present cathedral owes its origin to the Norman
bishop Urban (1107-33), who was dissatisfied with the church--28 feet
long, 15 feet broad, and 20 feet high--to the throne of which he had
been raised; and its remarkable restoration to the Llandaff architect,
John Pritchard, of recent times. It can no longer be described as, by
Bishop Bull in 1697, "our sad and miserable cathedral." Alike within
and outside it satisfies by its beauty and good order. The old and the
new are well blended here.

[Illustration: _Photo: Alfred Freke, Cardiff._

CARDIFF CASTLE (_p. 166_).]

[Illustration: _Photo: Valentine & Sons, Dundee._

ST. MARY STREET, CARDIFF.]

As a village, Llandaff is now hardly aught except a flourishing suburb
of Cardiff. Still, it keeps its individuality, and declines to be
incorporated with the great invading town. The remains of the old
episcopal palace and the old market-cross consort amicably with the
one or two single-storeyed thatched cottages of the village square.
The palace gateway has quite a baronial look, but it leads to nothing
of particular interest. Bishopscourt, the modern palace, is a more
cosy residence than that built by Bishop John de la Zouch early in the
fifteenth century, of which this gateway is the most conspicuous relic.

Of Cardiff, what can be said adequately in few words? It began the
century with about a thousand inhabitants; in 1881 its population was
82,671; and now it is about double as much. The Romans had a fort here,
which the Welshmen called Caer Didi, or the fort of Didius (Aldus
Didius): hence, Caerdydd and Cardiff. Fitzhamon the Norman, about 1095,
erected the castle, the substantial fragments of which adorn the grassy
courtyard of the mansion of the Marquess of Bute, who--more than Morgan
ap Rhys, or Fitzhamon, who dispossessed Morgan--may well be called the
lord of Cardiff. The prosperity of the present town began with the
canal and sea-lock, early in this century, which enabled Merthyr to
send its coal abroad; but it was guaranteed by the enterprise of the
father of the actual Marquess of Bute, who expended millions in the
construction of docks. Within the memory of men still living there
was tidal mud close to the stately, if _bizarre_, outer wall of the
Marquess's residence, with its glass-eyed effigies of wild beasts
perched on the stones. But the "Welsh Metropolis," as Cardiff loves to
call itself, will not again see those times.

One cannot conscientiously say that there is much of romantic or even
artistic interest in this thriving town--the castle, with its Asiatic
richness of decoration, apart. But the place is at least interesting,
in its acres of docks, its prodigious machinery for the control of
water-power and for the lading of vessels, and even its long ugly road
of mean houses connecting it with the town of Bute Docks. This last
is a cosmopolitan district. Coal is in demand everywhere, and it is
pre-eminently coal that Cardiff thrives on. In 1849, only 162,829 tons
of it were exported hence; in 1895, the amount was 11,067,403 tons.
One of the astonishing sights of the Docks is to see a railway truck
full of coal lifted by machinery as easily as if it were a penny loaf,
emptied into the hold of a ship, and then, in less than a minute, be
succeeded by another truck.

[Illustration: _Photo: Mr. Francis Bedford, Camden Road, N._

THE DRAWING ROOM, CARDIFF CASTLE.]

Cardiff has every incentive and determination to go ahead. St. Mary's,
the main street, can boast of costly banks and hotels and a very great
deal of traffic. It is singularly noisy at night; and that also, we
presume, is evidence of the strong modern spirit of the place. The
town in 1896 indulged in an Exhibition on such a scale that its loss
may be computed in scores of thousands of pounds; but the Exhibition
was an investment, and it is a proof of Cardiff's wealth that it can
afford thus to cast expectantly so many thousands upon the waters. The
Marquess's castle is as unique in its splendour as is Cardiff among
Welsh towns in its development. Of its external towers, one, the Clock
Tower (with many quaint, arrangements for spectacular effect), is as
modern as the residential part of the building. The other, or Black
Tower (though it is of white limestone), dates from early times. It is
also known as the Duke Robert Tower, because it was here that Robert
Duke of Normandy was, by his own brother, Robert of Gloucester, son of
Henry I., confined for many years.

[Illustration: IN THE VALE OF NEATH.]

Taff has much to be proud of as it glides into the sea past the castle,
though it has, for miles and miles ere this, lost its crystal purity.

       *       *       *       *       *

The river /Neath/, like Taff, rises among lonely mountains,
heather, bracken, and the bracing winds of the uplands. The three
summits of the Fforest Fawr range--long-backed ridges, woeful to be
lost upon--each give names to the tributaries that flow from them,
and at Pont Neath Vaughan form the Neath river proper. Y-Fan-Nedd,
Y-Fan-Llia, and Y-Fan-Dringarth thus beget the Little Neath (the "dd"
in Welsh being equivalent to our "th"), the Llia, and the Dringarth.
The two latter, after about five miles of independence, join just above
Ystradfellte, where another Castell Coch reminds us that Wales had long
ages of intestine and other strife ere she gave up unfurling the Red
Dragon on her hilltops. We are here in the "fiery heart of Cambria,"
where the rocks and morasses were such mighty fastnesses for the brave
Welshmen of old. But these times are long past, and Cambria's fiery
heart may now be said to depend literally upon the fuel in the bowels
of the land.

[Illustration: NEATH ABBEY (_p. 171_).]

There is little of exceptional interest in the upper reaches of the
Neath's tributaries. Maen Llia, or the Stone of Llia, is a huge boulder
of granite some eleven feet high by the Roman road of Sarn Helen,
which, far up near the source of the Llia, crosses the mountains with
the recognised audacity of a Roman thoroughfare. But few are the
wayfarers, other than reckless tramps, who set eyes on this one among
the many monoliths that decorate Wild Wales. It is at Ystradfellte
that the wonders of the Neath's scenery begin. This little village
stands more than 900 feet above the sea-level, and the Mellte (as Llia
and Dringarth conjoined are named), in its fall of nearly 500 feet
in the five miles between Ystradfellte and Pont Neath Vaughan, is a
succession of pictures so lovely, and yet so confined, that they excite
as much admiration as despair in the mind of the artist who comes to
paint them. The Little Neath runs parallel with the Mellte during
this course, separated from it by a high ridge, and scarcely a mile
apart. This stream also gallops in a rocky bed, with soaring woods on
both banks, and with waterfalls here and there of much beauty. But
the Mellte and its two affluents, the Hepste and the Sychnant, quite
put the Little Neath in the shade in this respect. You may see it for
yourself, and also judge by the opinions expressed without reserve by
the many colliers and their families who come hither, on picnic bent,
from Hirwain and even Merthyr, over the high eastern hills. The Vale
of Neath would be accounted a wonder if it were in Middlesex. But its
remoteness keeps metropolitan tourists aloof; its charms are for the
local colliers, and few besides.

The Cwm Porth, or "river cavern," a mile below Ystradfellte, is the
first of the Mellte's marked eccentricities. The combination of rocks
and water and wood, with the added element of danger in exploring this
rugged, echo-haunted perforation in the cliff, are attractive in the
extreme to the able-bodied traveller. Mellte, in time of flood, carries
a deal of amber-tinted water in its rocky bed, and Cwm Porth is not
in the hands of a company who charge for admittance, and guarantee
smoothed paths, and ropes and handrails where there is a risk of broken
limbs. This, indeed, is just the best of the Mellte: you feel as if you
are on virgin soil while scrambling at a venture in its steep woods,
now on the edge of the roaring little stream fifty feet sheer above
a waterfall, and now midway in the river itself, perched on a rock,
with vistas of boisterous water up and down, and the river's banks,
wooded to the sky-line, hundreds of feet on either hand, at an angle
of forty-five or fifty degrees. The writer, on one memorable September
afternoon, was for hours alone in these woods, passing from waterfall
to waterfall, more by instinct than sure guidance, with the gold and
bronze and crimson of foliage constantly betwixt him and the blue
autumnal sky; nor did he see sign of other human being than himself,
nor more than one white farmstead, when he climbed above the topmost
trees and returned to the bleak and bare uplands beyond. The squirrels
ran from bough to bough, the birds chirped in the infrequent grassy
glades, where the sunlight made a bright spot in the midst of this
dense, damp shade, and the waters filled the glen with their clamour.
In all England there is nothing of its kind so admirable as the
seclusion and beauty of this gorge of the Mellte, with its tributary,
the Hepste, to the east.

Categorically, the chief waterfalls may be mentioned thus: the Clun
Gwyn Falls--Upper, Middle, and Lower--and the two Falls of the
Hepste. One cannot describe such things; each of these five has such
individuality and beauty that on seeing it you prefer it to the others.
Their framing is perfect. Even the heron that gathers up its long legs
and whips across the stream out of your way is not wanted to complete
your satisfaction in such pictures. Yet in a three miles' flight a crow
would reach coal mines and swart heaps of such refuse as you would not
dream could lie within scores of miles of these divine solitudes.

The great Cilhepste Fall, otherwise Ysgwd-yr-Eira (the Spout of Snow),
though the best known of the valley's cascades, is, in the writer's
opinion, the least convincing. The water is tossed in one curve over a
ledge of rock, and falls about 45 feet into a basin, whence it moves
downwards to the far finer succession of furious white steps known as
the Lower Hepste Falls. The woods in autumn clasp it amphitheatrically
with their green and gold. There is no fault anywhere. There is also
this added eccentricity: you may walk under the Fall from one side of
the river to the other. The writer did it in time of heavy flood, and
was soaked for his pains. Afterwards he clambered, not easily, down to
the Lower Falls, the disarray of which was much more to his taste. The
Ysgwd-yr-Eira would please more if it had a flaw. As it is, it looks
as if Nature and man had conspired to make a cascade with surroundings
that should be a model of their kind. Yet even this criticism--which
may well be held to be of the bilious order--will by most be regarded
as highly flattering to the Spout of Snow.

After the Mellte, one is not profoundly stirred by the Falls and sylvan
graces of the Little Neath and its tributary, the Perddyn. Yet, they,
too, are beautiful, especially the cascades of Scwd Gwladys (the Lady's
Fall) and Scwd Einon Gam (Crooked Einon's Fall), in the latter stream.

The Sychnant, however, is a sensational little river. It joins the
Mellte at the foot of a rocky precipice, Craig Dinas, which, even with
its mere 170 feet of perpendicular rock, may be warranted to yield a
thrill. From the grassy, hawthorned summit of Craig Dinas, one may
peer into the deep-cut bed of the Sychnant, where this cleaves through
the mountains from Hirwain, and also see its brace of waterfalls. But
the glen is well-nigh impassably dense with undergrowth and trees,
and bound about with precipices as emphatic, though not as high, as
Craig Dinas. Where the Sychnant comes to the light from this dark
embedded dingle, it is sadly spoiled by quarry men and others. But even
these enterprising gentlemen will fight shy of its higher recesses,
especially as they have nothing to gain by the intrusion.

Point Neath Vaughan is a snug little village, with none of the airs it
might assume in pride of its position as key to the glories of these
glens of the Neath. Its inns are homely, modest buildings. South, for
the ten or twelve miles to the sea, the river Neath flows through a
broad and lovely valley, with wooded or bare mountains on both sides.
From Cefn Hirfynydd (west) and Craig-y-Llyn (east) many a dashing
little stream, with miniature cascades, makes great haste to swell the
main river. But collieries are here, as well as fascinating scenery,
and it is impossible to overlook them and their smoke.

The town of Neath neither gives to nor gains from its river much
distinction where this moves through its midst, brown, and with tidal
mud on its banks. It is a colliery town, pure and simple, surprisingly
furnished with public-houses. The fragments of its castle that survive
are pent about by dismal slums, so that a man must have a very keen
antiquarian sense to discover them. Nor are they much when found: just
a gateway with its towers, the whole prettily hugged by ivy. Richard
Grenville, of Bideford, who founded it in the twelfth century, would
not care to see it now.

Hence to the much more grandiose ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of
St. Mary and the Holy Trinity, which also owed its origin to the
same Richard Grenville, is a walk of a mile or more--not a rural
walk, by any means. You may, if you will, take a tram-car thither,
with collier-lads or their womenfolk for your companions, and with
black mud on the roadway. The ruins stand close-girt by canals and
mines and ironworks. Leland describes the abbey as, in his day, the
fairest in Wales; and in the year 1500 its glories, and especially the
sweetness of its convent bells, were bardic themes. Never was there
so abject a change; and yet, after the Dissolution, when it fell to
the lot of Sir Richard Cromwell, nephew of Henry VIII.'s minister and
great-grandfather of Oliver, it was for long an appreciated residence.
The white stone mullions of the many windows of the parts of the abbey
added by Sir P. Hoby, in 1650 or so, still gleam against the dark
gritstone of the walls.

[Illustration: OUTSKIRTS OF NEATH.]

In spite of its sordid surroundings, however, Neath Abbey is not
despicable. The area of its ruins impresses; the jagged towering ends
of the ivied walls of its church, with daws croaking about them, and
the long-desolate aisle, tangled with coarse grass and brambles, are
also impressive. The ecclesiastics who sleep in Neath Abbey may be said
to lie fathoms deep under the accumulated soil. Not a trace of one of
them remains above the surface. The dark refectory of their convent,
with its pillared roof, stands pretty much as it did in the sixteenth
century, and of itself would dignify the ruins. But echo alone feasts
in its damp, sombre hall. One remembers that it was here our Edward
II. sought shelter after his evasion of Caerphilly Castle, and that
it was a Neath monk who betrayed him into that terrible custody of
Berkeley Castle, where death awaited him; and, remembering this, one
is inclined to be sentimental, and to talk about the curse that broods
over the Neath Abbey ruins. In truth, however, smoke is the main
brooder here.

[Illustration: NORTH DOCK, SWANSEA (_p. 174_).]

The river Neath glides on to its estuary by Briton Ferry, some two
miles distant from the town. Hills escort it right to the sea--not all
with smoking chimneys on them. The town is indeed quite uniquely hemmed
round with beauty, as well as ugliness. Up the valleys of the Dulas
and the Clydach, slim streams which join the Neath near its mouth, are
nooks and recesses as winsome as those of the Mellte itself; and once
on the tops of the mountains, in any direction, the pedestrian may
readily forget coal and iron.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is but seven or eight, miles from Neath to Swansea, where the
/Tawe/ comes to its end, foully enough, amid ironworks and
"coalers." One may, for convenience sake, make the journey, and later
rise with the river to its source. There is more satisfaction in seeing
it gradually purify than in watching its progress from pellucidity to
pollution; from the sweet-aired heather hills where Adelina Patti has
fixed her quiet home, to the sulphureous atmosphere of Landore and
Hafod.

Sweyn's Ea (Sweyne's Eye or Inlet), Aber Tawe--or Swansea, as we
modern English call it--is not what it was when Sweyne the King and
Rover was wont to come hither as a base for his forays into the vales
of South Cambria. Still, it can, if it cares to, brag stoutly of its
ancient enlistment in the service of carbon. In 1305 it received a
charter from William de Brews (Breos), great-grandson of the famous
Lord Marcher, "to have pit coal." That was beginning an industrial
career early indeed. Four centuries later, in 1709, its jurisdiction as
a port extended from Oxwich, in the Gower peninsula, to Chepstow--of
course, including the then unborn and unthought--of Cardiff. It began
to smelt copper in 1564, thanks to a charter given by Queen Elizabeth;
and it is to copper and shipping, quite as much as to its position at
the mouth of a great coalfield (estimated still to hold 19,200,000,000
tons of fuel underground), that Swansea owes its fine fortunes and its
population of about a hundred thousand.

It seems an ungracious thing to say, but Swansea is apparently somewhat
hampered by its antiquity. In the struggle for supremacy with Cardiff,
it has not had Cardiff's free hand in the matter of laying out a new
town; nor, one may add, quite that powerful vigour of youth which
carries all before it. Hence, it has already been left behind. The Duke
of Beaufort is not such a potentate in Swansea as the Marquess of Bute
in Cardiff; yet he stands to this city somewhat like the Marquess to
Cardiff. It was a Duke of Beaufort who cut the first sod of the North
Dock, or Town-Float, in 1852; and his Grace has large representation
in the Swansea Harbour Trust, which has charge of the city's port
affairs. The late Lord Swansea, speaking on behalf of this Corporation,
once said: "Swansea, you may depend upon it, is destined to become
the Ocean Port of England." Cardiff, at any rate, laughs such words
to scorn, and even a layman of England may be allowed to think the
prophecy over-sanguine. The North Dock has an area of 14 acres, and is
"connected with a half-tide basin of two and a half acres by a lock 160
feet long and 50 feet wide, having at its seaward entrance gates of 60
feet, with a depth of 23 feet over the sill at spring-tides and 16 feet
at neaps." This is, of course, but one of Swansea's docks, and by no
means the most important of them. Cardiff's docks are undoubtedly finer
than Swansea's, with more gigantic fitments.

Swansea, though ancient, possesses few relics of its past. The castle
tower, in the main street, with a clock set in it, is the chief of
them. In the large hall of the Royal Institution of South Wales--one
of Swansea's many meritorious establishments--may be seen divers
drawings and engravings of the city one, two, and three centuries
ago. In all of them the castle towers stand up as if they still had
the feudal faith strong in them. Green, pleasant, wooded hills form
the invariable background. How changed the landscape now! The green
hills are gone; cut bare and covered with mean mechanic tenements or
smoking manufactories. On the summit of the most conspicuous of them
are a few gaunt walls, which by night may, with the help of a glamorous
moon, come near being deceptively picturesque. This is the so-called
Morriston Castle, three miles north of the city, yet with the black
suburb of Morriston at its feet, an active contributant to Swansea's
fortunes. The "castle's" history is brief and ignominious. A hundred
years ago Sir John Morris, a maker of tin plates, who gives his name to
the suburb, erected a lofty and large building on this breezy hilltop,
for the accommodation of four-and-twenty of his workmen and their
families. Healthier homes these could not then have had within easy
reach of their daily labour. But the gradient of the hill soon wore out
their enthusiasm, and, one by one, the families moved down on to the
level. Then the lodging-house, being abandoned, fell slowly but surely
into ruin. The ruin is now Morriston Castle.

Swansea's castle has a more conventional history. It was built in its
final form (which can only be conjectured from its remains) by Bishop
Gower of St. David's, in the fourteenth century. After the usual
vicissitudes of disestablished castles, it still, until 1858, offered
its dungeons for the confinement of recalcitrant debtors. In that year
even these privileges were taken from it, and, ever since, civilisation
has tried to crowd it out of existence. Its body is lost in the various
buildings and workshops that have encroached upon it, but the graceful
arcaded clock-tower remains. It gives a pretty touch to Swansea's main
street, which it commands.

Little more can here be said about Swansea, except that the visitor
owes it to himself to leave the city (which was made a suffragan
bishopric in 1890) as soon as possible, and make friends with the
Mumbles. The five-mile curve of bay thither has been compared to that
of the Bay of Naples. The comparison is not a modest one. Nevertheless,
there is something uncommonly exhilarating about this Swansea Bay,
with the red and white green-topped cliffs of the Mumbles at its
south-western horn. You soon get out of reach of the fumes of the
city's copper and other metal works. The shipping of the Mumbles has
a nice clean look after that at the mouth of the Tawe. And, save when
the wind is north-east, the air is sweet here, as it is bound to be.
Mumbles--or Oystermouth, as it used to be called--has an attractive old
castle of its own, of the Decorated period. But it is precious chiefly
to Swansea for its sea and the lighthouse islets at the extremity of
the headland. The view hence towards the busy city, less than four
miles across the water, is not gay. Tall chimneys and a dense canopy of
smoke: such is the Erebus you behold from the pleasant Mumbles cliffs.

Ere moving up Tawe's valley, it seems quite worth while to tell of
Swansea's connection with the fortunes of John Murray, the publisher.
Gower the poet, Beau Nash, and other celebrities, owed their birth
to this city; and it was while living here in 1806 that one Mrs.
Randell compiled the "Domestic Cookery," for which John Murray paid
her the solid sum of £2,000, and which, Dr. Smiles tells us, was very
profitable to the young publisher, and helped in a great measure to
establish his position. It may be added, also, that in the parish
churchyard at the Mumbles lies the Dr. Thomas Bowdler who busied
himself so strenuously with Shakespeare's Plays, and gave to our
dictionaries an awkward, ugly word.

The Tawe cannot be much more than twenty-five miles in length, from
its source in the lakelet on the Brecknock Van, or summit, of the
Fforest Fawr Mountains, to the Swansea Docks. As fully half its course
is through a colliery district, it may be supposed that its claims to
beauty cannot be of the strongest. But the Neath river has taught us
that these South Wales streams cannot be judged thus summarily. One
must, therefore, proceed up the long valley of Tawe in the hope of
charms other than those that emanate from pit-gear, long chimneys, and
factories.

[Illustration: MORRISTON.]

Morriston has already been noticed for its "castle." It deserves a
word also for its bridge over the river. This bears the look of one of
Edwards's constructions; its eyelet holes and graceful single curve
remind one of Pontypridd. From Morriston to Ystradgynlais, Tawe is
continually trammelled. In one part there is a cañon of slag heaps half
a mile long for it to descend through. It is here shallow, and not more
tainted than you would expect. The hills rise in high long banks on the
outer boundaries of the valley, with wooded reaches above the lofty
collieries, and crowned by the naked rock. Just south of Ystradgynlais
the river receives its chief affluent, the Twrch, which has as bright
and lengthy a youth as Tawe itself, rising under the Carmarthen Van,
the rival peak of this Fforest Fawr range, which makes so commanding a
mark on the two counties of Brecknock and Carmarthen.

[Illustration: SWANSEA CASTLE (_p. 174_).]

[Illustration: THE MUMBLES (_p. 175_).]

The ascent here begins to be steep, and it is constant to the source.
The colliery villages become less and less assertive, and the woods
greener. By Coelbren a little stream hurries to the Tawe through one
of those deep, thickly-treed glens which the Neath river knows so
well. It is an enchanting spot, with the blue and green and russet of
Craig-y-Nos across the valley to the north-west. The river gets quite
near to the palace of our sweetest singer, whose conservatories can
be seen gleaming for miles. In South Wales Patti holds a court other
than that assured to her in all the world's capitals. She is at home
here. Her photographs are in the shop-windows of Neath and Swansea, and
so are the photographs of the various luxurious rooms of her mountain
palace; and she is praised for other virtues than those that proceed
from her entrancing throat. People wonder how she can isolate herself
here, where collieries are not so remote that they cannot be seen. But
that is Adelina Patti's affair, and has nothing to do with us. She is
queen of the Tawe valley, in one sense, as well as the world's queen
regnant of melody. At Craig-y-Nos, which is 700 feet above sea-level,
Tawe is distant only five or six mountainous miles from its origin. It
begins, like the Taff, with numerous slender rills from red cuttings
in the stony sides of the bleak uplands, all hurrying together, as if
anxious to compose a little strength with their divided weakness. But
its chief source is the lonely tarn (to borrow the North-country word)
of Lly-Fan Fawr, which never fails to keep it active. This is on the
Brecknock Van. On the Carmarthen Van also there is a lake, Lly-Fan
Fach, some two miles from the source of Tawe. From Lly-Fan Fach comes
the Sawddy, one of the Towy's band of tributaries, which enters that
river at Llangadock.

       *       *       *       *       *

The /Towy/, which now claims our notice, in a far nobler river
than the others treated in this chapter. From its start in the desolate
wet uplands of Cardiganshire (less trodden than any other part of Great
Britain) to the long channel south of Carmarthen, where it enters the
bay of that name, it knows nothing of such pollution as spoils Tawe,
Taff, and Neath. It is rural from first to last: savage almost in its
upper reaches, beyond Ystradffin, where it can be explored only at
some not inconsiderable risks, and where its first company of eager
affluents rush to it from all sides in glens and defiles, as deep,
craggy, and yet beautiful, as its own. Of its early affluents, the
Doethiau certainly deserves particular mention. Hard by its junction
with Towy is a strikingly picturesque wooded hill, one of Wales's many
Dinases.

Ystradffin is scarcely a village, but it boasts of attachment to the
memory of a seventeenth-century cattle-raider named Twm Shon Catti
(otherwise Tom Jones, the son of Catherine), who made use of a cave
in the side of the Dinas by Towy for purposes of concealment. This
hero of tradition at length determined to mend his ways, and, we are
told, set about it by wooing an heiress. He secured her hand in the
literal sense, and vowed to cut it off unless she gave it to him in the
matrimonial sense. So stern a courtship was irresistible. Afterwards
Twm Shon Catti became respectable, and died holding high office in the
county. But the cave over Towy keeps the memory of his naughty youth
and early manhood still green.

From Ystradffin the river descends circuitously some eleven miles to
the well-known fishing and tourist townlet of Llandovery, gambolling
gaily in its rocky pools as if resolved to make the most of its youth
ere coming to the long green valley which extends from Llandovery to
Carmarthen. Here it receives two voluminous aids in the Bran from the
north-east, and the Gwedderig from the east, both yielding pleasant
prospects even for the few miles their valleys are visible from
Llanymddyfri (_i.e._ "the Church amid the Waters"), or, as we know it,
Llandovery.

Green hills embrace Llandovery as if they loved it. The little town
is not so interesting as its situation, apart from its old inn, the
"Castle," a mellow, time-worn house. The very rooms here in which you
sup on eggs and bacon (if you are lucky enough) may have known that
worthy, the Vicar of Llandingat, who, in the seventeenth century, daily
came hither for his ale, attended by a goat as thirsty as himself.
One day, it is said, this goat drank well rather than wisely, and
thenceforward declined to cross the threshold of the "Castle" with its
master. One may hope that the Vicar learnt a lesson from the goat.

Towy is here a great, clear, rapid stream, and so it continues for
the remaining thirty miles of its career. Famous view-points on it
are the bridges of Llandovery, Llangadock, and Llandilo, the bridges
themselves as graceful as the valley. Llandilo stands on a knoll on the
west bank of the river, and rejoices in its superiority to Llandovery
as a market-town. This, to the stranger, is much less commendatory
than its nearness to one of the most beautiful seats in South Wales,
Dynevor, where the Barons of that title have long held sway. The ruins
of the old Dynevor Castle, on a hill crowded with oak, ash, and beech
trees, are from the river quite ideally picturesque. It is a pity that
the "common herd" of tourists have so misbehaved themselves that Lord
Dynevor has felt compelled to deny free access to so charming a spot.
Golden Grove, an estate as winsome as its name, on the other bank of
the Towy, opposite Dynevor, has had its attractions sung by Dyer, the
poet, who was born in the neighbourhood, and died rector of Coningsby,
in Lincolnshire, in 1757: here is the Grongar Hill, where "often, by
the murm'ring rill," one "hears the thrush while all is still."

Between Llandilo (Llan-Teilo: the Church of St. Teilo, who died Bishop
of Llandaff, in /A.D./ 540) and Carmarthen, Towy's zigzags are
many and eccentric. After Dynevor another castle, that of Dryslwyn, is
soon passed. It is a mere ruin on a green hill. The Nelson Monument,
high in the distance, on the south side of the river, is a more
assertive feature in the landscape, though less welcome. Midway towards
Carmarthen, we cross the Cothi, the longest of all Towy's affluents,
and here, near its mouth, as great a stream as the Towy at Llandovery.
Looking up it, there is even here some suggestion of its fine upper
gorges. At Abergorlech, some ten miles nearer its sources, either
artist or angler would find reason to rejoice in it, while higher still
it absorbs streamlets right and left as greedily as the Towy itself.

One must, however, resist the temptation to loiter on Cothi's bridge by
Llanegwad. There is nothing of especial mark to see by the way, save
Merlin's grotto, where the Arthurian wizard fell a victim to the wiles
of the fairy Viviana, and where he is still imprisoned, and will be for
all time. But you must carry a fine faith with you to be fitly moved by
the legend, and it will not be inexcusable if you fail to find it.

At the Ivy Bush Hotel of Carmarthen, whence there is a commanding
view over the lower part of the valley, one may think tenderly of Sir
Richard Steele, who once lived in it. The tablet to his memory in
the parish church of St. Peter here describes him as the "first chief
promoter of the periodical press of England." What would he say to the
growth of the babe for which he is thus made responsible?

[Illustration: CAREW CASTLE (_p. 182_).]

This capital town, which in the time of Giraldus had walls of burnt
brick, is nowadays of the modernest. Its castle, or what was left of
it, has been turned into a jail; though you may discern some of its
ancient stonework in the adjacent alleys. The town stands well above
the river and the seven-arched bridge beneath which Towy now moves with
stately ease towards the sea, a navigable stream. There is a small
quay here, and a larger one some three miles farther down, for local
coasters. For five miles more Towy holds its own against the ocean; and
yet another five have to be passed ere, at Carmarthen Bar, the fresh
waters gathered from the peaceful and fertile vales of Carmarthenshire
are wholly merged in the salt sea.

       *       *       *       *       *

We have now come to a singular district of Wales--a part of South Wales
that is not Wales, but "a little England in Wales." Close by Towy's
mouth, another river Taf (though with only one "f") enters the sea very
broadly with the body of water yielded to it by the rivers Dewi Fawr,
Gynin, Feni, and Marias, which all have bright tortuous courses among
the green hills of Pembrokeshire. And four or five miles still farther
west, the "Llans" and "Abers" which proclaim the land of the Cymry end,
and give place to names Danish, Norwegian, and Norman. This continues
until we are at Newgale Bridge, on St. Bride's Bay, eight miles from
the thoroughly reverend and Welsh city of St. David's. Newgale Bridge
has a small ale-house adjacent, where they seem contemptuously ignorant
of the existence of the Welsh counties of Carmarthen and Glamorganshire
to the east, so positively do they inform you that on one side of the
streamlet spanned by the bridge it is England, and on the other side
Wales.

[Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._

CARMARTHEN QUAY (_p. 180_).]

The Normans could not, in spite of their sternest efforts, make much
impression on Wales as a whole for a century or two after the battle
of Senlac. But they could, thanks to Milford Haven, nibble at its
south-western extremity. This is what they did, and with the planting
here by Henry I. of a large colony of Flemings the earlier stock seems
to have been either absorbed or superseded.

Milford Haven, with its arms of tidal water extending twenty miles into
the heart of the country, was a grand aid to conquest in these parts.
The Norman lords who were invited hither to carve out careers for
themselves had much success. They raised castles at the extremities of
Milford's water-ways, and thus assured to themselves broad controlling
powers. Enough if mention be made of only the important fortresses of
Pembroke, Haverfordwest, and Carew.

The last of these may be first visited. Its situation at the head of
a dammed tidal inlet, low-lying and with no prominent hills near, is
unworthy of so noble a ruin. But Gerald de Windsor, the Norman lord
who built it (having received the land as a dowry with his Welsh wife,
Nesta, daughter of Prince Rhys ap Tewdwr of Dinefawr, or Dynevor),
probably cared little for the picturesque. The strong western towers
still bear witness to him; but to the mere tourist by far the most
interesting part of the castle is the east side, over against the
water, with its high wall and the lofty great, flaunting skeletons of
the windows of the palace above, their white mullions bowing forward
with inimitable grace. Unfortunately, one cannot romance about the
rooms to which these majestic oriels and bays belonged. This part of
the castle is of the sixteenth century, and was left unfinished.

Carew Castle (Caerau = fortified camps) still belongs to the Carews.
The Windsors took the name of this possession of theirs, and held the
castle for more than three hundred years. Then their line of lordship
was interrupted; and it was during this period that the great Sir Rhys
ap Thomas (whom Henry VII. made a Knight of the Garter for the part he
played before and at Bosworth Field in aid of the House of Tudor) held
such revels here as have made Carew almost a by-word. Among other shows
was a "feate of arms" of five days' duration, to which knights flocked
from all parts of England and Wales. These guests filled the castle and
more: five hundred, "moste of them of goode ranke," were accommodated
with tents in the park adjacent, of which no trace remains. Sir Rhys
himself, in gilt armour, on a "goodlie steede," attended by two pages
on horseback and a herald, "was the judge of the jousts." This same
mighty noble received Henry VII. at Carew before Bosworth Field was
fought; and, if tradition speak true, with his own hands killed Richard
of Gloucester, who would dearly have liked ere then to have killed him.
Sir Rhys lies in the parish church of Carmarthen, with about seven feet
of armoured stone for a monument; and a very small effigy of a wife
lies by his side. With the Civil Wars came the castle's destruction.
The Carews of Crowcombe, in Somersetshire, are now lords of the castle,
and anyone may tread its grass and broken stones on payment of a
threepenny bit.

Carew had the honour of entertaining Henry VII., but Pembroke had the
higher honour of being his birthplace, Margaret Beaufort, his mother,
being then only in her fifteenth year. Five months later he was an
orphan, and Jasper Tudor, his uncle, began his long, exemplary, and
singularly fortunate guardianship. Ere then this great castle, at the
tip of the most southerly of Milford Haven's arms, had had nearly four
centuries of existence. The first castle was only "a slender fortress
with stakes and turf," says Giraldus the chronicler. If so, however,
it must soon have been ousted by the existing Norman keep, which, with
its 70 feet of height and 17 feet of thickness at the base, is anything
rather than "a slender fortress." Throughout England there is no better
specimen left to us of a feudal keep than this of Pembroke.

The castle buildings, as a whole, measure some 500 feet by 400 feet
within the walls; and, viewed, from the breezy summit of the keep
(reached by broken steps and a rope), are, even in their ruin, a very
instructive lesson in feudal history. The gate-house and the keep are
by far the best preserved parts; these are both little less serviceable
than they were in their prime. The central space, or Outer Ward, is now
a grass-plot, kept trim for tennis.

One cannot do more than touch on the conventional last scene in this
castle's active history. The building was held for Charles I. by
Colonel Laugharne and two other Royalists named Powell and Poyer. As
was to be expected, they made a stout resistance even to Cromwell, who
came hither in person. Eventually, however, supplies were cut off,
and the castle surrendered. "The three leaders were condemned to be
shot--though the sentence was reduced to one. Lots were drawn, it is
said, by a little girl. Two were marked 'Life given by God,' the third
was blank, and fell to Poyer, who was shot in Covent Garden, 1649."

Since then Pembroke Castle has accepted its _rôle_ as a ruin. The very
peacocks that strut about its courtyard seem to understand that their
haunt is a superb one.

There is little else in Pembroke save two of those pleasant white
church-towers which are quite a characteristic, of the shire. Monkton
Priory, one of these, has as lengthy a history as the castle. It was
founded in 1098, and belonged to a community of Benedictines connected
with Jayes in Normandy. Anciently this church, which has a very long
back, with the tower about midway in it, was divided by an inner wall
between the monks of the priory and the local parishioners. Its Norman
nave and Decorated choir are well preserved: indeed, the original
builders were as generous of material as they who raised the castle
keep. Externally, save for its tower (restored in 1804), and a Norman
south doorway, it has a very modern aspect, though its acre or two of
gravestones in the churchyard bear witness against appearances.

There are two Pembrokes and two Milfords on Milford Haven; in each
case one old and the other new. Our New Pembroke, however, goes by the
name of Pater or Pembroke Dock, and a very important little town it is
for the United Kingdom, with its building slips, dry dock, and naval
stores. If you chance to be going from Old Pembroke to Pater between
two and three o'clock any Saturday afternoon, you will be tempted to
form an exaggerated idea of the number of hands employed at this State
dockyard. In fact, there are about 1,000, though, of course, the figure
is a variable one. From Pater the view down the Haven is uninterrupted
as far as the watering-place of Dale, eight or nine miles due west,
just at the north corner of the entrance. The channel is there nearly
two miles in breadth, and fortifications on the small island of Thorn,
to the south of Dale, are designed to prevent undesirable interference
with British property in the Haven's recesses.

[Illustration: PEMBROKE CASTLE AND MONKTON PRIORY (_p. 183_).]

[Illustration: THE ROYAL DOCKYARD, PEMBROKE DOCK.]

In less than five minutes you may cross the Haven, by steam ferry, from
Pembroke Dock to New Milford or Neyland, which calls for no particular
notice. It is a creation of the Great Western Railway, in connection
with which steamers ply nightly to Ireland. Hence to Old Milford is a
pleasant walk of three miles, with the water continuously to the left.
The low green hills of the Haven to the south are not very beautiful,
and it is only on exceptional occasions that the great water-way holds
more than half a dozen big ships in its midst. One or two ironclads on
guard may, however, at all times be looked for. Imogen, in _Cymbeline_,
inquires, as a significant aside--

                    "by the way,
    Tell me how Wales is made so happy as
    To inherit such a haven!"

[Illustration: HAVERFORDWEST (_p. 186_).]

But Wales's happiness in this possession is of the kind that depends
more on the expectation of favours to come than on benefits actually
enjoyed. Milford Haven was better appreciated in the Middle Ages than
it is now. It was only natural, for example, that Henry Tudor should
land here in his quest of the English crown. Here too, earlier still,
Richard II. set foot, on his anxious return from Ireland, when Henry
of Bolingbroke was troubling his realm. The French chronicler, De la
Marque, who was at Milford at this time, finds much to praise in the
conduct of the Welshmen who were with the unhappy king. Richard's
English retinue deserted him and plundered his baggage, but the Welsh
could with difficulty be dissuaded from accompanying him in his march
north to Conway, and they fell upon such of the deserters as they
could. "What a spirit! God reward them for it!" says De la Marque.

Old Milford is a prettily situated town terraced above the Haven, with
quays and embankments on its shore-line, ready for the traffic that is
still withheld from it. Master Atkins's red coat helps to enliven it.
The blue water, the green level ridges that run west to the sea, and
the Atlantic itself in the distance, all prepossess in its favour. But
Liverpool and Holyhead both hold it aloof from the fortune it aspired
to.

Before proceeding north to that little known yet seductive river, the
Teifi, Haverfordwest, on one of the two Cleddaus, which enter the
Haven at its northern and westernmost arms, must be briefly mentioned.
It is an ancient town, as its castle--built about 1112 by the father
of Richard Strongbow, that eminent castle-builder--testifies. Among
its other privileges was that of being county and capital town in
one; also of having its own lord-lieutenant. Here the Flemings of the
twelfth century most did congregate in this peninsula, and no doubt the
little town's prosperity was largely due to them. Nowadays, however,
it is a waning place, in spite of its lively look and, considering
its remoteness, its fine buildings. This is proven by the number of
its Maiden Assizes in the later years of its independence, before
its annexation to Carmarthen for judicial purposes, as well as by
other less agreeable tokens. It is, perhaps, the most hilly town in
the kingdom. Ere you are half a mile away from it on the road to St.
David's, it is lost to sight; while, approaching it from Milford, its
situation seems quite Alpine.

       *       *       *       *       *

The /Teifi/ (or Tivy), like the Towy, is little known to
Englishmen other than anglers; and again, like the Towy, it well
deserves knowing. The two rivers both rise among the heather-clad
moors of Cardiganshire; so near, indeed, that you may stand on the
watershed and mark the different trend of their streams. Teifi's chief
supply, however, comes from the Teifi pools, three miles from Strata
Florida Abbey, a congeries of mountain lakes, the abode of interesting
and capricious trout that may be recommended to the traveller with
a fishing rod--and a mackintosh. It has as wild an origin as any of
the rivers of South Wales. The Cistercians of Strata Florida probably
fished these lakes far more than do the moderns.

From the pools Teifi descends impetuously to the mere graveyard that
reminds one of the Mynachlog Fawr, or Great Monastery, of which only
an archway remains. Either Rhys ap Tewdwr or Rhys ap Gruffydd, royal
princes both, was the founder of the abbey, which was so important an
establishment that Henry IV. made a special expedition to destroy it.
If, as tradition says. Dafydd ap Gwilym--"the greatest genius of the
Cimbric race and one of the first poets of the world," in the opinion
of George Borrow--was buried here, one can understand the patriotic
influence of such a spot, and Bolingbroke's ruthlessness. But many
are the poets and princes, as well as Dafydd ap Gwilym, who lie in
this "Westminster of Wales." The Strata Florida monks have been made
responsible for the Devil's Bridge, on the Rheidol--that _bonne bouche_
for visitors to Aberystwith. Excavations have recently been made in the
abbey precincts, with promising results.

Strata Florida is accessible by railway from the Manchester and Milford
station of Pontrhydfendigaid. It must be confessed that some courage
is required to alight at this dreary place on a wet autumn day. Teifi
traverses dismal bog-land for miles hence: a vast flat of glittering
pools and reddish grass and reeds, abounding in hares. One marvels that
no serious attempt has been made to drain these thousands of acres: not
such a difficult task, surely, considering the steep fall to the west
beyond the hills. However, each landlord to his own ideas. Tregaron is
passed, and still Teifi is rather a dull stream, though it can be seen
that, lower down, the hills are drawing together suggestively. This
is a famous district for cattle-drovers and cattle fairs. Your modern
Cardigan farmer finds in these fairs one of the main excitements of his
life. But the dealers are often far gone in whisky by the end of the
fair-day, especially if they have had "bargains."

So towards Lampeter, leaving on the east Llanddewi Brefi, where, in
/A.D./ 519, was held the Great Synod, attended by St. David,
at which Pelagius was adjudged a heretic. Teifi has now become a real
river, broad and swift, and a charm to the angler. A column on a hill
by Derry Ormond holds the eye. This is a tale told of it. The grandsire
of the present owner of the estate wooed a young lady of London, and
brought her home; but she pined for the Metropolis, and said either
that she could not or would not live where she could not see London.
To help her a little in this respect, her husband built the column.
History does not inform us whether the wife was won to her allegiance
by this proof of marital infatuation.

Teifi does not excel in its auxiliary streams. This is explainable
by the nature of the country it traverses. Its watershed is not an
extensive one, like Towy's. The streams that flow to it throughout its
course are all insignificant in size, though the two Cletwrs (Fawr and
Fach), Afon Cych, and especially the merry little mountain-rivulet that
joins it a mile west of Newcastle Emlyn, are not without the customary
fascinations of these well-nigh untrodden glens of Wild Wales.

It is when Teifi turns decisively to the west and its home in the long
inlet of Port Cardigan that its graces become truly bewitching. From
Llandyssil to Newcastle Emlyn it alternates between sweet, green,
hill-bounded reaches and contracted gorges which trammel and fret it so
that it roars with dissatisfaction. At Newcastle its valley is broad
again, with wooded hills on all sides, enclosing the pretty little
village and its castle. Put thence to Cardigan it is majestic all the
way, zigzagging with glorious curves, and with high, densely-wooded
banks in the main. Seen when the tints are on its trees, this part of
Teifi's course makes an enduring mark on the memory. The salmon-fisher
who comes once to Teifi here (and it is a prolific river, in spite
of the "professionals," who take heavy tolls at its mouth) will have
abundant compensation, even though he have poor sport. There is no
railway between Newcastle and Cardigan; but what a nine miles' drive or
walk it is!

At Cenarth, for instance, it is impossible not to pause awhile. Here
the river bursts from a confined defile into greater freedom, sweeping
under a bridge of the Edwards hall-mark. Cenarth is a lovely little
village, out of the world, given up to the woods and the crying
waters. And under its bridge, at the side, you may see some of the
tiny coracles still in use on this stream. Fashions die hard in these
sequestered parts of Wales. Giraldus tells us that the beaver kept its
haunt on the Teifi when it was extinct elsewhere in Great Britain.

There is a contenting sameness about Teifi all the way to Cardigan:
unchanged perfection. Two miles short of this capital town, however, it
speeds to the south, and then turns boldly in its final curve towards
the sea. Above it here, on a lofty crag, with woods caressing it, is
Kilgerran Castle, which Turner painted. He could hardly have resisted
the temptation, having seen it. The castle remains consist of two
towers and a gateway, all of the thirteenth century. Historically,
little seems known about it.

[Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._

MILFORD HAVEN (_p. 185_).]

Thence Teifi makes for the defile which ushers it to salt water, past
the small yet prosperous county town, which has close sea intercourse
with Bristol, and does a good trade in fish. Cardigan, like all these
Welsh capitals, has a fragmentary castle; so fragmentary, indeed, that
it is hardly discoverable. It has also an old church with a remarkably
massive tower, having a buttress like a staircase. From its churchyard
tombstones one may learn much, as well as the common lesson of the
mortality of mortals. It is, for example, interesting to the stranger
to be informed that "Let" is no unusual Christian name for a man here,
and "Lettice" for a woman. The town suffers from a complaint nowadays
rare among the capitals of British counties, to wit, difficult railway
communication with the rest of the land. This will be remedied somewhat
when the existing line is continued from Newcastle Emlyn. But one may
be excused for hoping that Teifi's banks may for years to come know
nothing of the mauling and devastation that will be inevitable when
this takes place.

If you wish to see Teifi, or Tivy, quite to its end, it is worth while
to go north another three miles, to Gwbert-on-the-Sea, a distinctly
primitive and pleasing watering-place, facing Kemmaes Head, with the
mile and a half of Teifi's mouth (at its widest) intervening.

[Illustration: THE TEIFI AT KILGERRAN.

_Photo: S. J. Allen, Pembroke Dock._]

Bidding farewell to the beauteous Teifi, we must now in few words
track the last of our rivers to the same inevitable destination.
/Ystwith/ has had no poets that we are aware of. Not all who
visit Aberystwith, indeed, perceive (though they surely might) that it
gives its name to this salubrious town. The Rheidol, which also enters
the sea at Aberystwith, is treated with distinction. For it there is a
solid, handsome bridge, lighted with lamps. But for Ystwith there is
only a very commonplace bridge.

The Ystwith rises in the broken upland a few miles south of Plinlimmon,
runs in a deep channel for three or four miles, and then, with little
hesitation, though infinite sinuosities, rushes due west. Its entire
length is not more than thirty miles. Until it comes to the road
by Eglwys Newydd, and within four miles of the Devil's Bridge, on
its rival the Rheidol, and even past Hafod, it sees few admirers,
though it might have many. People who come to Eglwys Newydd, on their
circuitous way to the Devil's Bridge, do not go out of their path to
see the Ystwith, but the Chantrey monument, in memory of Miss Johnes,
in this "New Church." Farther west the Manchester and Milford Railway
runs in its valley from Trawscoed, and accompanies it to the sea. Here
its beauty is of a superb order. The wooded mountains soar with most
impressive effect on its southern side, now and then parting to show
an abysmal glen, just as densely wooded, down which a baby stream
tumbles towards our Ystwith. It matters not so very much, except to the
angler, if the river does suffer from lead-poisoning. The mines do not
obtrude themselves; and one may cheat oneself into the belief that the
thickness of its waters comes from the melting snows high up on the
mountains which it taps. For a few miles one may search the vocabulary
for adjectives in eulogy of Ystwith. Then it sobers into comparatively
level ground, and green pastures between receded green and heather-clad
hills succeed the splendid towering woods. For the rest of its journey,
it is an ordinary stream, and as such it slides into the sea just south
of the town with a modesty that is almost affecting.

Aberystwith the piered, esplanaded and castled, might well condescend
to take a little notice of its humble "godparent," as well as of the
Rheidol, and might gain credit in the condescension. This resort
of a certain order of fashion (especially now that there are sweet
girl-graduates to give a classic touch to its broad breezy promenade)
seems, however, fully content to rely on the seducing charms of its
powerful pure air, its tea-gardens on Constitution Hill, and--the
Devil's Bridge.

Wondrous indeed is the power of ozone! It reconciles us to weeks
in lodging-houses that are ugly to behold and are in themselves
uncomfortable. Not that Aberystwith is worse off in this respect
than other places. Indeed, it may be said to be in a better plight
than most, since the Esplanade buildings are handsome, once you have
accepted their uniformity. Even were it otherwise, it would matter not
at all to the sojourner in bracing Aberystwith! He acquires resignation
and divers other virtues merely in breathing this pure invigorating air
on the broad paved walk between the lodging-houses and the sea.

[Illustration: _Photo: E. R. Gyde, Aberystwith._

ABERYSTWITH.]

Of Aberystwith's castle it must suffice to say that it dates from the
eleventh century, and owes its parentage to Gilbert Strongbow. Cromwell
cut its little comb effectually, and now it exists only in fragments.
They are, however, attractive morsels, and the little green enclosure
which they prettily dignify is a popular resort for visitors. There
are seats about it, and you may perch close over the mutilated low
cliffs of the coast and watch the breakers rolling in towards the town,
while listening with your mind's ear to the tales told by Time of this
downright ancient little place. The University buildings adjoin the
castle demesne. They are quite grandiose. One wonders how often in
the year the noise of the waves on their stones is so loud that it
distracts the academic minds within its stately walls. It has been said
authoritatively that "Aberystwith stands out as being far and away the
Welshiest of the University Colleges, and Cardiff as the most English."
This is gratifying to those of us who like to see the boundary-lines of
nationalities clearly defined. And yet the faces of the students in the
streets here do not show their birthright as one would expect.

But enough. One must be very morose or abased in body as well as
mind not to perceive the peculiar charms of Aberystwith. To the
enterprising, and perhaps jaded, sojourner in this Brighton of Wales
it may, moreover, come as welcome news that for a mile or two of its
course the Ystwith is of a beauty matchless even in Wales.

    /Charles Edwardes./

[Illustration]




[Illustration: DOLGELLEY (_p. 200_).]




RIVERS OF NORTH WALES.




CHAPTER I.

THE DOVEY, THE DYSYNNI, THE MAWDDACH.

    Glories of A Wet Autumn in North Wales. The /Dovey/: Source of
    the Stream--Dinas Mowddwy--Mallwyd--Machynlleth. The /Dysynni/:
    Tal-y-Llyn--The "Bird Rock"--/Towyn/. The /Mawddach/: The
    Estuary--The Wnion--Torrent Walk--Dolgelley--Precipice Walk--The
    Estuary--Barmouth--Harlech Castle--Portmadoc--The Glaslyn--Tremadoc
    and Shelley--The Traeth Bach.


There are times of the year when North Wales seems to be all rivers and
mountain torrents and tumbling cataracts. The hills are seamed by thin,
white streaks of foaming water. It is as if all the land were rushing
down to the valleys and the sea. What was yesterday a slow dribble
from pool to pool, a scarcely perceptible moisture among weeds, a
narrow reflection of sky among stones and boulders, is to-day a broad,
impetuous stream, or a wide expanse of bog-stained water, or a torrent
swollen and turbulent. The cataracts which have disappointed the
tourist in dry seasons come down in a way that wholly sustains their
ancient reputation. But the mountains are, for the most part, hidden in
mist, or whelmed in cloud; the white roads glitter like streams, and--

    "The rain, it raineth every day;
    Heigho, the wind and the rain!"

Yet, decidedly, it is in a wet autumn that one should see North Wales.
"Then, if ever, are perfect days," when the whole glory of wild Nature
reveals itself in some interval of dripping rains; when the brown
foliage, dipping into the flooded rivers, glows like gold in some
sudden outburst of the sun; and when the mountains fade upward from
their heathery bases, and purple middle-distances, into shadowy peaks
of faintest blue.

[Illustration: RIVERS OF NORTH WALES.]

How fascinatingly the bells of Aberdovey have rung themselves into the
popular consciousness! And all by means of some foolish verses that are
as securely immortal as the famous and touching air in which Neil Gow
has set the bells of Edinburgh town to music:--

    "'Ae os wyt ti'n fy ngharu i
    Fel 'rwyf fi'n dy garu di,
    Mal un, dau, tri, pedwar, pump, chwech,'
    Go the bells of Aberdovey."

Seated in a boat in the middle of the estuary of the /Dovey/
river, one laments the fact that the bells exist in legend only.
How sweetly they would sound through the distance and in the dusk,
over this wide expanse of shallow water and glimmering sand! But the
little town of Aberdovey, hugging the hillside at the south-westerly
corner of Merionethshire, has certainly had no peal of bells at any
date more recent than the time when Owen Glendower descended into the
Dovey valley to procure his own proclamation as Prince of Wales. It is
a humble little town, which, as somebody has remarked, seems to ask
itself why it is not Liverpool. It has a wharf and a deep-water pier,
and a railway at only a few yards from the beach. Large vessels could
lie in safety near to the doors of the Aberdovey folk, and the maps
insist strenuously on the directness of the sea-routes to Dublin, to
Rosslare, and to Waterford. They are direct enough, no doubt; but who
cares to travel by them? Only a few small schooners are to be seen
in the harbour of Aberdovey. Two or three others are drawn up high
and dry on the sands, so that one might almost leap on board from the
thresholds of the cottages. If the world were more happily ordered, the
chief trade of the place might be the exchange of rich merchandise;
but, as one may perceive from the pier yonder, it is merely the
exportation of slates.

The river Dovey--or Dyti, as it is called in the more ancient
language--rises among the peaks of Aran Mowddwy, and, dashing down
the mountain-sides with a pretty music, leaves Merioneth for a while
to course through a jutting corner of Montgomeryshire. Then it
becomes the boundary between Merioneth and Cardigan, making its way
to the sea through an estuary 6-1/2 miles long--broad, noble, and
impressive, with hills green, gentle, and round on its left, and on
its right high mountains and purple heather, and "the sleep that is
among the lonely hills." It is a river much beloved of angling folk,
for there are "salmons" not only, as Fluellen said, in Monmouthshire,
but also in Montgomery and Merioneth. Likewise there is abundance
of sewin and trout; and the fisherman who visits Dinas Mowddwy,
Mallwyd, or Machynlleth will be likely enough to store his memory with
recollections not only of fine scenery but of glorious days.

Dinas Mowddwy is a small village with a large hotel; but it was nothing
less than a city in the old days, and it calls itself a city still.
Even up to so recent a date as 1886, it had all the honours of a
borough, with a Mayor of its own, and a Corporation, and a Recorder,
and the tradition of a charter dating from James I. It may be reached
by means of a ridiculous but convenient railway from Cemmaes Road, the
trains consisting of an engine and one carriage, with, possibly, a few
truckloads of slates attached behind. Aran Mowddwy, on which the Dovey
rises, is, next to Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales. It is the
centre of a district full of vague traditions and curiously varied
grandeur and beauty. After the death of Owen Glendower, "many powerful
gentlemen of Wales" assembled at Dinas "for the purpose of making
compacts to enforce virtue and order." Their success can scarcely have
been very great, for it was at this place, not long afterwards, that
the "Red-Haired Banditti of Mowddwy" were wont to hold their meetings
and arrange their murders. It is pleasant to be able to record that
in due course these gentry were as effectually suppressed as were the
Doones of Exmoor, if the story of John Ridd is to be believed. How they
found means to exist by rapine in a country so sparsely peopled is not
now intelligible; but they were, clearly, a very savage and revengeful
folk, for forty arrows were found in the body of a judge who had
condemned some of their brethren to death.

Sparkling along through Dinas, and flowing under the ruins of an
ancient bridge, with a more modern and substantial structure close
beside it, the river Dovey shortly reaches Mallwyd, where there is a
church that is much visited, occupying the site of an earlier edifice
which is said to have been erected by St. Tydecho in the sixth century,
and with an ancient yew-tree which the saint himself is believed to
have planted. On the other side of the river stands the farmhouse of
Camlan, associated by a tradition, into the veracity of which we need
not now inquire, with Camelot, and that "battle long ago" in which King
Arthur is said to have been overthrown. All this wide, winding Dovey
valley teems with history of a sort. At the farmhouse of Mathafarn,
below Cemmaes Road, "the great poet and scholar," David Llwyd ap
Llewelyn, entertained the Earl of Richmond, who was afterwards to
become King Henry VII., and was then on his way to Bosworth fight. At
Machynlleth, with its fine, broad, mediæval street, much frequented
by salesmen of cattle and sheep, you may see the house in which Owen
Glendower held his Parliament after he had "defeated" the English by
flying before them into the hills. Machynlleth itself was the Roman
station of Maglona, and is now a fairly considerable town, situated
almost as happily as Dolgelley, with the square ivy-clad tower of an
ancient church dominating the centre of the valley. Here the beautiful
river Dulas joins the Dovey, and hence one may travel by the tiny
Corris railway to Tal-y-Llyn, through some of the most satisfying
scenery in all Wild Wales.

[Illustration: TORRENT WALK, DOLGELLEY (_p. 198_).]

Before reaching the estuary, the Dovey wanders through much wide
marshland, over which a railway has been carried, where there is a
railway station set amid desolateness, and where no tree or shrub
breaks the flat, brown margins of the stream. From such scenery it is
very agreeable to break away to where, at high tide, there is a sheet
of water six miles broad--the sweetest, calmest, most restful estuary
in all Wales, with Borth sunning itself by the sea far away, with
hills at whose feet plantations flourish, and mountains with fir-woods
climbing up their slopes.

Flowing from the sides of Cader Idris, which holds a gloomy lake in
its lap, there is a complex network of streams. Several of these
join themselves together to form the little river Dysynni, which,
after wandering among the mountains for twelve miles or so, drowns
itself in the sea beyond Towyn. One of the sources of the Dysynni
is Tal-y-Llyn. Noble and beautiful and ever memorable is the valley
through which the stream hurries downwards from that renowned lake,
the object of innumerable excursions made from Dolgelley, from Towyn,
from Machynlleth, and from all the wild, wonderful, fascinating places
roundabout. Tal-y-Llyn is no more than a mile long, and a quarter of
a mile broad; but it is like a small piece of Norway transported to
Wales. Here alike come those who are intent on reaching the summit of
Cader Idris, and those who desire to follow "the contemplative man's
recreation," for the Dysynni, like the Dovey, is a famous fishing
river. Salmon, sewin, and gwyniad are to be found therein, from May
until after the autumn leaves are falling. There are white and sea
trout, and bass, and in the estuary plentiful grey mullet, which make
fine and exciting sport when a ring of nets is thrown around them, and
the noisy and vigorous "beaters" drive them into the meshes.

[Illustration: THE LOWER BRIDGE, TORRENT WALK (_p. 199_).]

One must go up the Dysynni to see the famous "Bird Rock," a great
shoulder of mountain on which the hawk and the cormorant dwell. It is
so precipitous that it may be climbed on only two of its sides, and
it has one of those echoes for which Wales is almost unapproachable,
so that the music of any instrument that is played upon it will be
reverberated in a startling chorus from all the surrounding hills.
Lower down the river, always amid such scenery as it were vain to
describe, there is the site of a manor house from which Prince Llewelyn
wrote important letters to ecclesiastical magnates in London, and which
that stout soldier-king Edward I. visited, for he dated a charter
thence. Older relics there are, like the Tomen Ddreiniog, which, maybe,
is one of "the grassy barrows of the happier dead." It is a valley
renowned for its birds and their songs, this of the Dysynni, and for
its rare plants and mosses, and its rich store of maiden-hair fern. As
we approach Towyn the mansion of Ynys-y-Maengwyn, the dwelling of an
ancient Welsh family, presents a quaint and most picturesque mixture
of architectural periods, for it combines all the styles of domestic
architecture that prevailed between the period of Elizabeth and that of
the Georges.

The Dysynni is a land-locked river as it approaches the sea, for the
Cambrian Railway crosses its estuary. There is a spectacle on one hand
of what seems a lake among purple mountains, and on the other of a
stream winding amid dreary flats to the breezy waters of Cardigan Bay.
Towyn, which is but a small place, has a certain fame for sea-bathing,
and for its association with "a holy man of Armorica, who came to Wales
in the sixth century to refute the Pelagian heresy." One does not
inquire too curiously into these things; but there, not far from the
estuary of the Dysynni, is St. Cadfan's Church, and St. Cadfan was one
who performed miracles; and in the church there is a pillar which, as
some aver, is inscribed in debased Roman characters, and once marked
the site of St. Cadfan's grave.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Neither the North of England, nor Scotland, no, nor Switzerland, can
exhibit anything so tranquil, romantic, snug, and beautiful as a Welsh
valley." These are the words of John Wilson, the "Christopher North"
of the famous "Noctes Ambrosianæ" and the "Recreations"; the "rusty,
crusty Christopher" of Lord Tennyson's early satire. He was thinking
of Dolgelley and all the indescribable charm of its surroundings.
Wilson was a Scot who had dwelt continuously and for many years amid
the English Lakes. He knew his Switzerland, too; and it must have been
reluctantly, one would think, that he gave this unstinted praise to
the particular valley in which North Wales seems most to unite its
grander and its quieter beauties, all its wonders of mountains and
wood, torrent and waterfall, snug valley and scarred and towering
height. The /Mawddach/ estuary, which has the appearance of a
chain of lakes, winds among the mountains as far as Penmaenpool, where
there is a long, low, sinuous railway bridge of innumerable arches.
Here, where the Mawddach suddenly becomes a stream, flowing through
green marshes, with its course indicated by lines of deep-driven
stakes, Christopher North must often have been reminded of the head
of his beloved Windermere, missing only the solemn and silent majesty
of the Langdale Pikes. Following the river upward through the wide,
marshy plain until it again hides itself among woods and hills, one
comes upon the river Wnion, which is chiefly of importance among Welsh
rivers because it is famous for its trout, because it winds through
Dolgelley on its way, and because, two miles further upwards, it is
joined by the tumultuous thread of water which tumbles from pool to
pool, over cataract after cataract, close beside the steep, mile-long
piece of sylvan beauty known as the Torrent Walk. Until it receives
this tributary the /Wnion/ is, except in seasons of rain, but a
thin and feeble stream; but it flows through beautiful and shady woods,
fretting sometimes over a rocky bed, sometimes flowing in a peaceful,
sunlit calm, and now and again reflecting one of those wide-arched,
mossy bridges which indicate by their breadth of span how much way this
little river claims for itself when the thin silvery threads of all
the small streams that flow into it from the Arans on one side, and
from the lower slopes of Rhobell Fawr on the other, are swollen into
mountain torrents by continuous rain.

[Illustration: BETWEEN DOLGELLEY AND BARMOUTH (_p. 202_).]

There are innumerable little rivers in North Wales, boiling down
over tumbled rocks, in deep valleys, with trees swaying and arching
overhead. The type of these is the turbulent brook, so narrow that
one might leap across it, which descends through the Dwygyfylchi
valley, and then quietly loses itself in the sea between Conway and
Penmaenmawr. But in all Wild Wales there is no such mad, merry,
laughing, and leaping piece of water as the long cataract which
hastens down from the upper to the lower bridge of the Torrent Walk,
to join the Wnion two miles above Dolgelley. It falls, like a white
mist, amid riven cliffs; it pours itself, with a frolic music, between
great masses of moss-grown rock; it dips under tree-trunks which have
been thrown across it, like rustic bridges, by long-forgotten storms.
The channel which this torrent has made for itself is a deep, dark,
winding cleft through a beautiful wood on the side of a steep hill.
It is in the late autumn that it is at its best, when the trees are
of all rich tints, from russet to gold, and when there is a glorious,
glowing carpet of brown leaves on either side of the Torrent Walk,
and when the torrent itself, swollen by the unfailing rains, breaks
into white spray amid the blue mist of the cataracts. The Wnion is
tame enough after such a spectacle; but it makes some really striking
loops and bends as it winds away to Dolgelley, broadening out in the
ever-broadening valley, and then darting forward to the tall, grey
arches of Dolgelley bridge, where it dreams along for a while over its
multitudinous pebbles, and then wanders away into the green shadow of
trees.

[Illustration: _Photo: H. Owen, Barmouth._

BARMOUTH BRIDGE AND CADER IDRIS (_p. 203_).]

Dolgelley is the capital of Merioneth, and the curfew is still rung
there; and some of its houses retain all the quaintness of the
Elizabethan age, and its streets are so odd, and winding, and confused,
that one thinks of the legend of the giant's wife who dropped a heap
of stones from her apron, the which in due course became a town. In
the distance, Dolgelley looks like a grey nest amid green branches,
sheltering in a basin of the hills. It is walled round by the
mountains, Cader Idris being its loftiest and its grandest bulwark.
Owen Glendower had a Parliament House here, pulled down only a few
years ago; and that is almost the whole history of the place, which is
attaining some small additional importance in these days because the
gold mines are not far away, and also by reason of its manufacture of
excellent Welsh cloth.

[Illustration: _Photo: I. Slater, Llandudno._

SNOWDON, FROM CRIB-GOCH.]

It is a land of cataracts all round about; but to reach the finest of
those one must leave the river Wnion and ascend the Mawddach valley,
up the beautiful Ganllwyd Glen, and so to the gold mines. Rely not too
implicitly on those learned books which would instruct the confiding
stranger wandering amid these mountainous wildernesses. "There are
three fine Falls on the Mawddach," one reads in a book of considerable
geographical pretensions--"one of 60 feet in Dolmelynllyn Park,
another of 60 feet called the Mawddach Fall, the third, of 150 feet,
called the Pistyll-y-Cain." "I wonder," said an American humorist,
"whether it is worth while knowing so much that is not so." The
Rhaiadr-y-Mawddach--over which, at this stage, flows the river that is
shortly to broaden out into the grandest estuary in Wales--descends,
in two leaps, into a large and magnificent basin, about which the
rocks and trees have arranged themselves into a noble amphitheatre.
The Precipice Walk is not far away. One may behold all the Snowdon
region from this dizzy height on the open hillside; the Ganllwyd valley
opens out below; the Arans tower upwards to the right; and beyond the
village of Llanfachreth, looking northward, rises the grand mass of
Rhobell Fawr, its head half-hidden in a cloud, "that moveth altogether,
if it move at all." And as for the Pistyll-y-Cain and the Rhaiadr-Du,
"the black cataract," the one, as its name indicates, is the fall of
the river Cain, and the other is the fall of the Camlan, less broad,
less precipitous, at the first glance less impressive, than its more
renowned rival, but quite wonderfully beautiful in its surroundings,
its rocks and woodlands, its dual leap, and many windings, and numerous
tumbling streams.

Says a Welsh proverb: "There is only one prettier walk in Wales than
the road from Dolgelley to Barmouth. It is the road from Barmouth to
Dolgelley." The adjective is ill-chosen. Not prettiness, but a calm
majesty, is the characteristic of the rich scenery of the valley of
the Mawddach. When the tide is up, the river between Penmaenpool and
Barmouth is like a chain of lakes among bold and craggy heights,
sloping brown moorlands, and terraced woods. One is reminded sometimes
of Switzerland and sometimes of the Rhine. It is advisable to ascend
the river, as Wordsworth did, in a boat. The poet was at Barmouth in
1824, when he rowed up "the sublime estuary, which may compare with the
finest in Scotland." One is always driven back upon these comparisons.
The estuary of the Mawddach arouses sensations of strangeness and
unexpectedness. Even amid the grandeur and the beauty of North Wales,
it seems to belong to some other country, and almost to a land of
dreams. It may have been some recollection of rowing upwards towards
Penmaenpool that inspired the first and greatest of the Lake poets with
two of his most splendid lines:--

    "I hear the echoes through the mountains throng;
    The winds come to me from the fields of sleep."

And the scenery here is everything. There is little history to engage
the mind. One merely shudders at the story of how, in what are now
the grounds of Nannau House, Owen Glendower fought with his cousin,
Howel Selé, slew him, and hid the body in a hollow tree. The Abbot
of Cymmer is credited with having brought about the meeting, in the
hope that the two kinsmen might be reconciled; but who knows anything
about the Abbot of Cymmer? So much of the abbey as remains is mixed up
with farm buildings, amid beautiful sylvan scenery, about two miles
from Dolgelley, and near to the banks of the Mawddach. Griffith and
Meredydd, lords of Merioneth and grandsons of Owain Gwynedd, Prince
of North Wales, founded the abbey in 1198. The architecture suggests
Irish influences, and an Irishman by whom such influence is likely to
have been exercised is known to have emigrated to Wales at about the
time of the foundation. The monks were of the Cistercian order, and
the abbey was dedicated to St. Mary. The ruins of the church are the
principal portion of what now remains. The abbot's lodgings and part of
the refectory have been incorporated into the present farmhouse. The
emissaries of Henry VIII. penetrated even to this remote spot, and so
the abbey was despoiled.

Barmouth, which, in Welsh, is Abermaw, or the mouth of the Mawddach,
is built in strange fashion about the foot of a mountain which is
surpassingly noble in its contour. Some of the houses cling high up
among the perilous slopes. In one direction they look out to sea, and
in the other across the "sublime estuary" at its widest part. The rich,
glowing woods of Arthog climb up the opposite slopes, with the side of
Cader Idris rising like a vast cliff above their topmost branches. The
little town, with its tremendous background of rugged mountain, has
been likened to Gibraltar. The oldest of its dwellings is alleged to
date back to the reign of Henry VII. For us of to-day the place has the
interest of having been selected as the earliest of the settlements of
Mr. Ruskin's Guild of St. George. "I have just been over to Barmouth,"
the Master wrote many a year ago, "to see the tenants on the first bit
of ground--noble crystalline rock, I am glad to say--possessed by St.
George on the island." Grandly impracticable was the idea of settling
a community of this kind in such a place, and one looks at the small
cottages, high on the hillside, with a feeling that they are a stray
and stranded fragment of Utopia.

It is a bare, ordinary-looking town, this Barmouth, when surveyed
from the level of its lower streets; but there is an unapproachable
dignity, beauty, and charm in the wide, level stretch of sand and water
which lies between here and Arthog, which winds inland among the brown
mountain-slopes, which broadens outward to Cardigan Bay. The bridge is
a curious and useful rather than a pleasant feature of the landscape.
It carries a railway that branches off to Dolgelley on the one hand,
and to Glandovey and South Wales on the other. Fortunately, it lies low
down, and close to the water, as it were, its central portion being
occasionally raised for the admission of ships, of a tonnage, however,
that is marvellously small. From its further side, where the sand has
gathered into hillocks, crowned by long, waving, rank grass, the town
of Barmouth, with its vast hill of Craig Abermaw, brings into mind
the castle of Chillon and its surroundings. It seemed poor and common
enough, away there on the other side of the bridge; but from this point
it is graceful, noble, almost sublime.

       *       *       *       *       *

The grand castle of Harlech looks out on to the waters about midway
in that waste of shore which divides Barmouth from Portmadoc. The
castle has long been a ruin, but, all things considered, it has been
magnificently preserved. It had the fortune to escape the dismantling
which was so nearly universal during the Civil Wars. Later times have
been less considerate, for many of the houses roundabout have been
built from the stone and timber of the fortress; yet, looking at it
from a distance, the place still seems to be intact, and grandly
formidable in its strength and its situation. From Portmadoc it is
the principal feature of the landscape as the eye sweeps round the
fine curve of the bay. The interest of Portmadoc itself lies in
the incomparable view of the Snowdon range which is to be obtained
therefrom, and in a curious association with Shelley. A huge alluvial
plain, the Traeth Mawr, or Great Sand, sheltered by an irregular
semicircle of hills, makes an impressive foreground. Here one might
expect to hear tales of that Prince Madoc who is alleged to have
preceded Columbus, by a huge interval, in the discovery of America; but
Portmadoc, with its long, low line of railway across the Traeth Bach,
its small schooners laden with slate, its rows of houses struggling
about the hillside, its active industry, its bridges and quays, is
a town of quite modern date, its history extending backward only to
the end of the last century, and its name being derived, not from the
adventurous prince whom Southey has made the subject of an epic, but
from an energetic Mr. Maddocks, who reclaimed 2,000 acres of good
land from the sea, and carried a mile-long mole of stone across the
great estuary into which the little river Glaslyn flows. Portions of
Portmadoc are at this day some two or three feet below the sea-level.
One may obtain from here one of the best views of Snowdon; and on the
south side of the valley, over which his shadow seems to be cast, the
Cynicht--the Matterhorn of Wales, as it has been called--rises up in
noble and entrancing proportions. Hence, too, come into impressive
prominence the green and grassy sides of Moel Wyn. A walk of a
few miles would bring us to Beddgelert, or to the lovely Pass of
Aberglaslyn, with its unforgettable admixture of mountain and of sylvan
scenery; or, by climbing the hill at our back, we may come within sight
of Tremadoc, and the house in which the poet Shelley alleged that he
was assailed by a mysterious and murderous visitant. Into the Traeth
Bach, which is an unreclaimed extension of the Traeth Mawr, pours down
the stream which accompanies the traveller on the "baby railway" from
the heights of Blaenau Festiniog. Westward lie Criccieth and Pwllheli,
and the sharp bend of the Lleyn peninsula, and Bardsey Island and its
lighthouse, round which one may sail into Carnarvon Bay.

[Illustration: THE ESTUARY, BARMOUTH.]

RIVERS OF NORTH WALES.




CHAPTER II.

THE SEIONT, THE OGWEN, THE CONWAY.

    The /Seiont/: Llanberis Pass--Lakes Peris and Padarn--Dolbadarn
    Castle and Ceunant Mawr--Carnarvon and its Castle. The /Ogwen/:
    Llyn Ogwen and Llyn Idwal--Bethesda--Penrhyn Castle. The /Llugwy/:
    Capel Curig--Moel Siabod--Pont-y-Cyfing--Swallow Falls--The Miners'
    Bridge--Bettws-y-Coed. The /Lledr/: Dolwyddelen--Pont-y-Pant. The
    /Machno/ and its Fall. The /Conway/: Fairy Glen--Llanrwst--Gwydir
    Castle--Llanbedr--Trefriw--Conway Marsh--Conway Castle and
    Town--Deganwy--Llandudno.


The river /Seiont/ is only about thirteen miles long. One seldom
hears mention of its name, except by the trout-fisher, it may be. It
is treated, in general, as of small account. And yet, surely it is
one of the most distinguished rivers of North Wales, for does it not
drain the north-eastern side of Snowdon, and flow through the Pass
of Llanberis, and broaden out into Llyn Peris and Llyn Padarn, and
finally, after devious wanderings, and much merry tumbling among rocks,
boulders, and little reedy islets, culminate in a port, with the great
castle of Carnarvon guarding its exit into the Strait across which one
looks to the lovely island of Anglesea? But if few speak of the Seiont,
there has been unlimited eloquence concerning the grandeur--what the
descriptive writers of the last century would have considered the
awfulness--of the Llanberis Pass. The point of view has changed whilst
the century has been passing away. Where our great-grandfathers spoke
of "horrid scenes" we find nowadays glory of colour, and magnificence
of form, and all the finer characteristics of mountain beauty. But
something, after all, is to be said from the point of view of our
great-grandfathers. We travel through the Pass of Llanberis by coach on
good and safe roads, and they ventured, perforce, along "a horse-path
so rugged that much of it was like going up and down rough stone
stairs."

It was between the two lakes Peris and Padarn, and at the new village
of Llanberis, that the late Poet Laureate foregathered, in his youth,
with his friend Leonard, who sang of "all the cycle of the golden
year":--

                                  "We crost
    Between the lakes, and clambered half-way up
    The counter side....
                 ... and high above, I heard them blast
    The steep slate quarry, and the great echo flap
    And buffet round the hill from bluff to bluff."

The first recorded ascent of Snowdon seems to have been made from
the same spot in 1639. "At daybreak on the 3rd of August," says the
seventeenth-century mountaineer, "having mounted our horses, we
proceeded to the British Alps."

After the mountains, Dolbadarn Castle and Ceunant Mawr--the Waterfall
of the Great Chasm--are the principal attractions of Llanberis. The
cataract is upwards of 60 feet in height. It tumbles over a few
ledges, rushes down a wide slope, and falls into a pool below. The
castle is singularly well placed for picturesque effect. The one tower
now remaining occupies the whole of the surface of a rocky eminence,
which presents a precipitous front to the lake, and has a marvellous
background of high-peaked mountains. Often enough it can be seen only
through mists, or driving sheets of rain, for Llanberis seems to be the
home of the rain-cloud and the cradle of the storm.

An unspeakable lumber of waste slates stretches out into the lakes
as we proceed downwards, but does not interfere with the splendid
view of Snowdon which is to be obtained at the point where the Seiont
leaves Llyn Padarn. Wooded cliffs and heathery crags, and peeps of
wild moorland, and rugged country that is redeemed from desolateness
by frequent white cottages, make fine pictures for us as we proceed
down the river towards Carnarvon. Here and there the stream is divided
by great masses of stone, past which it races in order to drive some
watermill, half hidden in leaves. There are reedy pools, in which a
wild swan may occasionally be seen, and then willowy marshes; and so,
bending this way and that, now bursting into the open sunlight, and
then plunging into woodland shade, and always noisy and impetuous, the
little river hastens on until it joins the tide, issuing into the Menai
Strait between the grimly beautiful walls of Carnarvon Castle and a
wooded bank. Only as to its interior can the castle now be properly
described as a ruin. Restoration has here taken the form of rebuilding,
and this proud stronghold is now immeasurably more complete as to its
outward appearance than it can have been when Edward I. exhibited from
its walls the prince who, having first seen the light only a few hours
before, was "not only born in Wales but could not speak a word of the
English tongue."

Away from the castle and what remains of the walls, which, in
appearance, still to some extent justify the ancient name of "the fort
over against Anglesea," the town of Carnarvon is painfully modern;
but what there is of it that is really old conveys the impression of
mediævalism more completely than any other place in Wales, except,
perhaps, the old town of Conway. The walls of the castle, with their
numerous towers and turrets, rise up to a prodigious height above the
quays, at which little coasting vessels with red sails and gay streaks
of paint take in their cargoes of slates. The great gateway looking
out seaward has a loftiness and a massiveness which cow the spirit.
But the outlook hence becomes all the more beautiful by contrast
with this castellated gloom. Yonder is the Isle of Anglesea--the
sacred island--shimmering through a sunlit mist, and the Strait; with
sandbanks visible here and there, and flocks of sea-birds soaring and
dipping and screaming, is like a broad river, widening itself to its
utmost until it becomes impossible to distinguish between river and sea.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the head of the Pass of Nant Francon, and behind the huge, dark,
threatening shoulder of Carnedd Dafydd, Llyn Ogwen stretches along for
about a mile or so, hemmed in at its further extremity by a low range
of hills. In Cumberland this lake would be called a tarn, as would also
Llyn Idwal, a sort of miniature Wastwater, which lodges in a hollow,
among deep and gloomy precipices, a few hundred yards to the left.
"This," wrote Leland, "is a smoule poule, where they say that Idwalle,
Prince of Wales, was killed and drounid."

    "No human ear but Dunawt's heard
    Young Idwal's dying scream,"

says the ballad in which the tradition is enshrined. The appearance of
the place may well have suggested either the legend in modern or the
crime in ancient days. In stormy weather the surroundings of the little
lake are inconceivably wild and forbidding, and the wind swirls about
in this hollow of the rocks until Llyn Idwal boils like a sea.

[Illustration: PASS OF LLANBERIS (_p. 205_).]

Ogwen is a lake of gentler and more serene aspect. At its foot, under
Carnedd Dafydd, where the coach-road crosses, its waters, with those
from Llyn Idwal, form the Falls of Benglog, so well described by an
older writer that his words shall be made to serve the purpose here.
"The highest Fall," observes Bingley, "is grand and majestic, yet by
no means equal to the other two. At the second, or middle, Fall the
river is precipitated, in a fine stream, through a chasm between two
perpendicular rocks that each rise several yards above. The mountain,
Trivaen, fills up the wide space at the top, and forms a rude and
sublime distance. The stream widens as it descends, and below passes
over a slanting rock, which gives it a somewhat different direction. In
the foreground is the rugged bed of a stream, and the water is seen to
dash in various directions among broken masses of rock." At the lowest
fall "the stream roars with great fury, and in one sheet of foam,
down an unbroken and almost perpendicular rock. The roar of the water,
and the broken and uncouth disposition of the surrounding rocks, add
greatly to the interest of the scene." And from these Falls of Benglog
one looks down the wide, treeless vale of Nant Francon, a broad, peaty
marsh, the bed of some ancient lake, as it would appear, hemmed in by
dark ridges of mountains.

[Illustration: CARNARVON CASTLE (_p. 206_).]

Throughout the whole length of Nant Francon the river /Ogwen/ is
a thin, quiet, winding, silvery stream, unsheltered by bush or tree;
but as it approaches the Bethesda slate quarries it is shadowed by
its first foliage, that seems designed to hide from it the gigantic
outrage on which was built the scattered and rather extensive town
of Bethesda, and which has made Lord Penrhyn one of the wealthiest
members of the House of Lords. Below the fine bridge leading to the
quarries the river is lost among deep woods; but, pursuing it further,
one comes most unexpectedly on a long and romantic series of cascades,
continuing until the Ogwen is lost to sight in a deep hollow filled
with mist and foam. The river has a beautiful and picturesque bend as
it passes behind the cottages of Bethesda, a mile or so lower down,
and thenceforward it becomes a river something like the Llugwy in
appearance, tumbling over short cataracts, or wandering deep among
woods, or emerging now and again amid pleasant green spaces, its banks
shaded by overhanging trees.

[Illustration: THE SWALLOW FALLS (_p. 210_).]

As Carnedd Dafydd, and its twin, Llewelyn, are left behind there comes
in sight the steep side and dark, rounded summit of Penmaenmawr, and
then, on an opposite and less conspicuous eminence, looking over Bangor
and the Menai Strait, and surrounded by woods in which the Ogwen is
for a while completely hidden, rises Penrhyn Castle, the seat of Lord
Penrhyn, with one great square, turreted tower dominating all the
country roundabout. Henceforth the river is little seen until it flows
out, through a deep ravine, on to the broad, sandy flats which stretch
from Bangor to Beaumaris, its short, swift, troubled life ending thus
in sunlit peace.

The steep mountain-sides which hem in Lake Ogwen at its foot are so
black, bare, rugged, and forbidding, as to suggest the skeleton of an
unfinished world. A kindlier scenery opens out beyond the head of the
lake, where the river /Llugwy/--the first of the tributaries
of the Conway which have now to be noticed--after wandering downwards
from a small mountain tarn under the shadow of Carnedd Llewelyn, runs
through a wild and fine pass to Capel Curig. The valley is hemmed in by
the great mountains, and to the south rise the three peaks of Y Tryfan,
with the Glyder-Fach in the hollow to its left.

At Capel Curig, where is Pont-y-Garth, the Llugwy is an inconspicuous
stream, but it grows wider, and its valley becomes very beautiful,
immediately after leaving that place, when it is joined by the waters
from the two small lakes which make the best of all the foregrounds
to Snowdon. Here is "a region of fairy beauty and of wild grandeur,"
as George Borrow says. Moel Siabod, "a mighty mountain, bare and
precipitous, with two peaks like those of Pindus, opposite Janina,"
here hides its sternness amid woods of oak and fir. Above the lakes,
all the peaks of Snowdon are in sight--Y Wyddfa, which is the summit;
Lliwedd, "the triple-crested"; craggy Crib-Goch, advancing itself
before the rest; and Crib-y-Ddysgyl. To the right of the valley, which
has Moel Siabod on its left, there is a curving range of rocky heights,
their harshness softened by bracken and dwarf shrubs, and beyond, and
high above, is the stony wilderness of the Glyder-Fach.

Afon Llugwy--_afon_ being the pretty Welsh word for "river"--flows
through one of the most beautiful of all pastoral valleys on its way
from Capel Curig to the Swallow Falls. Every bend of the stream,
every green, shady pool, every long stretch of rock impeded water has
appeared again and again on the walls of the great picture exhibitions;
for there is no river of Wales which is so much haunted by artists as
this which we are now following to its junction with the Conway. At
Pont-y-Cyfing--a modern bridge of a single tall arch--the river plunges
through riven cliffs, boils round enormous masses of rock, and then
tumbles over a bold cascade, to recover its quiet almost immediately;
but only to be again driven into turbulence where a pretty rustic
bridge strides across, to give unimpeded view of a succession of rapids
above and below.

The Llugwy dreams along through pleasant meadows and by quiet woods
before it comes to the famous Rhaiadr-y-Wennol (the Waterfall of the
Swallow). Whence, one is driven to ask, comes such a name as this? The
easy and the usual reply is that these are called Swallow Falls because
of the swiftness with which the water descends. But all waterfalls
are swift. The correct answer to the question suggests itself, as one
continues to gaze, through a mist of fine spray, when the river comes
down in an autumn flood. The ears deafened by the rush of the cataract,
the eyes dazzled and fascinated by the breadth and the mass of the
falling waters, a dim sense of something white, with black streaks
here and there, overpowers all other impressions. As the river sweeps
downward over the higher fall, it is broken and divided by dark pillars
of rock. Yes, that is the idea, certainly. What these Falls suggested
to the ancient inhabitants of Wales, to those who gave its name to the
Rhaiadr-y-Wennol, was the swift alternation between the white gleam of
the swallow's breast and the dark shadow of its wings, as it darted
to and fro between river and sky. George Borrow has a concise, vivid,
and fairly correct description of the Falls, which may be quoted here
because it is impossible to put the matter in fewer words. "First," he
says, "there are a number of little foaming torrents, bursting through
rocks about twenty yards above the promontory on which I stood; then
come two beautiful rolls of white water, dashing into a pool a little
above the promontory; then there is a swirl of water round its corner
into a pool below, black as death, and seemingly of great depth; then
a rush through a very narrow outlet into another pool, from which the
water clamours away down the glen."

[Illustration: MINERS' BRIDGE, BETTWS-Y-COED (_p. 212_).]

We have had the last sight of the mountains for a while when we enter
the little, rock-poised wood from which the Swallow Falls are to be
seen. The grand, solitary mass of Moel Siabod lies behind us, one
grey, far-away peak of Snowdon exhibiting itself over the lowermost
slope. Henceforth, almost to Bettws-y-Coed, the course of the Llugwy
is through a deep, rocky, and finely-wooded glen. It is Matlock on a
more magnificent scale. It is the High Tor repeating itself again and
again, in greater grandeur of scale, and with additional beauty of
surroundings. Wild nature is here clothed and softened by luxuriant
foliage, which towers up to the heights. The bare rock is visible only
where the river courses through the deep woods, which are to be seen
to most advantage from the Miners' Bridge, slanting far upward across
the river to the opposite slope--a bridge of rough sections of tree
trunk bound together, with a hand-rail of long boughs for security--a
bridge erected in an emergency, and for a temporary purpose, as one
might guess; a bridge of perilous slope, which has done good service to
more than one generation of miners, climbing up the hillside to their
daily toil.

[Illustration: _Photo: I. Slater, Llandudno._

MOEL SIABOD, FROM THE LLUGWY (_p. 211_).]

Of Bettws-y-Coed--"the Bede House in the Wood"--so much is known that
little needs in this place to be said. Here is Pont-y-Pair, and a scene
which painting has made more familiar than almost any other in these
islands. The bridge has been associated with the name of Inigo Jones,
but at least the base of the structure dates back to the fifteenth
century, being the work of a mason who must also have been a fine
architect, and who died, as it seems, before his work was complete. It
has four lofty arches, about which an ancient and gnarled ivy clings.
Below, when the water is quiet, one may see the trout dashing about
amid the pools. The river-bed is riven and torn, and full of craggy
masses. A rocky islet, on which clusters a most picturesque group of
fir trees, divides the accelerating waters, that now, after one final
battle with obstructions, sweep sharply round a curve, and shortly join
the Conway.

[Illustration: PONT-Y-PAIR.]

The valley of the /Lledr/ always presents itself to this present
writer's recollection as he beheld it first, at the end of a dry
summer, when the eye feasted without weariness on glowing colour, and
when every bend of the river opened up some piece of country which
was like one of Turner's glorious dreams. He saw it last on a day of
drifting rain. And in wet or in dry seasons the Lledr valley permits
of no comparison between itself and any other. It is incomparable in
its various beauty; it is unique in its power of attraction, in its
way of producing a satisfying sense of something wholly individual and
complete. High up towards Blaenau Festiniog it has little beauty; but
before the stream reaches Dolwyddelen Castle the real Lledr valley
begins, and is thenceforward down to the junction with the Conway a
perpetually changing scene of loveliness. Here again Moel Siabod, seen
in a new aspect, but always striking in form and noble in proportions,
seems to dominate the landscape. It may be seen from one impressive
point with Dolwyddelen Castle in the middle distance. This ruin is
the fragment of an ancient stronghold which derives all its present
importance from the beauty of its situation. A single tower occupies
the summit of a rocky knoll, and stands out clear against its misty
mountain background. Yet the castle was fairly large in its day,
occupying the whole surface of the hill. Here lived Iorwerth Drwyndwn,
whose fortune in battle gained him his surname of "the Broken Nose";
and here, too, Llewelyn the Great is said to have been born. At a later
day the castle became the residence of Howel Coetmor, a notorious
outlaw and robber chief, who so harried his neighbours that they sat
in church with weapons in their hands. A Roman road crossed the Lledr
at the village of Dolwyddelen, which is about a mile from the castle,
and there are still distinct Roman remains on the hill above the
village. But let no one, on that account, meditate on the ruins of
empires at the railway station which is called Roman Bridge, for the
road crossed the river at quite another place, and the bridge is of an
antiquity corresponding to that of the relic which was discovered by
the credulous hero of Sir Walter Scott's romance.

The Lledr wanders about its valley as if it were loth to leave. It
makes huge loops and bends, almost knotting itself sometimes into what
the sailors call "a figure of eight." The whole valley is a combination
of wildness and fertility, of wide prospects and confined glimpses of
sylvan beauty, of wooded hills and frowning crags and broken upland. In
rainy weather innumerable foamy streams swell the Lledr, until, in some
portions of its course, it seems to make a series of lakes. The oldest
bridge is Pont-y-Pant, not far from the entrance to the valley from
the direction of Bettws-y-Coed. Below this the stream hurries onwards
through woods and meadow-land, under mighty bluffs which are wooded to
their summits, and, issuing at length from its rocky barriers, adds to
the Conway a volume of water that is equal to its own.

The river /Machno/ falls into the Conway a mile or two beyond
its junction with the Lledr. It is a short river, drawing to itself a
number of little mountain streams, and its principal feature--but that
is of the first importance from the tourist point of view--round which
painters of landscape seem to encamp themselves all the year through,
the falls of the Machno, combines every element of what one may call
the ordinary picturesque. The river foams among crags and boulders,
and between rocky ledges, from which the trees hang dizzily, casting
deep shadows across the stream, and making green reflections in each
swirling pool. Then, too, there is Pandy Mill, making a sunshine in the
shady place, and a mill-wheel with a tumbling jet of water; and nature
seems to have lavished all its softer endearments on this exquisite
little scene, delighting the eye with tender arrangements of moss and
film-fern, and lichen and hoar boughs.

[Illustration: _Photo: Green Bros., Grasmere._

ON THE LLEDR.]

Not far below this pretty landscape cameo are the Falls of the Conway,
where the river rushes on through a gorge of dark, sloping, almost
columnar rocks, and then--divided by a tall crag, on which one or
two small bushes have contrived to grow--bends and plunges down two
steep descents to where a half-ruinous salmon leap brings to mind
the eminence of the Conway as a fishing river. And next, the Fairy
Glen! This is a genuine ravine, where the stream forces itself between
riven cliffs, and flows in deep, rapid streaks of peaty-brown water
among a wilderness of grey rocks, plunging downward, thereafter, into
a wild glen overhung by woods. The name of the Fairy Glen would seem
inappropriate enough to such a scene were it not that here, again,
Nature has thrown all manner of rustic decorations about this frowning
gorge. The sunlight, too, seems to fill the place in a strange, mystic
way, so that the lichen-encrusted rocks are seen through a kind of
blue, misty glamour, and there is a suggestion of rainbow colour over
all.

[Illustration: ANOTHER VIEW IN THE LLEDR VALLEY.]

From the road high above the Fairy Glen there is a fine prospect of the
mountains. Moel Siabod seems to have come nearer, and the far distance
is closed in by the Glyders, Tryfan, and the Carnedd Llewelyn range.
Down in the valley is the Llyn-yr-Afanc, or the Beaver's Pool, and
nearer to Bettws-y-Coed the river is crossed by the fine span of the
iron bridge which was built in the year of the battle of Waterloo.

The /Conway/ has no particular attractiveness as it passes
Bettws, where David Cox's famous signboard may still be seen at the
Royal Oak Hotel. It has here a green margin of meadow-land, which grows
broader as we proceed towards Llanrwst, a sweetly-placed little market
town, to which small vessels seem to have made their way in the last
century, for a sailor who penned a diary in 1769 wrote how "Llanrwst
is situated in a very deep bottom on the river Conway, betwixt Denbigh
hills and Carnarvon rocks, some of which appear to hang over the town.
Nevertheless, we found a much better anchorage than we could have
expected at such a bottom."

[Illustration: FAIRY GLEN, BETTWS-Y-COED.]

This sailor was an observing man, for he continues:--"Llanrwst is
a small market-town, containing one church, a market-hall, as they
call it, and about fifty or sixty houses, but never a good house
among the whole lot." There are some good houses nowadays, however,
and a fine stone bridge of three arches, with a peculiarly high and
graceful spring. Here, again, the design is attributed to Inigo Jones,
as, perhaps, ought to be the case in the immediate country of that
renowned architect. Gwydir Castle, the family mansion of the Wynns,
is a conspicuous object among the woods which here cluster under the
feet of the craggy Carnarvonshire hills. It has now passed, through the
hands of the Earl of Ancaster, whose forbears married with the Wynn
family, into the possession of the Earl Carrington. The founder of the
castle was Sir John Wynn of Gwydir, who represented Carnarvonshire
in Parliament in 1596, and whose soul is said to be imprisoned under
the Swallow Falls, "there to be punished, purged, spouted upon, and
purified from the foul deeds done in his days of nature." A truly
tremendous malediction! Some traces of the sixteenth-century building
still remain, but the present castle belongs to our own century, though
it contains carved work of the reigns of Elizabeth and James.

At Llanbedr, on the hills above the Llanrwst road, may be found one
of the most remarkable primitive fortifications that are to be seen
anywhere in these islands, Pen-Caer-Helen by name. "It was a British
post of great strength," says Pennant, "in some parts singularly
guarded. It had the usual fosses, and vast ramparts of stones, with
some remains of the facing of walls, and the foundations of three
or four round buildings." The remains are still very extensive, and
clearly indicate the extent of the ancient stone ramparts. It was a
post from which a very great extent of country could be surveyed. In
one direction you look over the Conway and the Denbighshire hills, as
far as the valley of the Clwyd; in another, the eye stretches over a
barren waste to the Carnedd Llewelyn range. The Great and the Little
Orme are in sight, and Puffin Island, and the sea.

[Illustration: ON THE CONWAY.]

The Conway is still navigable by small vessels as far as Trefriw, a
pretty village of small houses and neat villas, clustering under the
hill, and close to the coach road. Trefriw is renowned not only for
its situation, but for its "Fairy Falls," and its "spa," which, says
Mr. Halliwell-Phillips, yields "the nastiest chalybeate I ever had
the folly to taste." For some distance below Trefriw, the river, now
broader and much more deep, runs for a while between great masses
of tall reeds and sedge, and then opens out into a lake-like width,
with such a prospect of spreading water, and woods and mountain, as
recalls the characteristic beauties of Windermere. Very delightful
indeed is a voyage in the little steamer which plies between Deganwy,
Conway, and Trefriw; but it is at Conway Marsh that the river is at
its noblest. When the tide is out, this is a broad, sweeping, sandy
bay, with oozy spaces of bright green towards its centre; and when the
tide is full, it has the appearance of a large and beautiful islanded
lake. The river is walled in on the Conway side, and a thick wood
shadows the stream as it bends round towards the sea. It is here that
one of the most effective views of Conway Castle comes into sight,
with the two white bridges stretching over the narrowing channel, and
the great circular towers clustering together in such manner as to
convey a most formidable impression of massiveness and strength. One
naturally compares Conway with Carnarvon Castle. The two buildings
are said to have been designed by the same architect, and, of their
kind, they are among the finest in the world. Carnarvon Castle is more
elaborated in idea, more ingenious, more decorative, and in general
aspect more grand; but Conway suggests a greater antiquity, a more
solid strength, a sounder and more artistic unity of structure. It is
a mere ruin, having been dismantled in 1665. Even before that period
it seems to have been abandoned to time. There is a letter of James
I.'s reign which says that "the King's Castle of Conway, in the county
of Carnarvon, is in great ruin and decay, whereof the greater part
hath been downe and uninhabitable for manie ages past; the rest of the
timber supporting the roof is all, or for the most part, rotten, and
growth daylie by wet more and more in decay, no man having dwelt in
anie part thereof these thirty years past." There is no roof at all
now; the timbers are long consumed; the castle is gutted throughout;
and yet, as seen from the Conway river, the castle still has a certain
august and complete majesty, as if time could do it no real despite.

[Illustration: _Photo: I. Slater, Llandudno._

THE CONWAY, FROM CONWAY CASTLE.]

Conway Castle, with the Conway mountain, on which there is a British
fort, towering up in the rear, held complete command of the estuary.
It was an English, not a Welsh, stronghold, being built by Edward I.,
about 1284. Queen Eleanor is said to have lived there with the king,
and one of the towers has been named the "Queen's" tower in memory of
that event. The great hall, which was supported on vaults, was 130 feet
long by 32 feet broad. The castle was besieged in 1290 by Madoc, one
of the sons of Llewelyn, the English king himself being present on the
occasion. A fleet bringing provisions saved the garrison just as it
was being starved into surrender. When Bolingbroke landed in England,
and Richard II. found himself abandoned by his army, he fled here for
safety, and at this castle, it is averred, was his abdication signed.

Conway town, sloping swiftly down to the riverside, and almost wholly
enclosed within its many-towered walls, looks like a contemporary
illustration of Froissart. There is no other such perfect specimen of a
small mediæval walled town now remaining. The fortifications climb up
a steep hillside, in a triangular form--or rather, as has been said,
so as to make the figure of a Welsh harp. The highest point of the
triangle is so far above the other portions of the walls that the whole
has that quaint look of being out of perspective which is the most
pronounced characteristic of all mediæval draughtsmanship.

[Illustration: CONWAY CASTLE.]

Across the water, and on the way to Llandudno, the little town, or
village, or city of Deganwy half hides itself among the sands, just
above the verge of what was formerly, and even up to recent times,
a marsh stretching from opposite Conway to Llandudno Bay. It was
hereabout, but on the Conway side of the river, that the pearl-fishing
was carried on:--

    "Conway, which out of his streame doth send
    Plenty of pearls to deck his dames withal"--

says Spenser, in the "Faërie Queene." The pearl fishery had once a
real importance. Sir Richard Wynn of Gwydir presented to the queen of
Charles II. a Conway pearl, which afterwards adorned the regal crown.
This was probably of a kind that was found higher up the river, at
Trefriw. A more common variety was found in abundance on the bar,
and the collection of the pearl-bearing mussels was for a long time
a distinct and regular industry. "As for the pearls found in these
mountainous rivers," said a letter-writer of the seventeenth century,
"they are very plentiful, and uncommonly large, though few of them well
coloured. They are found in a large, black muscle, peculiar to such
rivers. Several ladyes of this county and Denbighshire have collections
of good pearle, found chiefly in the river Conway."

Deganwy, "the place where the white waves break upon the shore," was a
royal residence from a very remote period. It had a castle, which is
said to have been erected in the sixth century by Maelgwyn Gwynedd,
and to have been destroyed by Llewelyn the Great, whose statue is to
be seen in Conway town. "It was a noble structure," says Giraldus
Cambrensis, "and its possession was held to be of great importance
to the English, so that Randal Blondevil, Earl of Chester, rebuilt
it in 1210. King John encamped at Deganwy two years later, but was
compelled to retreat with his army before Llewelyn. There were other
royal retreats from Deganwy, before the fierce Welsh, in 1245, 1258,
and 1262. There were "great ruines" of the castle in Leland's time;
but now it is with difficulty that any fragment is discerned. Deganwy
itself has become a watering-place, a small rival to Llandudno, mainly
attractive because it presents a magnificent view of the estuary of the
Conway, and of the fine range of mountains which ends in Penmaenmawr."

Llandudno, for the most part, occupies the flat and formerly marshy
space between the Great and the Little Orme. It is altogether a
favourable type of the modern watering-place; but it need not detain
us here, for we have reached the point at which the river broadens out
into Conway Bay, and is lost among the in-rushing waves of the Irish
Sea.

[Illustration: THE BRIDGE, FROM CONWAY CASTLE.]




RIVERS OF NORTH WALES.




CHAPTER III.

THE CLWYD AND THE DEE.

    The /Clwyd/: Rhyl--Rhuddlan Castle--The Elwy--A Welsh
    Gretna Green--St. Asaph--Denbigh--Ruthin. The /Dee/: Bala
    Lake--Corwen--Vale of Llangollen and Valle Crucis Abbey--Dinas
    Bran--The Ceiriog--Chirk Castle and Wynnstay--The Alyn--Eaton
    Hall--Chester--Flint.


The town of Rhyl is like a piece of Liverpool or Manchester, "borne,
like Loretto's chapel, through the air," and arranged in long terraces
and orderly blocks on a piece of flat coast-land near the mouth
of the river /Clwyd/. The place has been much praised by a
grandiloquent writer who, in the very height of his rapture, had to
admit that "the great object of attraction was the sun setting in a
flood of golden beauty on his evening throne." It is a spectacle that
may be observed elsewhere. The virtue of Rhyl is that it is easily
accessible from large centres of population, that it enjoys pure and
bracing air, that it has a vast expanse of firm sands, that the Great
Orme and the Penmaenmawr range look very noble and beautiful from its
broad promenade, and that the soft winds blow towards it from the
pleasant Vale of Clwyd.

But in the immediate neighbourhood of Rhyl even the famous vale has no
attractiveness. The bare river flows through bare mud. This enormously
wide valley is, for the most part, a soft, dark marsh, on which a
thin vegetation struggles to maintain a dank existence. But even from
Rhyl there are agreeable views of what the Welsh call Dyffryn Clwyd,
the Vale of the Flat, "the Eden of Wales." Three miles away, over an
absolutely level and barren space, the wooded knolls and the dark
towers of Rhuddlan advance almost to the centre of the valley, and have
a fine impressiveness when they are thrown into relief by the shadow
of some passing cloud. The Clwydian hills seem to close in behind
them, with Moel Fammau in the remote distance. The old poet, Thomas
Churchyard, says:

    "The vale doth reach so far in view of man
      As he far of may see the seas, indeede;
    And who awhile for pleasure travel can
      Throughout this vale, and thereof take good heede,
    He shall delight to see a soyle so fine,
    For ground and grass a passing plot devine;
    And if the truth thereof a man may tell,
    This vale alone doth all the rest excell."

However, it is not until after Rhuddlan has been passed that the great
fertility of the Vale of Clwyd declares itself, and to pass Rhuddlan
is impossible without some examination, and without some ransacking of
one's historical memory; for poor and unimportant as it now seems,
this little place has played a great part in the history of Wales.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM RHUDDLAN CASTLE.]

[Illustration: RHUDDLAN CASTLE.]

A long bridge of several arches stretches over from the high road
which crosses the marsh, to a steep, firm ascent, a little church with
a square tower, and a few small cottages. Other cottages, mostly set
amid neat gardens, border on the curves of what is more like a country
lane than a village. Then suddenly, for it has been hidden by trees,
one comes face to face with the colossal fragments of what must have
been a nearly impregnable castle, poised on the summit of a bare,
rounded hill, its huge towers buried in ivy, its outer walls sloping
down to the Clwyd, and to an outer tower which has long been half in
ruins, but which is so strongly built that it may still, for centuries
to come, defy the malice of Time. On the partially reclaimed morass
on the further side of the river, where a herd of black Welsh cows is
grazing, the Saxons under Offa, King of Mercia, fought a great battle
with the Welsh, under Caradoc, Prince of Wales, in 795. Caradoc and
many of his principal chieftains were slain. The well-known air of
"Morva Rhuddlan" commemorates the event, and the native poet sings,
not without sweetness and pathos:

    "I seek the warrior's lowly bed
      On Rhuddlan's marsh; but cannot trace
    A vestige of the noble dead,
      Or aught to mark their resting place.
    Green rush and reeds are all that grace
      The graves of those in fight who fell,
    For freedom--for their land and race,
      Oh fatal field! farewell, farewell!"

Where Rhuddlan Castle stands there was a fortress so early as 1015,
and it was taken by Harold Godwinson, in Edward the Confessor's time.
Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, rested at Rhuddlan in 1167, when he
was preaching a Crusade. Edward I. took Rhuddlan Castle in 1277, and
here it was that his son, recently born at Carnarvon, was proclaimed
Prince of Wales. Edward made the place his grand depôt for arms and
provisions, and his principal residence whilst he was engaged in the
conquest of Wales. It was to Rhuddlan, too, that Llewelyn consented to
repair to take the oath of fealty. The castle passed into the hands
of the Black Prince in the reign of Edward III. Richard II. was here
held in honourable captivity after his return from his expedition to
Ireland. The forces of the Parliament unsuccessfully besieged the
place in 1645, but captured it a year later, when it was ordered to be
dismantled, and the long, troubled chapter of its history was finally
closed.

The sea comes up to Rhuddlan, which, indeed, has some slight
pretensions as a port; then, with flat meadows on one side and
low-hanging woods on the other, the Clwyd bends about, this way and
that, until, before long, it is joined by the river /Elwy/,
which, as it is a pretty river to follow, and takes us to St. Asaph,
we shall, for a while, keep company. The Elwy is a merry, romantic,
shaded stream, with abundant trout. It is fringed by willow and hazel
copse. Sometimes it is wholly lost in foliage, except for a silvery
gleam among the leaves; sometimes it comes out into the sunlight, and
flows by shingly holms and muddy flats. A peaceful, rich, pastoral
country is that through which it courses merrily on its way, with here
and there groups of cattle huddling under the hedges for coolness and
shade. The water is stained brown with peat, telling of its birth on
mountain slopes. Below Ffynnon Fair, seated on the brow of a hill, it
receives the waters of a holy well, once sheltered by shrine work, and
a place of pilgrimage, as the ivy-clad ruins of a cruciform chapel
still declare. And this chapel was also the Gretna Green of Wales,
a place for the marriage of runaway couples, as this ancient record
shows:--"1611. Mem.: Thatt upon Frydaye, at night, happening upon vij.
day of Februarie, one Pyers Griffith ab Inn Gryfydd, my brother in
lawe, was married clandestinely with one Jane rch Thomas hys second
wieff at the chapel at Wicwer called Capel Fynnon Fair."

The Elwy loses the shadow of its willows and hazels a mile or so below
St. Asaph, which is five miles upwards from Rhyl. Winding among deep
banks of rich soil, it makes the necessary part of a pretty picture
when, flowing under a fine stone bridge of five arches, it forms a
foreground for one of the smallest cities, crowned by the smallest
cathedral, in all these islands. St. Asaph may be satisfactorily
explored in half an hour's time. It spreads itself over a hill, which
is called Bryn Paulen, after some legendary Paulinus, a Roman general.
The cathedral, which is no more than an average-sized church, is the
central and highest object. St. Kentigern is said to have built a
church of wood on the site about the middle of the sixth century, when
he was driven from Scotland by a prince who declined to be won from
Paganism. St. Asaph, who was a native of Wales, succeeded as bishop
when Kentigern returned to Scotland. He built a church of stone, in
which he was buried in 576. For five hundred years the see has no
dependable history; but in the period of the Civil Wars there was
a cathedral in which horses and oxen were stabled, and a see whose
revenues were sequestrated by Parliament. The building was restored,
when Charles II. came to the throne, by Bishop Griffith, and a bishop's
palace was erected by his successor, who was none other than the
learned Isaac Barrow. The cathedral of St. Asaph contains the tomb of
this distinguished prelate, and a monument to Mrs. Hemans, who spent
a large portion of her life in the Vale of Clwyd, as readers of her
poems may easily discover. In front of the cathedral stands a tall
red-sandstone monument, erected in memory of Bishop Morgan, the first
translator of the Bible into the language of Wales.

From a couple of miles above St. Asaph to the meeting of the waters
above Rhuddlan, the Clwyd and the Elwy pursue an almost parallel
course, the Elwy in long bends and sweeps, the Clwyd with almost
infinite small windings. To that point their streams have been almost
at right angles to each other, the Elwy rising not far from the hills
above Llanrwst, overlooking the Conway valley, the Clwyd flowing down
by Ruthin and Denbigh, a thin thread of water, except in very rainy
seasons, with its course worn so deep, after the lapse of ages, into
the rich, yielding soil, that it is sometimes scarcely to be discerned
as a feature in the landscape.

Denbigh, say the etymologists, hazarding a guess, means "a small hill."
In that case, the older designation, Caledfryn-yn-Rhos ("a rocky hill
in Rhos"), was much more appropriate, for the town ascends by one long
street to heights that appear mountainous to the tired pedestrian;
and from Denbigh Castle, the ruins of which occupy the summit of this
"small hill," the land slopes off suddenly to an immense depth of
rich pastoral landscape, enclosed in a basin of lofty but graciously
rounded hills. Like Carnarvon, Denbigh Castle is to some extent being
rebuilt; but it is immeasurably a more hopeless sort of ruin. It was
dismantled by order of Charles II., and the work seems to have been
thoroughly accomplished, for the walls were of great strength, and it
must have been a very determined act of destruction that reduced them
to such fragments as now remain. Here, within the actual walls of the
castle, but in a cottage that has now been destroyed, was Henry M.
Stanley born. The special distinction of Denbigh, however, is that it
was the last castle which held out for Charles I. It was, indeed, only
surrendered at the king's own order, dated from Newcastle, when Charles
was himself a prisoner there.

[Illustration: ST. ASAPH (_p. 227_).]

Eight miles further on is Ruthin, which is another town that clusters
about the summit of a hill. The castle here, which has been restored,
and is still inhabited, was in existence in the reign of Edward I.,
and how much earlier is not known. We are now in the richest and most
fertile portion of the Vale of Clwyd, with its highest mountain not far
away. To the summit of Moel Fammau, 1,845 feet above the level of the
sea, is only five miles. The mountain is crowned by the ugly ruin of a
tower which was erected at the jubilee of George III. Hence may be seen
the valleys of the Dee and the Mersey, and, by aid of a telescope, the
coasts of Lancashire and Cheshire. Looking down the Vale of Clwyd, the
eye ranges over a landscape that is dotted about with farmhouses and
herds of kine; the white, tapering tower of Bodelwyddan Church rises
high above its trees, and Rhyl, Llandudno, and Great Orme's Head stand
out clearly on the sea margin far away. At a greater distance, and in
another direction, one may behold Snowdon and Cader Idris, with their
summits buried in brooding clouds.

       *       *       *       *       *

The river Dee rises in a country which has been immemorially associated
with the Arthurian legends. Here, indeed, was the infant king committed
to the care of old Timon, and here his boyhood was spent--

                    "In a valley green,
    Under the foot of Rauran mossy hore,
    From whence the river Dee, as silver clene,
    His tombling billows rolls with gentle rore."

So says Spenser, using a phrase which may have been in Shakespeare's
mind when he made Bottom promise to "roar you as gently as any
sucking-dove." Almost beyond counting are the streams which empty
themselves into Bala Lake, high up among the peaks of Merionethshire.
And they scarcely run dry in the hottest summers, for, as a cynical
humorist has written--

    "The weather depends on the moon as a rule,
      And I've found that the saying is true;
    For at Bala it rains when the moon's at the full
      And it rains when the moon's at the new.
    "When the moon's at the quarter, then down comes the rain:
      At the half it's no better, I ween;
    When the moon's at three-quarters it's at it again,
      And it rains, besides, mostly between!"

The Dee is said to flow through the lake without mingling its waters--a
tradition that may be gently set aside. It rises on the flank of Aran
Benllyn, and already receives two tributaries before it joins Bala
Lake at its head. At Llanuwchllyn, near to the spot at which the three
little streams become one, it has grown important enough to be crossed
by a rude stone bridge of two arches.

[Illustration: _Photo: Catherall & Pritchard, Eastgate Row, Chester._

DENBIGH (_p. 227_).]

Drayton speaks of Bala Lake as Pimblemere. That is a name signifying
"the lake of the five parishes." Llyn Tegid, the lake of beauty, is the
favourite Welsh designation. And a very beautiful lake it is, though
with less majesty of surroundings than one would expect to find at such
a height, in such a country, where, as George Borrow says, everything
is "too grand for melancholy." It was the largest sheet of water in
Wales until Lake Vyrnwy was made, its length being about four and a
half miles by about a mile in average breadth. In the Welsh mind it has
filled so large a place that there is a tradition of how the bursting
of the banks of Bala Lake caused the Deluge. A feature that has always
attracted much attention is the influence of a south-west wind in
driving its waters outward into the Dee. Thus, for example, writes
Tennyson, speaking of Enid's nursing of Geraint:--

    "Her constant motion round him, and the breath
    Of her sweet tendence hovering over him,
    Filled all the genial courses of his blood
    With deeper and with ever deeper love,
    As the south-west, that blowing Bala Lake,
    Fills all the sacred Dee."

A sacred character has been associated with the Dee from the very
earliest times. It was "holy" to the Druids; it was a "wizard stream"
to Milton; Drayton speaks of where "Dee's holiness begun," and credits
it with presaging woe to the English or the Welsh according as, in one
portion of its course, it shifted the bed of its stream. The Dee is
a mountain-river from Bala downwards, and until Llangollen has been
passed. Its outlet from the lake is through a quaint, many-arched
stone bridge--a bridge, as Coleridge might have said, "with a
circumbendibus." The railway runs close at hand for almost the whole of
its course, which, for the present, lies through what is the peculiar
country of Owen Glendower. We have encountered traces of this valiant
chieftain at Machynlleth, Dolgelley, and almost everywhere that we have
been; but here, at Corwen and roundabout, the country fairly reeks with
his memory. The Dee is a fair, wide river when it leaves Bala Lake,
and flows for a while through open meadow lands, to plunge before long
and with great suddenness into a beautiful mountain gorge, where it
is overhung by trees. At the delightful village of Llandderfel it is
crossed by another picturesque bridge, set among rocky hills which teem
with wild legends, and shortly thereafter it flows once more among
wide, open spaces, bare, bleak, and harried by the winds. The Vale
of Edeyrnion is the name of the country through which we have just
passed, and this valley, in which the character of the scenery changes
so conspicuously and so often, comes to an end just before the town of
Corwen is reached.

Grey, slaty, nestling among trees and wooded heights, with a slate
quarry prominent in the foreground, with many odd, old-fashioned,
solid-looking houses, Corwen has a church dedicated to Mael and Sulien,
saints unknown to the English calendar. Of Sulien it is said that he
was "the godliest man and greatest clerke in all Wales." On a stone
in the churchyard is shown "the true mark of Owen Glendower's dagger,"
which weapon he threw from a rock behind the church, thus doing
something more to surround his life with legend. There was another Owen
whom the Corwen folk hold in loving remembrance--that Owen Gwynedd,
Prince of Wales, who opposed himself to Henry II., and who made so
strong an encampment near the town that there were vestiges of it
remaining in Pennant's time.

[Illustration: _Photo: Carl Norman & Co., Tunbridge Wells._

BALA LAKE.]

[Illustration: VALLE CRUCIS ABBEY.]

There is an exquisite view of the Dee from what is known as Owen
Glendower's Mound. The surrounding country is comparatively open; but
the river is again, before long, lost in a narrowing valley and among
rich woods. And by this time we have come into the region of modern
achievement. The valley of the Dee is now to be seen to most advantage
from Telford's road, which brings us to more than one of the seven
wonders of Wales, and first of all to the glorious Vale of Llangollen.
George Borrow has too much limited the scope and range of this glorious
valley. "The northern side of the vale," he says, "is formed by certain
enormous rocks called the Eglwyseg rocks, which extend from east to
west, a distance of about two miles. The southern side is formed by the
Berwyn hills." Here, says Mr. Ruskin, speaking from a wide observation,
"is some of the loveliest brook and glen scenery in the world." The
remains of Valle Crucis give a special human interest to a district
that is wonderfully full of beauty and charm. It was a Cistercian
house, much smaller than the other famous abbeys of the same order, but
resembling them in certain high architectural qualities, as well as
in the seclusiveness of its situation. The abbey was founded by Madoc,
Lord of Bromfield, in the time of King John, in what was, even at that
time, called the Valley of the Cross, in virtue of the mysterious
"Eliseg's Pillar," which is still a puzzle to the antiquary. The ruins
lie among steep hills--

    "For when one hill behind your backe you see,
    Another comes, two times as high as Dee,"

as Thomas Churchyard sings. The main tower of the abbey appears to have
been standing in the days of this poet; but now nothing remains but its
piers. The pointed gables on the eastern and western ends of the church
are, however, conspicuous objects still. The abbey is believed to have
been at the point of highest prosperity in the time of Owen Glendower.
Henry VIII. employed the abbot to draw out a Welsh pedigree for him,
which was, no doubt, as faithfully done as circumstances would allow.
Two later abbots became Bishops of St. Asaph. And then followed the
Dissolution, with all its waste and ruin.

[Illustration: LLANGOLLEN.]

The Bridge of Llangollen is enumerated among the "seven wonders of
Wales," four of which belong to the Valley of the Dee. It scarcely
seems to deserve this particular renown, though it is a very excellent
specimen of a mediæval bridge, its builder being John Trevor, Bishop of
St. Asaph, who completed his work in 1350. The Dee at this point flows
over a solid bed of rock, or, as Churchyard says:

    "And still on rocke the water runnes, you see,
    A wondrous way--a thing full rare and strange,
    That rocke can not the course of waters change;
    For in the streame huge stones and rockes remayne
    That backward might the flood, of force, constrain."

The name of Llangollen is, by some authorities, derived from St.
Collen, to whom the church is dedicated. It is an ordinary enough
little town in itself; but is so remarkably placed that the eye can
scarcely turn in any direction without finding pictures of most
extraordinary beauty.

On the opposite side of the bridge from the town the hill of Dinas
Bran rises, a huge cone, to the height of a thousand feet or so. It is
so regular in its conical shape that it at first suggests artificial
construction. But just at this place the hills are all abnormal.
The Eglwyseg rocks, for example--best seen from the slope of Dinas
Bran--might have been transported from some cañon in Colorado. They are
a strange series of cliffs, one above the other, regular as walls, and
with dark bushes clinging to them in such a manner as to suggest cave
dwellings. They are a greater wonder than Dinas Bran itself, which,
nevertheless, is very remarkable and striking. On its summit is the
ruin of what is popularly known as Crow Castle, attributed in local
guide-books to the British, but obviously of much later construction,
and probably a relic of Norman times.

From this singular eminence there is a far-stretching view of the
valley of the Dee, as the river speeds on its way to a rich and more
open country. Near to where the stream is further swollen by receiving
the waters of the Ceiriog, it is spanned by the majestic aqueduct
which carries the waters of the Ellesmere Canal, one of those few
architectural achievements which, placed where Nature has done her
utmost, add a new beauty to their surroundings. Even more unrestrained
praise might be given to the fine, slender, lofty pillars and arches of
the Dee viaduct, which is among the greatest works of the Great Western
Railway. The aqueduct is Telford's work, and the viaduct was built by
Robertson. For the former, however, Telford claimed no credit, for he
wrote thus in praise of his foreman:--"The Vale of Llangollen is very
fine, and not the least interesting object in it, I can assure you, is
Davidson's famous aqueduct, which is already reckoned among the wonders
of Wales."

Churchyard differentiates very discreetly and observingly between the
Ceiriog and the Dee. The one, he says, is "a wonderous violent water
when rayne or snowe is greate," and the other is "a river deep and
swifte," running "with gushing streame." The meeting-place of the
two rivers is distinguished as the site of two famous houses, each
surrounded by fine parks. On one side is the feudal castle of Chirk,
and on the other is Wynnstay, which has long been the seat of the great
family after which it is named. Chirk Castle dates back to the eleventh
century. It was the home of those Myddletons to whom belonged that
famous Sir Hugh Myddleton who brought the New River to London. Wynnstay
also has its history, for here lived Madoc ap Gruffydd Maelor, who
built Valle Crucis Abbey. It is now the principal seat of Sir Watkin
Williams Wynn, whose possessions are so extensive that he is sometimes
called the real Prince of Wales. The present Hall dates only from a
time that is still very recent, for its predecessor was burned down in
1858. From the terrace of Wynnstay there is such a view of the Dee--of
wood, of river, of lofty bridge and distant mountains slopes--as seems
almost to belong to the landscape of another world.

[Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._

EATON HALL (_p. 237_).]

The Dee has finally emerged from the mountainous country when it flows,
with many a sharp bend, and long, glittering loop, between the grounds
of Chirk Castle and of Wynnstay. It is shortly to become a river that
is English on the one side and Welsh on the other, and already, except
in the distance, we have seen the last of the characteristic scenery
of North Wales. The Dee now courses through a country of wide plains.
Offa's Dyke runs in a straight line through the grounds of Chirk
Castle, almost to the point at which the stream is crossed by the
railway viaduct. Watt's Dyke commences on the other side of the Dee, a
little lower down, and proceeds through the grounds of Wynnstay, past
Ruabon, in the direction of Wrexham. What may have been the purpose of
these ancient fortifications is a question which the antiquaries have
so far failed to answer in any way that is final and conclusive. Thomas
Churchyard has an explanation which is as good as any that has since
been offered. He says--

                        "There is famous thing
    Cal'de Offa's Dyke, that reacheth far in length;
    All kind of ware the Danes might thither bring;
    It was free ground, and cal'de the Britaine's strength;
    Wat's Dyke likewise about the same was set
    Between which two both Danes and Britaines met,
    And trafficke still."

At these Dykes, too, it would appear, the exchange of prisoners was
generally effected. In their origin, no doubt, they were defensive
works, as well as lines of demarcation.

[Illustration: THE ROODEE, CHESTER (_p. 239_).]

After its junction with the Ceiriog, the Dee divides Denbighshire
and Shropshire for some two or three miles. Soon afterwards it again
becomes wholly Welsh for a brief while, and forms the boundary between
Denbighshire and Flint. This is after we have passed Ruabon, and the
great Welsh coalfield. Here is Overton Churchyard, one of those "seven
wonders of Wales" whose title to fame is so often inexplicable. At this
place there is less to wonder at in the churchyard itself than in the
view of the Dee which is presented therefrom, for here it winds, with
many curves, through a pleasant valley, interspersed with broad, flat
green spaces, woods, and low, rounded hills. Bangor-on-Dee, the chief
spawning ground for salmon, is near at hand; and, then, before long,
the great tower of Wrexham Church comes in sight, much more of a wonder
than either Overton Churchyard or Llangollen Bridge.

[Illustration: THE DEE AT CHESTER, FROM THE WALLS (_p. 239_).]

The river /Alyn/ joins the Dee below Wrexham. It has come
through much lovely country, of one portion of which, near Mold,
Pennant says:--"I hang long over the charming vale which opens here.
Cambria here lays aside her majestic air, and condescends to assume a
gentler form, in order to render her less violent in approaching union
with her English neighbour." The Alyn runs underground for about half
a mile after it has passed the old fortress of Caergwele. Indeed, as
Drayton says, with all due exactness, "twice underground her crystal
head doth run." Our first great landscape painter, Richard Wilson, was
buried at Mold, and it was in the vale of the Alyn that fortune at last
came to him, for here, on a small estate which had been bequeathed to
him, he came upon a vein of lead, and was henceforth able to live in
reasonable affluence.

    "And following Dee, which Britons long ygone
    Did call 'divine,' that doth to Chester tend"--

so remarks Edmund Spenser. First, however, we pass Eaton Hall and
its splendid grounds. Sir John Vanbrugh built a great mansion on the
site, which was pulled down when Gothic architecture again came into
fashion. Its successor was, in spite of great cost and elaboration, an
architectural failure, and it has now given place to Mr. Waterhouse's
greatest and most colossal achievement in domestic architecture. This
magnificent seat of the Duke of Westminster is situated in a very
extensive park, in which there is one avenue two miles in length,
bordered on each side by forest trees. The style of architecture
adopted by Mr. Waterhouse is that which prevailed in France in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. "There is not a house in England,"
it has been said, "that has been built on a more perfect arrangement."
The Dee flows round the outskirts of the park to the beautiful village
of Eccleston, where the grounds, sloping down to the river, are very
beautifully ornamented with trees. Henceforward to Chester the stream
is like a broad reach of the Thames, calm, massive, with leafy banks,
a truly impressive introduction to one of the most famous of English
cities.

Chester is remarkable alike for its present and its past. It shares
with York the distinction of having kept its ancient walls unimpaired;
and the walls of Chester, of a rich red sandstone, are much finer, both
in colour and in form, than those of the northern city. The definite
history of the place goes back at least as far as Agricola, who was
at Chester in the year 60 /A.D./ as an officer in the army
of Suetonius Paulinus. Then it was, probably, that the Romans first
established a camp on the banks of the Dee. Chester seems to have been
the headquarters of the Twentieth Legion, which, soon after the death
of Augustus, was stationed at Cologne, on the Rhine, from the reign of
Claudius to the departure of the Romans from Britain. The memorials
of this occupation are not now very numerous, but are of the highest
value in determining what kind of city Chester was when it was occupied
by a legion so distinguished that it was generally placed in posts of
difficulty and great honour. Probably the most perfect hypocaust in
England is that which is to be seen in the grounds attached to the
Water Tower at Chester. Ignorant men who offer themselves as guides
still speak of the wall as Roman work, and one may find for them this
excuse, at least--that the existing walls, with but one deviation,
follow the line of the Roman fortifications, part of which can be seen
near the canal, not very far from the point at which it communicates
with the Dee. The Road-Book of Antonine has this entry: "DEVA. LEG. XX
VICTRIX."

Among the pictures which most impressed the present writer's boyhood
was an illustration of Edgar the Peaceful being rowed down the Dee by
eight tributary princes. The incident is not legendary, but historic.
One might linger for almost any length of time in this unique city,
recalling the memorable facts of its history, were not the Dee still
tempting us along. It is a city surrounded by beautiful country, and is
full of a quaint charm, with rare architectural features. The famous
"Rows"--long covered galleries above the basements of the houses and
shops, originally intended for purposes of hasty defence--probably
reflect the influence of Rome on the city long after the departure of
the legions. This was the surmise of Stukeley, who wrote, "The Rows, or
piazzas, of Chester are singular through the whole town, giving shelter
to the foot people. I fancied it a remains of the old Roman portico."
Nowhere else in these islands are the ancient, half-timbered houses,
like the "God's Providence House" which has become so famous, in such
satisfactory preservation, and they have given a character even to the
modern architecture of Chester, which, in many striking instances, is
only a reproduction on a larger scale of the prevailing style of the
past.

Chester has two cathedrals, and a remarkable ecclesiastical history.
The city walls, round which the river sweeps in broad, bold curves,
are chiefly of the Edwardian period. From one of the towers, which is
now much what it was during the Civil Wars, Charles I. watched the
defeat of his army on Rowton Heath. Chester was shortly afterwards
surrendered, and thus was finally lost the cause of the king in the
north-west. Following the walls to the opposite side of the city, we
find that pleasant pictures are made by two of the Dee bridges--the
modern Suspension Bridge for foot-passengers, erected where the river
is of great breadth, and the old Dee Bridge, just under the walls, with
a huge flour-mill beside it, and a little colony of salmon-fishers on
the other side, not far away. Passing the Roodee, a great level space
by the river, on which the races are held and other popular festivities
take place, we arrive at the great iron arch of the Grosvenor Bridge,
which is as noticeable on account of its design as because of the
breadth of its single span.

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

CHESTER CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.]

For eight miles henceforward the river flows through an artificial
channel, made for purposes of navigation, and with the consequence of
reclaiming some five thousand acres of land. The swing railway bridge,
opened by Mrs. Gladstone in 1889, the first cylinder being placed in
position by Mr. Gladstone two years earlier, is the next object of
interest. Not far away is Hawarden Park, "not exceeded in beauty by
any demesne in the world," says Dean Howson. After these eight miles
of artificial waterway have been traversed, the Dee suddenly broadens
out into a wonderful estuary, which, according to the state of the
tide, separates England from Wales by wide stretches of water, or by
still wider stretches of sand. We pass the Castle of Flint on our way
downwards, with one huge round tower dipping its base into the Dee. The
town which it once defended is known in these days for its chemical
works; but it has seen stirring times. It was here that Richard II.
was held prisoner, within "the rude ribs of that ancient castle,"
as Shakespeare says, and here, also, it was that Bolingbroke became
King of England. The Castle of Mostyn, not far from where the shore
of the river becomes the coast of the sea, was also mixed up in these
transactions. Nearly midway between these two fragments of mediævalism
are Basingwerk Abbey and the Fountain of Holywell, which is even to
this day credited with the working of miracles.

[Illustration: SWING BRIDGE OVER THE DEE NEAR HAWARDEN (_p. 239_).]

The estuary of the Dee has its Lindisfarne; for, as an old writer on
Hillbree Island, with the square tower of its church rising above a
wooded knoll, has remarked, "It is an island but twice a day, embraced
by Neptune only at the full tydes, and twice a day shakes hands with
great Britain." The sands stretch away in almost illimitable expanse,
the Wirral Promontory making a distant, faint, and irregular boundary
between the Dee and the Mersey. Kingsley's account of one of Copley
Fielding's sketches of the Dee estuary says almost all that is possible
in the way of description:--"A wild waste of tidal sands, with here and
there a line of stake-nets fluttering in the wind--a gray shroud of
rain sweeping up from the westward, through which low red cliffs glowed
dimly in the rays of the setting sun--a train of horses and cattle
splashing slowly through shallow, desolate pools and creeks, their wet
red and black hides glittering in one long line of level light." It was
the simple, dreary grandeur of the picture, combined with the relation
of a tragic story, which inspired one of the most pathetic ballads in
the language--that long, piercing wail, "The Sands of Dee":--

    "'O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
    And call the cattle home,
    And call the cattle home
        Across the sands of Dee.'
    The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
        And all alone went she.

    "The western tide crept up along the sand,
    And o'er and o'er the sand,
    And round and round the sand,
        As far as eye could see.
    The blinding mist came down and hid the land:
        And never home came she.

           *       *       *       *       *

    "They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
    The cruel crawling foam,
    The cruel hungry foam,
        To her grave beside the sea:
    But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
        Across the sands of Dee."

    /Aaron Watson./

[Illustration: THE SANDS OF DEE.]




[Illustration: THE MERSEY AT STOCKPORT (_p. 244_).]




THE MERSEY.

    A Modern River--Derivations--The Tame, the Goyt, and
    the Etherow--Stockport--Northenden-The Irwell and its
    Feeders--Manchester and Salford--The Ship Canal--Bridges over the
    Irwell--Ordsall--Eccles--Barton--Warburton--Irlam--Warrington--
    Latchford--Runcorn and Widnes--The Weaver--Eastham Locks--Liverpool
    and its Growth--Its Docks and Quays--Birkenhead and its
    Shipbuilding Yards--New Brighton--Perch Rock Lighthouse.


Mersey may be described as the most modern of our rivers. There was a
time, in fact--and that not measured by geological computation--when,
so far as knowledge of it went, the Mersey could hardly be said to
be in existence. Even the great estuary where a world's argosies now
assemble escaped the attention of the Romans, and we come down to the
beginning of the eleventh century before we find the Mersey named in
any record. It is mentioned for the first time in a deed of the reign
of Ethelred, and there it figures less as a river than as a boundary
mark concerning a grant of some lands "between Maersae and Ribbel." It
has been said also of the Mersey that it got its name from the fact
that it formed the northern limit of the kingdom of Mercia. Another
derivation, and not an altogether unlikely one, when considered along
with the chief seat on its banks and the open channel beyond, is that
in "Mersey" we have the Celtic word "Marusia," signifying quiet or
sluggish water. A more curious derivation, and one lending itself to
the belief that in the early history of our country the character and
identity of the Mersey were very different from what they are to-day,
is that the word is from the Anglo-Saxon "Meres-ig," or "Sea-Island."
It is known that what is now the Wirral Peninsula, forming the western
boundary of the estuary of the Mersey, was at one time cut off from the
mainland by the sea. It is known also that the Dee flowed over into the
Mersey; and as the two rivers must then have appeared as one, with a
common mouth, it is easily seen how in the long ago the Mersey would
escape recognition altogether.

But the river that was to minister to the greatness of Lancashire,
and through Lancashire to aid so materially in the development of
industrial Britain, was, of course, no sudden creation. It may have
been for ages nothing but quiet or dead water, but Nature in her slow
and sure way was all the while working in its favour. For centuries,
vessels, as they sailed up and down the west coast, passed by the
Mersey, and found their way instead up the Dee to Chester, or up the
Ribble to Preston, and occasionally up the Lune to Lancaster. But, even
as they did so, these streams were gradually becoming less navigable. A
strong tidal flow raised sand barriers at their entrances, and for some
considerable distance upwards, that meant danger to shipping. The same
cause gave the Mersey its opportunity and its individuality; and once
the bar at its mouth was crossed, there were found not only capacious
and safe anchorage, but possibilities for commercial enterprise that
have gone on increasing from the moment at which men began to take
advantage of them.

[Illustration: THE MERSEY.]

The Mersey has its origin in three other streams that come down to it
from Yorkshire and Derbyshire uplands; and when it becomes for the
first time entitled to the name, it is among huge factories, and not
by willow-covered banks. The three streams in question are the Tame,
the Goyt, and the Etherow. Starting from the Peak district, and running
between Derbyshire and Cheshire, the Goyt strikes a northerly course,
and for a considerable distance forms the boundary line between the
two counties. Near to the village of Mellor it receives the Etherow,
which has come down from the breezy region known as the backbone of
England, almost at the meeting-point between Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and
Cheshire. Like the Goyt, the Etherow serves as a boundary line between
Derbyshire and Cheshire. It runs through Longdendale, where is one of
those artificial lake districts which come by way of compensation to
the country from the town; for here, on the slopes of Blackstone-edge,
are the reservoirs which until recently were thought sufficient for
the water-supply of Manchester and district. Four in number, they mean
a daily supply of 25,000,000 gallons; but that is not enough for the
steadily increasing population of the great city and its environs,
and Manchester has therefore gone much further afield, and tapped
Thirlmere, so as to secure an additional supply of 50,000,000 gallons.
From here the Etherow runs merrily down to where the Goyt comes
northwards to meet it. The combined stream, now of somewhat doubtful
identity, goes westward to Stockport, and receives there the Tame from
beyond Saddleworth, on the Yorkshire borders.

[Illustration: NORTHENDEN (_p. 245_).]

The Mersey now takes name and form. Starting at Stockport, it has an
industrial beginning at a point that must formerly have been possessed
of no small picturesqueness. Built on the slopes of a gorge, Stockport
is in these days a town of bridges. Through it runs the London and
North Western railway on a viaduct rising to a height of 111 feet,
supported on some twenty arches, and stretching from 600 to 700 feet.
Railway lines centre here from all points of the compass; and in the
past, as to-day, Stockport was regarded as a key to the situation north
and south. The Romans recognised its importance. The Normans were
equally alive to its strategic value, and built a stronghold here,
where the Earls of Chester long held court. The castle at Stockport
was demolished during the Civil Wars by order of the Parliament, but
not until it had been taken by Prince Rupert, and by General Leslie
after him. It was from Stockport also that Prince Charlie passed
during the Stuart rising in 1745. The name of the town gives a clue to
its history. Here was a great fort where stores were kept. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find that the present spelling of the name
is comparatively modern. In old days it appears plainly as Storefort
and Stokefort. The place has never lost its reputation as a source
of supply, although what it yields now is produced within its own
boundaries. It is an important textile centre, and the seat of the felt
hat trade; and from it also much good work is sent out in iron and
brass. It has always been an active town politically, and a statue of
Richard Cobden in the market-place shows the delight the inhabitants
take in recollecting that for six years they had the great Free Trader
as one of their two representatives in Parliament.

[Illustration: ON THE IRWELL.]

From Stockport the Mersey serves as the boundary line between
the counties of Chester and Lancashire. At Northenden, where its
surroundings are rural and pleasing, it takes a sudden turn to the
north, and after several twists runs decidedly and sharply to the
north-west, till it gets to Stretford. Here it is in touch with
the southern suburbs of Manchester, and is at its nearest point to
that city. For its natural junction with the stream which leads to
Manchester, we must, however, follow the river over what is now a
tortuous westerly course, past Flickstone to Irlam. At this point, some
nine miles from Manchester, the Irwell and the Mersey used to meet in
confluence. They do so still, but under other than the old conditions.
In the course of last century Manchester found it advisable to meet
the demands of its increasing trade by making the Irwell, and next the
upper parts of the Mersey, navigable for small vessels; and in the
closing years of the nineteenth century she has caught up the waters
of her own considerable tributary, and those of the main stream, in a
series of capacious locks along that great water-way which has now made
what Mr. Gladstone has called "the commercial metropolis of England" a
great inland seaport.

The Irwell is fed by more rivers than any other of Mersey's tributaries
of the same length, and all along its course it serves manufacturing
purposes, as the appearance of its waters betokens only too clearly.
Rising in the neighbourhood of Burnley, it passes through Rosenstall,
Tottington, Bury, and Radcliffe. At the last-mentioned place it
receives the Roch, and then goes westward to Farnworth, where it is
joined by the Tong. Taking next a south-easterly direction, it passes
through Prestwich, and after a bend to the north of Pendleton it runs
into Manchester. At Manchester the Irwell is fed by three other streams
darker even than itself, these being the Medlock, the Irk, and the
Cornbrook. The Irwell divides Manchester from Salford, but it is only
by the black boundary line thus afforded that it is possible to tell
where the one borough ends and the other begins. Each is distinct so
far as civic and Parliamentary affairs are concerned; but in all that
concerns their material well-being, they are one. Both are mentioned
in the Domesday Book, and there are glimpses of them back to the Roman
occupation.

There were signs of industrial activity in Manchester in the
thirteenth century, when a fulling mill is mentioned as having been
in operation on the riverside, and when the dyeing of yarns and cloth
was also practised on the banks of the Irwell, or its tributaries.
Leland, coming here in Henry VIII.'s time, found Manchester "the
fairest, best builded, quickliest, and most populous towne of all
Lancestreshire." Camden, in his pilgrimage in the reign of Elizabeth,
also paid Manchester a pretty compliment, seeing that he described it
as "surpassing neighbouring towns in elegance and populousness." Dr.
Stukeley, writing in the first half of the eighteenth century, refers
to Manchester as the "largest, most rich, populous, and busy village
in England." The term "village" seems strangely out of place applied
to what is now so great a community; but it is significant as showing
how enormously Manchester has grown since then. Dr. Stukeley speaks of
there being about two thousand families in the place, "and their trade,
which is incredibly large, consists of fustians, tickings, girthwebs,
and tapes, which are dispensed all over the kingdom, and to foreign
parts." The population of Manchester to-day is probably not far short
of 600,000, and that of Salford (which for Parliamentary and municipal
purposes includes Pendleton) is about 200,000. Both towns combined
did not contain more than 90,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the
present century. It is estimated that some 700 different industries
are now carried on within their borders. The explanation of this
extraordinary development is to be found in an observation made by
one of the topographers of last century regarding Manchester--namely,
"that the inhabitants are not only thrifty and inventive, but very
industrious and saving."

It is this "striving and inventing something new"--this disposition
to go forward, and make the most of their circumstances and
surroundings--that has made modern Manchester. Arkwright with his
spinning frame, and Hargreaves with his spinning jenny, were not at
first made too welcome, masters and men in Manchester combining against
these appliances. But the revolution effected by what Arkwright and
Hargreaves had done elsewhere was too obvious to be ignored; and when
the inventions of these men were fairly introduced into the seat of the
cotton trade, followed as they were by Compton's "mule," the way was
opened up in Manchester for greater developments. It was not enough,
however, to improve the quality of goods and augment the output: it
became necessary to increase the facilities for the introduction of
the raw material, and for the prompt removal and distribution of the
finished article. Much was done in this direction by the ready support
Manchester gave from the first to the canal system. The town got into
touch with the navigable waters of the Mersey by opening a waterway of
its own from Longford Bridge to Runcorn in 1767. Other canals brought
it into touch with the north, the south, and the east of England. This
was an immense gain over the waggon and pack-horse arrangements that
had previously prevailed, and the trade of Manchester grew apace,
developing eventually more quickly than there were means for dealing
with it. The introduction of the factory system, and the replacing of
the old hand-looms by looms having steam as the motive power, forced
Manchester to consider whether some still speedier method of transit
could not be obtained. Fortunately, with the hour came the man, and
with the man came also the agency that was wanted. George Stephenson
and his "Rocket" appeared upon the scene. Lines of rails were laid
westward, not without immense difficulty, over Chat Moss to Liverpool;
and from 1830 it became possible to have communication between
Manchester and Liverpool in almost as many minutes as it had formerly
taken hours.

With the aid of the locomotive, and all that is meant by this mode of
transit, the trade of Manchester continued to expand, progressing to
such an extent that during recent years it became necessary to consider
whether Liverpool itself, although but an hour distant by rail, was not
too far away for Manchester merchants. Manchester could not go to the
sea, but the sea could be brought to Manchester; and again with the
hour the man appeared. In April, 1877, the suggestion came from Mr.
Hamilton H. Fulton to establish tidal navigation between Manchester and
the Mersey. Beyond an indication of what could be done, nothing came
of the proposal, but Manchester people will not forget that Mr. Fulton
first mooted the scheme that was eventually taken up on the strength
of designs submitted by Mr. E. Leader Williams. A start was given to
the movement at a meeting held in June, 1882, at the residence of Mr.
Daniel Adamson, of Didsbury. On November 11th, 1887, the first sod in
the making of the canal was cut by the Chairman of the Company (Lord
Egerton of Tatton) at Eastham. In seven years from that time the canal
was completed, it being opened for through traffic on New Year's Day,
1894. The formal opening by the Queen took place on the 21st of May
in the same year. At the time of the opening for traffic, the canal,
including sums paid in compensation for vested interests, had cost
£11,750,000.

[Illustration: PENDLETON, FROM THE CRESCENT (_p. 246_).]

The Ship Canal being a continuation of the Mersey, and the two blending
in some places and in others running in close proximity, some of the
engineering and other features of this the greatest of our English
artificial waterways will be referred to as the further course of
the Mersey is sketched. But as the canal has its headquarters in
Manchester, it may be mentioned here that its total length from
Eastham, where it runs into the estuary of the Mersey, to Pomona Docks
at Manchester is 35-1/2 miles, that its average water width at the
level is 172 feet, and that its width at the bottom is 120 feet, except
between Barton and Manchester, where the bottom width is as much as
170 feet, with 230 feet stretch at the level. As the minimum depth of
the canal is 25 feet, it has, therefore, accommodation for the largest
vessels; and as it is lit up with the electric light along its course,
it is navigable by night as well as by day. The canal is in four
stretches, divided by five sets of locks, that eventually raise its
waters to a height of 60-1/2 feet above the sea. There is a range of
docks both on the Manchester and on the Salford side of the terminus
of the canal, with a great open stretch of water for the movement of
vessels. Mere figures give but a poor idea of the extent and character
of the canal, but there are certain features which appeal strikingly to
the least imaginative mind. Thus, in regard to the excavations, we have
the startling statement that the quantity of earth removed to secure
a channel for the canal could have made a wall round the globe 6 feet
high and 2 feet thick, and that enough bricks were used to make a
causeway 6 feet wide from one end of the kingdom to the other. Another
point we have to remember is that but for improved machinery and the
use of steam and of powerful explosives, the construction of the
Manchester Ship Canal in all its parts, instead of being accomplished
in seven years, could hardly have been finished in half a century.

[Illustration: MANCHESTER, FROM THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL, SHOWING THE
CATHEDRAL, THE EXCHANGE, THE TOWN HALL, ETC.]

There are political as well as industrial features that cannot be
overlooked in any reference to the great seat of the cotton trade. A
statue of Cromwell in Victoria Street, standing on a rugged block of
granite, may be taken as a memorial of the strong stand Manchester made
for the Parliament in the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century. It was
in Manchester that the first blow in that struggle is said to have been
struck. Curiously enough, however, Manchester, in a moment of impulse,
declared for the Stuarts in the rising a century later. Its inhabitants
not only welcomed Prince Charlie in his march to the South, but went so
far as to proclaim him king. They changed their minds, however, almost
as quickly as they had made them up; and the Prince and his adherents
received but scant courtesy from the Manchester folk some two weeks
later while retreating northward. Agitation for Parliamentary reform
ran to fever heat in Manchester almost from the inception of that
movement, and had one lamentable incident--a charge by yeomanry at a
mass meeting in St. Peter's Field in 1819, when several persons were
killed. While deplorable in itself, this event, which has passed into
history as the "Peterloo massacre," was not without potent influence
in bringing in that better era for which the people of Manchester, in
common with the inhabitants of other large towns, were clamouring.
Where that memorable mass meeting took place now stands the Free Trade
Hall--a suggestive reminder of the fact that in Manchester the Corn Law
League, with Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Milner Gibson as leading
spirits, had its headquarters. In 1832 Manchester obtained the right
to send two members to Parliament, Salford getting one member. By the
Reform Bill of 1867 both boroughs got an additional representative; and
when, in 1885, the great towns were cut up into divisions, Manchester
had its Parliamentary strength increased to six members, and Salford to
three.

Long as it had to wait for Parliamentary recognition, it was still
later before Manchester secured the municipal powers to which by its
antiquity, its growth, and its business importance it was entitled.
Its charter of incorporation as a borough was not obtained until 1838.
Nine years later (1847) it was made a city, in the episcopal sense,
its collegiate church--"the one Paroch Church" Leland speaks of in
his "Itinerary"--ranking as the cathedral. It was six years later
still (1853) before the civic charter was obtained confirming what
had been done ecclesiastically. In 1893 another titular dignity came
to Manchester, its chief magistrate being then created Lord Mayor.
The cathedral, regarded as a parish church, dates from 1422, when it
was founded by Thomas de la Warre, who was doubly qualified for the
work he undertook, being not only lord of the manor but rector of the
parish. He founded a church, it is said, "as well for the greater
honour of the place as the better edification of the people"--hence
its collegiate character. Much has been done, with marked success,
to improve the appearance of the building since its elevation to the
dignity of a cathedral, and, architecturally and otherwise, it is well
entitled to the rank it now holds. Close to it is Chetham College, the
original residence of the Warden and Fellows of the old collegiate
body. Humphrey Chetham, the founder of this institution, was a dealer
in fustians in Manchester early in the seventeenth century. Before
his death he saw to the education and maintenance of a number of poor
boys of the town and neighbourhood, and by his will he left money to
continue and expand the good work he had begun.

A still earlier trust is the Grammar School, which goes back to 1515,
when it had as its founder Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter. The school
drew revenues from the mills on the Irk in the days when that stream
ran in limpid purity into the Irwell. It has a high reputation for
scholarship. Educationally Manchester owes much also to a citizen
of the present century--John Owens, who died in 1846, having left
£100,000, to which an equal sum was added for the foundation of the
college that bears his name. Manchester has thus been generously helped
in the matter both of elementary and of secondary education. And she
has had the further satisfaction of mounting the next step in the
ladder of learning, having obtained in 1880 a Royal Charter for the
founding of Victoria University, of which Owens is one of the colleges,
others being the Yorkshire College at Leeds and the University College
at Liverpool. Chetham College possesses a finely selected library of
30,000 volumes, housed in a picturesque range of old buildings. And
in this connection it is interesting to note that Manchester was the
first borough to take advantage of the Free Libraries Act. To-day she
has free libraries and reading rooms in every part of the city where
they seem needed, in addition to a great central reference library
containing about 200,000 volumes. Salford is equally well equipped in
this respect; and in both places technical training has kept pace with
other forms of instruction.

[Illustration: VICTORIA AND BLACKFRIARS BRIDGES (_p. 252_).]

With the exceptions named, the principal buildings of Manchester are
modern. The Victoria Buildings and Hotel, a palatial pile, now cover
what was one of the oldest parts of the city. The Town Hall, completed
in 1883, is a fine Gothic structure, occupying a triangular site. It is
really a municipal palace--imposing externally, and admirably adapted
internally for the conduct of the public affairs of a great city. The
rise and progress of the city has been pictorially treated in the great
chamber of the Town Hall by Ford Madox Brown. A wide open space known
as Albert Square fronts the Town Hall, with an Albert Memorial in the
centre, flanked by statues of John Bright and Bishop Fraser. Near by,
in St. Anne's Square, is a bronze statue of Richard Cobden. The Assize
Courts in Strangeways are as noble architecturally as the Town Hall,
and are from designs by the same architect, Mr. Alfred Waterhouse;
while the Royal Exchange, in Market Street, is a notable building in
the Italian style, possessing the largest meeting room of its kind
in the United Kingdom, but a room not too large for the demands made
upon its space, as visitors who attempt to inspect it on Tuesdays and
Fridays, the chief business days, will readily testify. Then there is
the Royal Institution, from designs by Sir Charles Barry, in the Doric
style, containing a gallery of paintings and a School of Design, with
a statue of Dr. Dalton, the propounder of the Atomic Theory, and a
Manchester worthy.

The Infirmary, built in the same style as the Exchange, dates from
the year 1755. The esplanade in front of it, where are statues of the
Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and Dr. Dalton, covers the site
of what was the "ducking pond" in Manchester in the days when the town
troubled itself less about the spread of enlightenment than it does
now. Like the Exchange, the Infirmary exists for the benefit of other
places than its own immediate neighbourhood. Some 30,000 patients are
treated annually within its walls. Its wards bear the names of various
benefactors of the institution, and one of the wings was built through
the beneficence of Jenny Lind, who gave two concerts for the purpose.
The reference to Jenny Lind suggests the fact that Manchester during
the present century has been distinguished as a musical centre. Nor has
she been backward as a patron of artists; her Art Treasures Exhibition
of 1857 brought together the finest collection of ancient and modern
paintings the provinces have known. The needs of the inhabitants, in
the physical sense, have also during recent years been well attended
to, as is shown by the open spaces made even in busy neighbourhoods,
and the parks and recreation grounds in the outskirts of both
Manchester and Salford. When the citizens feel disposed to travel far
afield, they cannot in these days complain of lack of facilities.
Having brought the sea to their own doors, they can go direct by boat
to almost every part. By rail they have choice of routes to all the
leading towns of the kingdom.

[Illustration: STEAMER PASSING THROUGH TRAFFORD ROAD SWING BRIDGE (_p.
254_).]

One may not be particularly pleased with what one sees of the Irwell as
it passes through the city, but it cannot be regarded as a hindrance
to free locomotion. It is bridged over in many places, so much so that
it is possible to get to and from Salford along most of the chief
thoroughfares of the larger town. The Victoria Bridge is modern, as its
name implies. Built two years after the accession of the Queen, it
replaced one erected in 1365, and which, from that period up to 1760,
was the only bridge connecting Manchester proper with Salford. A wooden
structure--built, it is said, by a theatrical company, to enable them
to pass between the two towns--preceded the present Blackfriars Bridge,
on the line of the street of that name. There are also the Albert, the
Regent, the Broughton, and other bridges. At Hulme Hall Road, where
the Medlock passes into the main stream, the Irwell loses itself in
the ship-canal. Here, too, is the entrance to the Manchester series of
docks, which cover the site of the old Pomona Gardens. They are in four
arms. The water space occupies 33-1/2 acres, and there is a quay area
of 23 acres, with two miles of quay length. On the opposite side lies
Ordsall, with a rectangular dock 980 feet by 750 feet, and with another
feature of interest in the great calico printing, dyeing, and bleaching
works of the Messrs. Worral. From here the canal curves round and flows
under a great swing bridge, said to be the largest in the country (it
is 265 feet long by 150 feet wide), forming part, when closed, of the
Trafford Road. To the right are the Salford Docks, and here the water
space covers 71 acres, with a quay area of 129 acres, and 4 miles
length of quayage. Just at the entrance to the Salford Docks the canal
is at its widest--1,388 feet.

A little further down is Mode Wheel, where are the locks that begin
the process of descent, the fall at this point being 13 feet. Here the
canal runs nearly west, and continues in this direction till it reaches
the outskirts of Eccles, where it begins to run due west through a
rock cutting that revealed in the exposed gravel, as the work was in
progress, the trend of flowing water in historic times. Beyond are the
Barton swing aqueduct and locks. The aqueduct which Brindley carried
over the roadway here for the Bridgewater Canal was at the close of
last century one of the wonders of the Manchester district. It had to
be demolished to give place to a still greater wonder of the kind. Not
only had a new aqueduct to be constructed to allow the ship-canal to
pass underneath, but it had to be made in such a form that it could
swing. This was done by forming the bridge portion of the aqueduct
into a caisson, or trough, some 90 feet long by 19 feet wide, and 6
feet deep, and weighing some 1,400 tons. Ordinarily, of course, the
water in the old canal is continuous, but when a ship is approaching
on the larger canal, double sets of gates are closed at each end of
the caisson, thus confining the water in the canal above and in the
caisson itself. The caisson is then swung round on a central pier,
on each side of which vessels may pass on the ship-canal. Below this
engineering triumph are the Barton locks on the ship-canal, giving a
fall of 15 feet. Here the new waterway takes a south-westerly turn, and
continues thus till it gets to Warburton. About midway between Barton
and the latter place, Irlam is reached, and here there are several
interesting features of the canal to be seen. To begin with, there is
another series of locks, giving a descent this time of 16 feet, with a
set of sluice gates in addition, which have been constructed to carry
off excess of water in times of flood--an expedient rendered necessary
by the fact that just below Irlam the Mersey runs into the canal. Here
also the Cheshire Railway lines cross the canal, and these had to be
dealt with so as to give a clear waterway of 75 feet above water-level.

About a mile below the weir at Irlam the canal widens out at the bottom
to 250 feet, to form the Partington coal-basin, thus allowing barges
and other vessels to be moored at the side, leaving the regulation
stretch of the canal for ordinary traffic. Elaborate arrangements are
made here to deal with the shipment of coal from both the Lancashire
and Yorkshire fields. Just below are the Cadis Head viaducts, carrying
the Cheshire lines over the canal, a work that involved much labour
to secure the desired gradients and the 75 feet above water-level. At
Warburton the roadway has been carried over a high level bridge, on the
cantilever principle. The town, which lies to the south of the canal,
is of some antiquity, and was the site of a Premonstratensian Priory.
Some little distance down, the river Bollin, coming northwards from
the neighbourhood of Macclesfield, falls into the canal on one side;
on the other, the Mersey is liberated, being now at the same level as
the canal itself. Here the Mersey begins to assume its most tortuous
course. It twists, bends, and doubles upon itself in a perplexing way,
affording a great contrast to the canal, which now runs straight as
an arrow all the way to Runcorn. In the course of its meanderings the
river comes down to the canal again at Thelwall Ferry, where it had
to be deviated for a short distance and made into a straight line. At
the end of the deviation it resumes its serpentine character, and here
and there accommodation canals run through it to give short cuts. In
another of its great bends the Mersey comes down to the canal again at
the point where Warrington is brought into touch with the new waterway.

Lying almost wholly to the north of the river, Warrington was anciently
approached by the south, by way of Latchford, and this route still
affords a principal means of access to the town, both by road and by
rail. The Mersey touches no part possessing a more remote history.
It has been claimed for Warrington that it is the oldest town in
Lancashire. It was the Veritenum of the Romans, and it figures in
Domesday as Wallingtun. Situated where there was ferryage over the
Mersey, and where at one time the river itself seems on occasion to
have been fordable, it practically was the key to Lancashire and
Cheshire on the west. As may be supposed, there was clashing of arms
frequently in its streets and on the road to the riverside. The
Botelers were lords of the manor here from the thirteenth century, and
they had, among other good things, right of toll on the ferry. The
first bridge was the result of a king's visit, and is said to have been
constructed by the first Earl of Derby for the better accommodation
of Henry VII. when that monarch was a guest at Lathom. With the
construction of the bridge the need for the ferry disappeared, and
so also did certain emoluments which fell to the lords of the manor,
whereupon a feud arose between the Botelers and the Stanleys that was
not settled without bloodshed. The bridge had another effect: it caused
large numbers of the population to change their quarters in order to
be nearer the stream, so that in the end the parish church was left
where Leland found it--"at the tail end of the town." It is no longer
there, of course, and no longer the only building of its kind, for
Warrington has grown with Lancashire generally, and the old church has
not been neglected. It has many fine Gothic features, including a spire
rising to 200 feet. Timber houses, suggesting the days of the old ford,
may be found in some of the streets, but Warrington is by no means a
place of the past. It is a very active, thriving community, numbering
60,000, and doing much business in the staple trade of the county, and
also in iron, steel, glass, leather, and soap.

[Illustration: THE OLD AQUEDUCT, BARTON.]

[Illustration: THE SWING AQUEDUCT, BARTON (_p. 254_).]

There are locks on the canal at Latchford giving a fall of 16-1/2 feet,
but as the water is now tidal the fall varies. The railway line had to
be cut through here by the canal, but in the meantime a new route was
made for the iron horse, including a massive viaduct, in the piers of
which some 12,000,000 bricks are said to have been used. Here, too,
as elsewhere, arrangements had to be made for road traffic, and in
this connection Latchford has been supplied with both a swing and a
cantilever bridge.

[Illustration: THE IRWELL AT ORDSALL, WITH WORRALL'S WORKS (_p. 254_).]

From Warrington the Mersey, still keeping a sinuous course, begins to
expand, and when next it comes into touch with the ship-canal, which
it does at a point known as Randall's Creek, it assumes estuarial
form, and markedly so just before reaching Runcorn. Then there is a
sudden change, caused by the outswelling of both banks of the river,
the result being that the Mersey is contracted to about 1,200 feet
across, after being more than twice that width. This contraction, known
as Runcorn Gap, lies between Widnes Point on the Lancashire side, and
Runcorn on the Cheshire side. At this, the nearest point to the upper
estuary proper, the Mersey is crossed by a high level bridge, giving
the London and North Western Railway access to Liverpool. Runcorn has
been made by canals; three, approaching from different directions,
touch the Mersey there. The ship-canal lies to the north of the town,
after passing through a cutting extending to a depth of 66 feet, the
deepest on the route. Lying under the railway bridge, and coming close
to the river, it soon finds itself wholly in the bed of the Mersey,
separated from the stream by a massive concrete wall, for which in one
place a foundation had to be made 70 feet down. There were considerable
docks and warehouses here before the greatest of the canals gave
additional claim to Runcorn to be considered a seaport. Ethelfreda,
daughter of Alfred the Great, is said to have founded the town; and
antiquaries are pleased to regard the name as a corruption of Runcofan,
from the Anglo-Saxon "cofa," a cove or inlet. The locks on the canal
here are so constructed as to enable vessels to leave or enter at
any state of the tide. Widnes, on the opposite side of the river, is
a busy, thriving manufacturing town, with chemicals as its leading
commercial product, but doing a good deal also in various branches of
the iron trade.

From Runcorn the ship-canal forms the southern side of the Mersey. The
outer wall of protection follows the course of the river, bending with
it round what may be called the Runcorn headland, and crossing the
mouth of the river Weaver. The Weaver being navigable up to Northwich,
the construction of the canal across its opening into the Mersey
was a work of considerable ingenuity and difficulty. In the first
instance, provision had to be made by special locks to give entrance
to the tributary before the point of junction with the Mersey could
be interfered with; and when the canal itself was carried over the
tributary, a series of great sluices had to be constructed to regulate
the flow of the waters into the Mersey. Since then the Weaver has not
been subjected to the inconvenience of low tide. Another result of the
change has been the formation of a new town on its west bank, known as
Saltport, with wharves and other arrangements specially adapted for
the cargoes of salt that come down the Weaver for shipment elsewhere.
In the case of a smaller stream further on, the Gowy, the water had
to be carried under the canal by means of syphons strong enough and
large enough to withstand tidal influences. From the Gowy the line of
the canal follows the northward sweep of the estuary, and continues
thus past Ellesmere Port, where is the outlet for the Shropshire Union
system of canals. It then passes onward to what may be called the grand
entrance to this commercial undertaking, namely, the Eastham Locks.
These locks are in sets of varying sizes, according to the vessels that
come and go, this arrangement being necessary to avoid waste of water
from the canal. From Eastham the distance by the Mersey to Liverpool is
six miles, and to the lightship at the bar nineteen miles.

The Mersey is at its widest in the neighbourhood of Ellesmere Port,
the stretch across from here to Dungeon Point, on the Lancashire side,
being about three miles. Gradually narrowing in its progress to the
sea, it is only some 1,250 yards wide at the entrance. The passage
outwards, between Liverpool and Birkenhead down to the bar, has been
compared to a bottle-neck, and it is this feature of the stream,
added to the fact that, although a river of the west coast, it turns
round and takes a northerly direction, which gives it its commercial
importance. Through the narrow passage, the tidal flow is rapid enough
to maintain an open channel into the inlying estuary, and to clear a
passage for the largest vessels well out into the open sea. One source
of danger lies at the bar. Here sand is apt to silt up; and if this
were allowed to go on, the result would be that large vessels would
have to wait on either side for high water in order to get in or out.
The remedy has been found in extensive and frequent dredging, the
effect of which is not only to make entrance to the river accessible
at all states of the tide, but also to increase the inrush and the
outrush of water, to the manifest improvement of the inner channels.
The estuary has the further advantage of natural protection. The Wirral
Peninsula, as a glance at the map will show, serves as a magnificent
break-water, and the harbour has of course a great out-lying safeguard
in the barrier Ireland presents between it and the Atlantic.

It is where Mersey is at its widest and best--at the places where
it affords safe and capacious anchorage for the merchantmen of all
nations--that its story begins to unfold itself; and, as has been
indicated, it is not an ancient recital, by any means. Elsewhere
along its course are references to places and persons that take one
back as far as the written history of this island can go, but in the
neighbourhood of Liverpool the references are all of them comparatively
modern. Here there is trace neither of Roman nor of Norman. Yet if
Liverpool and Birkenhead do not figure in the Domesday pages, they are
by no means creations of yesterday, though, as we now find them, both
are very much the outcome of nineteenth-century enterprise. Liverpool
got a charter as far back as the year 1173, and about a century and a
half later the enterprising Prior of Birkenhead obtained a licence to
build hospices for travellers, and secured at the same time the right
of ferryage, of which the Monk's Ferry of to-day is an interesting
reminiscence.

It is in the early Liverpool charter that the name of the great city is
first met with. It is there written Lyrpul, and the name has undergone
such variations as Litherpool, Liderpool, Liferpool, and Lithepool,
before finally passing into its existing form. No one has been able to
say exactly what the name means. The latter part, of course, causes no
difficulty. The first part can be one of half a dozen different things,
or may mean something else. Certain authorities favour the notion that
in Liver we have the name of an aquatic bird of the cormorant family,
that found choice food on the shores of the Pool. Others assert for the
first part of the name that it comes from the liverwort plant, which
grew abundantly in the neighbourhood. Other opinions are that the name
really means "Ship Pool," or "the place at the pool," or "the gentle
pool," but all that is guesswork. What is certain is that a cormorant
or a pelican, or a liver (whatever sort of creature that may have
been), has figured upon the borough seal since the time of King John,
although advocates for another derivation have claimed that the figure
upon the seal was not meant for an aquatic bird, but for an eagle.
The authorities of the town never adopted this view; they have kept
loyally to the bird that is said to have found peace and plenty on the
banks of the stretch of still water around which Liverpool sprang into
existence.

[Illustration: 1. RUNCORN BRIDGE (_p. 257_). 2. THE LOCKS AT EASTHAM
(_p. 258_).]

The pool on whose borders the city grew spread out over the site of
the Custom House and adjoining buildings. At some uncertain date
after the Norman occupation a castle was built where now stands St.
George's Church, and this stronghold was held for many generations by
the Molineux family, the descendants of William de Molines, one of the
Conqueror's lieutenants. In time another Norman family, the Stanleys,
found their way into Liverpool, and got possession of "the Tower,"
a structure which had been raised for the purpose of observation on
what is now Water Street. The Stanleys strengthened and fortified "the
Tower," building a mansion round it, and covering some four thousand
square yards in the process; so that practically Liverpool had two
castles, with two powerful families dominating the place, and making
life almost unbearable, for they were continually at feud as to their
rights, though, curiously enough, fighting side by side for the king as
the occasion arose.

Neither of castle nor of tower is there any trace to be found in these
days. While they existed they were the chief features of Liverpool,
but they had nothing in common with the circumstances that led to the
development of the port, although their possessors had influence enough
with successive sovereigns to obtain privileges for the place, and,
indeed, they were far-seeing as well, and believed that the roadstead
at their doors meant much for the future of England. King John himself
came here, formed Toxteth Park, and gave the town a charter. Henry II.
made Liverpool a free port, while Henry III. constituted it a borough.
A Parliament summoned at Westminster in the reign of Edward I. was
attended by two burgesses from Liverpool; and from the time of Edward
III. the town seems to have sent members to Parliament with commendable
regularity, although there was but little for them to represent.
Liverpool, however, had to be content with only two members down to the
Reform Bill of 1867, long after she had made a name and reputation the
world over. In 1867 the number was increased to three; and when, in
1885, the Redistribution Scheme came into force, Liverpool was strong
enough to secure nine members, and is the only constituency in England
whose Irish voters are sufficiently numerous in any one division to
return a member after their own heart, though, singular to say, the
division which that member represents is known as the Scotland division.

[Illustration: _Photo: Valentine & Sons, Dundee._

ST. GEORGE'S LANDING-STAGE, LIVERPOOL (_p. 265_).]

Although favoured, as we have seen, in the reign of Edward I.,
Liverpool was then of so little importance that she was only required
to furnish one barque and six sailors for the assistance of that
monarch; while Hull, on the east coast, had to supply sixteen ships and
four hundred and sixty-six men, and Bristol twenty-one ships and six
hundred men. That the town made but slow progress is shown also by the
fact that while Charles I. assessed Bristol for £1,000 in ship-money,
and Chester at £100, the amount claimed from Liverpool was only £25.
Liverpool does not seem to have hesitated to meet the demand, probably
because she owed a debt of gratitude to Charles, who raised the place
in civic importance by constituting the authorities a corporate body.
Nevertheless, the burgesses favoured the Puritan rather than the Royal
cause when the crisis came; and probably for this reason, although the
Molineuxs in their castle and the Stanleys in their tower stood for the
King, the Parliament had no great difficulty in raising the siege of
Liverpool and taking possession for the Commonwealth.

Prince Rupert had a sufficiently hard task when he tried to win the
place back. That dashing leader made light of the defences that had
been thrown up; but the citizens kept him outside, for all that, for
full three weeks, beating back his troops at every successive assault,
and only surrendering after a combined attack by night. The fiery
Prince did not appreciate the bravery of the men of Liverpool, but
smote them without mercy when the chance came, and did much damage to
their property besides. His triumph, however, was of the briefest. The
battle of Marston Moor, with its crowning victory for the Commonwealth,
was fought six days afterwards, and all that Prince Rupert had gained
gradually passed into the hands of the Parliament, Liverpool included,
though not without another siege. The attitude of the citizens
favoured them with the Protector. As compensation for the loss they
had sustained, the Corporation secured rights of ferryage over the
Mersey, they were allowed £500 worth of timber from the estates of
the Royalists in the neighbourhood, and they got a money allowance in
addition of £10,000.

Camden in the reign of Elizabeth found Liverpool "not so eminent for
being ancient as for being neat and populous"; and the historian
who speaks of it in the closing years of the nineteenth century may
fittingly describe the city in the same terms. But there is this
difference between the two epochs--that while the inhabitants in
Camden's time were housed in seven streets, they are now spread over a
great area north and south, and away to the east, in streets almost too
numerous to count. In 1565 a census that was taken gave the population
of Liverpool at 820. In 1700 the number had risen to 5,700. Fifty years
later it was about 25,000. At the beginning of the present century it
was 85,000. At the present time, including Birkenhead and the suburbs,
it probably exceeds 900,000. Its position as a port, as has been
shown, was insignificant in the ship-money days; it now handles about
one-fifth of the tonnage of Great Britain. In 1801 vessels trading
to and from Liverpool numbered 5,000, with an aggregate tonnage of
459,710, providing dues to the extent of about £28,000. For the year
ending June 30th, 1896, 23,659 vessels entered the port, representing
a tonnage of 11,946,459. For the same period, the total revenue of the
dock estate from all sources amounted to £4,014,000. The number of
sailing vessels finding their way to the Mersey as compared with the
Thames is as three to one, and to the Clyde as two to one. One-third
more steamers enter the Thames, but the greater number of large liners
that come to Liverpool almost equalises the steam tonnage.

It is not difficult to ascertain how this marvellous development of
population and trade has taken place. The situation of Liverpool,
with its practically open though well protected roadstead, has, of
course, had much to do with the change. But this natural advantage has
its drawbacks, and these were sufficiently serious to have prevented
progress beyond a certain point had not there been public-spirited and
large-minded men to direct the enterprise of the community. To attract
navigation, the channels of the river had to be defined, and they had
to be kept clear. They had to be buoyed and provided with beacons on
both sides. Notable among the guiding influences are the New Brighton
Lighthouse (known also as the Perch Rock Lighthouse) at the mouth of
the river on the Cheshire side, and the Formby and numerous other
lights on the other side along the stretch of the Crosby channel until
safe passage out to sea is secured. But something more was needed. The
tidal rise and fall of the water-level meant a variation of some 30
feet at spring tides, which made the loading and unloading of vessels
difficult, and at times dangerous; besides, the vessels soon became too
numerous for ordinary quay accommodation. It was necessary to provide
special basins, and the first step in this direction was taken as far
back as 1699, when the Pool was deepened and improved.

This was but an insignificant beginning to what has now grown to
such vast dimensions, but it solved a serious problem for the trade
of Liverpool of that day; and in about ten years afterwards the Pool
was made into a dock some four acres in extent, giving accommodation
for 100 small vessels, Liverpool securing its reward in Parliamentary
permission "to impose a duty for twenty-one years upon the tonnage of
all ships trading to or from the port for making a wet dock." This
earliest of the docks no longer exists; but others were soon afterwards
constructed in its vicinity, though parallel with the river, and some
of these are still in use. The expansion of the dock system eventually
necessitated the formation of a Dock Estate and the acquisition of
property along the whole city front. The docks now stretch along the
line of the Mersey for a distance of from six to seven miles, and
comprise some 25 miles of quay space and 380 acres of water space.
In addition, there are nine miles of quay space and 164 acres of
water space in the dock accommodation provided across the river at
Birkenhead. This is irrespective of graving dock arrangements. The area
of the Dock Estate exceeds 1,600 acres, inclusive of provision for
extension.

[Illustration: SWING-BRIDGE OVER THE ENTRANCE TO STANLEY DOCK,
LIVERPOOL (_p. 266_).]

The dock system of Liverpool, as we now find it, is very largely
the work of the present century, and it separates readily into two
divisions. For about thirty-six years (from 1824) the docks were laid
out upon plans prepared by Mr. Jesse Hartley, assisted by his son, Mr.
John B. Hartley. Since then the work has been conducted by Mr. G. F.
Lyster, assisted by his son, Mr. A. G. Lyster. In the first instance
the docks had to be constructed for sailing vessels. The many additions
that have since been made have been almost wholly for the accommodation
of steamships. But whether we take the docks that were constructed
during the first half of the present century, or those that have been
opened since then, they are engineering triumphs; and the world has no
more wonderful sight of the kind than they, alike in their capacity,
their admirable adaptation to tidal conditions and particular classes
of goods, their warehouse and office arrangements, and the care that
has been taken to provide ample quay and road space. The cost has been
enormous, but it has been justified by the returns. By means of its
docks Liverpool is able to meet any demand upon its shipping powers.
The vessels that are at times housed within its protecting river
chambers, if ranged side by side, would cover the banks of the Mersey
along all its navigable length.

It is, of course, only a part, although the major part, of the tonnage
of Liverpool that finds treatment in this way. There is a constantly
moving flotilla. The goods and passenger traffic from one side of
the Mersey to the other is scarcely ever at a standstill; but while
this traffic passes to or from widely separated points on the Wirral
Peninsula, it converges at Liverpool to that which is as much one
of the sights of the city as the docks themselves--namely, the
landing-stage. This is constructed on a series of enormous floating
pontoons, about midway between the northern and southern lines of the
docks. Formerly there were two such structures, and nominally there
are still two--St. George's and the Prince's; but while they were
for many years separated by a space of 500 feet to give access to
the St. George's basin, they are now continuous, and their unbroken
length makes a stretch of over 2,400 feet. The landing-stage, which
is connected with the quay wall by a succession of girder bridges,
adapted for both passengers and vehicles, is at any period of the day
a scene of unusual activity and bustle; but the official arrangements
are admirable, and seldom is there any difficulty in dealing with the
great crowds that gather and disperse here, either for lands across sea
or on their way to inland towns. Here, if anywhere, the cosmopolitan
character of the passenger traffic of Liverpool is seen in its fulness
and variety. The landing-stage is, in fact, the temporary meeting-place
of people of all nations, and belonging to all grades and conditions of
life, from wretched stowaways to ambassadors with princely retinues.

[Illustration: LIVERPOOL, FROM BIRKENHEAD (_p. 266_).]

Although called a stage, this landing-place is really a magnificent
promenade, with ranges of official buildings and waiting and
refreshment rooms. Until recently the passengers by the deep-sea liners
were taken to and from the steamers in tenders. This arrangement
often gave rise to serious inconvenience, and entailed also much loss
of time. The latest addition to the stage was therefore contrived
specially with the object of overcoming these drawbacks. Passengers
may now pass direct from the stage to the largest vessels; and more
than this has been done for them. They are now brought close to the
stage itself by railway, so that they may book themselves and their
luggage from London or from any of our large towns to any part of the
world, and have no more trouble on arriving on the banks of the Mersey
than is usually involved in a change of conveyance. To facilitate
passenger traffic to and from the docks, an electric overhead railway
running along the whole stretch of the six or seven miles comprising
the city front, and into the districts beyond, has been in operation
since February, 1893, when it was formally opened by Lord Salisbury.
The line has since undergone extension, and it was carried as far as
Dingle in December, 1896. It is now about eight miles long. The Dingle
extension presents some notable engineering features. In one place it
crosses the Dock Estate by girders 220 feet in length--an unusually
large span; in another it is run through a tunnel arch said to be the
largest of its kind in the world; while at Dingle the line belies its
name, the terminal station being here considerably below the road
level. The only dock entrance that runs inland sufficiently far to be
crossed by the overhead railway is the Stanley, and here a swing-bridge
has been erected, on the double-deck principle, so as to provide for
the railway traffic overhead and the usual carriage and foot traffic
underneath. This railway may be considered a part of the great work
of dock development at Liverpool. A report laying out the scheme was
presented by Mr. Lyster, the engineer to the Dock Board, in 1885, but
for public and other reasons it was thought advisable to leave the
work to private enterprise, and it was therefore undertaken by an
incorporated company, Sir William Forwood being the chairman, and Mr.
S. B. Cottrell the engineer and general manager. A railway under the
Mersey from Birkenhead was opened in 1885 by the Prince and Princess
of Wales, to meet the growing increase in the cross-river traffic, and
this line, which passes for 2,100 yards under the river, has since been
connected with main lines on each side.

Liverpool, with its great line of protected dockage and quayage,
and the movement of vessels of every description and of every size
along its water front, is seen in its finest panoramic effect from
the Birkenhead side of the river; but the city reveals itself also
in increasing multiplicity of architectural detail and business
activity to the visitor whose first impressions of it are obtained
as he stands on the vessel that carries him over the Mersey bar to
the landing-stage. At the same time, the passenger by rail does not
enter Liverpool by any back door. At the Lime Street terminus of the
London and North Western Railway he looks out immediately on the
municipal centre of the city; should he arrive at the Exchange Station
of the Lancashire and Yorkshire and Midland lines, he is at once in
the commercial heart of Liverpool, surrounded by noble and spacious
buildings. Other lines land him in scenes of shipping activity,
others in more residential quarters; but nowhere is he left in squalid
surroundings.

The front of the Lime Street Station itself adds to the picturesqueness
of the street it looks upon. Almost opposite, in isolated grandeur, is
St. George's Hall, and on one side of that building is the magnificent
range of edifices of the classic order where are housed the Brown Free
Library (including the Museum of Natural History, presented by the
thirteenth Earl of Derby), the Mayer Museum of Antiquity, the Picton
Reading Room, and the Walker Art Gallery--all alike monuments of the
beneficence of merchants who in this way have enriched and adorned the
city from which they drew their wealth. Even St. George's Hall, the
cost of which was £330,000, was in the nature of a gift, it being paid
for by the Corporation out of the dock dues, which they controlled
up to 1858, when the dues were transferred to the Dock Board. The
fact, too, that the Corporation owned large estates makes the burden
of taxation rest lightly on the citizens of Liverpool; and since the
present century began, improvements have not ceased to be the order
of the day in the city. The Town Hall is in Castle Street. It is in
the Corinthian style, and is conspicuous for its dome and its raised
portico; but a much more majestic building lies behind it in the Royal
Exchange--a structure in the Flemish Renaissance style, with a noble
façade, and wings that enclose a spacious quadrangle. Here on "the
Flags," when the weather is favourable, the merchants and brokers
of Liverpool mingle together in animated colloquy and strike their
bargains.

Education flourishes in Liverpool no less than commerce, and in
all its branches has not been without liberal support. University
College, although only inaugurated in 1882, has an endowment of over
£125,000. It has a numerous staff of professors, technical and medical
departments, and is affiliated to the Victoria University. There
are several secondary schools of note, Schools of Art, and Nautical
Training Institutions. The charitable societies of the city number
over 100, the oldest in the medical sense being the Infirmary, which
dates from 1748. Of open spaces there is nothing, of course, equal to
the grand sweep of the estuary in front of the city. But there are
ornamental grounds in the city itself, and in the outskirts recreation
grounds and pleasure resorts, the largest and most picturesque being
Sefton Park, which was purchased at a cost of over a quarter of a
million. For water the city has gone into Mid-Wales and purchased the
Vyrnwy Valley, and from the lake and the reservoirs there is able to
draw an unfailing supply of some fifty million gallons daily. The
bishopric dates from 1879, but Liverpool is without ancient churches.
St. Peter's, which serves as the pro-cathedral, is the oldest in
structure but not in foundation (that distinction belongs to St.
Nicholas', near the Prince's Dock), but this does not carry us further
back than the beginning of the eighteenth century.

A long list could be made of eminent men connected with Liverpool,
were this the place for it. But there are two names that ought not
to be omitted--one is Francis Bacon, "the wisest, greatest, meanest
of mankind," who was member for Liverpool towards the close of the
sixteenth century; the other is Mr. Gladstone, who is a citizen of
Liverpool by birthright as well as by complimentary burgess ticket. It
is interesting to add also that the Stanley (Derby) and the Molineux
(Sefton) families are still closely identified with the town. They
are no longer housed in the heart of Liverpool, but their Lancashire
seats are close to its boundaries, and they rival one another in the
active interest they take in the municipal, commercial, and educational
progress of this great community.

It is the bottle-neck part of the estuary of the Mersey that runs
between Liverpool and Birkenhead, but a good three-quarters of a mile
of water separates the two places. They are divided also by county
distinctions: otherwise they may be regarded as one, their interests
being identical. Many business men of Liverpool make Birkenhead and
its outskirts their home. Like the great city on the other side,
Birkenhead has its landing-stages adapted to the rise and fall of the
tide. Its range of docks has already been touched upon, and need only
be referred to again to indicate that they do not run parallel with
the river, like those on the other side, but pass inland. Behind them
are the commodious water spaces known as the east and west "floats."
Nearly all the great liners find their way to the Liverpool side,
but on the Birkenhead side great liners are built. Its shipbuilding
yards are among the most extensive in the kingdom, and include the
great establishment of the Laird Brothers, from which the Confederate
cruiser, _The Alabama_, was turned out in 1862.

Proportionately, Birkenhead has made even greater progress during
the century so soon to close than Liverpool. In 1800 its population
numbered only about 100 persons. That figure may now be multiplied
1,000 times over and still be within the mark. Its tonnage is about
one-tenth that of Liverpool. In 1861 the town was formed into a
Parliamentary borough, with a single member, the gentleman who became
its first representative being the late Mr. John Laird, of whom there
is a statue in front of the Town Hall. Birkenhead has been a municipal
borough since 1887. It did not, however, wait for corporate privileges
to show public spirit and enterprise. It was one of the first towns
of the kingdom, if not the very first, to introduce tramways, which
it did on the suggestion of George Francis Train, who had previously
established a similar mode of conveyance in New York. It has long had
a public park, 180 acres in extent, laid out by Sir Joseph Paxton,
and costing £140,000. Although a hundred years or so ago it consisted
of less than a score of habitable houses, it can trace back its name
for centuries, and the ruins may be seen of the Benedictine Priory of
Byrkhead, founded here in the eleventh century, and whose monks in
their simple way did the work that is now carried on by enormous steam
ferries on the river, and by railway trains through a submarine tunnel.

[Illustration: _Photo: Valentine & Sons, Dundee._

ST. GEORGE'S HALL AND LIME STREET, LIVERPOOL (_p. 266_).]

All along the inner line of the Wirral Peninsula, which here bounds
the Mersey, are pleasant residential suburbs, and at the extreme end
lies New Brighton, beloved of Lancashire and Cheshire folk. Immediately
to the north of New Brighton is one of the defences of the river in
Rock Fort, and just beyond the fort is the Perch Rock Lighthouse. At
this point, the visible shore-line of the Mersey on the west side comes
to an end, but the channel of the river runs on over a well-buoyed
line of route, some eight or nine miles further on, and for navigation
purposes does not really cease till the bar is crossed. Directly to
the north-west of the Wirral Peninsula are great sandbanks, but these
as a rule are within the ken only of the mariner familiar with the ins
and the outs of this great commercial highway. The total length of the
river is about 70 miles. At least 12 miles of that, towards the mouth,
is a vast basin, having an average width of about two and a half miles,
and containing at high tide some 600,000,000 tons of water. To see the
Mersey here at the flood is to agree with Drayton:--

    "Whence, where the rivers meet with all their stately train,
    Proud Mersey is so great in entering the Main,
    As he would make a sea for Empery to stand,
    And wrest the three-forked mace from out grim Neptune's hand."

    /W. S. Cameron./

[Illustration: THE PERCH ROCK LIGHTHOUSE.]




RIVERS OF LANCASHIRE AND LAKELAND.

    A Birthplace of Rivers--The /Ribble/:
    Ribblehead--Horton-in-Ribblesdale--Survival of Old
    Traditions--Hellifield--The Hodder--Stonyhurst and its College--The
    Calder--Burnley--Towneley Hall--Preston--Its Development as a Port.
    The /Wyre/: Poulton-le-Fylde. The /Lune/: Kirkby Lonsdale--The
    Greta and the Wenning--Hornby Castle--Lancaster--Morecambe
    Bay--The Journey from Lancaster to Ulverston in Coaching
    Days--Shifting Sands. The /Kent/: Kentmere--Kendal. The /Gilpin/
    and the /Winster/. The /Rothay/ and the /Brathay/. Grasmere
    and Wordsworth--Rydal Water--Ambleside--Windermere. Troutbeck.
    Esthwaite Water. The /Leven/: Newby Bridge--The Estuary. The
    /Crake/: Coniston Water--Coniston Hall--Brantwood and Mr. Ruskin.
    The /Duddon/: Wordsworth's Sonnets. The /Esk/ and the /Irt/:
    Wastwater. The /Liza/: Ennerdale Water. The /Ehen/: Egremont
    Castle. The /Derwent/: The Vale of St. John--The Greta and
    Keswick--The View from Castlerigg top--Derwent water.


In the lonely moorland solitudes guarded by Ingleborough, Whernside,
and Pen-y-gent, with outlying fells of almost mountain magnitude, may
be traced the birthsprings of many important rivers. They shoot off
to every point of the compass, and, gathering in tributary waters
from the best of our bold English scenery, are lost in the North Sea
as with the Yorkshire Ouse, or in the Irish Sea as with the Ribble,
the Lune, and the many minor streams that diversify Morecambe Bay.
The whole extent of this corner of the North-West Riding is wild,
open country, with diverging dales lost in fading distances: stone
walls for leafy hedges, and limitless grazing uplands clothed with the
herbage peculiar to unwooded elevations of over two thousand feet. In
the blithe springtime, when the tender flush of green proclaims the
renewed life-blood of the grass; in the summer prime, when the umbers
and greys of prolonged heat are faintly changing the broad faces of
the untrodden mountains and silent valleys; and in winter, when all
is white with unsullied snow, this expanse of billowy hill and fell
has a grandeur all its own. Its features are repeated under a more
striking development by-and-by in Lakeland, but this is the crowning
point of the great backbone of picturesque highland which, beginning in
Derbyshire, defines much of the boundary of Yorkshire and Lancashire.

       *       *       *       *       *

The /Ribble/ is one of the rivers which take their rise from
the Ingleborough and Whernside heights. It is a babbling brook as it
is seen by the railway traveller at Ribblehead, but the source must be
sought in one of the rills that tumble down the shoulders of Wold Fell.
The difficulty usually encountered in tracing a mountain-born river to
the precise bubble of water that may without hesitation be pronounced
its source is intensified here. So much depends upon circumstances in
these matters. After a rainless month in summer, the wayfarer would
note a waterless country; let the rains descend, or the snows melt,
and every hill is silvered by tumbling cascades, the air is musical
with the leap of a hundred rivulets. So it is that, for the Ribble's
source, old Craven maps select Gearstones, north-east of Settle; more
recent local authorities are divided between Wold Fell and Cam Fell;
and for the world at large Ribblehead serves the general purpose of
identification.

[Illustration: _Photo: A. Horner, Settle._

STAINFORTH BRIDGE (_p. 273_).]

The source of the Ribble, let the spot be where it may, makes it
imperative to associate with its distinctions the great engineering
triumph that ended in the awakening of its echoes by the railway train.
From Settle--where Birkbeck, the founder of the Mechanics' Institutions
of our youth, was born--to Carlisle is only a matter of seventy miles,
but it cost the invaders three millions sterling to overcome the
obstacles of the stubborn Pennine chain, and the enterprise seemed to
be well-nigh hopeless when they advanced into the Pen-y-gent region.
The course of the young Ribble had hereabouts to be diverted by the
blasting out of a new channel; but at length the line was safely laid
a thousand feet above sea-level, and clear running for the trains
was achieved by means of nineteen tunnels, thirteen embankments, and
cuttings innumerable.

There are a few villages in the early stages of the Ribble, the
first of any note being Horton-in-Ribblesdale, under the shadow of
Pen-y-gent. The railway has little spoiled its primitive character, nor
have the frequent expresses led to the disbandment of the beagles which
still hunt the wild retreats of the mountain-side. There are ancient
inhabitants in lonely farmhouses built of hard stone, and gleaming
white from afar, who inherit the old traditions that portions of the
mountain are honeycombed with giants' graves. There have long been
legends to that effect, but men of science explain that the wondrous
bones unearthed from caverns, and what not, belonged, not to sons of
Anak, but to huge animals now unknown. The dalesmen but slowly discard
such beliefs, retaining them as of right, just as the shepherds on the
fells, and the hard-headed farmers in the valleys, cling to the customs
of their grandfathers. The high-road between Horton and Giggleswick--in
whose grammar school Paley was educated--gives access to the heart
of Upper Ribblesdale; and the tourist visiting the cascades near
Stainforth will recognise the sturdy bridge in the illustration (page
272) as a favourite resting-place. The river is represented in its
peaceful mood, in one of its romantic bends.

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

TOWNELEY HALL, BURNLEY (_p. 276_).]

The country remains rich in its distinctive botany, and from no portion
of the North do the great markets of Manchester and Leeds draw more of
their supplies of whortleberry and mushroom in the early autumn months.
At such junctions as Hellifield these natural products of the moorland
may be seen stacked by the ton. It is almost the only indication
of the gradual change that must come with the new era. Yet until
comparatively recent times the peel-house at Hellifield stood witness
to the remoteness of the district. So long back as the reign of Henry
VI. a licence was granted to the Hamerton family to erect and keep as
a place of defence the strong square peel which guarded the west; and
around Gisburne Hall, the ancestral seat of the Listers, represented
now by the Ribblesdale family, the wild cattle of the breed perpetuated
chiefly at Chillingham roamed at large in the secluded woods of the
high tract whence the feeder Stockbeck fitfully meanders to the valley
of the Ribble.

The bracing bleakness of Bowland Forest is relieved for many a league
by the Hodder, the Ribble's largest and longest tributary, which is in
part of its course a natural line of demarcation between the counties
that gave title to princely houses when the realm was divided by
the Wars of the Roses. Dense fringes of bush and brier proclaim its
progress, and exquisitely sweet spots, like that of the oak-covered
knoll on which stands the little chapel at Whitewell, occur in the
district where, to the commanding eminence of ancient Brownsholm Hall,
a curious relic found its way--the veritable Seal of the Commonwealth,
with a Bible between two branches of palm as the centre, and the
inscription, "Seal for the approbation of Ministers."

[Illustration: RIVERS OF LANCASHIRE AND LAKELAND.]

The famous Roman Catholic College of Stonyhurst, south-west of
Longridge Fell, is near the meeting of Hodder with Ribble. Beautiful is
its situation, wooded valleys dipping in the east, and beyond them the
substantial landmarks of Clitheroe and Pendle Hill. Stonyhurst, even
to one who has no cognisance of its modern character, its origin, or
the manner of its conversion from the mansion of the Sherburnes to the
purpose which it has fulfilled with high distinction for more than a
hundred years, has the appearance and atmosphere, even at a distance,
of a place for study and retreat. It is wholly removed from the busy
world, and all the surroundings give an involuntary impression of
harmony and quiet. Stonyhurst was probably always a home of Catholics
at heart, though the Sir Richard Sherburne who was one of Harry VIII.'s
Commissioners at the dissolution of religious houses did contrive to
be a favourite with young Edward, Mary, and, after her, Elizabeth. He
it was who built part of the mansion on the site of an older baronial
edifice; and the shapely west front, amongst other considerable
portions of the present building, is his work. The Sherburnes, however,
were not able to finish the structure; but Sir Nicholas, who was made
a baronet, in whom the title became extinct, and who was a man of
culture and travel, planned and laid out the gardens which no visitor
to Stonyhurst is likely to forget. Through Cardinal Weld, to whose
family the property fell, it was in 1794 devoted to the use of the
Jesuits driven from Liège by the French Revolutionists. Since then it
has gathered high renown as an educational agency amongst the Roman
Catholic aristocracy.

[Illustration: _Photo: Arthur Winter, Preston._

PRESTON, FROM THE WEST (_p. 278_).]

In approaching Stonyhurst, even the simple village on its borders
exercises its tranquillising influence upon the visitor; the cemetery
and oratory, the trim lawn, the trees on either side of the drive, the
sheet of water, and the glimpse of the inner seclusion through the
gateway, claim a share of the admiration which is given without stint
to the imposing two-towered building so finely situated. The gardens
are an enchantment; and the fountain, the observatory with its Peter's
telescope, the summer-houses, the tall, deep dividing walls of ancient
yew clipped square and pierced with archway exits and entrances,
blend in strengthening the conviction that here we are removed from
scenes of strife. The Tudor-Gothic church is the most notable of the
additions made since Stonyhurst became a college eminent for the most
perfect appliances for scientific study, for a well-furnished museum,
and all that is best for students at work or play. In the Mitton area,
which trends to a point where the two rivers mingle, may be found many
interesting specimens of the well-preserved, half-timbered houses
for which the two counties (each of which claims a part of Mitton)
are celebrated. The well-known doggerel perpetrated in honour of
this neighbourhood, may be quoted--not, however, as warranted by any
climatic defects, but rather as showing the straits to which the author
was put for a rhyme:

    "The Hodder, the Calder, Ribble, and rain,
    All meet together in Mitton domain."

Into the Ribble, at no great distance below this ancient parish,
protruding like a wedge into the County Palatine, flows the Calder,
coming from the south-east, and from a district once as wild as
Longridge Fell and Bowland Forest, but now reduced to modern uses by
the cotton and worsted mills, calico works, and foundries of thriving
Burnley, through which ran a Roman way once upon a time. It has an
indirect relation with the Ribble, being placed on the Brun, the
Calder intervening. Never had manufacturing town a finer "lung" than
is furnished by Pendle Hill, which offers a climb of 1,800 feet above
sea-level to the dwellers in a district which is in touch also (near or
far) with Sawley Ruins, Blackstone Edge, and the Vale of Craven. Fox,
the founder of the Society of Friends, was so carried away with delight
in his travels thereabouts that he declares he was moved by the Lord to
go up to the top of Pendle Hill, and in the clear atmosphere saw the
sea shining beyond the Lancashire coast.

Amongst many old houses of which Lancashire is proud is Towneley Hall,
seat of a family one of whose ancestors was first dean of Whalley
Abbey, the ruins of which are one of the most valued relics on the
banks of the Calder. This takes us back to a century and a half
before the Conquest; and it was one of this ilk who was the last of
the deans. The original hall of the Towneleys appears to have partly
stood somewhat south of the mansion which is the subject of one of
the illustrations to this chapter (page 223). Whitaker, the great
authority on Lancashire history, was unable to ascribe a date to the
Hall, but it is evident to the modern observer that portions are of
considerable antiquity. Many must have been the changes, however, since
the six-feet walls were built. The work of Richard Towneley in 1628
is known, and the addition was by W. Towneley in 1741. A still later
member of the family removed turrets, gateway, chapel, and sacristy
to their present position, but the rebuilding had been begun a few
years earlier. The portraits, as is often the case, tell in great
measure what the Towneleys were in their day and generation: one died
at Wigan Lane, another at Marston Moor; one was an eminent antiquary,
another translated "Hudibras" into French, another collected art
treasures, secured to the trustees of the British Museum by means of a
Parliamentary grant.

[Illustration: LANCASTER (_p. 282_).]

Some of the most interesting of the old Towneley relics were believed
to have been brought from Whalley Abbey, built upon a spot which,
before streams were polluted by factories, yielded fish from the river,
and feathered game from the woods and heather, whilst the forest and
park around the old Hall furnished abundance of venison. Burnley then
must have been a delightful town, lying in its hollow, environed by
swelling moors and crystal streams. This is the country of which Philip
Gilbert Hamerton often pathetically speaks in his "Autobiography,"
though "the voice of Nature," to which he refers in one of his poems,
must even in his young days have been thickened here and there by the
smoke of tall chimneys, and marred by the echo of raucous sounds from
foundry and loom.

"Proud Preston" is an appellation which had its significance in
another generation, and was indicative of the loyalty of the town to
old traditions, to the Grown, to its own independence. The hundred in
which it was situated was attached, in the reign of Athelstan, to the
Cathedral Church of York: hence Priests' Town, or Preston. This is
evidence of a satisfactory old age; and in 1840 more was forthcoming
from a rude box dug up from the alluvial soil on the banks of the
Ribble, containing a precious store of coins, rings, and ingots,
including nearly 3,000 Anglo-Saxon pieces. Higher up the stream was the
still older settlement of Ribchester, the Roman station of Coccium,
which declined into nothing as Preston increased in importance. The
sweep of country surveyed from Red Scar, where the river curves into a
horseshoe course under a precipitous bank, or from the popular point of
look-out in Avenham Park, is studded with points around which history
clings.

The lonesome moor where Cromwell routed Sir Marmaduke Langdale and
his Royalists has become an open space for the recreation of the
people; the Jacobite rebellions and the temporary sojourn of Charles
Edward on that disastrous Derby campaign are remembrances dimmed by
the remarkable rise of Preston in modern times as a manufacturing and
commercial town. This is owing to its position at the head of the
Ribble estuary. There are two things in the present century of which
even "Proud Preston" need not be ashamed: it was here that the first
total abstinence pledge was taken in England, the signatories being
Joseph Livesey and half a dozen brother-abstainers; and it was here
that the practical working of the vote by ballot was tested in 1872.

For more than thirty years the flourishing town, standing 120 feet
above its river, has been undergoing improvements, carried out
with great public spirit. Sir Gilbert Scott designed for it the
French-Gothic Town Hall which rises gracefully above the other
buildings; County Hall, Free Library, and Museum have been added; even
the parish church has been rebuilt, and the once steepleless town now
boasts, in St. Walburge's Roman Catholic Church, the loftiest spire
erected in England since the Reformation. An unbroken link with the
past is the Guild-Merchants' Festival, celebrated since 1397 (half a
century before the first charter was granted); and for the last 400
years the "Preston Guild" has been observed with intense fervour every
twenty years, the next coming due in 1902. The present writer was in
Preston during, probably, the saddest circumstances under which such
a celebration could occur. It was in 1862, when the cotton famine was
sore in Lancashire; but the Prestonians threw themselves with energy
into the traditional observance, and made it a memorable success. Rose
festivals, morris dances, and other old English revelries retain their
hold here, as in other parts of Lancashire, and are likely long to
prevail.

It is as a port that Preston has recently claimed attention. The
changes effected since the passing of the Ribble Navigation Act in 1883
have been striking. The marsh which kept the town apart from its river
has been drained, and made fit for houses and streets. Woods that were
familiar objects in the immediate landscape have disappeared, and the
deepening of the channel of the tidal Ribble to admit ships of 1,700
tons has been but a natural result of Arkwright and his spinning-frame,
and the cotton industry that superseded the linen-making of the
previous century. The new dock, opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in
1892, with the Corporation as its owners, cost a million of money. The
scheme made it necessary to divert the course of the Ribble below the
town, and the prediction of the eminent engineer, Sir John Coode, that
there would be no port in the country with so free a run to the sea,
has been fulfilled. Even with the construction of docks, involving
three miles' length of permanent railway sidings, the old charm of the
scene is not entirely lost. The brawny shoulders of Longridge Fell may
be discerned in the north-east; cattle and sheep graze on the levels;
the borders of the Fylde country are in view, and abrupt Rivington Pike
is on the remote horizon.

       *       *       *       *       *

Between the estuary of the Ribble and the south-eastern boundary of
Lancaster Bay is the fertile Fylde district, the conformation of
which is, roughly speaking, that of a foreshortened peninsula. The
Margate and Ramsgate of Lancashire--if Lytham and Blackpool may be
so-called--are on the outlying coast, but they are only of interest to
us at the present moment from the arrival of the river /Wyre/ at
Fleetwood. This is a seaport and military station of what may, without
offence, be termed upstart growth. It is but twenty-one miles north of
Preston as the railway flies, and it has the double advantage of being
a port and a watering-place. Within the memory of persons who heard
about the coronation of Queen Victoria, the place where this important
harbour is now situated, with its lighthouse ninety feet high and
showing a glare that is visible for thirteen miles at sea, was a mere
rabbit-warren, its one adornment a dilapidated limekiln. Its population
now must be close upon 10,000, and from its docks lines of steamers ply
to and from Belfast and the Isle of Man.

[Illustration: WINDERMERE (_p. 291_).]

The river Wyre, rising near Brennand Fells, on the western side of the
Bowland Forest of which previous mention has been made, takes in as a
small tributary another river Calder, which rises on Bleasdale Moor,
forming part of a ridge of country often exceeding 1,700 feet above
sea-level. Wyresdale is noted for its striking combinations of wild
and motley fells in recurring variations, alternating with copse and
woodland. One of the earliest ecclesiastical sites in Lancashire is
St. Michael's, some miles below Garstang; and, at a point where the
river nears the estuary, the Wyre for several miles is protected from
the strength of its own current by a series of artificial banks. The
old fashioned town of Poulton-le-Fylde overlooks the river where it
expands into the salt expanse of Wyre Water, and the estuary, contrary
to the usual custom, after broadening out considerably, contracts
somewhat sharply at the mouth, at the western point of which is
Fleetwood.

[Illustration: RYDAL WATER (_p. 290_).]

[Illustration: GRASMERE (_p. 290_).]

Our next river has been characterised by "Faërie Queene" Spenser as

                "the stony, shallow Lone,
    That to old Loncaster his name doth lend."

As the poet was probably born near the Burnley which has been described
on a previous page, he no doubt knew his Lancashire well, and spoke
from the book when he claims that it gives name to the town and the
county. The /Lune/ is what in the North-country is called
a bonny river, and it rises, not on the edge of Richmondshire, as
is sometimes stated, but at the upper extremity of a dale to the
south-east of Wharton, in Westmorland. This is a portion of the
upheaved Lancashire country, however, that stands something midway
between sea-level and the summits of its best mountains. The uplands
and highlands of the early course of the Lune range between 500 feet
and 1,000 feet, and the lower half is below the smaller figure. The
course, however, is through a section of valleys watered by innumerable
creeks, and kept in bounds by the lonely fells. Sometimes, as at
Howgill, there are fairy glens, and the occasional intervals of fertile
pastures and wooded levels are a not ungrateful contrast. On one of
the plains of the Lune is Kirkby Lonsdale, the capital of a vale which
stretches away with Ingleborough in the distance. The river courses
round a half-circle, and the scene, with its mountainous background in
the east, is particularly beautiful.

It is a rare kind of panorama for this part of the country. The
radiating valleys in the Lancashire portion of the Lune's course bring
in the Greta and the Wenning. The former must not be confounded with
the other Greta that is born near Helvellyn, nor with the tributary of
the Tees in the North Riding, at the bridge of which Nicholas Nickleby,
old Squeers, and the wretched boys were put down from the coach _en
route_ to Dotheboys Hall. This Greta which is a tributary of the Lune
is a rocky-bedded, brawling, rushing little stream, tumbling down from
Whernside, and, between Ingleborough and Ingleton Fells, finding its
way through a dale which is much visited for the sake of the roaring
subterranean waterfall of Wethercote Cave, the charming surroundings of
Ingleton village, and the caves and fells of Kingsdale valley.

The Wenning is the larger tributary, and its popular attractions
are the subterranean grotto called Ingleborough Cave, in the gloomy
Clapdale ravine, and Hornby Castle, conspicuously placed on a craggy
height fringed with old trees. This interesting country is now
traversed by a railway branching west from Settle, with a junction at
Clapham for the aforesaid Ingleton, and affording to the traveller
a sight of Giggleswick Scar and the geological curiosity of Craven
Fault. The Hornby Castle referred to was built by one of the Normans
on the site of a Roman villa, and the ruins near are those of a priory
reared in the sixteenth century. The vale of Caton, within a five-mile
walk of Lancaster, at the navigable limit of the Lune, moved the poet
Gray to remarks which might fairly be applied to more than one spot
in Lunedale. These are the words: "To see the view in perfection,
you must go into a field on the left. Here Ingleborough, behind a
variety of lesser mountains, makes the background of the prospect. On
each hand, up the middle distance, rise two sloping hills, the left
clothed with thick woods, the right with variegated rock and herbage.
Between them, in the richest of valleys, the Lune serpentines for many
a mile, and comes forth ample and clear, through a well-wooded and
richly-pastured foreground." For the last seven miles of its course the
Lune runs almost parallel to and within a short distance of Morecambe
Bay, and the narrow neck of land which it forms is distinguished by the
designation of Little Fylde.

While Preston, as we have seen, has been rising into importance as a
port, and the Ribble has been made worthy of vessels of considerable
tonnage, Lancaster, though the county town, has declined very swiftly
in maritime importance in the course of the last hundred years. No one
looking at John of Gaunt's old home in the present day, and upon the
business transacted on the Lune, which passes by it, could guess that
it was a very considerable emporium of commerce, being, indeed, ranked
above Liverpool when Charles I. levied the ship-money which brought him
to disaster. At that time Lancaster was assessed at £30 and Liverpool
at £25. Even then the Lancaster ships sailed regularly to the West
Indies and the Baltic. The sinuosity of the channel and the shallowness
of the ancient ford near the town became a serious hindrance to
navigation, but by dint of enterprising dredging Lancaster is still
reckoned amongst the English ports, and at Glasson, where the little
Conder flows into the estuary under the railway, there is a harbour and
dock which may yet revive the prosperity of the town.

Lancaster is one of the many Roman settlements about whose name
antiquaries are entitled to contend. A piece of brass money, found
under one of the foundation-stones of the arch of a former Lancaster
bridge, was described as Danish, and in the time of King John the Abbot
of Furness had royal permission to get timber from the King's forests
of Lancaster for such of the repairs of the bridge as he was "liable
to" for his fisheries. These fisheries, like those of the Ribble, were
once of the first class, and were granted to the Abbot of Furness
in the reign of Stephen. There were always disputes, however, and
sometimes hot quarrels, as to the rights in both salmon and timber, and
king after king, according to the necessity of those days, backed up
the Church, while legal regulations from time to time controlled the
fisheries. From this, coupled with the fact that its first charter was
granted by Richard I., we may without more ado conclude that Lancaster
is an ancient borough. Indeed, there are many curious evidences of this
kept alive in surviving customs, the origin of which must be found in
musty grants and charters.

Lancaster Castle, through whose time-honoured owner the county became
a duchy, was strongest, perhaps, in the reign of Elizabeth, when
the threat of a Spanish invasion led to the overhauling of all its
points of defence. This, too, was the date of the strengthening of
the great keep, the remnant of which is a treasured example of Norman
architecture. From a mighty royal and baronial residence the castle has
now become a gaol, and John of Gaunt's Oven, as the mill and bakery
of the fortress was termed, became the Record Office. There were five
monastic establishments in Lancaster, with privilege of sanctuary.
The time came when the privilege was of no avail. But the unfortunate
rebels of 1715 entered Lancaster with flying colours, bravely marching,
and mustering in the market-place to the skirl of the bagpipes. They
proclaimed the Pretender King of England under the title of James III.,
and some of them, poor fellows, returned soon afterwards, not in search
of the sanctuary they needed, but to be imprisoned in the castle,
and to suffer the last penalty of the law as in their case made and
provided. Even in the '45 Charles Edward, at the head of his little
band, must needs trouble Lancaster, but the invaders were only passing
through on their way to Manchester and Derby. A second time they came
here, and then they were in full retreat, heralds of a finally lost
cause.

The situation of Lancaster on the flank of a hill is most favourable
for an appreciation of its appearance, and the castle buildings on
its summit give a remarkable panorama of the town, the valley of the
Lune winding on its way to the sea through the lowland. The principal
gateway of the castle is an ancient portcullised archway, flanked by
octagonal towers, and in it are chambers to which far-off traditions
refer, for the authorities assure us that the gateway belonged to
"time-honoured Lancaster's" tower, while in an apartment called the
Pin Box Henry IV. gave audience to the King of Scotland and the
French Ambassadors. The dungeon tower, demolished in 1818, became
the penitentiary for women prisoners. "John of Gaunt's Chair" is a
turret at the top of the tower, and from this eminence of ninety
feet superb views, which in clear weather comprise shadowy forms in
the Lake-country, are to be obtained. Whewell, the Master of Trinity
College, is one of the worthies of whom the town is proud, and all
the more because he was a son of one of its carpenters. But for the
accident of the lad attracting the attention of a kindly master, and
the existence of a Grammar School, founded in 1483 by John Gardiner,
the distinguished scholar might never have attained his eminence.
Another pupil of the school was Sir Richard Owen, the great naturalist.

[Illustration: NEWBY BRIDGE (_p. 293_).]

[Illustration: ANOTHER BIT OF THE LEVEN.]

A couple of lines by Spenser prefaced these remarks about the Lune, and
an extract from the river-poet, Drayton, may well conclude them:--

    "For salmon me excels; and for this name of Lun,
    That I am christened by the Britons it begun,
    Which fulness doth import of waters still increase
    To Neptune bowting low, when christal Lune doth cease;
    And Conder coming in conducts her by the hand,
    Till lastly she salutes the Point of Sunderland,
    And leaves our dainty Lune to Amphitrite's care.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Then hey, they cry, for Lune, and hey for Lancashire,
    That one high hill was heard to tell it to his brother."

There are streams which find their way, sometimes through devious and
uncertain channels, into Morecambe Bay, but they are little known even
to the inquisitive angler, who is always in search of new waters.
The local sportsmen in their wisdom periodically look for the run of
silver sea-trout, and keep their secret. The line of the bay from its
north-eastern corner, where the Kent comes in, and round to Walney
Island, is in the most literal sense irregular, for its indentations
and river tributaries are continuous. It forms the intake of what
Windermere and Coniston water send down to the sea, and it is,
moreover, the watery foreground from which the world-famed scenery
of Westmorland and Cumberland may be finely viewed. At Carnforth and
Silverdale the outlook in this direction is unrivalled; Fairfield,
Helvellyn, and Red Screes loom in the clouds or stand clear against
the sky afar, and along the shores of the Bay are nestling towns and
villages, wooded knolls and slopes, cottages, farms, and, always behind
them, that wonderful amphitheatre, tier upon tier, of mountain.

[Illustration: THE LIZA AT GILLERTHWAITE.]

[Illustration: THE LIZA FLOWING INTO ENNERDALE WATER (_p. 297_).]

In pre-railway days the journey from Lancaster to Ulverston was
something of an adventure, always exciting, not only on account of the
scenery brought under review, but because of the absolute danger of
the shifting channels that had to be crossed. The coach was invariably
joined at Hestbank (a cliff about three miles from the county town) by
guides, whose duty it was to be up to date with the last man[oe]uvres
of the quicksands, and to be ready with safe crossing places. These
guides were an old institution, and were originally appointed and paid
as retainers by the Prior of Cartmel. When the downfall came, and there
was no longer an abbey treasure-chest to fall back upon, the Duchy of
Lancaster paid the wages. It used to be said that few of those who got
their living by "following the sands" died in their beds. Nevertheless,
the calling of guide was kept in the same family for generations. The
danger of this passage of the sands was long ago put into a distich--

                      "The Kent and the Keer
    Have parted many a good man and his mear."

Some of the channels, it was said, were never two days together in the
same place. The Keer mentioned in the old couplet was very treacherous,
and was always carefully sounded before the coach ventured to cross.
Sand tracks had to be staked out with furze-bushes, as the channel of
a river is buoyed. Perilous difficulties were apprehended when nearing
the Cartmel tongue of the Kent; the Leven sands beyond Cartmel and
Ulverston were the worst of all. The poet Wordsworth told Mrs. Hemans,
according to the lady's own letter, that he admired her exploit in
crossing the Ulverston sands as a deed of derring-do, and as a decided
proof of taste; and he truly added that the lake scenery is never seen
to such advantage as after the passage of what he calls its majestic
barrier.

Before arriving at the Lake district we might in farewell turn our
faces to the south, standing in imagination at Silverdale. There in
the picture are the Wharton Crags, with houses great and small amongst
their wooded feet; and then there are Bolton-le-Sands, Hestbank,
Poulton-le-Sands (which to all intents and purposes is Morecambe),
Heysham, and Lancaster Bay. It is a journey of twenty-six miles by
rail from Lancaster to Ulverston, and the greater part of the distance
is close to the shores of Morecambe Bay. The traveller going north,
therefore, has the sea laving the tract to his left, and always, as
an alternative prospect, rock, wood, stream, bushy dales and retiring
glens to the right. From the sea the fishermen obtain great store of
shrimp and flat fish. There are border guard-houses, such as Arnside
Tower; and in reaching Hawes Tarn (which is said to be affected somehow
by the rise and fall of the tide) groves of larch and pine, with a
plenteous undergrowth of gorse and ling, offer themselves to the view.
Picturesque Holme Island, at the mouth of the Kent, and the ruins of
Peel Castle on the islet of that name, enter into the picture in other
directions.

The river /Kent/, upon whose left bank the town of Kendal is
situated, must not long delay our round of the streams that await
introduction. It gives name to Kentmere village, and to the reservoir,
or tarn, fed by the beck springing from the mountain bearing, in memory
of the Roman road which neared its loftiest point, the very familiar
name of High Street. There is also Kentmere Hall, remnant of one of the
peel towers, and birthplace of Bernard Gilpin, the almost forgotten
Apostle of the North in the dangerous times of Mary and Elizabeth,
and after whom a parallel stream westward is called. The Kent, like
the Mint from Grayrigg Forest, and the Sprint running down the middle
of Long Sleddale--like, indeed, unnumbered becks on every hand in the
whole district--is of the rapid order, abounding in boulders, shingly
strands, deep channels between banks of imperishable rock, opening
pools and pebbly shallows, haunts of trout and of the anglers who
understand their ways and know the seasons when salmonidæ should be
ascending from the salt water.

[Illustration: CONISTON WATER (_p. 294_).]

Her Majesty Catherine Parr, who had the good fortune to escape the
peril of burning as a heretic, and the loving attention which was fatal
to other wives of Bluff Harry, was born on the banks of the Kent, in
the castle whose ruins are a prominent object in the scenery of which
Kendal is the centre. Wordsworth sketches it in happy terms:--

    "A straggling burgh, of ancient charter proud,
    And dignified by battlements and towers
    Of a stern castle, mouldering on the brow
    Of a green hill."

Shakespeare and others refer to Kendal in connection with an industry
established by the Flemings, who settled there under Edward III.
They became famous for their woollens, and their special "line" was
the cloth termed "Kendals" in trade parlance, and "Kendal-green" by
the outlaws and their critics. This was the colour of the clothes
worn by the "three misbegotten knaves" whose exploits upon Falstaff
were denounced by Prince Henry as lies "gross as a mountain, open,
palpable." The foresters' cloth made by the Flemings was deservedly
popular; but cotton superseded woollens in the last century, and this
in time gave place to other textile fabrics.

The /Gilpin/ flows into the head of the long and crooked estuary
a mile or so away from the mouth of the Kent river; and, further south,
the viaduct carrying the railway to Grange crosses from Arnside. The
isolated conical hill, Castle Head (or Castle Hill), is prettily
brightened by foliage, and it is a significant survival of the old
landmarks. The waves used to wash the base of this now high and dry
eminence, for the plain traversed by the river WINSTER is mostly land
reclaimed from the sea at different times, but most extensively for
the construction of the railway. Holme Island is opposite and near the
mouth of the Winster, and has not been inaptly described as a marine
paradise made by the art and industry of man from a rude, isolated rock
upon which previously nothing better than whins and brambles struggled
for precarious roothold. The causeway which joins this beautiful little
realm of a few acres to the mainland makes it an island only in name,
but the name abides. Upon the Cartmel peninsula is the wooded domain of
Holker Hall, which was the favourite autumnal resort of the late Duke
of Devonshire.

       *       *       *       *       *

The much more spacious peninsula of Furness--with Ulverston as its
central town, the great docks and shipbuilding yards of Barrow marking
modern progress, and the ruins of Furness Abbey pointing to a distant
past--is divided from Cartmel by the estuary of the Leven. Leven
from our point of consideration means Windermere and entrance to
the unchanging beauty of Lakeland. The river Leven, however, is but
a conclusion; in other words, it is the final link of the chain of
water-pictures which have inspired many a poet; and to arrive at the
first we must leave for a moment the sands of Morecambe Bay and take
a new departure away beyond Grasmere, where the river /Rothay/
(or Rotha) is formed by a congregation of murmuring becks or gills.
One of the feeders of the Rothay comes from the tiny Codale Tarn and
the larger Easedale Tarn, well known to tourists from the rattling
little waterfall, Sourmilk Force. Codale lies pretty high in the world,
rising to an altitude considerably over 2,000 feet. Easedale is a basin
somewhat down hill, and is in these days much better known than when
Wordsworth strolled beside its outpouring stream, and confessed to
having composed thousands of verses in the solitude of the vale. The
conspicuous headland of Helm Crag is an essential part of the scenery,
and it is climbed for the sake of the view over Grasmere, Windermere,
Esthwaite Tarn, Helvellyn, and Fairfield.

[Illustration: ENNERDALE (_p. 298_).]

It may be remarked that we are now in the region of tarns and pikes,
and the derivation of the former word, if not strictly correct, is
not unpoetical, for it is said to mean "a tear." This imaginative
investment reminds us of Wordsworth's declaration that the stream which
traverses Easedale is now and again as wild and beautiful as a brook
may be. The river Rothay, however, does not rely entirely upon this
immortalised brook, but it can fairly reckon upon what can be spared
from the tarns when the other gills fail in their shrunken currents.
In the valley is the village of Grasmere, sacred to Wordsworth's
cottage; and the church, containing a medallion of the author who sang
its "naked rafters intricately crossed," and whose grave and that of
members of his family, with Hartley Coleridge lying hard by, and a
memorial-stone to Clough, attract renewed streams of pilgrims. The
cottage is not far from the church, and it is now owned by trustees,
who keep it in order for the inspection of visitors. There is no
section of this district which is not beautiful, and the recurring
clumps of trees recall how the country was at one time alleged to be
so covered with wood that wild boars abounded. There was, and probably
is, a local saying that a squirrel could travel from Kendal to Keswick
without once touching the ground.

It was at this cottage that Wordsworth first set up housekeeping, and
many and distinguished were his visitors to Grasmere. It had been
previously a rustic inn under the prophetic sign of the "Dove and Olive
Bough"; and upon about £100 a year the poet contrived to entertain
relays of visitors, amongst them Southey, Coleridge, and Scott. It was,
perhaps of necessity, a teetotal cottage, and it was here (according
to report) that Sir Walter, after dinner, used to pretend that he was
going for a meditative stroll, and resort to the public-house for
a draught of what was best. Until recent years the descendant of a
certain publican--who was said to have given Scott away by addressing
him, as he and Wordsworth walked up, with, "Ah, Master Scott, you're
early to-day for your drink"--was pointed out as an inhabitant of
the village; but there is some doubt about this pretty story, as Sir
Walter only visited Wordsworth for one day while he resided at the
cottage, and then it was a call in company with Davy, on an occasion
when they ascended Helvellyn together. On the whole, the Lake district
must remain a most temperate region, for it was reported that on the
Christmas day of so recent a year as 1896 a party of young men who
called at the most elevated public-house in England were the first
customers the landlord had seen for six weeks.

The Rothay courses south, a short length between the village and the
mere. Writ large in literary associations, and a household word amongst
English-speaking peoples, Grasmere is but a mile long, and nothing like
so broad at its widest part, but it is a precious gem in a setting
where all is worthy. Gray, whose prose descriptions of Lakeland are
passed on from writer to writer, rejoiced exceedingly because not a
single red tile, and no staring gentleman's house (meaning probably no
gentleman's staring house) broke in upon the repose of the unsuspected
paradise. The paradise is not any longer unsuspected; it is public
property; but there are still left the eternal hills, Grasmere water
hollowed in their bosom, the small bays and miniature promontories, the
soft turf green as an emerald, trees, hedges, cattle, pastures, and
corn-land--items of description that may in a varying degree apply to
almost every one of these famous sheets of Lakeland water. In truth,
there is no better travelled ground in the three kingdoms than this;
and it may be assumed once for all that its general attractions are
known to the reader, and that we are free to proceed with our purpose
of showing the part borne by the rivers as connecting ways, and systems
of supply and relief for the lakes.

The river Rothay does precisely what Wordsworth did: it moves from
Grasmere to Rydal, flowing along the base of Loughrigg Fell, avoiding
the terrace and curving up towards the "Wishing Gate" to the western
point of Rydal Water. From any of the paths which conduct downwards
the course of the Rothay is brightly and clearly mapped. We need not
pause at Rydal Mount, Wordsworth's last residence, nor at the rock
which is remembered as his favourite seat, nor at Rydal Hall and the
shade-giving trees of its park, nor follow the beck to the little
tumbles of water named Rydal Falls, nor stroll the half mile which
would bring us to Fox How, the holiday retreat of Arnold of Rugby.
Amongst the trees in the so-called Rydal forest there are oaks that
must often have given pleasure to Wordsworth in his rambles; and the
beck which is always scurrying to the Rothay receives its impetus from
the steepness of its journey from the mountain--

    "Down Rydal Cove from Fairfield's side."

On past Ambleside, which it leaves untouched to the left, the Rothay
proceeds, with greetings from Rydal Water to busy Windermere.
Ambleside, though it has no immediate lake view, is not without its
water effects, both heard and seen when the swollen little tributary
gives power to Stock Ghyll Force, a very respectable fall of some
seventy feet. Every visitor to Ambleside pays homage to this romantic
termination of a delightful walk through a sylvan enclosure. Ambleside
is nowadays practically connected with the lake by Waterhead and the
extended occupation of the flat; and a short distance above the head
of the lake is the junction of the Brathay and the Rothay. The former,
like the latter, is in intimate relations with lakelet and feeder, and,
in truth, cuts an important figure by its drainage of Great and Little
Langdale, its reception of sundry gills from the dominating pikes which
seldom allow themselves to be forgotten in the Windermere county, its
inclusion of Little Langdale tarn and Elterwater, and its share in
keeping in action various waterfalls, of which Dungeon Ghyll Force and
the Mill Beck Cascades are the best. The neighbourhood elicited the
warmest admiration from Professor Wilson, who said that sweeter stream
scenery with richer foreground and loftier background was nowhere to be
seen within the four seas. Of the three lakelets he preferred the small
tarn on Loughrigg Fell--

    "By grandeur guarded in its loveliness."

The two rivers have time and space to combine in a united volume before
fairly entering Windermere. It is strange to notice the exaggerated
idea entertained by those who have never explored Lakeland as to the
dimensions of such waters as Windermere, Ullswater, and Derwentwater.
They have read so much and so often about them that they have become
visions of vast distances, inland seas upon which storm-bound mariners
have to run to port for shelter when the stormy winds do blow. Yet
Windermere, the first of the lakes in dimensions, is not more than
ten miles and a half in length, and, except in its broadest section,
opposite Windermere and Bowness towns, less than a mile broad. Its real
greatness lies in its exquisite islets or holms, and in the commanding
views which receive so much charm from the intervening foreground of
water, however limited in extent it may be.

Two of the feeders of Windermere, and they the principal ones,
have been mentioned in their geographical order; and there remain
to complete the category at least two others. /Troutbeck/,
which is said to be one of the few streams in all Lakeland that are
of small value to the angler, comes in from the north-east down a
beautiful valley, an easy excursion distance either from Ambleside for
the higher, or from Windermere for the lower, portions; and midway,
under Wansfell Pike, lies Troutbeck village, the most picturesque
conceivable, as it was also when Christopher North wrote of the
scattered dwellings "all dropped down where the painter and the poet
would have wished to plant them, on knolls and in dells, on banks
and braes, and below tree-crested rocks--and all bound together in
picturesque confusion by old groves of ash, oak, and sycamore, and by
flower-gardens and fruit-orchards rich as those of the Hesperides."
There to the north-east, over against Kentmere Reservoir, Ill Bell
offers the temptation of an ascent of 2,476 feet, and Troutbeck valley
is preferred as on the whole the easiest and pleasantest route.

[Illustration: THE GRETA BETWEEN THRELKELD AND KESWICK (_p. 298_).]

Esthwaite Water, one of the smaller lakes, and a satellite of
Windermere, is also narrow in proportion to length, and a matter of
four miles removed to the west. No one is heard to rave about its
homely shores and indifferent setting, but it comes under frequent
notice from its nearness to Hawkshead, a quaint little market-town
with a notable church, and a grammar school, one of whose forms is
preserved with Wordsworth's initials cut in it. Esthwaite Water,
however, is bound to receive its due in these pages, as the helpmeet
of Windermere through the medium of the short and business-like stream
/Cunsey Beck/. At the point where this feeder is lost in the
lake, though it is not its deepest part, the angler may reckon upon the
miscellaneous sport which is yielded by the lakes generally. In the
deeper waters (and the plumb-line makes the bottom 240 feet at the
maximum depth) the char, only to be found in a few localities in the
three kingdoms, occurs. Its capture with rod and line is sport of a
kind, but it is inferior in this respect to the trout. At a time when
the available rivers for the angler who cannot afford to be his own
riparian owner are becoming fewer and fewer, it is a little remarkable
that these countless becks, tarns, full-sized streams and lakes are
not more highly prized by the fisherman-tourist. It is true that
Windermere, from one cause and another, has of late years fallen into
disrepute, but under the operations of a local association there has
been distinct improvement, though steamer traffic must always seriously
reduce the value of such fishing haunts.

[Illustration: THE DERWENT, WITH KESWICK IN THE DISTANCE (_p. 299_).]

[Illustration: THE DERWENT AT CROSTHWAITE (_p. 298_).]

Very pleasing to the eye are the undulating shores, and the green
of the grass, and the foliage of Windermere at its southern end. At
Lakeside it is so narrow that it is hard to put your finger on the spot
where the /Leven/ begins, though, for want of a better, Newby
Bridge, as shown in the illustration (p. 284), will serve. The Leven,
as before remarked, is the last link of our Windermere chain, but after
Rothay and Brathay, and the becks with their forces and falls, we need
give it but the consideration which is due to an outlet bearing to the
sea such waters as Windermere does not want, through the long tortuous
channel in the sandy wastes of Morecambe Bay.

       *       *       *       *       *

The /Crake/ river falls into the Leven so near its mouth that it
might almost claim to be a tributary. But it is independent and apart
in its character and mission. It belongs to Coniston Water, as Leven
belongs to Windermere; and the commonplace scenery of its short course,
with its trio of bridges, is another mark of similarity. All that is
noticeable around Coniston lake is at the upper portion. The steamer
pier is at Waterhead, the village and station are half a mile inland;
the Old Man of Coniston (2,633 feet), whom generations of climbers
have been proud to attack, is in the same direction, and Yewdale and
its tarn, howes, crags and fells are towards the north. The coaching
traveller may feast his eyes upon the lancet-shaped water, some five
miles long from Schoolbeck at the upper or from the Crake at the lower
terminal, and of a uniform width of about half a mile; while the upward
trip from Lake Bank affords clear and happy views of the mountains of
which the Old Man is the irrepressible head. Off the high road opposite
Coniston Hall, a farmhouse once the Westmorland seat of the Le Fleming
family, is Brantwood, associated with the names of Gerald Massey, poet
and self-made man, of Linton the engraver, and of Ruskin, great as any
of those giants of literature whose names are linked with Lakeland.

       *       *       *       *       *

The river /Duddon/ as a thing of beauty has often been
overpraised, no less an authority than Wordsworth setting the example
when, in his "Scenery of the Lakes," he says it may be compared, such
and so varied are its beauties, with any river of equal length in any
country. Yet there are streams in Wales, and even in the north of
England, which their admirers would not hesitate to rank above it. It
rises upon Wrynose Fell, on the confines of Westmorland, Cumberland,
and Lancashire, and for twenty-five miles or so is the boundary
between the two latter counties. It possesses, no doubt, a certain
picturesqueness, having its wild mountain phases, its torrents roaring
around obstructive rocks, its passage through fertile meadows, and at
last its slow ending through the everlasting sands to an open outlet
into the Irish Sea at the north end of Walney Island.

Donnerdale, with Seathwaite as its most notable centre, has received
much attention because Wordsworth (from whom we cannot, and would not
if we could, escape in Lakeland) made it the subject of thirty-four
sonnets, dedicated to his brother Christopher. The poet evidently
set himself down to glorify this particular district by prolonged
observation--

    "... For Duddon, long-beloved Duddon, is my theme."

In the course of his sonnets he sings its dwarf willows and ferny
brakes; its sullen moss and craggy mound; its green alders, ash and
birch trees, and sheltering pines; its hamlets under verdant hills;
its barns and byres, and spouting mills. Nor does he fail to celebrate
the gusts that lash its matted forests. When the gale becomes too
obstreperous, then, reckless of angry Duddon sweeping by, the poet
turns him to the warm hearth, to

    "Laugh with the generous household heartily
    At all the merry pranks of Donnerdale."

The only pollution he would admit in this innocent stream was the
occasional sheep-washing by the dalesmen. In his notes Wordsworth
recommends the traveller who would be most gratified with the Duddon
not to approach it from its source, as is done in the sonnets, nor from
its termination, but from Coniston over Walna Scar, first descending
into a little circular valley, a collateral compartment of the long,
winding vale through which the river flows. In fact, Wordsworth's
notes are a very excellent guide to the district, and Thorne, who was
a first-hand authority upon rivers, confessedly took the poet as his
cicerone when he followed the stream from the very top of Wrynose,
marking even the bed of moss through which the water oozes at the
source. With a poet's licence, Wordsworth likens his river finally to
the Thames; but though the Duddon widens considerably at Ulpha, it
loses its beauty before it finishes its career.

[Illustration: DERWENTWATER AND SKIDDAW (_p. 299_).]

[Illustration: DERWENTWATER FROM SCAFELL.]

       *       *       *       *       *

Following the coast around Haverigg Point, whence the sand of the coast
becomes only the decent margin which makes the shore pleasant, we pause
at the three-branched estuary of the Esk, the creeks, right, left, and
middle, being formed by the Esk, the Mite, and the Irt. This is all
majestic country. Our Cumberland Esk hails from Scafell, whose pike of
3,210 feet is the highest ground in England. Upper Eskdale may also
be spoken of in the superlative degree for its marked grandeur. No
mean skill in mountaineering is required to reach Wastdale, Langdale,
and Borrowdale from the different paths. The Esk Falls are formed by
the junction of becks from Bowfell and Scafell. The fine cataract, Cam
Spout, descends from Mickledore; and Hardknott, which is one of the
lesser heights, has a Roman ruin spoken of as a castle. There are,
moreover, Baker Force and Stanley Gill amongst the waterfalls. Little
need be said about the second-named river, the Mite, except that it
passes the fell, the railway station, and the castle, bearing each the
name of Muncaster.

[Illustration: THE COCKER FLOWING FROM CRUMMOCK WATER (_p. 300_).]

The river /Irt/ is the outlet of Wastwater, a gloomy lake three
and a half miles long and half a mile broad, and of immense depth. It
is a tradition in Lakeland that this piece of water is never frozen,
but this is clearly an error, for there is a distinct record by the
learned brother of Sir Humphry Davy that it was partly covered with
ice in the great frost of 1855. The desolate crags around the lake are
answerable for much of its severe character, and perhaps it was on this
account that the Lakers used to visit it. Waugh, the Lancashire poet,
encountered a local gossip who was full of memories of Wordsworth,
Wilson, De Quincey, and Sedgwick, and the man very much amused his
listener by describing Wordsworth as a very quiet old man, who had
no pride, and very little to say. Christopher North was naturally
a horse of another colour, being full of his gambols, and creating
great excitement by his spirited contests with one of the Cumberland
wrestlers. Wastwater is often violently agitated by heavy squalls from
the south, which is somewhat of an anomaly, seeing that the boundary
on that side is a mighty natural rampart named the Screes, so called
from the loose nature of the scarps, which tend to make some of the
neighbouring mountains practically inaccessible.

[Illustration: THE COCKER AT KIRKGATE (_p. 300_).]

       *       *       *       *       *

Ennerdale Water, a few miles to the north, receives its first influx
from the river /Liza/, locally known as Lissa Beck. It is a
lovely valley, and there is no overcrowding of population. The last
house is the farmhouse of Gillerthwaite, and further progress upwards
to the mountains is by footpath only. This is in truth the only excuse
for mentioning the Liza, though it might serve as an opportunity
for singing the praises of the Great Gable, formerly known as the
Green Gable. It is one of the most conspicuous of mountain heads,
and its frowning peak meets the view from great distances. Pillar
Mountain, which is nearer Ennerdale Plain, is almost exactly the
same height--2,927 feet, which is about seven yards less than the
Gable--and it has a pinnacled and abrupt descent almost to the confines
of the lake. Ennerdale Water at one time had the character of being the
best fishing resort in the Lakes. "The Anglers' Inn" is not, as may be
supposed, an establishment of modern growth, for it is bepraised in the
literature of forty years ago. The bold headland projecting into the
water at the western end was more than half a century back well known
as Angler Fell, for a reason which the term itself explains, and at
that time one of the curiosities of the lake was a collection of loose
stones which, according to tradition, had been placed at the head of
the shoal by unknown mortal or supernatural hands. Anyhow, the heap was
always pointed out as a mystery until a scientific visitor explained it
away by pronouncing it to be the remnant of an old moraine.

Though not so deep as Wastwater, Ennerdale Water can boast its
twenty-four fathoms, and the familiar statement is made as to its
immunity from ice, the fact being that it is only in the severest
frosts that these uncommonly deep lakes are affected. At the lower end
the river Ehen takes up the duty of carrying the overflow to the sea,
describing a long and semicircular course that from opposite St. Bees
becomes by quick swerve a journey due south. The valley thence is of a
pastoral character, and is perhaps best known from the establishment on
its banks (long before the Cleator Iron Works sent up their smoke) of
the little town of Egremont, with its ruins of a strong fortress. It
was this that suggested the Cumberland tradition told by Wordsworth in
the poem "The Horn of Egremont Castle."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Scarcely ever have I seen anything so fine as the Vale of St. John,"
Southey exclaims; and the Valley of St. John which is named more
than once in Scott's "Bridal of Triermain" is always accepted as the
same. It is in the country of Helvellyn, of Thirlmere, of the river
/Greta/, and Keswick is its capital. The Greta, however, is
known by sectional names, even after it issues from the mere, which has
the distinction of being, while one of the minor lakes, the highest
in altitude. The other lakes are generally something between 200 and
300 feet above sea level. This is over 500 feet, and its precipitous
borderings here and there are in accord with its unusual elevation.

The stream which has to make so steep a descent before it is received
by the Derwent is generally spoken of as St. John's Beck as it trends
northward through the namesake vale, Naddle Fell on the one side,
and Great Dodd on the other, keeping watch and ward, deeply scored;
Saddleback always looming grimly ahead beyond Threlkeld, with Skiddaw
as near neighbour. At this stage the Glenderamakin makes conjunction
from the east, and, united, the streams become the Greta. From
Threlkeld it takes a new course, westerly to Keswick, and its scenery
is of the highest beauty as it hurries past Latrigg, otherwise known as
Skiddaw's Cub. Greta in this short length of established identity is
not to be denied, as Greta Bridge, Greta Hall (the home of Southey for
forty years), and Greta Bank testify. Half a mile from Keswick, over
the bridge, is Crosthwaite, the old parish church in whose God's acre
Southey was buried.

The tourist in Lakeland will bring back his special impression of
"the very finest view," according to his individual tastes and,
maybe, temperament. A well-ordered ballot would probably, however,
place at the head of the list that prospect--never to be adequately
described--from Castlerigg top. For water there are Bassenthwaite
and Derwentwater; for giant mountain forms, Skiddaw and Saddleback;
for cloud-capped and shadowy fells, the highlands of Buttermere and
Crummock, with "the mountains of Newlands shaping themselves as
pavilions; the gorgeous confusion of Borrowdale just revealing its
sublime chaos through the narrow vista of its gorge," as De Quincey
described them; and for the softer toning and the human interest, the
valley of the Greta and the goodly town of Keswick are in the nearer
survey. Out of town the river becomes moderately tranquil, and enters
the Derwent at the northernmost point of Keswick Lake or Derwentwater.

Derwentwater is the most oval in outline of any of the lakes, and it
has the bijou measurements of three miles in length, by a mile and a
half in breadth. Foreshores of foliaged slopes or herbaged margins
give play to an imposing presentment of cliff and wooded knoll, with
dark masses of fantastic mountains behind; the clear water is studded
with small islands of varying form and bulk, and in its centre is St.
Herbert's Isle, sacred to the memory of a "saintly eremite" whose
ambition it was to die at the moment when his beloved Cuthbert of
Durham expired, so that their souls might soar heavenwards in company.
After hot summers a phenomenal floating islet, of bog-like character
and covered with vegetation, rises at a point about 150 yards from
the shore near the far-famed waters coming down from Lodore. Scafell
is somewhat a far cry from Keswick, but one of the most impressively
comprehensive views of Derwentwater, as of Windermere and Wastwater in
a lesser degree, is to be obtained from the summit.

The river /Derwent/, known alternatively as the Grange, rises
at the head of Borrowdale, flows along the middle of the valley,
and enters the lower part of the lake near the Falls of Lodore.
Issuing from the further extremity, augmented by the Greta, it flows
north-westwards to pay tribute to Bassenthwaite Water, which, after
Derwentwater and its strong features of interest, is somewhat of an
anti-climax; yet it is a fine lake some four miles in length, with
woods on the Wythop shore, and Armathwaite Hall at its foot commanding
a full view of the lake. The Derwent, renewing its river-form on the
outskirts of this wooded estate, turns to the west, and arrives at
Cockermouth, so named from the river which here joins it from the south.

Buttermere and Crummock Water, with Little Loweswater up in the
high fells, are the western outposts of Lakeland, and they must be
considered as the starting-point of the river /Cocker/. They are
a small chain of themselves, equidistant, and in a line from south-east
to north-west. Loweswater is of least account, and not in eager
request by tourists; but it is the moving spirit of Holme Force, in a
wood beside which the explorer of the lake passes; and the lower end,
where the small stream connects with Crummock Water, is not without
pleasant scenery. Kirkgate, about half a mile south and half-way on the
connecting stream, is a favourite resting-point. In the illustration on
page 297 the artist has eloquently described the river Cocker in its
hill solitudes, and in its early life, when a single arch is enough to
span its modest channel; the plain whitewashed cottage in its sheltered
nook, the straggling trees, the sheep fresh from the higher grazings,
are very typical of these remote districts.

Crummock Water, the largest of this trio, is somewhat out of the beaten
track, but there are boats upon it, and walls of mountain rise on
either side. The tourist generally spends the time possible for the
casual excursionist at Scale Force, on a feeder of the Cocker after it
has cleared the lake. It is a sheer fall of over a hundred feet when
there is plenty of water. A kindred cataract in the neighbourhood is
Sour Milk Force, the second waterfall of that name mentioned in this
chapter. The main river, having sped through the meres and the meadows
that separate them, passes through the Vale of Lorton, and enters
the Derwent near the castle ruins at Cockermouth. The town was so
important, through its baronial fortress, of which the gateway remains,
that the Roundhead troops gave it the fatal honour of a passing visit,
and there an end of the castle, which they promptly dismantled. But
Wordsworth was born here, and the garden-terrace of his home was by
Derwent side. The railway frequently crosses the Derwent between
Cockermouth and Workington, keeping it on the whole close company
through a generally level and ordinary country. Workington is in these
days a prosperous seaport; yet we must not forget that Mary Queen of
Scots landed here on a May day in 1568, and Wordsworth tells us how--

    "With step prelusive to a long array
    Of woes and degradations hand in hand--
    Weeping captivity and shuddering fear
    Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay."

    /William Senior./




[Illustration: _Photo: W. J. Munro, Annan._

THE ANNAN NEAR ANNAN TOWN (_p. 318_).]




RIVERS OF THE SOLWAY FIRTH.

    The Firth--A Swift Tide. The /Eden/: The Eamont--Eden
    Hall--Armathwaite--John Skelton--Wetheral and Corby Castle--The
    Caldew and the Petteril--Greystoke Castle--Carlisle, its Romance
    and History--_Serva Pactum_--"Kinmont Willie" and "bauld
    Buccleuch"--Executions of Jacobites--The Carlisle of To-day.
    The /Sark/: Gretna Green. The /Liddel/--Hermitage Water and
    Castle. The /Esk/: The Tarras--Gilnockie Tower--Carlenrig and
    Johnnie Armstrong--Young Lochinvar--Kirtle Water and its Tragic
    Story. The /Annan/: The Land of the Bruces--Thomas Carlyle.
    The /Nith/: Dumfries--Burns's Grave--Robert Bruce and the Red
    Cumyn--Drumlanrig and Caerlaverock Castles--The Cairn and its
    Associations--The New Abbey Pow and Sweetheart Abbey. The /Dee/:
    Douglas Tongueland--Threave Castle. The /Cree/: Newton Stewart--The
    "Cruives of Cree." The /Bladenoch/: The Wigtown Martyrs.


It is some years since we last saw the Solway Firth, but we well
remember the long stretch of naked sand so quickly covered by the
galloping tide, and the giant shape of Criffell guarding the whole
expanse of water from out which it appeared to rise, so that the
prophecy ascribed to Thomas the Rhymer, "In the evil day coming safety
shall nowhere be found except atween Criffell and the sea," seemed in
truth a hard saying. Our abode was a solitary house on the northern
bank, and, save for the wild ebb and flow of the waters, all was peace.
On the right was the open sea, not much ploughed of passing keel;
straight across was the indented Cumberland shore, well tended and
fertile, but not more so than the inland from our cottage. How plainly
it comes back as one takes up the pen!

    "Rank-swelling Annan, Lid with curled streams,
    The Esks, the Solway where they lose their names":

so sings quaint and courtly Drummond of Hawthornden. It is before these
and the other Solway tributaries "lose their names" that we wish to
write of them, touch on their beauty, and repeat again some of the
brave tales, weird traditions, and choice songs that hallow their
fields. And first as to the Firth itself. The Solway opens so rapidly
on the sea that it is hard to draw the line between it and the ocean.
We shall not try. The Cumberland side falls rapidly off, and presents a
larger coast to the open water. Its rivers are not numerous, but in the
Eden it possesses one of great interest and importance. The coast-line
of the three counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigtown forms
the northern shore. It has many streams. We do not go beyond the Cree,
which runs into Wigtown Bay, and of which we shall count the Bladenoch
a tributary.

[Illustration: THE EDEN, THE PETTERIL, AND THE CALDEW.]

The Solway is noted all the world over for its swift tide: "Love
flows like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide," says Scott in one
of his best-known lines. A spring-tide, urged by a breeze from the
south-west, speeds along at a rate of ten miles an hour. A deep, hoarse
roar is heard twenty miles away, a swirling mist glittering with a
number of small rainbows is seen on the sea, a huge wave of foam
comes into sight, and this resolves itself into a volume of water six
feet high--the vanguard of the ocean itself, which follows, a great
mass in violent perturbation. The Solway near Annan is crossed by a
long railway bridge. Some years ago this bridging of the Firth was
considered a remarkable engineering feat, but now that you rattle in
express trains over the Tay and the Forth, the Solway viaduct seems a
very trumpery affair. In the old days, when communication was slow and
costly, and when, maybe, folk were bolder, how strong the temptation to
make a dash for it across the sand! And yet how dangerous! Dense fogs
would arise of a sudden, quicksands abounded, and had a nasty trick
of shifting their place ever and anon. How easy to miscalculate time
or distance! Imagine the feeling of the unfortunate traveller, midway
across, when there fell on his ear the sullen roar of the advancing
tide! Fatal accidents were frequent, especially to those returning
from Cumberland fairs with their brains heated and their judgment
confused by hours of rustic dissipation. You remember the graphic
account in "Redgauntlet" of Darsie Latimer's mishap on the northern
shore, and his rescue by the Laird of the Lakes on his great black
steed. Scott in his novel gives a vivid account of the salmon-fishing
on the Solway: how horsemen with barbed spears dashed at full gallop
into the receding tide, and speared the fish with wondrous skill. This
picturesque mode is long out of date, and stake nets, which, when the
tide is out, stretch like huge serpents over the sand, are now the
principal engines of capture. The Solway has somewhat dwindled of late
epochs; geologists report it as receding seaward at the rate of a mile
a century, which is lightning speed for that species of alteration--but
'twas ever a hasty Firth!

       *       *       *       *       *

The /Eden/ is our first river. During its course of thirty-five
miles it has much variety of pleasant scenery; whereof let Wordsworth
tell:--

    "Eden! till now thy beauty had I viewed
    By glimpses only, and confess with shame
    That verse of mine, whate'er its varying mood,
    Repeats but once the sound of thy sweet name:
    Yet fetched from Paradise, that honour came,
    Rightfully borne; for Nature gives thee flowers
    That have no rival among British bowers,
    And thy bold rocks are worthy of their fame."

It rises in the backbone of England, on the borders of Westmorland, in
Yorkshire. We do not loiter in the long street of Kirkby Stephen, or
dilate on the many antiquities of Appleby, though in its Westmorland
course it flows by both places. On the Cumberland border it is joined
by the Eamont, which rises nine miles off in romantic Ullswater--a
lake renowned for the remarkable combination of savage and cultivated
scenery on its borders. A mile or two further, and the Eden winds
through a noble park, wherein stands Eden Hall. Here, since the time
of Henry VI., have lived the "martial and warlike family of the
Musgraves," as Camden calls them. They acquired the estate by marriage
from the heirs of one Robert Turpe, who had it under Henry III.; and
how far back _his_ ancestors go--why, 'twould gravel the College
of Heralds themselves to tell! Thus Eden Hall has been held by the
same race from time immemorial. Not this alone has made the family
famous, but the possession of a famous goblet, called "The Luck of the
Musgraves," which they got, so the story goes, in this fashion. There
stood in the garden St. Cuthbert's Well, of the most exquisite spring
water. Hither repaired the Seneschal ("butler" some prosaically dub
him; but the other sounds much finer, and is at least as accurate) to
replenish his vessels. 'Twas a fine summer evening, and he found the
green crowded with fairies, dancing and flirting "and carrying on most
outrageous," quite forgetting they had left their magic glass on the
brink of the well. The Seneschal promptly impounded it, as a waif and
stray, for the benefit of the lord of the manor. The fairies implored
and threatened in vain, and at length they vanished, uttering the
prophecy--

    "If that glass either break or fall,
    Farewell the luck of Eden Hall."

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

EDEN HALL.]

How to doubt this story when the goblet is there to speak for itself?
It is of green-coloured glass, ornamented with foliage and enamelled in
different colours. Spite of all, some affirm it a church vessel of the
fourteenth or fifteenth century, and hint that it came into the family
in a more commonplace if equally high-handed way. How far the fame of
that goblet has travelled! Uhland, the German poet, makes it the theme
of a romantic ballad whose spirit Longfellow's rendering admirably
preserves. It tells how young Musgrave wantonly smashed the goblet, and
how instant ruin fell on him and his house. All poetic licence! The
Musgraves are still lords of Eden Hall.

[Illustration: THE WEIR AT ARMATHWAITE.]

[Illustration: WETHERAL BRIDGE (_p. 306_).]

Ten miles further down the stream we come to Armathwaite. The castle
thereof is a plain old tower modernised. Its charm lies in the
surroundings. There is a fine wooded walk by the river, which swirls
round a huge crag. Above the weir the stream swells out into a lake.
The weir itself is some four yards high and twenty long; its slope
does not approach the perpendicular; and though the Eden must needs
fall over it, it does so with a gentle grace quite in keeping with
its character. The place has its musty records: William Rufus built a
mill here. Here, too, the Benedictines had a religious house; but what
pleasant spot in England is without its religious house? The ancient
family of Skelton held the castle from the days of the second Richard;
and here most probably John Skelton, the poet--the best known, if not
most reputable, member of the race--was born about 1461. He took holy
orders, and was rector of Diss, in Norfolk, but lost this and other
appointments--from his improper conduct, said his superiors--rather
you fancy from his mad wit, which lampooned everything and everybody.
Three things he held in special horror: the mendicant friars, Lilly
the grammarian, and Cardinal Wolsey. And he found vulnerable points in
the red robe of the cardinal. "Why come ye not to Court?" is a bitter,
brutal, yet brilliant invective against the great statesman. He taunts
the English nobility that they dared not move--

    "For dread of the mastiff cur,
    For dread of the butcher's dog
    Worrying them like a hog."

No doubt Wolsey's father _was_ a butcher, but his Eminence scarce cared
to have his memory jogged on the matter; no doubt the English nobles
_were_ afraid of the great prelate, but they would rather not be told
so. Thus, when vengeance threatened, Skelton found none to take his
part. With a mocking grin, you fancy, invoking the protection of the
very Church he had disgraced, he took sanctuary at Westminster, whence
not even Wolsey dared drag him forth. Here he is said to have amused
himself in inditing certain "Merrie Tales," accounts, it would seem, of
his own adventures.

We must find room for one of these stories from his student days.
He had made merry at Abingdon, near Oxford, where he had eaten
"salte meates." Returned to Oxford, he "dyd lye in an ine named the
'Tabere.'" At midnight he awoke with a most consuming thirst; he called
in succession on the "tappestere" (the quaint mediæval term for a
barmaid), "hys oste, hys ostesse, and osteler," but none would give him
ear--possibly the poet lacked regularity in his payments. "'Alacke,'
sayd Skelton, 'I shall perysh for lacke of drynke: what remedye!'" He
soon found one: he bellowed "fyer, fyer, fyer," so long and so loud
that presently the whole house was up and scurrying hither and thither
in excitement and alarm. Finding nothing, they finally asked the poet
where the fire was? The mad rogue, pointing to his open mouth and
parched tongue, implored, "fetch me some drynke to quench the fyer and
the heate and the driness in my mouthe." Our forefathers dearly loved
a joke even at their own expense. The honest folk of the "Tabere" were
amused rather than enraged. Mine host produced him of his best, and
at length even Skelton's thirst was quenched. Yet this madcap was a
man of genius. Erasmus spoke of him to Henry VIII. as "_Britannicarum
literarum decus et lumen_"; and if you can endure the obsolete and (one
must add) the coarse expressions, you will find in "The Tunnyng of
Elynour Running" the most remarkable picture in existence of low life
in late mediæval England.

But let us return to the Eden, which now enters the parish of Wetheral.
Not far from Wetheral Bridge the riverside is precipitous. Here, cut
in the face of the rock, forty feet above the water level, are three
curious cells known as "Wetheral Safeguards." Tradition affirms that
St. Constantine, younger son of an early Scots king, having excavated
them with his own hands, lived therein the pious life of a hermit. To
him was dedicated Wetheral Priory, whereof a mouldering gateway alone
survives the havoc of well-nigh a thousand years. The choicest of Eden
scenery is in this parish. There is Cotehill, with its sweet pastoral
aspect; Cotehill Island, fringed with trees, whose low-lying branches
continually sway to and fro in the stream; and Brackenbank, wherefrom
you best catch the prominent features of the surrounding country. We
think the pencil gives the aspect of such places better than the pen,
so we refer to our illustrations, and move on to Corby Castle in the
same parish, which tops a precipitous cliff overhanging the river.
From it you see far along the richly wooded banks. Do you wonder that
it "has been a gentleman's seat since the Conquest"? And yet, not to
be disdained of the most fastidious modern, for "the front of Corby
House is of considerable length and consists of a suite of genteel
apartments." And those delightful walks through the woods! There among
the trees by the edge of the stream is the Long Walk, best of all. The
reflection of the moon in the water on a calm summer evening is much
admired by amorous couples, who cannot understand, however, why the
Walk is called Long. If those same couples go up the winding stairway
cut in the rock, they will be chagrined to find that, despite its
wildly picturesque appearance, it leads to nothing more romantic than a
boathouse! Years ago some ingenious wit carved choice quotations from
the poets on the rocks and trees, and the name of the river suggested
many passages from Milton's account of Eden in "Paradise Lost"; but the
quotations were not appreciated by the rustics, who joyed in defacing
them. Edward II. gave the place to the Salkeld family, but it has
long been in the possession of the Howards. In Wetheral Church, among
many other monuments, is a touching one to the lady of the house,
commemorated by Wordsworth in the perfect lines beginning--

    "Stretched on the dying mother's lap lies dead
    Her new-born babe; dire ending of bright hope!"

We have now followed the Eden's course to Carlisle; there it is
joined by two tributaries, the Caldew and the Petteril, each of some
importance. The /Caldew/ rises on the eastern slope of Skiddaw.
Both it and its affluent, the Caldbeck, flow through the romantic
scenery of the Fells, and dash at quite a headlong pace down steep
declines, whereof Howk Fall is the most renowned. At Holt Close Bridge
the Caldew deserts the light of day altogether, but after four miles
of subterranean windings it "comes up smiling" (as one might say)
at Spout's Dub. The /Petteril/ comes from two headstreams in
Greystoke Park and by Penruddock, and has a course of some twenty miles
through pleasant woodland and meadow scenery. Near the Westmorland
border, on a steep eminence by its first headwater, stands Greystoke
Castle. The old castle was, during the Civil Wars in 1648, taken by
Lambert for the Parliament, and burned to the ground. The remains of
the battery he threw up are still called "Cromwell's Holes." This place
has long been in the possession of the Howards. The castle was widely
famed for its collection of curiosities, more or less authentic. Thus,
there were "a large white hat," said to have covered no less a head
than Thomas Becket's; and a picture of silk embroidery representing the
Crucifixion, worked by the royal hands of Mary Queen of Scots. A fire
in 1868 played sad havoc among these oddities; but you may still admire
the great park with its deer and its ponds, and the charming prospects
of the Lake mountains which you have from the castle windows.

[Illustration: /VIEW FROM BRACKENBANK, LOOKING TOWARDS COTEHILL/
(_p. 306_).

COTEHILL ISLAND.]

And now we are in Carlisle town--to-day a thriving, well-built, but,
after all, not very remarkable place. Here as elsewhere, romance
has fled, and prosaic comfort takes its place. "Merrie Carlisle" the
ballads call it. Do you wonder why? It was in the very centre of border
warfare; some eight miles north lay the Debatable Land--for centuries
a bone of contention between Scots and English. In frequent incursions
the Northman wasted the country far and near, and the warder, as he
looked from the Scots Gate--so they termed the northern port of the
citadel--could see robber bands moving here and there, and note the
country round dotted with fire and smoke; but against the strong walls
of Carlisle Castle they dashed themselves in vain. Here was a secure
haven of refuge--here at least was peace and comfort, whatever red
ruin wasted either border; nay, the town throve on the very disorder;
and the bullocks and horses were cheap and good, what need to inquire
too curiously whence they came? Far better to get and part with them
quickly and quietly and profitably. Even if the seller was a Scot, come
there in time of truce, so much more reason to make a profit out of
him. And then the merchants had everything to sell, from strong waters
to trinkets; so it was strange if the gentleman took much cash away
with him. A "merrie" town, in truth! In flowing lines Lydia Sigourney
has admirably touched off the place and its history:--

    "How fair amid the depth of summer green
    Spread forth thy walls, Carlisle! Thy castled heights
    Abrupt and lofty; thy cathedral dome
    Majestic and alone; thy beauteous bridge
      Spanning the Eden.

           *       *       *       *       *

    "Old Time hath hung upon thy misty walls
    Legends of festal and of warlike deeds,--
    King Arthur's wassail-cup; the battle-axe
    Of the wild Danish sea-kings; the fierce beak
    Of Rome's victorious eagle: Pictish spear
    And Scottish claymore in confusion mixed
    With England's clothyard arrow."

[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE LONG WALK, CORBY CASTLE (_p. 307_).

ROCK STAIRWAY TO THE BOATHOUSE, CORBY CASTLE.]

Some of these legends are but half told or half sung. One scarcely
coherent, yet weird and powerful, ballad suggests an ancient, and but
for it forgotten, tragedy:--

    "She's howket a grave by the light o' the moon.
    The sun shines fair on Carlisle wa';
    And there she's buried her sweet babe in,
    And the lyon shall be lord of a'!"

We turn to the authentic, but scarce less tragic or romantic, history
to present three pictures from Carlisle's past. Edward I. in his last
Scots expedition halted here. The country on whose conquest he had
lavished blood and treasure for twenty years, which he had ground under
his heel again and again, had revolted yet again with a purpose as
fell as his own. When knighting the Prince of Wales, he had given a
great banquet, wherein two swans were introduced, "richly adorned with
gold network." On these he had made his son swear that fantastic yet
terrible vow to God and the swans (in accordance with the etiquette of
chivalry), that if he died leaving Scotland unconquered, his son would
boil his flesh from his bones and carry these with him to war against
the rebels. The king, though stricken with mortal sickness, was carried
north as far as Carlisle in a horse-litter. Here he pretended himself
recovered, hung his litter in the cathedral as an offering, and, with
terrible resolve, mounting his horse, moved onwards for a few miles.
Near where the Eden loses itself in the sands of the Solway, at the
little village of Burgh-on-the Sands, his strength completely gave way.
His dying eyes looked across the waters of the Solway on the land which
he had conquered so often in vain, and here the fierce old man made his
son renew his solemn oath, and soon all was over.

The new monarch was a man of softer mould. Turning with a shudder from
the task, he hurried back to the pleasures of London. Go to-day to
Westminster Abbey, and read the inscription on the old king's tomb:
"_Eduardus Primus Scotorum malleus hic est 1308 pactum serva_." Dean
Stanley thinks the last two words merely a moral maxim; others have
more reasonably taken it as a reminder to the son to keep his promise.
Moreover, it was provided that "once every two years the tomb was to
be opened, and the wax of the king's cerecloth renewed"; as if Edward
even in death had some work to do. The son, no doubt, meant some day or
other to fulfil his promise; but the day never dawned, and the voice
from the grave spoke in vain.

Our next picture is from the days of Good Queen Bess. In the year
1596 there was peace between England and Scotland, but that did not
prevent a little private marauding on the Borders. It was customary
for the wardens on either side to hold courts, and there settle their
differences. William Armstrong, of Kinmont--to be known to all time
as "Kinmont Willie"--a famous Scots freebooter, was present at one of
these courts. When it was over he rode away with some friends along
the north bank of the Liddel, scornfully heedless of the angry looks
of certain Englishmen, who had (you guess) lately suffered from his
depredations. By Border law there was truce till the next sunrise; but
the sight of Kinmont so slenderly guarded was too much for his southern
foes. A troop of two hundred pursued and caught him after a long chase,
and so our bold freebooter was laid safely by the heels in a strong
dungeon in Carlisle Castle. The feelings with which Scott of Buccleuch,
keeper of Liddesdale, received news of this are vigorously described in
the old ballad:--

    "He has ta'en the table, wi' his hand
      He garr'd the red wine spring on hie;
    'Now, Christ's curse on my head,' he said,
      'But avenged of Lord Scrope I'll be.'"

Buccleuch, having urged the release of Kinmont Willie in vain,
determined to free him by force. At Morton Tower, in the Debatable
Land, he collected one evening before sunset a chosen band of
followers with scaling ladders and pickaxes. Through the darkness of
a misty and stormy night they forded in succession the Esk and the
Eden, and halted under the wall of Carlisle two hours before daybreak.
Bursting in the postern, and overpowering the sentinels, they made such
a ferocious din with tongue and trumpet that the garrison, thinking
all the wild men of the Border had got into the town, prudently shut
themselves up in the Keep, and then--

    "Wi' coulters, and with forehammers,
      We garr'd the bars bang merrilie,
    Until we came to the inner prison,
      Where Willie o' Kinmont he did lie."

The prisoner was soon rescued; and there being no time to knock off
his irons, he was mounted on the shoulders of "Red Rowan," described
as "the starkest man in Teviotdale." Some attempt was made to prevent
the escape; but the night continuing dark, the bold band got away, and
a wild gallop brought them safe to the Scots border two hours after
daybreak. Kinmont humorously complaining of his steed and his spurs,
as he playfully termed his irons, the company halted at a smith's
cottage in their own country, and demanded his services. The smith
seemed loth to rise so early, whereupon Buccleuch, playfully thrusting
his lance through the window, speedily had him wide awake. This stroke
of humour was highly appreciated on the Border--was considered quite
side-splitting, in fact--but history has failed to record the smith's
observations on the incident. The "bauld Buccleuch" himself never did a
bolder deed, but Elizabeth was furious. In October, 1597, he was sent
to the English court to make what excuse he might to the Queen, who, in
one of her Tudor tempers, angrily demanded "how he dared to undertake
an enterprise so desperate and presumptuous." "What is there that a man
dares not do?" was the answer, surely in fit keeping with the tradition
of boldness. Elizabeth turned to her courtiers: "With ten thousand such
men our brother of Scotland might shake the firmest throne in Europe!"
and so Buccleuch departed in peace.

Our last picture is from the days after the Jacobite rising of 1745. A
great many of the trials of the Scots rebels took place at Carlisle,
and, as one can understand, the accused had but short shrift. "We
shall not be tried by a Cumberland jury in the next world!" was the
comforting reflection of one of the prisoners. A long series of
executions, with all the terrible rites practised on traitors, took
place on Gallows Hill, and the heads of these poor Jacobites were
planted over Carlisle gates as a warning. A ballad of deepest pathos
tells the fate of one unfortunate:--

    "White was the rose in his gay bonnet,
        As he faulded me in his brooched plaidie;
    His hand, which clasped the truth o' luve,
        Oh, it was aye in battle readie!

    "His lang, lang hair in yellow hanks
        Waved o'er his cheeks sae sweet and ruddie,
    But now they wave o'er Carlisle yetts,
        In dripping ringlets, clotting bloodie."

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

GREYSTOKE CASTLE (_p. 307_).]

Not all merrie are the records of Carlisle! And to-day you will find
the castle has suffered change. You enter through an ancient gateway,
and there is still the portcullis adorned with a sadly battered piece
of sculpture. Unsightly barracks, and so forth, cumber the outer ward.
The half-moon battery is dismantled, and the great keep is now used
as an armoury. You turn to the cathedral, and there, spite of many
alterations and more or less judicious restoration, there is much to
admire. We can but mention the splendid central window at the east
end of the choir, the graceful arcades below the windows of the side
aisles, and the carved oak work of the stalls.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the head of the Solway Firth the /Sark/, a small river,
or rather "burn," which in a dry summer well-nigh vanishes, divides
the two kingdoms. On the Scots side the first village on the road is
Gretna Green, famed for just over a century because of its irregular
marriages. Here we might take leave of England were it not that our
next two rivers, the Esk and the Liddel, Scots for most of their
course and rising at very different points, finally meet and pass into
Cumberland, whence they flow into the Solway Firth; the Esk having made
a complete circuit round the Sark. The Debatable Land already mentioned
was the piece of ground between the Solway and the junction of the two
streams, of each of which we must now speak.

[Illustration: CARLISLE, LOOKING EAST.]

[Illustration: CARLISLE, LOOKING WEST.]

       *       *       *       *       *

The /Liddel/ rises in a great morass in Roxburghshire called
Deadwater. For some ten miles it is a wild mountain stream, flowing
dark and sullen through a rocky glen, but as it reaches lower ground
the glen widens and softens into a beautiful valley with trees and fine
pasture land, whilst lower still are fertile fields. The Liddel has
many tributaries, whereof we will only mention Hermitage Water, near
the source. It is a wild mountain stream, and at its wildest part,
amidst morasses and bare desolate mountains, stand the ruins of grim
old Hermitage Castle, with its thick towers and walls and rare narrow
windows. See it on some gloomy November day, when the storm spirit
is abroad, and it stands the very abomination of desolation! Turn to
its history, and the gloom grows ever darker; for 'tis little but a
record of cruel deeds. This is one of the oldest baronial buildings
in Scotland. Sir William Douglas, the "Knight of Liddesdale" and
"Flower of Chivalry," took the place in 1338 from the English. You
wonder at his name! Four years later he wounded and seized at Hawick
Sir Alexander Ramsay, Sheriff of Teviotdale, of whose appointment he
was jealous, and, throwing him into a deep dungeon at Hermitage, left
him to starve. A few chance droppings from the granary protracted
his miserable existence through seventeen awful days. His captors,
hearing his groans, at length took him out and gave him--not bread,
but a priest, in whose arms Ramsay expired! The "Flower of Chivalry"
was finally slain by the Earl of Douglas, head of his house, whilst
hunting in Ettrick Forest. It was whispered the Earl had discovered
that his Countess entertained a guilty passion for the murdered man.
A rude old ballad represents her as coming out of her bower when she
heard of the crime, and proclaiming her own shame--

    "And loudly there she did ca',
      It is for the Lord of Liddesdale
    That I let all these tears doune fa'."

In October, 1566, Bothwell had gone to the Borders as Warden of the
Marshes, to prepare for a court which Mary Queen of Scots was about
to hold at Jedburgh for the trial of freebooters. He was wounded
by Elliott of the Park, known as "Little Jock Elliott," and lay
dangerously ill at Hermitage. The infatuated Mary, scantily attended,
dashed over from Jedburgh through the wildest and most dangerous
territory (what a prize for a freebooter!), spent two hours by
Bothwell's bedside "to his great pleasure and content," and then
dashed as madly back again. Who shall dare to guess the secret of that
meeting? Seven months earlier was Rizzio's murder, four months later
was Darnley's--the great tragedy of Mary's life. The question of her
guilt is still open, but no one doubts Bothwell's. Some dark hint of
his perhaps caused the torture of mind which men noted in her after
the visit. She was immediately stricken down with a fever of ten days'
duration, and for some time her life was despaired of. But let us away
from this sad old ruin among those far-off gloomy mountains.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Liddel is, after all, but a tributary of the /Esk/. There
are several rivers of that name in Britain, which fact will not
surprise you when you remember that Esk is Celtic for "water." Its
scenery has the characteristic features of all these Border streams:
wild hills, bare save for a fringe of heather at the source; then
richly wooded meadows, with fertile fields in the lower reaches. The
Esk and its tributaries are much praised of anglers; nowhere will you
find better salmon-fishing. Three miles below Langholm, on the left
bank, the Tarras falls into the Esk. Its narrow channel is broken by
huge masses of rock over which the water foams and swirls in wild
fury. A strange old rhyme ever rings in our ears when we think of its
passionate rush--

    "Was ne'er ane drowned in Tarras, nor yet in doubt,
    For e'er the head can win doun the harns are out,"--

which means that Tarras never drowned anybody who fell in, for the
excellent reason that before his head touched the bottom, the current
and the rocks, between them, knocked out his brains! Is there not a
tragic power about this snarling couplet? Indeed, those pithy popular
rhymes will well repay attention. Nowhere else is so much said in so
few words; each is, in truth, the distilled essence of a poem.

The Tarras divides Langholm from Canonbie parish, wherein once stood,
in a position of great natural strength, washed on three sides by the
Esk, Gilnockie Tower. Johnnie Armstrong, the famous Border freebooter,
took his title from this place, whereof not a stone remains. A little
higher up the river is Hollows Tower, also a nest of this bird of prey.
Johnnie was summoned to appear before James V. when that monarch made
a Border tour in 1539 to administer justice. Getting himself up in the
most magnificent apparel, and with an easy mind and a clear conscience,
he, accompanied by many of his name, whereof "Ill Will Armstrong"
is specially noted, set forth to meet the king. On Langholm Holm,
according to the Chronicle, "they ran their horse and brak their spears
when the ladies lookit frae their lofty windows, saying, 'God send our
men well back again.'" The fair dames' anxieties were well founded, for
Johnnie's reception was scarce as cordial as he expected. "What wants
yon knave that a king should have?" exclaimed James in angry amazement,
as he ordered off Gilnockie and his companions to instant execution.
The culprit's petition for grace was sternly refused. "Had I known, I'd
have lived upon the Borders in spite of King Harry and you both," said
Johnnie as they led him away. The trees whereon he and his followers
were strung up are still shown at Carlenrig, and tradition still
identifies their graves in that lonely churchyard. The ballads praise
his honesty and lament the treachery which led to his end. James's was
the violent act of a weak man; it had an unroyal touch of trickery; and
no good results followed.

[Illustration: RIVERS FLOWING SOUTH INTO SOLWAY FIRTH.]

Of another romantic character it is written that he "swam the
Esk river where ford there was none"--that, of course, was young
Lochinvar, who "came out of the west" to run off with a fair daughter
of Netherby Hall. The "west" in this case is a lake in Dalry parish,
in Kirkcudbrightshire, containing an island which still has remains
of the castle of the Gordons, knights of Lochinvar, one of whom was
the hero of Lady Heron's song in "Marmion." Netherby is away by the
Debatable Land, and Canobie Lee (perhaps) in the Dumfriesshire parish
of Canonbie; but how idle to localise the incidents of the splendid
ballad! Scott himself never touched the romantic note with truer hand
or to better purpose--

    "And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,
    To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine."

And then we know how the bride

    "... looked down to blush and looked up to sigh,
    With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye."

And how they danced a measure, and how the charger stood near by the
hall door, and 'twas but the work of an instant to swing the lady on
its back, and so light to the saddle before her he sprung:--

    "'She is won! We are gone over bank, bush, and scaur;
    They'll have fleet steeds that follow,' said young Lochinvar."

And the delightful couple again fade away into the "rich heart of the
west."

[Illustration: THE ESK, NEAR GILNOCKIE (_p. 315_).]

There is no end to those ballads and traditions! The very streams in
their flow seem to murmur of them. But few can find place here; yet how
can we pass from Eskdale and leave untouched its sweetest spot, its
most, tragic story, its most pathetic song? Kirtle Water, after a short
course of a little over sixteen miles, runs into the Solway at Kirtle
Foot, near the head of the Firth. In the parish of Kirkpatrick-Fleming
it passes through "fair Kirkconnel Lee," where, in the churchyard of
Kirkconnel, sleep the ashes of Helen and her lover. According to the
well-known tradition, she was loved by Fleming of Redhall and Bell of
Blacket. The latter was not the favoured one, and basely tried to slay
Fleming. Helen threw herself in the path of the murderer's bullet, and
perished to save her friend. Fleming did speedy justice on his cruel
foe, wandered in far lands for many years, and returned to die and be
buried in the same grave with the love of his youth. Of the ancestral
tower of the Flemings not a fragment is left; and Dryasdust still dully
debates the exact measure of historic truth in the story. Some great
but unknown poet long ago moulded the passionate complaint of Fleming
into imperishable verse, with its mournful refrain:--

    "I wish I were where Helen lies,
    Night and day on me she cries;
    O that I were where Helen lies,
        On fair Kirkconnel Lee!"

[Illustration: HIGH STREET, DUMFRIES (_p. 319_).]

       *       *       *       *       *

Annandale is the second division of Dumfries. /Annan/ means in
Celtic "quiet water"; perhaps that river was called so in fear, to
propitiate the water-sprite, as malignant fairies were dubbed "the
good people" to ward off their anger. Allan Cunningham lauds it as the
"Silver Annan," but none the less he has some hard words for it:--

    "The cushat, hark, a tale of woe
      Is to its true love telling;
    And Annan stream in drowning wrath
      Is through the greenwood swelling."

And the old ballad of "Annan Water" calls it a "drumlie river," and
tells a most melancholious tale of a lover and his steed drowned whilst
attempting to cross it to keep tryst with his love, Annie, who, we are
assured, was "wondrous bonny." The last verse warns the river that a
bridge will presently be thrown over, that "ye nae mair true love may
sever": the prosaic purposes of transit to kirk or market being, of
course, quite unworthy of a minstrel's mention. Well! Annan has its
moods--quiet and gentle in the pleasant summer days, given to violent
outbursts in time of spate.

Annandale was the home of Bruce, and the great Robert is supposed
to have been born at Lochmaben, which, situated on seven lochs, is
a sort of Caledonian Venice. Bruce, not unmindful of the place of
his nativity, is famed to have created it a royal burgh soon after
his sword won him the crown. This did not prevent the citizens from
treating through many generations his ancestral castle as a common
quarry, and nothing is now left but a shapeless mass of stones.
According to old Bellenden, in his translation of Boace (1536),
the people of former times were a terrible lot; the women worst of
all! "The wyvis usit to slay thair husbandis, quhen they wer found
cowartis, or discomfit be thair ennymes, to give occasion to otheris
to be more bald and hardy quhen danger occurrit." "To learn them for
their tricks," as Burns might have remarked. Annandale's most famous
modern son was Thomas Carlyle, who, as everybody knows, was born at
Ecclefechan in 1795, and was buried there at the end of his long career
on a "cloudy, sleety day" early in 1881. Ecclefechan is on the Main
Water, a tributary of the Annan; you will find it described in "Sartor
Resartus" as Entepfuhl. Many spots around are connected with his life
or works. Hoddam Kirk, his parish church, he pointed out to Emerson in
a remarkable talk as an illustration of the connection of historical
events. His once bosom friend, Edward Irving, was born in the town
of Annan, of which Carlyle had his own memories, for here he went to
school, first to learn, afterwards to teach. Craigenputtock, where he
lived for six years, is in Nithsdale, the third division of Dumfries,
to which we now turn.

       *       *       *       *       *

The /Nith/, its name-river, in its course of some seventy miles,
rising in Ayrshire, passes through the Queen of the South, as its
citizens proudly designate Dumfries, and, during the last ten miles of
its existence, is rather an estuary than a river. It has many important
tributaries--the Carron, with its almost Alpine gorge, known as the
Wallpath; the Enterkin, with its famed Enterkin pass, of old time the
bridle-path from Clydesdale to Nithsdale, noted for the famous rescue
in 1684 of a band of Covenanting prisoners who were being conveyed to
Edinburgh; the Minnick Water, with its many traditions of the Hill
Folk; and "many mo'."

Every variety of scenery diversifies the banks of those streams, and
there is a great mass of legendary lore as to the famous men who dwelt
by their waters; but one name swallows up all the rest. How to follow
the windings of the Nith, or tread the High Street of Dumfries,
without thinking of Robert Burns? He sang of the streams of Nith in
his choicest verse. "Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes"
is linked with one tributary, and the song he fitted to "Ca' the yowes
to the knowes"--most musical fragment of old Scots poetry--reminds
of another. Among the beautiful ruins of Lincluden Abbey, surrounded
by the defaced monuments of the great house of Douglas, he saw that
"Vision" which he has commemorated in so remarkable a poem. Not far
off is Friars' Carse, where the bacchanalian contest related in "The
Whistle" took place. In Dumfries, as an exciseman, he spent the
last five years of his life. Let us find place for one incident of
his closing days. He had gone to the little village of Brow, on the
Solway, to try the effect of the seaside. During a visit to the manse,
one of the family remarked the sun shining in his eyes and made some
effort to adjust the blind. Burns noted it; "Thank you, my dear, for
your kind attention--but ah, let him shine! He will not shine long
for me." This was the end of June, 1796; on the twenty-first of July
he was dead. "Who will be our poet now?" was the quaint inquiry of
an honest Dumfries burgher. Who, indeed! His remains were buried in
the churchyard of St. Michael's. "They were originally interred in
the north corner, upon which spot a simple table-stone was raised to
his memory; but in 1815 his ashes were removed to a vault beneath an
elegant mausoleum, which was erected by subscription, as a tribute to
his genius, at a cost of £1,450. This monument contains a handsome
piece of marble sculpture, executed by Turnerelli, representing the
genius of Scotland finding the poet at the plough, and throwing 'her
inspiring mantle' over him." Well meant, and yet--! We remember
standing in the cemetery at Montmartre by the plain stone that bears
the name, and nothing but the name, of Heine. It had a simple, a
pathetic, dignity beyond the reach of the most cunningly carved
monument. One thought of the "elegant mausoleum" at Dumfries, and
sighed for the "simple table-stone" which humble but pious hands had
placed as the first and, still after a century the best, monument to
Robert Burns. Do you doubt which himself had chosen?

Of the antiquities of Dumfries we will only mention its famous mediæval
bridge over the Nith, built by Devorgilla, mother of John Baliol. A
remarkable old dame this Devorgilla! Balliol College, Oxford, was
endowed by her liberality; and we shall come across another of her
foundations presently. The Queen of the South has a long history; its
most important event is connected with the house rival to Baliol. On
the 4th of February, 1306, Robert the Bruce disputing with the Red
Cumyn in the Greyfriars' Monastery, struck and wounded him with his
dagger. He burst out remorseful, exclaiming, "I fear I have slain
the Red Cumyn." "I mak siccar," was the grimly pithful remark of
Kirkpatrick of Closeburn as he rushed in, and--_exit_ the Red Cumyn!

[Illustration: _Photo: J. Rutherford, Jardington, Dumfries._

LINCLUDEN ABBEY (_p. 319_).]

Even in Scotland this district is remarkable for old castles and
abbeys. Of these one first notes Drumlanrig Castle, in Durisdeer
parish, on a _drum_, or long ridge of hill, on the right bank of the
Nith. It is a huge and splendid building, finished in 1689 after ten
years' labour, by the first Duke of Queensberry, who spent but one
night within its walls. It had splendid woods, which old "Q," that
picturesque rascal of the Georgian period, shamelessly depleted, for
which he was righteously castigated by Wordsworth; his descendants
have repaired the damage, and poets and forest nymphs are at length
appeased and consoled. The Highlanders, passing by here in the '45,
amused themselves by stabbing the portrait of William III. with their
claymores. Again, there is Caerlaverock Castle, the Ellangowan of
Scott's "Guy Mannering," situated on the left bank of the Nith, just
where it becomes part of the Solway Firth. A wild romantic spot! The
boiling tides of the Solway and the Nith approach its walls; and of old
time it was so hemmed by lake and marsh as to deserve the name of the
"Island of Caerlaverock." It has a long romantic history, in keeping
with its environment. It has been in possession of the Maxwells since
the beginning of the thirteenth century, and you can still spell out
their motto, "I bid ye fair," on its mouldering walls. They took--as
was but seemly in so ancient a family--the Stuart side in the rising of
1715; and the title of Baron Herries, held since 1489, was destroyed
by attaint in 1716. It was revived, however, in favour of William
Constable Maxwell by various Parliamentary proceedings ending in 1858;
then high revel was held in the long deserted courts of Caerlaverock,
and little imagination was needed to recall the incidents of a
long-vanished feudal day.

[Illustration: _Photo: J. Rutherford, Jardington, Dumfries._

DRUMLANRIG CASTLE (_p. 320_).]

It is hard to leave the Nith, so much is to be said on each of its
tributaries. There is the Cairn, for instance, with its memories of
the noble family of Glencairn. Also it flows by Maxwellton, still the
seat of the Lauries, a fair scion of whose ancient house is celebrated
in the pleasing old ditty known to everybody as "Annie Laurie," though
_the_ song that rises in your mind when Glencairn is mentioned is
Burns's noble tribute to the memory of the fourteenth earl, ending--

    "The mother may forget the babe
      That smiles sae sweetly on her knee,
    But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
      And a' that thou hast done for me!"

Even when we leave Dumfries and pass into Galloway (which consists of
the stewartry of Kirkendbright and shire of Wigtown) we are not quite
away from the Nith. On the right bank, nearly opposite Caerlaverock,
the small stream of New Abbey Pow runs into the estuary. Follow this
a little way up, and you come on the scanty but beautiful ruins of
Sweetheart Abbey. The origin was as romantic as the name: it was
founded in memory of her husband by the Devorgilla already mentioned.
He died in 1269 at Barnard Castle, and was buried there, all save his
heart, which his spouse had enclosed in a "coffyne of evorie," and ever
at mealtimes the "coffyne" was carried in and placed beside her, and
she "dyd reverens" to it as if it had been her living lord. Thus she
existed for twenty years, and then was splendidly interred before the
high altar of Dulee Cor, or Sweetheart Abbey, so called because the
heart of her dead spouse was laid on hers. Verily, love is stronger
than death!

       *       *       *       *       *

The /Dee/, chief river of Kirkcudbrightshire, rises in desolate
Loch Dee, among heather-clad hills with impressive names--Lamachen,
Cairngarnock, Craiglee, and so forth. How those Celtic words suggest of
themselves a remote and desolate wilderness! Dee means "dark river,"
and in the early part of its flow so sullen is its appearance that,
with impressive tautology, it is called the "black water of Dee." Some
twenty miles from its source its colour is lightened by its confluence
with the Water of Ken, and, like other Border streams, the scenery
on its banks gradually becomes softer and richer. We have selected
for illustration (p. 326) a beautiful spot on the Dee at Douglas
Tongueland, within two or three miles of the burgh of Kirkcudbright.
Here the river still retains some of its early wildness, for it rushes
foamin' over masses of rock, but the scenery on its banks is sweetly
rural rather than wild and mountainous.

The most famous place on the Dee is Threave Castle, standing on an
islet formed by the river not far from Castle Douglas. It was built by
Archibald, called the Grim, third Earl of Douglas, and was the scene
of one of the terrible crimes which brought about the ruin of that
proud house. William, the eighth earl, had imprisoned there Maclellan,
tutor (or guardian) of Bombie, whose relative, Sir Patrick Grey,
having procured an order for his release from James II., therewith
repaired to the castle. Douglas, knowing very well what he came about,
with pretended courtesy refused to receive any message till the guest
had dined. Whilst Grey was eating with what appetite he might, the
prisoner was led forth and beheaded in the courtyard. Dinner over,
Grey produced the royal warrant, which Douglas read with mock respect
and consternation. Taking his guest by the hand and leading him to the
window overlooking the courtyard, he showed him the bleeding corpse.
"There lies your sister's son," quoth he, "he lacks the head, but the
body is at your service." Grey dissembled his rage and grief till he
was in the saddle, when, turning on the mocking earl, he solemnly vowed
his heart's blood should pay for that day's work. "To horse! to horse!"
cried the enraged tyrant. The pursuers followed Grey for many a long
league, nor did they draw bridle till the Castle-Rock of Edinburgh
loomed on the horizon. A few months after, the king stabbed Douglas
at a conference at Stirling, and Grey avenged Maclellan by killing
the wounded man with a pole-axe. In 1455 King James besieged Threave
Castle, which held out under James, the brother of the murdered noble.
It seemed impossible to batter down the stronghold till an ingenious
blacksmith, M'Kim of Mollance, constructed the enormous gun which lies
to-day on the Argyle battery at Edinburgh Castle, and is known far
and wide as "Mons Meg"--the "Mons" being a corruption of Mollance,
whilst Meg was M'Kim's wife. He named the gun after her in ironical
compliment, her voice being, he said, as the cannon's, neither soft
nor low. However, this piece was dragged with enormous labour to an
eminence commanding Threave Castle. The charge, it is said, consisted
of a peck of powder, and a granite ball the weight of a Carsphairn cow.
The Countess of Douglas, the Fair Maid of Galloway, who had married in
succession the two brothers, sat at table in the banqueting hall when
the gun was shot off; the ball crashing into the room, carried away her
right hand, wherewith she was in the act of raising a goblet of wine to
her lips. The place at once surrendered. Roofless, but still grim and
massive, the castle frowns amidst the peaceful surroundings of to-day.
They "still show you the gallows knob," "a large block of granite
projecting from the front wall immediately over the main gateway;
from here the meaner victims of the Earl's vengeance were suspended."
Rarely did the knob want the ornament, of a "tassel," as, with ghastly
pleasantly, its human burden was termed--nay, it is said that the
Douglas was so averse to see the "knob" out of use, and his power of
life and death rusting unexercised, that, did the supply of malefactors
run short, he would string up on any or no pretext some unoffending
peasant--_pour encourager les autres_, no doubt!

       *       *       *       *       *

We now pass to the /Cree/ river, which forms the boundary
between Kirkcudbright and Wigtown, the two divisions of Galloway. It
is endeared to the poets, who name it "the crystal Cree"; either the
alliterative effect fascinated the tuneful ear, or they contrasted it
with the Dee, that other Galloway river whose dark waters have already
been described. Burns also, whose verse is linked with so much of the
scenery of his native land, has not forgotten this stream. In pleasing
numbers he sings its beauties:--

    "Here is the glen, and here the bower,
      All underneath the birchen shade;
    The village-bell has told the hour,
      O, what can stay the lovely maid?"

The song goes on to describe the emotions of the rustic youth, who
mistakes the whisper of the evening wind and the "warbler's dying fall"
for the voice of the beloved. Well! the lady is a little late, but she
keeps her appointment, after all:--

    "And art thou come! and art thou true!
      O welcome, dear, to love and me!
    And let us all our vows renew,
      Along the flowery bunks of Cree."

[Illustration: _Photo: J. P. Gibson, Hexham._

CAERLAVEROCK CASTLE (_p. 320_).]

In truth the river has many beautiful prospects, whereof the finest are
in the vicinity of Newton Stewart, the most considerable town on its
banks. We have selected the river at the bridge for our illustration.
The bridge is lauded in the "New Statistical Account" as "elegant and
substantial, built of granite, with a freestone parapet"; and another
authority assures us that it was built in 1813, and cost £6,000--all
which, no doubt, you are prepared to take on trust, as you can scarce
be expected to go to Newton Stewart to verify the facts!

One must not leave the river without mention of the famous "Cruives of
Cree," to wit, "salmon-traps in the stone-cauls or dam-dykes, which,
serving the country-folk for bridges, came to be well known landmarks."
They were situate near Penninghame House, in the parish of Penninghame,
and are commemorated in an ancient rhyme celebrating the power of the
Kennedys:--

    "'Twixt Wigtown and the town o' Ayr,
      Portpatrick and the Cruives o' Cree,
    You shall not get a lodging there
      Except ye court a Kennedy."

       *       *       *       *       *

One more river and we have done. The /Bladenoch/ is a small
stream which passes by the town of Wigtown, and falls into Wigtown Bay,
the broad estuary of the Cree river. In 1685 it was the scene of the
greatest of the Covenanting tragedies, known in history as the death of
the Wigtown martyrs. Woodrow, in his "History of the Sufferings of the
Church of Scotland," tells the story. In the year noted there lived in
the parish of Penninghame a substantial farmer named Gilbert Wilson, a
law-abiding person who submitted to all the orders of the Government.
He had three children: Gilbert sixteen, Margaret eighteen, and Agnes
thirteen years of age. These, unlike their parents, would "by no means
conform or hear the Episcopalian incumbent, but fled to the hills,
bogs, and caves." The son went abroad, fought as a soldier in the Low
Countries, and returned long after the Revolution. The daughters had
come to Wigtown, where they were living with an old woman of the name
of Margaret McLachlin. All three, being apprehended, were tried at
Wigtown on various charges of nonconformity, the chief being their
presence at twenty field conventicles. The facts were patent, the law
clear, and it was adjudged that "all the three should be tied to stakes
fixed within the floodmark in the water of Blednoch, near Wigtown,
where the sea flows at high water, there to be drowned." (Drowning,
one ought to explain, was the ordinary method of execution for women.)
Gilbert Wilson hastened to Edinburgh, and procured, probably bought, a
pardon for his younger daughter; then Margaret McLachlin was persuaded
to sign a petition in which she promised to conform and besought the
Lords of Privy Council to have mercy on her. But the passionate words
of field preaching heard in lonely glens had sunk deep into Margaret
Wilson's mind; she refused, as she would have said, "to bow the knee
to Baal." She wrote a letter from prison to her friends "full of a
deep and affecting sense of God's love to her soul, and in entire
resignation to the Lord's disposal. She likewise added a vindication
of her refusing to save her life by taking the abjuration and engaging
conformity; against both she gave arguments with a solidity and
judgment far above one of her years and education."

[Illustration: _Photo: Poulton & Son, London._

THE DEE AT DOUGLAS TONGUELAND (_p. 322_).]

But the brave child's constancy found admirers, and her respite was
procured; it was drawn up in a somewhat loose form, and sent off to
Wigtown. Either it did not arrive in time, or (more likely) those
in authority determined to ignore it; at any rate, the sentence was
carried out. The chief actors were Grierson of Lag, the central
figure of "Wandering Willie's Tale" in "Redgauntlet"; and David
Graham, brother to Dundee. On the fated eleventh of May the two women,
being brought from prison, were tied to stakes on the Solway shore.
A horror-struck multitude lined the banks, but a force of soldiery
rendered any chance of rescue impossible. The women sang psalms; then
the fierce tide rushed in, and Margaret McLachlin's sufferings were
over. Margaret Wilson had been placed close to the bank of set purpose,
and before the Solway had done its fell work there ensued the most
moving incident in the martyrology of the Covenant. "While at prayer
the water covered her; but before she was quite dead, they pulled her
up, and held her out of the water till she was recovered and able to
speak; and then, by Major Windram's orders, she was asked if she would
pray for the king. She answered that she wished the salvation of all
men and the damnation of none. One deeply affected with the death of
the other and her case, said, 'Dear Margaret, say "God save the king!"
say "God save the king!"' She answered with the greatest steadiness
and composure, 'God save him if He will, for it is his salvation I
desire.' Whereupon some of her relations near by, desirous to have her
life spared if possible, called out to Major Windram, 'Sir, she hath
said it; she hath said it.' Whereupon the Major came near and offered
her the abjuration, charging her instantly to swear it or else return
to the water. Most deliberately she refused, and said, 'I will not; I
am one of Christ's children; let me go!' Upon which she was thrust down
again into the water, where she finished her course with joy."

And so we bid the Solway farewell!

    /FRANCIS WATT./

[Illustration: _Photo: Poulton & Son, London._

THE CREE AT NEWTON STEWART (_p. 323_).]




[Illustration: THE AYR ABOVE MUIRKIRK.]




RIVERS OF AYRSHIRE.

    Poetic Association--Headstreams of the Ayrshire Rivers--"The Land
    of Barns"--The Ayr and the Doon--Sorn--Catrine--Ballochmyle--
    Mossgiel--Manchline--Barskimming--Coilsfield House and the Fail
    Water--The Coyl--Auchencruive--Craigie--Ayr--The Doon.


The rivers of Ayrshire have a corner by themselves in the heart of
the Scot, and in the memory of the world. "Bonnie Doon" and "auld
hermit Ayr" are better known and more extolled on the banks of the St.
Lawrence and of the Ganges than nearer streams incomparably greater in
length and volume. Why this should be so, the Philistine who takes no
account of the magical power of poetry may find it hard to understand.
Those waters of Kyle, Carrick, and Cunningham are short of course and
lacking in features of scenery that are in any marked degree impressive
or sublime. Their beauty, such as it is, they owe as much to Art as to
Nature. None of them can be said to be in any genuine sense navigable.
It is true that some among them are centres and outlets of important
industries. But even in the sordid affairs of trade their valleys
hardly take a first rank among Scottish streams. Commercially, and
almost geographically, they might be described as mere tributaries of
the wealthy Clyde.

The headsprings of these Ayrshire waters are nowhere more than twenty
or thirty miles distant from the shores of the Firth, and their sources
as well as their mouths come within the range of view of travellers by
that broad highway to the Broomielaw. They rise for the most part in
high and featureless moorlands, where the county of Ayr borders with
Galloway, Lanark, and Renfrew, and disappear in the folds of a lower
country in which one appraiser of the picturesque has discovered a
general character of "insipidity"--a character which every true-born
son of Ayrshire will vehemently deny as belonging to the landscapes
of his county, pointing, as his witnesses, to many a "flowery brae,"
bold crag, and richly-wooded dell watered by the clear currents of his
native streams. Some of these slip quietly to the sea behind hills of
bent and sand, lonely except for the golfer, the salmon-fisher, and the
sea-fowl. Others have at their mouths ancient burghs, busy seaports or
pleasant Clyde watering-places flanked by breezy links or steep cliff
and headland, that look out across sand and wave to the purple peaks
of Arran, to the huge columnar stack of Ailsa Craig, to Bute, and the
Cumbraes, and the other wonders of those Western seas.

[Illustration: SORN (_p. 332_).]

The county might be likened in shape to a boomerang, or to a crescent
moon, with horns tapering to a point towards the north and south, the
shore-line from Wemyss Bay to Loch Ryan representing the concave inner
edge, and the land frontier, roughly approximating to the boundary of
the river-basins, standing for the outer surface. To the north the
brown moorlands come near to the sea; the streams are correspondingly
short, and the strip of fertile coast-territory narrows to nothing. But
from the basin of Garnock to that of Doon there extends a diversified
plain country, intersected by broad ridges, veined in all directions
by roads and railway lines, full of thriving towns and villages, and
amply endowed with the charms of wood, water, rock, and hill, as
well as with coalfields, pastures, and cornlands. This is the heart
of Ayrshire--the classic ground where the Ayr and the Doon are the
chief among a host of streams whose currents flow to the music of the
choicest of Scotland's lyric songs. South of Doon lies the broken sea
of hills known as Carrick, a country with a poorer surface and a wilder
and higher background of green or heathy mountains, yet with many
beautiful and some spacious and famous river-valleys opening between
its barer uplands, which run down to the coast in bold promontories,
crowned with ancient castles, or front it with walls of cliff pierced
with caves in which has found refuge many a legend of the Killing or
the Smuggling times.

Not, however, by its memorials and traditions of old strifes--or not
by these chiefly--are the hearts and the feet of strangers drawn to
Ayrshire. It is the "Land of Burns." The spirit of the song of the
Ploughman-Bard has taken possession of the banks of its streams, and
has almost silenced all older and harsher strains. Those who wander
by them think less about Bruce and Wallace, the grim deeds of the
Earls of Cassilis and Lairds of Auchendrane, and the dour faces and
pathetic deaths of the martyrs of the Covenant, than of Tam o' Shanter
glowering in at the "winnock-bunker" of Alloway's auld haunted kirk, of
the "Jolly Beggars" feasting and singing round Poosie Nancy's fireside
at Mauchline, and of all the rustic Nells and Jeans, and Nannies and
Bessies, and Marys, with whose praises Burns has made the waters of
Ayr vocal for all time. But chiefly the music of their currents seems
to be a running accompaniment to his own stormy life. It reminds us of
his youthful saunterings "adoun some trottin' burn's meander" while
the voice of poetry in him was yet only struggling for utterance; of
his later hours of rapture or of anguish in meetings with his "Bonnie
Jean" in the woods of Catrine or Barskimming or Ballochmyle, or in his
parting with Highland Mary where the Fail steals by leafy coverts past
the Castle o' Montgomerie to meet the Ayr; and all the other episodes
of passionate or pawky love which he turned to song as naturally and
spontaneously as do the birds.

[Illustration: RIVERS OF AYRSHIRE.]

From his earliest years, as he has told us, the ambition fired him to
"gar our streams and burnies shine up wi' the best." He lamented that
while--

    "Yarrow and Tweed to mony a tune
      Owre Scotland rings;
    The Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an' Doon
      Naebody sings."

Gloriously has the wish been fulfilled and the want retrieved. The
very names of these rivers have become instinct with the spirit of
lyric poetry. To some he returned again and again, and docked them with
the freshest and sweetest garlands of his verse. Who has not heard of
"bonnie Doon," of "winding Ayr," of "crystal Afton," and the "moors
and mosses mony" of stately Lugar? Others, somewhat more removed from
the centre of his enchantments, have been immortalised in a line or
two of exquisite characterisation. Cessnock and Stinchar, "Girvan's
fairy-haunted stream"; where "well-fed Irwine stately thuds"; where the
Greenock "winds his moorland course," and "haunted Garpal draws his
feeble source," are all parts of "the dear, the native ground" of this
master of the notes of rivers and of human hearts.

       *       *       *       *       *

The /Ayr/ and the /Doon/, in particular, Burns has
painted for us in all moods of the mind and of the weather. They murmur
and rave with him in his despondency, and lilt gaily in sympathy
with the brighter hours he spent beside them. He finds them fresh at
dawn, when the dew is hanging clear on the scented birks, and they
are "sweet in gloaming." He traces them from their first rise on the
heathery hillside, through hazelly shaw and hanging wood down to the
sea--from "Glenbuck to the Ratton Quay." He is familiar with their
aspect in brown autumn and bleak winter, not less than when spring has
set their choirs singing, or when summer is in prime. Often must he
have stood and watched the effects of spate and storm in his beloved
valleys, when, brown and turbid with the rains, or with "snowy wreathes
upchoked," "the burns came down and roared from bank to brae," and
"auld Ayr" itself became "one lengthened tumbling sea." Nor, after
seeing it through the poet's eyes, can we forget the moonlight scene of
frost and glamour in the "Twa Brigs," wherein, by a marvellous blending
of the real and the imaginary, the river spirits foot it featly over
the thin platform of the ice as it "creeps, gently-crusting, o'er the
glittering stream."

The description in "Hallowe'en" of the burn where "three lairds' lands
met," although Doon might claim it as applied especially to some spot
not far from where "fairies light on Cassilis Downans dance," might be
drawn as well from scores of nooks by the Ayr and its feeders:--

    "Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,
      As thro' the glen it wimpl't;
    Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays,
      Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;
    Whyles glitter'd in the nightly rays,
      Wi' bickerin', dancin' dazzle;
    Whyles cookit underneath the braes,
      Below the spreading hazel,
                    Unseen that nicht."

Many such might be discovered hidden even in the bare bleak moorlands,
bordering upon Clydesdale, where the Ayr has its source. Their brown
undulations, nowhere taking any boldness of form, and only in certain
lights any beauty of colouring, rise on one hand to the crown of
Cairntable, and on the other to Priesthill and its neighbour heights.
Stern and moving dramas have been enacted on these bleak hillsides.
Priesthill was the home of the "Christian carrier," John Brown, shot
beside his own door by Claverhouse's dragoons; and on Airds Moss, the
heathery ridge between Ayr and Lugar's mossy fountains, fell Richard
Cameron, the "Lion of the Covenant." If desolate, the district is no
longer lonely, for coalpits smoke at the taproots of the Ayr beside the
reservoirs that supply water to the mills and factories of Catrine; and
Muirkirk--the "Muirkirk of Kyle"--is a considerable village, with iron
and chemical works.

[Illustration: BALLOCHMYLE (_p. 334_).]

Through a cold moorish country the Ayr wanders to Sorn, a place not
easy to reach even now, when communication has improved so much since
the times when a Scottish king testily declared that if he wanted to
give "the devil a job" he would send him on a journey in winter to
Sorn. Here the face of the valley changes. It runs betwixt high and
wooded banks, often rising precipitously in great red cliffs, patched
with lichen and fern, and with birch and oak coppice growing in their
crannies, below which the strong dark current rushes tumultuously
over its shoals or eddies, and sleeps in its deep "wiels," or curves
majestically round the green margins of level "holms" or haughs. Wiel
and holm, crag and hanging wood, continue indeed to be characteristics
of the valley landscapes from this point almost to the sea; and, for
its short length of course, few streams, either of the Lowlands or
Highlands, or none, can compete with "winding Ayr" in the rich beauty
and romantic interest of its scenery.

[Illustration: THE AYR AT BARSKIMMING (_p. 334_).]

These features are blended in wonderful and picturesque variety where,
at the junction of the Cleuch burn, Sorn Castle looks down from its
rock upon the Ayr, with the parish church and the village in close
proximity. Here we come upon the footsteps of Peden the Covenanter,
who was born in this parish, and had his "cave" in the dell. Memories
of Burns, however, thrust those of the fierce withstander of the
"Godless" into the background even in his native parish. Catrine House,
beautifully placed among its woods on the left bank, is lower down; and
there the poet, as guest of Professor Dugald Stewart and his father,
first "dinnered with a lord"--had his first glimpse into that polite
and lettered society which, as many think, did as much harm as good
to the man and his genius. Catrine village, a model home of industry
ever since David Dale planted his spinning factories here more than
a century ago, is on the opposite side of the river; and adjoining
it, and skirting the stream, are the "braes of Ballochmyle," whose
picturesque beauties are worthy of their singer. And Ballochmyle, the
seat in Burns's time and our own of the Alexanders, brings us to the
environs of Mauchline, which, next to Ayr and Alloway and Dumfries, may
boast of being the locality most closely associated with the poet and
his muse. Mossgiel, where he farmed the stiff and thankless soil of the
"ridge of Kyle," is three miles behind the town, on high ground forming
the watershed between the Cessnock and the Ayr. There, as Wordsworth
sings, the pilgrim may find "the very field where Burns ploughed up the
daisy," and look far and wide over the undulating plain furrowed by
many a tuneful stream to where, "descried above sea-clouds, the peaks
of Arran rise." On the road leading down to the clean and thriving
little town below, Burns foregathered with Fun and her glum companions
on their way to Mauchline "Holy Fair." In the kirkyard one may find
the graves of "Daddy Auld" and of "Nance Tinnock." Close by, on the
site of the ancient priory that had Melrose as its mother house, Burns
wrote some of his best known lyrics; while opposite still stands the
change-house of "Poosie Nancy," whose fame has been made immortal by
the "Jolly Beggars." Jean Armour was the daughter of a local mason;
and other "Mauchline Belles," besides his "Bonnie Jean," attracted his
fickle fancy, and spurred his Muse to song. The best and the worst
memories of Robert Burns cling about Mauchline.

A mile from the town--a mile also below the railway viaduct that
bestrides the river--Ayr is joined by Lugar, and the united streams
flow in dark swirls under the picturesque arches of Barskimming Bridge
and along the margin of the pretty holm in which Burns is said to have
composed his "Man was Made to Mourn." The stretch of three or four
miles from this point down to Failford is perhaps the most beautiful
and romantic on the Ayr. The current alternately hurries and pauses
in its winding course, now between lofty crags of old red sandstone
or steep banks clad with hawthorn and bramble, now through umbrageous
woods of oak and beech coming down to the water's edge, or past the
skirts of flat green haughs.

Barskimming House, a square red mansion of last century, occupies a
noble and commanding position on a rock overlooking some of the deepest
pools of Ayr. Beside it, the river is spanned, high above its darkling
eddies, by an elegant balustrated bridge grey with age and green
with mosses. A mile below, the river path drawn athwart the stoop
brae-sides plunges by a tunnel through a great barrier of red rock that
rises sheer from the right bank, and openings in the cliff face give
glimpses of the rushing stream, and of the trees climbing the crags
opposite to where they are crowned by a mimic porticoed temple.

Hard by, on the Water of Fail, is the Castle o' Montgomerie, otherwise
known as Coilsfield House, where, according to some authorities,
Mary Campbell--"Highland Mary"--was dairymaid when Burns was farming
at Lochlea, behind the village of Tarbolton, whose "mote hill,"
high-standing parish church, and long village street, in which thatched
cottages still alternate with more modern dwellings, are only half
an hour's walk away. These "banks and braes and streams" will be
associated with this brief and somewhat obscure episode in the poet's
career until song itself is forgotten:--

    "Time but the impression stronger makes,
    As streams their channels deeper wear."

If we may trust his verse on the point, the last meeting of the lovers
was some trysting-place by the Ayr:--

    "Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore,
      Overhung with wild woods, thick'ning green;
    The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar
      Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene."

There are scores of spots near the inflow of the Fail to which the
description, in "My Mary in Heaven," of the place of meeting might,
apply. But tradition and the poet himself point to the lovely wooded
glen of the Fail as the scene of parting; and the very spot, beside a
rustic bridge, is shown.

With many a sweeping curve and abrupt elbow, the Ayr continues to
pursue its course by rock and wood and level meadow and factory chimney
to the sea; past Coilsholm and the "Dead Man's Holm," a name that may
preserve the memory of some otherwise forgotten battle; past Stair
village and Stair House, now neglected and forlorn, whence the noble
and gifted family of Dalrymple have taken their title; past Dalmore and
Enterkin, that early seat of the Cunninghames, and Annbank, where the
scene of Burns's "Fête Champêtre" is now obscured by colliery smoke;
by Gadsgirth also, whose mansion, standing on a coign of the southern
bank, was long the home of the old family of Chalmers; and on to where
the river is joined by the Coyle, whose "winding vale," were we to
trace it up, would lead us to the bold cliffs and cascades of Sundrum,
to Coylton and the "King's Steps," which, too, preserve traditions
of "Coil, king of the Britons," said to have been defeated on the
neighbouring uplands by "Fergus, king of the Picts and Scots"; and so
to the Crains of Kyle, where, among "the bonnie blooming heather," one
can look down upon the Doon.

[Illustration: AUCHENCRUIVE.]

[Illustration: _Photo: Bara, Ayr._

THE TWA BRIGS OF AYR (_p. 338_).]

The same scenery--the alternation of pool and shallow, of wood and
crag and meadow--continues along the great double curve which the main
stream makes past the grounds of Auchencruive. Each wiel and holm
has its own name and story; and the woods of Auchencruive, of Laiglan,
and of Craigie are full of legends of William Wallace, who here sought
shelter when hiding from his English foes, or meditating his attack on
the "Barns of Ayr." Auchencruive, so named from the natural trap dyke
which here crosses the river, has a Wallace "Seat" and "Cave." It is
said to have been a possession of a branch of the family of the "Knight
of Elderslie," but passed from them and from their successors, the
Cathcarts.

    "Sundrum shall sink, and Auchencruive shall fa',
    And the name o' Cathcart shall soon wear awa'."

From Burns's day to our own it has been held by the Oswalds. Craigie,
too, was for centuries a seat of the Wallaces; and it also has its cave
and its well, dedicated to the hero--the mark of his heel is still
pointed out on the platform of rock on which he jumped down, and whence
rushed, and still rushes, a pure spring of water. And among the trees
of Laiglan, Burns tells us that he spent a summer-day tracing the
footsteps of the patriot, and in vision saw him "brandish round the
deep-dyed steel in sturdy blows."

[Illustration: THE DAM AT AYR.]

From the summit of these high banks delightful glimpses are had,
through the trees, of the ancient burgh of Ayr. "Low in a sandy valley
spread"; with spires, towers? and factory stalks rising above the
greenery and the masses of houses; its broad and rushing river in the
midst of it, crossed by bridges old and new; behind these the sweep of
the Bay of Ayr, and, as background towards the south, the dark ridge
of Brown Carrick Hill ending seaward in the bold front of the Heads of
Ayr--the town shows bravely from a distance. Nor does a nearer view
destroy the impression which it makes, especially as seen from the
leafy margin of the stream, across the still expanse of the Dam, or
from the Railway Bridge. Lower down are the historic arches of the "Twa
Brigs" that unite the original Ayr with its northern suburbs of Newtown
and Wallacetown. The poet's prophecy, as the citizens noted with
ill-concealed delight, has been, at least in part, fulfilled. The Auld
Brig, "the very wrinkles Gothic in its face," still stands, although
reserved for foot-passengers alone; its younger rival, giving way
prematurely to the assaults of time and flood, has had to be rebuilt:

    "I'll be a brig when ye're a shapeless cairn."

Near the approaches of the Auld Brig are congregated what remains
of the old Ayr houses--a diminishing company, as town improvements
break in and sweep away narrow closes and grim dwellings with
high-pitched roofs and crow-stepped gables; below it are the harbour
and the shipping. Of what was memorable and historic in Old Ayr--its
monasteries of the Black and the Grey Friars; its castle, where kings
and parliaments sat in council; its ancient church, dedicated to St.
John the Baptist, wherein great Kirk controversies have been held, and
Knox and other Reformers have preached--all have disappeared except the
tower of St. John, and even it was reft of its gables last century "to
give it a more modern appearance." Cromwell, to make room for his fort,
cleared away church and castle; and the fort itself has followed in its
turn.

The high places of Ayr are of more modern date; and chief among them,
perhaps, are the Wallace Tower, the imposing front of the Joint Railway
Station, and the Hospital and the Poorhouse, heirs and successors
of the Lepers' Home, endowed by The Bruce in gratitude for the ease
yielded to him by the waters of St. Helen's Well at "King's-ease." The
handsome Town Hall was destroyed by fire in 1897. Round the margin
of the town, especially in the direction of the Doon, are streets of
handsome villas and open spaces shaded by trees; and the place grows
and thrives steadily if slowly. But, more than of its architecture, Ayr
is proud of its sons and daughters:--

    "Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a toon surpasses,
    For honest men and bonnie lasses."

The "auld clay biggin" where, in wild January weather, Burns first saw
the light, is two or three miles outside the burgh, close to the Doon
and to the haunted Kirk of Alloway. Within the thatched and whitewashed
cottage--the shrine of crowds of pilgrims, whose numbers grow with
the years--is a little museum of Burns mementoes and curiosities;
and the beautiful monument of the poet, a temple raised on lofty
fluted columns, overlooks the scene. The road thither leads past the
racecourse on the way to Maybole, and crosses the romantic wooded
dell through which flows the Water of Doon, by the Auld Brig, the
senior by some years of the Brig of Ayr itself. Across its keystone
young Robin often trudged on his way to school, after the family had
removed to Mount Oliphant, two miles off on the Carrick side. In the
churchyard his father, whose portrait is so grandly painted in "The
Cotter's Saturday Night," is buried. The "cairn above the well," the
"winnock-bunker in the east," and other places mentioned in the tale of
Tam o' Shanter's ride, are still pointed out in or near the roofless
and ivy-clad kirk. The neighbourhood is haunted by the strong and
familiar spirit of Robert Burns.

[Illustration: _Photo: Bara, Ayr._

THE DOON: THE NEW AND THE AULD BRIG.]

Having lingered so long on the Ayr, we can only spare time to glance up
"Bonnie Doon," although its charms are scarce less many and celebrated
than those of its twin river. Like the Ayr, the channel of its lower
course is carved boldly and deeply into the land. It flows, in pool or
shallow, under impending crags and steep banks clothed with coppice
and greenwood, or past the margin of fertile haughs. It has its ruined
castles and venerable mansion houses, its picturesque old kirks and
bridges and mills, and its rich dowry of tradition and song. Like its
neighbour, too, the Doon draws its strength from waste and solitary
places; only, its cradle is in barer and wilder scenes, and is haunted
by wilder legends, than are to be found about the headsprings of Ayr.
Its windings would bring us to Auchendrane, the home of James Muir,
"The Grey Man," as gruesome a villain as ever figured in history or
romance; to the woods and cliffs and walls of Cassilis, the seat of
the head of the Kennedys--those most unruly of the unruly men of
Garrick--whence Johnnie Faa, the Gipsy, stole away the lady, and
where he and his men afterwards dangled from the "Dool Tree"; to many
a spot beside, famous in song and legend, until, through long bare
moorlands on which mineral works and villages have intruded, we come,
past Dalmellington, to the solitary shores of Loch Doon, its tunnelled
outlet, its islands and old castle of the Baliols; and beyond it, to
the high green hills of Galloway now rising over against the dark
heathery slopes of the Carrick fells. And so we reach the sources of
the stream under the brow of Merrick in the desolate wilderness of
granite and peat-moss that surrounds Loch Enoch and the "Wolf's Slock,"
a region the wildest in the South of Scotland, where Mr. Crockett has
found the scenery of his "Raiders" and his "Men of the Moss Hags."

    /John Geddie./

[Illustration: AYRMOUTH.]




THE CLYDE.

    Clydesdale and its Waters--"The Hill of Fire"--Douglasdale--"Castle
    Dangerous"--Bonnington Linn--Corra Linn and "Wallace's
    Tower"--Lanark--The Mouse Water--Stonebyres Linn--The Nethan
    and "Tillietudlem"--"The Orchard of Scotland"--Hamilton and its
    Palace--Cadzow Castle and its Associations--Bothwell Brig and
    Castle--Blantyre--Cambuslang--Rutherglen--Glasgow: The City and
    its History--The Quays, Docks, and Shipbuilding Yards--The Work
    of the Clyde Navigation Trust--Govan and Partick--The White
    Cart--Dumbarton Rock and Castle--The Leven Valley--Ben and Loch
    Lomond--Greenock--Gourock--The Firth at Eventide.


Glasgow City has, as its chief armorial device, a tree of massive trunk
and wide-spreading branches. The minor symbols, of bird and bell and
fish, have lost their old significance. The salmon no longer ventures
so far up the labour-stained waters of the Clyde as Glasgow Green. No
more the monkish bell sounds to matins and vespers on the banks of the
Molendinar Burn, now turned by man's improving hand into a main sewer.
The sooty street-sparrow, almost alone among the feathered tribe, is at
home under the great city's pall of smoke.

But more than ever the stately and flourishing tree is an apt
similitude, not only of the little cathedral town that has grown to be,
as its inhabitants proudly boast, the "Second City of the Empire," but
also of the stream that has nurtured it to greatness. The Clyde, if
it is not the longest of course or the largest of volume of Scottish
streams, is beyond all comparison the most important from the point of
view of industry and commerce. Within its basin are contained something
like one-third of the population and half of the wealth and traffic of
the Northern Kingdom. Between Dumbarton Rock and the sources of the
infant Clyde we are carried from the busiest hives of labour and marts
of trade to green or heathy solitudes, whose silence is only broken by
the bleat of the sheep and the cry of the muirfowl.

Harking back to the figure of the tree of goodly stem and spread of
limb, one has to observe that it is not by any means upon the largest
of the branches that immemorial usage has fixed the name of the Clyde.
According to the popular saying--

    "Tweed, Annan, and Clyde,
    A' rise in ae hillside."

But this description of the source applies only to the "Clyde's Burn,"
whose valley the main line of the Caledonian Railway ascends, on its
way by Beattock Summit into Annandale. When the Clyde's Burn has
run its half-dozen miles and met, above Elvanfoot, the Daer Water,
coming from a height of over 2,000 feet, on the slopes of the Gana and
Earncraig Hills, the latter has already flowed a course more than
twice the length; and there are other tributaries--the Powtrail and the
Elvan, for instance, draining the eastern slopes of the wild hills,
veined with lead-ore, that on the other side command the valley of the
Nith--which might successfully compete, as the source of the Clyde,
with the modest little runlet, issuing from the shoulder of Clyde's
Law, that overlooks Tweed's Well.

[Illustration: ONE OF THE SOURCES OF THE CLYDE.]

A "sea of hills," green or heather clad, is the whole of this region
of Clydesdale, forming the districts of Crawford, Crawfordjohn, and
adjoining parishes. It is rolled into great waves--not, however, as Sir
Archibald Geikie remarks, steep and impending like those that darken
the Highland glens, but rounded and smooth like the swell of the
ocean subsiding after a storm. On either hand streams innumerable have
hollowed out their channels--"hopes" and "gills" and "cleuchs"--in the
heart of the hills; and the clear or brown waters tumble merrily over
rock and shingle, or skirt the edges of peat-moss or pasture land on
their way to reinforce the Clyde. Bare and bleak are these landscapes,
as a rule. But there are not wanting fairylike nooks and glades, as
well as scenes of sterner beauty. The watersides are often fringed
with a natural growth of birch and oak and alder; and on the hillsides
are thriving plantations or groups of ash and rowan, sheltering the
infrequent farmhouse or shepherd's cottage. Only at the headstreams of
the Glengonnar Water, under the "Green Lowther," have smoky industries
broken in upon these pastoral and moorish solitudes of the Upper Ward:
for at Leadhills, as at the neighbouring village of Wanlockhead, across
the watershed, lead-ore is still worked and smelted in considerable
quantity, although the gold mines of this and other parts of Crawford
Moor, once the objects of kingly quest and solicitude, have long been
abandoned.

[Illustration: THE CLYDE.]

By the sites of old camps and mote-hills, by grey peels and kirkyards,
and clachans and mansion-houses, past Tower Lindsay, looking across
from its mound and its grove of lichened plane and oak trees to the
tiny barony burgh of Crawford; past the desolate little God's acre
of St. Constantine, or Kirkton, where lies the dust of Jane Welsh
Carlyle's mother, of the gipsy kin, of the Baillies; past the woods and
lawns and pretty red hamlet of Abington, runs the Water of Clyde until,
beside the fragment of Lamington Tower--the heritage, if tradition may
be credited, of the wife of William Wallace--it brings us fairly under
the shadow of Tinto.

This "Hill of Fire" spreads its skirts through four parishes, whose
boundaries meet at the huge cairn of stones on its crest--the site of
old beacon fires, perhaps of Druid altars. It is the sentinel height of
Upper Clydesdale. Few hills in Southern Scotland are so isolated or
command so wide and glorious a prospect. Its porphyritic mass seems to
be set in the very jaws of the Upper Vale; and between Lamington and
the mouth of the Douglas Water--little more than six miles as the crow
flies--the Clyde meanders through low-lying haughs and holmlands, by
Covington and Carstairs and Hyndford Bridge, for a distance of twenty
miles and more round the base of Tinto and its subject hills. From the
summit, on a clear day, one can descry the Bass Rock and Goat Fell, and
even the hills of Cumberland and Ireland, besides portions of nearly a
score of Scottish counties.

[Illustration: DOUGLAS CASTLE.]

Over against it to the eastward rises Cutler Fell and, divided from
the latter by the rich plain of Biggar, the heights of Bizzyberry and
Quothquan, scenes of the exploits of William Wallace. Its northern
slopes all drain into the Douglas Water. The moorland pastures that
enclose Douglasdale spread away towards Cairn Table and the Ayrshire
border; and from the nearer buttresses of Tinto glimpses are had, in
the valley below, of the smoke from its coalfield and of the woods that
surround the "Castle Dangerous" of history and romance.

The story of the House of Douglas may be read on the walls and on the
floor of the church of St. Bride of Douglas, of which there remains
only the spire and the choir, lately restored by the latest heir and
representative of the Douglas line, Lord Dunglass, the eldest son of
the Earl of Home. In its precincts, on Palm Sunday, 1307, took place
that memorable struggle between the "good Sir James" of Douglas and
his adherents, and the English garrison of Sir John de Walton, who
undertook, for the winning of his lovesuit, the perilous emprise of
holding the castle of the Douglases against its rightful master. Here,
enclosed in what we are told is a silver casket, placed under glass
in the floor of the church above the Douglas vault, is the heart of
the great warrior and patriot himself, brought home after he had lost
his life among the Paynim hosts of Spain while seeking to carry the
Bruce's heart to the Holy Land. His recumbent cross-legged effigy is
one of the most ancient of the monuments to his kin who lie in the
church of St. Bride; among these being "Archibald Bell the Cat," and
Archibald the second and James the third Dukes of Touraine, the sons
of "Earl Tineman." Hither came Sir Walter Scott, with Lockhart in his
company, on his last sad pilgrimage of romance, when the shadows of the
grave had already begun to gather about himself and his right hand was
already losing its cunning.

[Illustration: _Photo: A. Brown & Co., Lanark._

BONNINGTON LINN.]

Along the waterside for miles below Douglas extend the magnificent
woods and gardens and "policies" of Lord Home's estate, enclosing the
grand castellated mansion of Douglas Castle--although this is but a
fraction of the vast edifice begun by the last Duke of Douglas; the
vestiges of the old "Tower Perilous"; the three artificial lakes, and
spots that speak so plainly of the wars of old and of the rough deeds
of the Douglases as the "Bloody Sykes," the "Bottomless Mire," and the
artificial mound of the "Boncastle."

Just where it meets the Douglas Water, the Clyde makes a sharp and
momentous turn. It reaches the romantic crisis in its career, and
tumbles headlong over the Falls of Clyde. It leaves its youth behind it
as it passes the turning-point, and makes its plunge over Bonnington
Linn. Hitherto its flow has been placid or rippling; it has been the
clear-flowing Clyde Water of song and ballad, winding among lone places
of the hills, washing the bases of Roman camps or feudal peels, or
skirting leisurely the edges of fertile meadows or rough pastures,
browsed by sheep and cattle. The sound and stir of labour have not
greatly disturbed it; there have been no busy seats of industry near
its banks. But from its great ordeal it comes forth a stream with a
changed character and destiny; not less attractive in itself and its
surroundings--for a time, indeed, it gains in beauty--but with the
sober pace and growing burden of middle life upon it, gathering, as it
moves seaward, more and more of the stains and defilements of human
toil--the black trickles from the Lanarkshire coalfield, and the sewage
of busy towns and villages--until it becomes a muddy and ill-smelling
current, flowing between ranks of tenements and ranges of factory
chimneys.

In the three miles and three-quarters of its course beginning at
Bonnington, the Clyde descends a depth of 260 feet, leaping again
and again, and yet again, over sheer walls of rock, boiling in pools
and pot-holes, and brawling over boulder and shingle bed, between
mural cliffs of old red sandstone or high banks clothed with wood or
diversified by parks and orchards. In the remaining forty or fifty
miles of its journey, before it becomes finally merged in the salt
water, its fall is only 170 feet.

[Illustration: _Photo: A. Brown & Co., Lanark._

CORRA LINN.]

Clyde's first plunge, at the Bonnington, or Boniton, Linn, is the
least deep and impressive of the three; and by comparison with the
scenes below, the surroundings of the spot where the river takes its
leap are open and bare. The water falls sheer over a precipice into a
deep cauldron 30 feet below, and is broken in its descent only by a
projecting rock in the middle. Thence it churns and eddies and boils
between the lofty walls of sandstone overhung by wood, and draped
wherever there is hold for root and fibre by trees and undergrowth,
to meet a greater catastrophe at Corra Linn. At this the grandest of
Scotland's waterfalls--"Clyde's most majestic daughter"--the stream
flings itself down from a height of 84 feet, in a tumultuous white
mass of foam, the falling body of water being broken and torn in its
descent by many sharp ledges and points of rock. In time of spate,
especially when the sun shines and wreathes rainbows in the smoke of
mist and spray that rises from the fall, the scene is indescribably
grand. The deafening roar of the angry waters, the loveliness of the
rock and sylvan scenery in which they are set, deepen beyond measure
the impression which these Falls of Clyde make on the mind and
imagination. The wealth of foliage--bracken, broom, sloe, and wild
flowers of many kinds, as well as tall forest trees--drapes what would
otherwise be the savage nakedness of the spot with hues and forms
of beauty; and there is no lack of the shady "ell-wide walks" which
Wordsworth so much appreciated, winding from one to another coign of
vantage on the riverside. Nor is there wanting the charm of romantic
and historical association:--

                        "The deeds
    Of Wallace, like a family of ghosts,
    People the steep rocks and the river banks,
    Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul
    Of independence and stern liberty."

[Illustration: _Photo: A. Brown & Co., Lanark._

ROMAN BRIDGE NEAR LANARK (_p. 351_).]

"Wallace's Tower" helped to inspire the poet of the "Excursion" at
sight of Corra Linn:--

    "Lord of the vale! astounding Flood!
    The dullest leaf in this thick wood
    Quakes--conscious of thy power;
    The caves reply with hollow moan;
    And vibrates to its central stone
    Yon time-cemented Tower."

There is also a "Wallace Chair" below Corra Linn; and in Bonnington
House, whose beautiful grounds, to which the public have access, occupy
the right bank of the river opposite both of these upper falls, there
are relics of the hero who made Lanark and the Linns of Clyde one of
his chief haunts.

Quite other memories--those of David Dale, "herd-boy, hawker,
manufacturer, turkey-red dyer, banker, and evangelist," and of his
partner and son-in-law, Robert Owen--linger about the wheels and
chimney-stacks of New Lanark, those celebrated cotton mills which were
established, in days before steam had robbed water-power of great part
of its workaday functions, for the purpose of carrying out a noble
experiment in industry and philanthropy. And Braxfield, still lower
down the stream, recalls to us the name and rural tastes--surely, not
without a redeeming touch of grace and romance--of that Hanging Judge,
the Jeffreys of the Scottish bench, whom Robert Louis Stevenson has
immortalised as the Lord Justice Clerk in "Weir of Hermiston."

But the Castle Hill and streets of the "ancient burgh of Lanark"--now
close by, on the table-land above the river--bring back our thoughts
to "Wallace wight" and to lawless and troublous times. The site of the
old Royal Castle, which had harboured kings and stood sieges, is now
occupied by a bowling green. Lanark Moor, where armies have mustered in
the cause of the Douglases or the Stuarts, of King or Covenant, is in
peaceful possession of golf and horse-racing. In the Castlegait is the
site of the house where, according to a cherished tradition over which
the duller Muse of History shakes the head, lived Marion Bradfute, that
heiress of Lamington whom Wallace took to wife, and whom he so terribly
avenged when Hazelrig, the sheriff and governor of Lanark Castle, had
slain her for giving harbourage to the hero.

The valley below Lanark gradually opens up into the fruitful "Trough
of the Clyde," and becomes beautifully diversified by fertile fields,
by woods and lawns, and by cottages surrounded by orchard trees, that
in spring are overspread with the tinted and perfumed snow of the
apple-blossom. From the right the Mouse Water flows into Clyde through
the savage chasm of the Cartland Crags--opposing walls and pinnacles
of rock, crowned and seamed with wood, that have apparently been riven
apart to allow scant passage for the turbid little moorland stream
that brawls over the sandstone reefs and ledges in the green obscurity
below. Still the ghost of Wallace flits before us, for in the jaws of
the Cartland defile, close to Telford's handsome bridge over the Mouse,
is the champion's Cave, and perched on the summit of the cliffs is
the "Castle of the Quaw," associated in legend with his deeds. Another
arch spanning the Mouse--the Roman Bridge at Cleghorn--has associations
much more ancient; it marks the spot where Watling Street, which
traversed Clydesdale and crossed Lanark Moor on its way from Carlisle
to Antonine's Wall, passed the brawling little stream.

Stonebyres Linn, the last of the three great leaps of Clyde, is
somewhat more than a mile below Lanark Bridge, and close to the road
that holds down the left bank of the stream to Crossford, Dalserf, and
Hamilton. It has not the romantic surroundings of Corra Linn. But the
fall of water descending headlong over rocky ledges in a dizzy plunge
into the "Salmon Pool"--the "thus far and no farther" of the lordly
fish that once swarmed in the Clyde--has by many been adjudged more
graceful, if less majestic, than the upper linn. Two miles further on
comes in the Nethan, winding through its wooded strath under the base
of Craignethan Castle. It is the Tillietudlem of "Old Mortality," the
name being probably borrowed by Scott from "Gullietudlem," a ravine
adjacent to Corra Linn. It was a stronghold of the Hamiltons; and, with
its strong position on a steep peninsulated bluff between the Nethan
and a tributary burn, its moat, and its massive walls and towers of
hewn stone, of which a goodly portion yet keep its place, it must when
first built have been well-nigh impregnable. The traditional tale is
that the Scottish monarch of the time, taking alarm at the portentous
and threatening strength, rewarded the builder and owner--the "Bastard
of Arran"--by hanging him betimes as a suspected rebel. The chief
incident in its annals is the stay made at Craignethan by Mary Stuart
before fortune went finally against her at Langside. More vividly do
the frowning keep, the crumbling vaults, the ivy-clad garden walls,
and the steep copse-clad dells and braes, recall to our minds Lady
Margaret Bellenden sitting down to "disjeune" in the chamber of daïs,
Jenny Dennison scalding the too-adventurous Cuddie Headrigg with the
porridge, Henry Morton before the Council, and Burley lurking like a
wounded wolf in his cave.

From this point downward the stream of Clyde, as it winds towards
Glasgow through the centre of the great coal and iron field that has
fed the wealth of the city and the commerce of the river, becomes more
and more closely beset by the great armies of industry. For a time
they still keep at a respectful distance; their camp fires--pillars of
flame by night and of cloud by day--rising from furnace chimney and
pit head on the high ground enclosing the "Trough of the Clyde." Up
there, in an intricate network of railway lines, are busy and growing
towns and villages sending forth their smoke to overshadow the valley,
and pouring down into it, by a score of tributary streams, the lees
and pollutions of labour and of crowded urban life. But for a while
the sheltered haughs and sloping banks of the Clyde still deserve the
name of the "Orchard of Scotland." The drumlie gills and burns, that
higher up have drained moss hags and skirted mounds of slag and mean
rows of miners' cottages, break into the central valley through bosky
and craggy dells, and through acres of fruit trees and the woods and
lawns of stately mansion houses, or past venerable parish churches or
fragments of old castles, to join the Clyde. There are such fine sweeps
of river as those, for instance, that skirt the grounds of Mauldslie
Castle, and wind round Dalserf, before the now broad and full stream
takes a straighter course under Dalserf Bridge, past Cambusnethan,
towards Dalziel and Hamilton.

[Illustration: STONEBYRES LINN (_p. 351_).]

All these names invite the down-stream wayfarer to pause and survey
the beauties of Clydesdale. But the spot of really commanding interest
is Hamilton, the centre for four or five centuries of the power
of the great family of Hamilton, that succeeded to so much of the
dominion and influence owned by the Douglases in the valley of the
Clyde. The haughlands here spread out to a truly noble width; and
the lawns and parks that surround the chief seat of the Dukes of
Hamilton, and stretch down to the right bank of the river and extend
along its windings from Hamilton Bridge down to Bothwell Bridge, have
space enough to give an air of grandeur and seclusion to the scene,
spite of the crowding around it of a modern workaday world. For the
town of Hamilton is at the very gate of the palace; and over against
the low parks and the racecourse by the riverside rise sheaves of
chimney-stacks, crowned with smoke, that proclaim the neighbourhood
of Motherwell and other grimy haunts of the Lanarkshire coal and iron
industries.

From the plain white baronial house of "The Orchard," built in 1591
and set among its pleasant fruit trees, Hamilton Palace has spread
and risen into one of the princeliest piles in the land. Its long and
lofty façade, adorned with Corinthian columns, overlooks its parterres
and flower gardens; the grand mausoleum of the Hamiltons, built--at a
cost, it is said, of £150,000--in the style of the castle of San Angelo
at Rome; and the spacious parks, dotted with trees, that slope gently
towards the margin of Clyde.

The soul of Hamilton Palace has departed since the sale in 1881 of
the unrivalled collection of pictures, books, and rare works of art,
brought together by the taste and wealth of Beckford, the author of
"Vathek," and of successive dukes. With this removal the centre of
interest seems once more to have shifted to the further side of the
busy burgh, where, in the High Parks adjoining the original seat of
the Hamilton family, the "crumbled halls" of Cadzow Castle, are to be
found the yet more venerable remains of the Caledonian Forest--huge
gnarled and decayed boles of ancient oaks, sadly thinned by latter-day
gales--and the survivors of what are supposed to be the native breed of
wild white cattle.

When Queen Mary escaped from Lochleven, she fled for shelter and
aid to her kinsfolk at Cadzow. A few years later, as Scott's ballad
rehearses, another refugee spurred thither--Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh,
after assassinating the Regent Moray in the street of Linlithgow. The
Magician waves his wand and restores the scene, by Avon side, as it was
more than three centuries ago:--

    "Where, with the rock's wood-cover'd side
      Were blended late the ruins green,
    Rose turrets in fantastic pride,
      And feudal banners flaunt between.

    "Where the rude torrent's brawling course
      Was shagged with thorn and tangled sloe,
    The ashlar buttress braves its force,
      And ramparts frown in battled row."

A hundred years later, when Cadzow was already abandoned and in decay,
the victorious Covenanting force which had defeated the dragoons
of Claverhouse at Drumelog, on the dreary moorland slopes near the
sources of the Avon, marched down this waterside--the Evandale of
"Old Mortality"--on their way to make their bold but luckless attempt
on Glasgow. Soon after they were back again in this neighbourhood in
force, preparing to resist, with what disastrous results is well known,
the passage of Monmouth's Royalist troops across Bothwell Brig:--

    "Where Bothwell Bridge connects the margin steep,
    And Clyde below runs silent, strong, and deep,
    The hardy peasant, by oppression driven
    To battle, deemed his cause the cause of Heaven;
    Unskilled in arms, with useless courage stood,
    While gentle Monmouth grieved to shed his blood."

So writes the author of "The Clyde"; and in spite of the beauty of
the scene, the old associations of Bothwell Brig and its vicinity are
with broil and wrong and bloodshed. Below the scene of Monmouth's
victory are sylvan banks consecrated to the memory of forsaken love--"O
Bothwell bank, thou bloomest fair!" And lower down, facing each other
from vantage ground on opposite sides of the stream, are the grand
ruins of old Bothwell Castle and the remains of Blantyre Priory.

Between these two sentinels of the past--the crumbling but still
massive feudal towers of the Douglases on their bold green bank,
and the meagre fragment of the monastic house perched on its red
sandstone cliff--runs the smooth deep current of the Clyde, inspiring,
as Wordsworth has said, "thoughts more in harmony with the sober and
stately images of former times, than if it had roared over a rocky
channel, and forced its sound upon the ear." The castle, both from the
mass and height of its huge walls and round towers and turrets, and
from its situation, is still magnificent in its decay. It has had many
masters, among them that Aymer de Valence who held Clydesdale for the
English and planned the capture of Wallace. Edward I. and Edward III.
have sojourned in it. But its best remembered owners are the Black
Douglases. They swore indifferently by "St. Bride of Bothwell" and by
"St. Bride of Douglas." In the beautiful choir of the old collegiate
church, now forming part of the church of the parish, reposes the dust
of chiefs of the name; and descendants of the old race still hold the
lands and woods around Bothwell Castle. In St. Bride's too, in 1400,
a couple of years after its erection, took place in an "unhappy hour"
the fateful marriage between David, Duke of Rothesay, and Marjory, the
daughter of "Archibald the Grim," Earl of Douglas. A more pleasant
association with Bothwell Church is the birth, in the manse here,
of Joanna Baillie, the poetess, who has preserved in her verse fond
remembrances of the "bonnie braes" and "sunny shallows" of the Clyde,
where she spent her childhood.

[Illustration: _Photo: F. W. Bergman, Hamilton._

BOTHWELL CASTLE.]

The left, or Blantyre, bank of Clyde also has its "stately images of
the past." The barony, which had belonged to Randolph and to "Black
Agnes of Dunbar," fell, with the Priory lands, to Walter Stewart,
the first Baron Blantyre, James VI.'s old classfellow and favourite,
whose descendant still bears the title. Blantyre Priory had in its
day sheltered Wallace. They will show you the rock, one of many, from
which, in legend, the patriot leaped to escape his enemies. It was
a daughter-house of the Abbey of Jedburgh, which, like other great
Tweedside monasteries, had a retreat in the Clyde, when invading armies
crossed the Border. Now the rifled and wasted monk's nest is itself
besieged by the clamorous army of labour. In a nook by the waterside,
between it and Bothwell Bridge, David Dale and John Monteith planted
their calico-printing and turkey-red works--those Blantyre mills
which have since thriven so mightily, and under whose shadow David
Livingstone was born. Blantyre village grows to a town on the bank
above, and behind are the pit shafts of High Blantyre, reminding us
of one of the saddest of colliery catastrophes.

[Illustration: _Photo: T. & R. Annan & Son, Glasgow._

GLASGOW UNIVERSITY (_p. 358_).]

[Illustration: THE BROOMIELAW LANDING-STAGE.]

Escaping from the shadow of Bothwell's braes, our river flows smoothly
on between widening haughs and opening prospects within sight of
Uddington, where Glasgow has planted a colony of villas, by a long
serpentine sweep past the parks and trees of Dalbowie, and so under
the steep wooded bluff of Kenmuir, long renowned for its wild flowers
and its "Wedding Well," to Carmyle, a hamlet that still, in spite
of the close neighbourhood of the great city, retains something of
rural quaintness and simplicity in its rushing mill-dams and its
climbing garden plots. Cambuslang is only a mile below, but on the
other or southern bank, along a reach of river beautifully fringed by
trees--Cambuslang, with its high-placed church tower, its Kirkton burn
bickering down its ravine past the golf-course and the amphitheatre
where Whitfield uplifted his voice in the great "Revival Wark" of
1742; and with Rosebank, the home of David Dale, on the river front,
shouldered by dye works and neighboured by the fine new railway bridge
over the Clyde.

The high ground behind "Cam's'lang," as those name it who know it, is a
convenient coign from whence to survey the myriad spires and chimneys
of Glasgow; for the river makes only a few more great sweeps through
a plain where pleasure-grounds alternate with public works, before
reaching Rutherglen--the senior and once the rival of Glasgow--and the
Green itself, and disappearing into St. Mungo's wilderness of houses
and canopy of smoke.

Passing strange it is to one who gazes down from Dechmont Hill or
from the Cathkin Braes upon the Clyde losing itself in the murky
depths of the great city, whose fog and reek and densely packed
masses of dwellings seem to fill the valley, to reflect that the spot
was originally chosen as a place suitable for seclusion and calm
meditation; that so late as the period of the Reformation Glasgow
was a country town of three or four thousand people. How much of
the legendary story of St. Kentigern is founded on fact, none can
positively say. But we can certainly believe that he came here and
preached to the heathen Britons of Strathclyde, whose capital,
Dumbarton, was not far off, and whose "high places" were on the
neighbouring hills; that he gathered disciples about him, and founded
a monastery, after the old Columban rule, on the slopes beside the
clear Molendinar Burn, something more than a mile above its confluence
with the waters of Clyde. His shrine is still the centre of the "Laigh
Kirk," or crypt of the Cathedral, and is, indeed, the nucleus around
which have grown not only the ancient and beautiful church, but also
the vast modern city that bears the name of Mungo "the Beloved." It is
the seed out of which Glasgow has grown.

A map of Glasgow in the early part of the seventeenth century shows
it to have then consisted of little more than two streets crossing
each other--one running at right angles to and the other parallel with
the course of the Clyde--together with a few tributary vennels and
closes, and with "kailyards" rendering upon the open fields. The former
thoroughfare, as the Saltmarket and High Street, climbed the slope to
the Metropolitan Church and the Bishop's Castle; the other diverged
to right and left as the Gallowgait and the Trongait, which latter
extended as far as the precincts of the church, croft, and well of St.
Tenu--transmogrified by time and wear into St. Enoch's--in the line of
the present Argyll Street. At the intersection were the Mercat Cross
and the Tolbooth, prison and council chamber in one. The Cross was,
accordingly, the centre of the commerce and of the municipal authority
of Old Glasgow. The venerable Tolbooth and Cross Steeples still look
down upon a busy scene. Still are they redolent of the memories of the
citizens and the burgh life of former times: spite of change, they
continue to be haunted by the spirit of Bailie Nicol Jarvie picking his
way along the street, accompanied by his lass and lantern, to visit
Francis Osbaldistone behind prison walls, and of Captain Paton's Nelly
bringing an ingredient of that hero's punch from the West Port Well.

Halfway between the Cross and the Cathedral, on the west side of a
thoroughfare which three hundred years ago was accounted spacious and
even stately, were the old College Buildings, where the University,
founded in 1450, was housed until, a quarter of a century ago, the
intrusion of the railway and other considerations made it flit to more
splendid and salubrious quarters at Gilmorehill.

In this oldest core of Old Glasgow, there are but few relics left of
its buildings mid monuments of early times. The Cathedral is the chief;
and, happily, the grey shape of this grand old Gothic pile remains to
put to shame even the finest of the modern edifices of which Glasgow
is so proud. It is, like most other minsters, of many dates; but there
is great harmony as well as dignity both in its exterior and interior
aspect, its style being mainly that of the First Pointed, or Early
Decorated, period. Only a fragment, in the crypt or lower church, is
supposed to remain of the building with which Bishop Joscelin 700
years ago replaced the previous edifice of wood. Within, the solemn
grandeur of the lofty groined roof, and the long receding array of
arches of the nave, chancel, and choir of the High Kirk, with the
perspective closed by the magnificent east window, awe all beholders.
But still more impressive are the wonderful clusters of pillars,
the low-browed arches, and the dim and obscure "religious light" of
the crypt underneath. "There are finer minsters in the kingdom than
Glasgow," says Dr. Marshall Lang, the present minister of the Barony
Parish, "but there is none with a finer crypt." In the centre of the
darkling maze is the shrine of St. Mungo, the position of which, in the
sloping ground falling eastward towards the Molendinar, is the key to
the construction of the church. After the Reformation, the crypt became
the Laigh Barony Church before there was set up, in the Cathedral
green without, what Dr. Norman Macleod, one of its later incumbents,
called "the Temple of Ugliness," which has in its turn given place to
the handsome structure that is the parish church of the old Bishop's
Barony. The famous Dr. Zachary Boyd--he who, in the High Church above,
railed at Cromwell to his face--was minister for nearly thirty years in
the Laigh Barony; and from behind its pillars Rob Roy spoke his warning
word into the ears of the English stranger.

[Illustration: THE CLYDE AT GLASGOW.]

While Time and reforming zeal--aided by the voices and pikes of
the citizens of the day--have spared to us St. Mungo's Church, the
fortress-like Bishop's Palace and the "Manses" of the thirty prebends
and other ecclesiastics have been swept away, along with memorials
of earlier and later date; St. Roche's Chapel, in the fields to the
north, now flaunts a smoky pennon as St. Rollox; the high ground of
the "Craigs," or the "Fir Park," across the once limpid trouting
burn--where St. Columba is fabled to have met St. Kentigern--is covered
with the thicket of headstones and obelisks of the Necropolis, grouped
about Knox's monument, and holds the dust of some of the host and most
distinguished of Glasgow's sons; the Molendinar itself has been buried
from sight and smell--none too soon.

[Illustration: PARTICK (_p. 363_).]

Returning to the lower end of what was once the main thoroughfare of
the Glasgow of old, the Briggait--once a busy centre of the city's
commerce--led to the riverside and what was long the sole bridge
connecting the north and south banks of the Clyde. Stockwell Street
also gave access to it from the Trongait. Only in the early 'fifties
was the ancient stone structure, which had stood for five centuries
and which figures prominently in old views of Glasgow from the Clyde,
replaced by the present Victoria Bridge. Nine other bridges, including
two suspension bridges for foot-passengers and three great railway
viaducts, now span the stream within the city bounds. All of them have
sprung up within the last fifty years; and the traffic between bank
and bank has required, besides, the burrowing under the river-bed of
subways and underground lines, and the connection of bank and bank by
steam and other ferries. Chief among these bridges, as channels of
commerce and intercourse--what London Bridge is to the Metropolis--is
the "roaring lane" of the Jamaica Street Bridge. The fine structure
immediately below it, which carries the Caledonian line across from the
Bridge Street to the Central Station, marks the limits of navigation
for all but the smaller kind of river-craft; for here Clyde may be said
to merge into Glasgow Harbour, and a new and almost last chapter in
its career opens at the Broomielaw.

[Illustration: PAISLEY (_p. 366_).]

There was a time when Rutherglen reckoned itself a seaport, and when
fishermen drew shoals of salmon from the clear-flowing Clyde, and
spread their nets on Glasgow Green. Such sights have long ceased to be
witnessed; and the Camlachie Burn no longer wimples in the face of day
between alder-covered banks through the flat riverside meadow to join
the Molendinar and the Clyde. But "the Green" remains the most famous
and most prized of the city's open spaces: it is the central "lung"
of Glasgow. If not in fashionable surroundings, in its function as a
safety valve for popular enthusiasm and excitement it is the Hyde Park
of the Second City of the Empire. In it great political and religious
gatherings have been and still are held; here do the East-enders
throng and bask in holiday time, and here have been seen also riot and
rejoicing, and events of note in the history of the municipality, the
kingdom, and even of the world. To mention the greatest of all, did not
the epoch-making idea of the steam-engine flash through the brain of
James Watt as he took a Sunday ramble, thoughtful and solitary, on the
Green, near the Humane Society's quarters, where afterwards Lambert,
"hero and martyr," achieved his wonderful rescues from drowning? Did
not the Regent Moray's army here cross the Clyde to intercept and
disperse Mary Stuart's adherents at Langside? And did not Prince
Charlie--an unwelcome guest in Whiggish Glasgow--review his Highlanders
in the Flesher's Haugh?

At the time of the Pretender's visit, the era of Glasgow's commercial
prosperity--the reign of the "tobacco dons" and the "sugar dons," who
preceded the "cotton lords" and the present reigning dynasty of the
"iron kings"--was only opening. The current of the city's business life
had already begun to turn aside from the channel of the High Street, in
order to run parallel with the river, along the line of the Trongait
and Argyll Street, to absorb little suburban villages, to overflow
the neighbouring fields, and by-and-by to swallow up, one by one, the
mansions of its merchant princes. But when the present century opened,
the town could boast of only some 80,000 inhabitants. The Saracen's
Head in the Gallowgate was still the chief place of entertainment;
there Dr. Johnson housed on his return from his Hebridean tour, and
Burns was also among its guests. Queen Street a hundred years ago
had not so long ceased to be the Cow Loan through which the citizens
drove out their cows to pasture; and George Square, when the century
was young, was a retired park, with trees and turf and shrubberies,
surrounded by the private dwellings of a few city magnates.

[Illustration: DUMBARTON ROCK (_p. 366_).]

To this once rural spot the centre of interest and authority of Modern
Glasgow has now flitted; and here the city has set up its Valhalla. In
the heart of the Square a statue of Sir Walter Scott towers on its high
pedestal; and surrounding it are ranks of other monuments--equestrian
statues, and figures erect and seated: among them those of Sir John
Moore and Lord Clyde, both of them "Glasgow callants" who won for
their native city war-laurels to place beside its trophies of peaceful
industry; and of Thomas Campbell, the poet, who was born in the High
Street, within a stonecast of the old College Buildings. Chief of the
public edifices that face the Square are the new Municipal Buildings,
in which, after several shiftings from the venerable Tolbooth, the
City Fathers have set up their gods. The foundation stone of this
magnificent pile was laid in October, 1883, and it has cost the town
nearly £600,000. Here would be a convenient standpoint whence to survey
the more recent spread and growth of the city, were this a description
of Glasgow instead of a glance down the course of the Clyde. From
George Square as a centre, a radius of fully two and a half miles would
now be required in order to draw a circle embracing the whole area of
the city. In that space, and included within the municipal boundaries,
is a population which in 1891 numbered 656,000. But the circle would
enclose also the police burghs of Govan, Partick, and Kinning Park,
which, although partially surrounded by Glasgow, and essentially a part
of the same urban community, have separate municipal organisations.
Adding these and the suburban villages and populous areas attached to,
but outside the circumference of, the city, and making allowance for
the growth of five years, we have a greater "geographical Glasgow"
which Sir James Bell and Mr. Paton, in their recent work, estimate to
contain no fewer than 900,000 souls. So that since the beginning of the
century the increase has been something like tenfold in population;
while in wealth, in trade, and in the multiplication of the resources
of civilisation, its progress has been, perhaps, still more marked.

The classic but now much-befouled Kelvin is at its mouth the boundary
between the city and the adjoining burgh of Partick; and when it passes
this point the Clyde leaves Glasgow territory behind it, without,
however, escaping from the sphere of its administrative authority.
Very different is this straight, broad highway of commerce--lined
by quay walls and wet and graving docks, by shipbuilding yards and
boiler-sheds, by factories, timber depôts, and railway sidings,
burdened with craft innumerable, and overhung by the shapes of great
iron vessels (the pride of Glasgow and the Clyde) in every stage of
construction--from the stream that winds and gleams like a serpent
between its green banks only a few miles above. The opposing shores
send up a perpetual din of iron smiting upon iron: the deafening
and yet, to the understanding ear, inspiriting sound of the Clyde's
most famous industry--that of shipbuilding. The broad tide of waters
is churned by paddles and propellers innumerable. It is muddy and
evil-smelling, for Glasgow has not repaid its debt to the Clyde with
gratitude, and still makes its river the receptacle of its sewage
and garbage. All this, however, is to be changed; already the
experiment of sewage purification has been for some years in operation
at Dalmarnock, and shortly a scheme intended to embrace the whole
north side of Glasgow will be at work on ground purchased by the
Corporation at Dalmuir, some miles down the river. So that in time
trout may venture back to Kelvin, and the "stately salmon" itself be
seen basking in the sandbanks opposite the Broomielaw, or stemming the
"amber-coloured Clyde," once more pure and sweet as well as "beneficent
and strong."

Often the channel itself is choked with mist and overhung with smoke;
and vessels and houses loom vaguely through the haze, or stand out in
startling relief against their dim background when the sun manages to
send his shafts through the mist and to light up river and shipping.
Nowhere are there such sunsets to be seen as in this murky and rainy
and dinsome clime of Glasgow Harbour.

To embark on board one of the river-steamers at the Broomielaw is a
convenient mode of surveying what remains to be seen of the river and
its surroundings. Steering down-stream by the broad and deep channel
between the lines and thickets of masts and funnels of the craft moored
to either bank, or assembled in the great dock basins, there is plenty
of time to reflect on the changes that have come over the scene, even
since Campbell deplored that Nature's face was banished and estranged
from the "once romantic shore of his native Clyde," and the face of
Heaven was no more reflected in its soot-begrimed waters--

    "That for the daisied greensward, down thy stream
    Unsightly brick-lanes smoke and clanking engines gleam."

The days when the river could be forded at high-water opposite
Govan Point, and when a voyage up or down stream was a series of
bumpings from shoal to shoal, seem almost as far removed from our
own as the date of the canoes of our remote ancestors that have been
found embedded in the ooze of the channel in the course of dredging
operations. Yet they belong to the present century; and even after
Henry Bell's _Comet_ inaugurated steam navigation by making her runs
between Greenock and Glasgow, the better part of a day has been
known to be spent on the trip. In the course of a century and half
some sixteen millions have been spent on widening, deepening, and
straightening the channel and improving the harbour accommodation of
Glasgow; and the revenue of the Clyde Navigation Trust now reaches
about £400,000 annually. As the fruit of all this expenditure, the
Trust can point to the long lines of quay walls and the magnificent
Queen's and Govan Docks, and to a broad and straight waterway which,
from Glasgow Bridge to Port Glasgow, has a uniform depth of 28 feet at
high tide.

[Illustration: _Photo: Andrew Young, Burntisland._

LOCH LOMOND (_p. 367_).]

Even fifty years ago Dr. Macdonald could write of Govan as "a still
rural-looking village," to which the denizens of St. Mungo resorted
on Sundays, after the skailing of the kirks, to "snuff the caller
air" by the waterside; and of Partick, on the opposite bank, as
an "old-fashioned town with a pleasant half-rural aspect," also in
repute as a holiday-resort on account of the "salubrity of its air."
Now, these adjuncts of Glasgow, with the adjoining Whiteinch, are
world-famous as the headquarters of Clyde shipbuilding. From the
Govan, Fairfield, and Linthouse yards, on the south side, and from
the Finnieston, Pointhouse, Meadowbank, and Whiteinch slips, on
the north bank, have been launched some of the largest and finest
vessels--mercantile craft and ships of war--that have ever put to sea.
Dwelling-houses and public works have spread over the ground behind,
so that little is left of the "rural" or "half-rural" villages of the
'fifties. Yet Govan has its spacious breathing-space in the Elder
Park, and elms still shade the ancient Celtic crosses and monuments
in its parish kirkyard; Partick still borders on Kelvin Grove; and
Whiteinch boasts, in its Victoria Park, of a "Fossil Grove" of more
hoar antiquity than Runic crosses, or the prehistoric canoes of Govan.

Clyde, as it moves majestically away from the stir and clangour of the
water fronts of Govan and Partick, begins slowly to open what Wilson,
the descriptive poet of the stream, calls an "ampler mirror" to the
sky and the objects on the banks. Its shores resume something of their
old romance and rusticity as we come abreast of the woods and lawns
of Elderslie and of Blytheswood. Behind them is the ancient burgh of
Renfrew--once a fishing port and the rival of Glasgow--which, as part
of the earliest heritage of the High Stewards, gives the title of Baron
of Renfrew to the Heir Apparent. Further back is the romantic valley
of the White Cart, that flows under Gleniffer Braes and through the
busy town of Paisley--birthplace of poets, burial-place of kings, and
metropolis of thread manufactures--to meet the Black Cart at Inchinnan,
and enter the Clyde at the "Water Neb."

Opposite, on the busier right bank of the river, are the factories and
building-yards of Yoker and Clydebank; below these, Dalmuir and its
purification works; and lower down, beyond Erskine Ferry, the houses of
old Kilpatrick and of Bowling--its little harbour filled with craft,
new and ancient--facing the fine lawns and woods that surround Lord
Blantyre's beautiful mansion of Erskine House. Here, where under the
rough and furrowed spurs of the Kilpatrick Hills the Highlands meet the
Lowlands; where the Forth and Clyde Canal joins the tide-water, and the
line of "Grime's Dyke" (the Roman wall of Antonine) found its western
term; here where, according to legend, Patrick, the apostle of Ireland,
was born and spent his childhood--we might lay down the limits of River
and Firth. Or passing the ancient castle of Dunglass and the ford
under the Hill of Dumbuck, which was the first great obstacle to Clyde
navigation, it might be found in that grandest of landmarks, the Rock
and Castle of Dumbarton, 91 miles from the source of the Clydes Burn,
and 106 miles from the taproot of the Daer.

The lofty isolated double-headed crag sentinels alike the channel
of the Clyde and the valley of the Leven, and mounts guard over the
ancient and still thriving burgh at its base, once the capital of the
Britons of Strathclyde, and for a thousand years the refuge and defence
of kings. On the crown or at the base of the Rock many strange scenes
in Scottish history have been enacted. From Dumbarton Queen Mary,
a child of six, set sail for France to wed the Dauphin; and to the
friendly shelter of its castle she was hastening when--

    "From the top of all her trust
    Misfortune laid her in the dust."

The town has still its great shipbuilding industry, its shipping trade,
and its foundries and turkey-red and other manufactories. Some of the
old houses remain, along with a fragment of its collegiate church.
Other bold hills beside the Castle Rock overlook it, and the broad
and smooth Leven--harbour and river--divides it into two parts. The
view northwards from the Rock carries the eye through the wide and
beautifully-wooded vista of the Leven valley into the heart of the
Highlands.

The pyramid of Ben Lomond, buttressed by Ptarmigan Hill, is the
presiding shape. But a score of other peaks are huddled behind and
around it. Below can be traced the folds of the hills that sheltered
Rob Roy, and over against it the glens of the Colquhoun country
that witnessed the prowess and revenge of the Wild Macgregors. Loch
Lomond, the queen of our northern lakes, with its lovely archipelago
of islands, is spread between. Loch Lomond, too, is tributary to the
Clyde, and all the waters that tumble through its glens, from Ardlui to
Balloch Pier, including the fine stream of the Endrick, which drains
the heart of the Lennox, and flows past Buchanan House, the seat of the
great family of Montrose, are poured by the Leven past Smollett's old
home of Bonhill, and past the busy manufacturing towns of Alexandria,
and Renton, to the foot of Dumbarton Rock.

The prospect commanded by the southern side of the Rock is hardly less
grand, and has infinitely more of movement and space and variety.
Winding into view from out of its coverts of smoke, and under its
shadowing heights, comes the great river which in its westward course
here opens up into the dimensions of a firth; and beyond it the fertile
plains and valleys, the busy towns and villages, and the bare enclosing
hills of Renfrew, are spread out like a map. The deep-water channel of
the Clyde is marked not alone by the line of red buoys and beacons,
but by the craft of all nations and all sizes, from the dredger to the
huge floating palace of the ocean-going passenger steamer, that are
continually plying up or down on it.

As the eye travels westward the shores expand and grow dim. But the
houses, shipping, and shipbuilding yards of Port Glasgow, and the long
line of timber lying off its sea front, are well in view, and beyond
them the thicker pall of smoke and the more densely packed masses of
dwellings, chimney stalks, and masts that proclaim the whereabouts of
Cartsdyke and Greenock.

[Illustration: _Photo: Fergus & Sons, Greenock._

GREENOCK.]

One has to embark and pass this dingy and crowded side of the
birthplace of James Watt--the harbour, the docks, and the shipbuilding
yards, the custom house, the steamboat quays, the handsome classic
façade and tower of its Municipal Buildings, and the bulk of the
many spires and steeples that rise among the masses of houses which
climb the hillside--before seeing the fairer and more open face which
Greenock presents to those approaching it from the west. Beyond
Prince's Pier stretch wide esplanades, lined with trees, lashed with
saltwater, and blown upon by salt breezes; and behind and above these
are broad and handsome streets and boulevards, ascending to the steeper
sides of the Craig and the Whin Hill, on whose airy heights the town
has planted its cemetery, golf course, public park, and water works.
Beyond Fort Matilda is the semicircular sweep of Gourock Bay, thronged
with yachts and lined with villa residences, which stretch on under the
base and round the corner of the headland, crowned by a fragment of
Gourock Castle, towards the Cloch Light, the beacon of the inner waters
of the Firth.

[Illustration: GOUROCK.]

In mid-firth, opposite Prince's Pier, is the "Tail of the Bank"--the
station of the guardship, the anchorage of vessels preparing to ascend
the river or put out to sea. Opposite, the dark-wooded headland of
Ardmore projects into the estuary, and lower down the beautiful glades
and tree-clad slopes surrounding the Grecian front of the Duke of
Argyll's mansion rise gently from the water to the bare ridge of the
peninsula of Roseneath. Between these opens the Gare Loch--perhaps
the most charming nook in all the winding waters of the Clyde--with
Craigendoran Pier and Helensburgh on its lip, Row in its narrow throat,
and Shandon and a string of other seaside retreats in its inner
recesses. Behind this the peaks that mount watch over Loch Lomond,
Loch Long, and waters yet more distant--Ben Lomond, Ben Vorlich, The
Cobbler, the rugged mass of "Argyll's Bowling Green," and far Ben
Cruachan among them--stand up in the evening light in purple and gold.
Nearer at hand are lower heights that surround the Holy Loch and guard
the entrance to the inner Firth; at their feet are rank upon rank of
fine seaside residences and favourite watering-places, to which the
crowds in populous city pent rush for fresh air and recreation. All
these and other scenes lying beyond, in the outer vestibule of the
Firth--the Shores of Cowal and Ayrshire; the Cumbraes; Rothesay, and
the windings of the Kyles of Bute; and, well seen from the neighbour
island, the rugged peaks and corries of Arran--are fringes of Greater
Glasgow, and creatures of the Clyde.

    /John Geddie./

[Illustration]




INDEX.


    Abbey Dore, 142

    Abbot's Worthy, 15

    Aberdovey, 104

    Abergavenny, 153;
      streets, historical associations of castle, former industries, St.
      Mary's Church, 154

    Aberglaslyn, Pass of, 204

    Abergorlech, 179

    Aberystwith:
      Devil's Bridge, Castle, and University College, 190, 192

    Abington, 344

    Adur, The, 10, 11

    Afon, The, 155

    Afon Cych, The, 187

    Ailsa Craig, 329

    Airds Moss and the death of Richard Cameron, 332

    Alexanders, The, Seat of, 334

    Alfred the Great and the baptism of Guthrum, 68;
      his retreat from the Danes, 68, 69;
      and the monastery in the Isle of Athelney, 70;
      his fleet at Caerleon, 156

    Allen, The, tributary of the Stour, 23

    Allen, The (Cornwall), 63

    Alresford Pond, 14

    Alyn, The:
      Scenery, and junction with the Dee, Richard Wilson, Eaton Hall,
      237

    Amberley, 11

    Ambleside, 291

    Amesbury, 22

    Anglesea, Isle of, 206

    Annan, The:
      Meaning of name, and allusion of Allan Cunningham, 317;
      ballad of "Annan Water," 318;
      Annandale and Bruce, Ecclefechan and Carlyle, Annantown and Edward
      Irving, 318

    Annbank, 335

    Anton River, The, 19

    Aran Benllyn, 229

    Aran Mowddwy, 195

    Ardmore, 368

    Argyll, Duke of, Mansion at Roseneath of, 368

    Arle, The (or the Titchfield):
      Source and scenery, 12;
      Wickham and William of Wykeham, Warton the poet, Funtley Abbey,
      and Titchfield House, 13
    Armathwaite:
      The Castle, 304;
      Benedictine monastery, 305;
      John Skelton, 305, 306

    Armstrong, Johnnie, hanged by order of James V., 315

    Armstrong, William ("Kinmont Willie"), his imprisonment at Carlisle
    and rescue, 310, 311

    Arnside, 286, 288

    Arthur, King:
      Legends at Caerleon, 156;
      Knights of the Round Table, 160, 161;
      Merlin's Grotto, 179;
      battle at Camlan, 195;
      association with the Dee, 228, 229

    "Arthur's Chair," 151

    Arun, The:
      Its surroundings, Arundel, angling, Pulborough, Amberley,
      Swanbourne Mill, Arundel Castle, and Littlehampton, 11

    Arundel:
      Scenery, Castle, and Roman Catholic Church, 11

    Ashdown Forest, 10

    Ashford and the Stour, 3

    Atcham, 96

    Athelney, Isle of, 69, 70

    Attery stream, The, 55

    Auchencruive, 337

    Auchendrane, 339, 340

    Avenham Park, 278

    Avon, The Devon, 49

    Avon, The Hants:
      Confluence with the Stour, tributaries, Christchurch, and
      Amesbury, 22;
      Salisbury and its cathedral, 22, 23

    Avon, The Lower:
      Source at Estcourt Park, 71:
      Malmesbury and the abbey, 72;
      view near Christian Malford, Bradenstoke Priory, Chippenham, 73;
      Melksham, Bradford and its cloth industry, Freshfield, Limpley
      Stoke, Claverton, 74;
      tributary of the Frome, 74, 75;
      Priory of
      Hinton, 75;
      Bath, its history, abbey, and views of the river and bridges,
      75-78;
      Bristol, birthplace of Cabot, Southey, and Chatterton, St. Mary
      Redcliffe, 78;
      Bristol Cathedral, "The Chasm," Clifton Suspension Bridge, 79;
      the lower reaches, site of the Roman station Abona, 79, 80;
      Avonmouth, 81

    Avon, The Upper or Warwickshire:
      Source, Naseby, 107;
      Rugby, the Swift, Lutterworth and Wiclif, Coventry, Stoneleigh
      Abbey, Kenilworth, Leamington, 108;
      Warwick Castle and Church, 110;
      Stratford and Shakespeare, 110-114;
      Evesham and its abbey, death of Simon de Montfort, 114, 115;
      Pershore Church, 115;
      Tewkesbury Church, 115, 117;
      battle of Tewkesbury, 117, 118

    Avonmouth, 81

    Axe, The Devonshire, 27

    Axe, The Somersetshire, 71

    Aymer de Valence, and the defence of Clydesdale, 354

    Ayr, The, 330;
      in the poetry of Burns, 331;
      Priesthill and Muirkirk, 332;
      scenery at Sorn, 333;
      Sorn Castle, 333;
      Catrine House and village, Ballochmyle, Mossgiel, Mauchline,
      Barskimming Bridge and House, 334;
      the Castle o' Montgomerie and "Highland Mary," Stair, Enterkin,
      Gadsgirth, Coylton, 335;
      Auchencruive and Craigie, 337;
      Laiglan, 337, 338;
      Ayr town, 338, 339

    Ayr town:
      Viewed from Laiglan, 338;
      the two bridges, 338;
      remnant of ancient buildings, modern buildings, and suburbs, 339

    Ayrshire, The rivers and scenery of, General features of, 328-331


    Bacon, Francis, and Liverpool, 267

    Badgworthy Water, The, 35

    Baillie, Joanna, Birthplace of, 355

    Bala Lake, 230

    Baldwin, Archbishop, at Rhuddlan, 226

    Baliol, John, 319

    Baliols, The, Castle of, 340

    Balliol College, Oxford, and the mother of John Baliol, 319

    Ballochmyle, 334

    Bampton, 30

    Bangor-on-Dee, 236

    Barle, The, 29

    Barmouth, 202, 203

    Barnstaple, 36, 46, 47

    Barrow, 288

    Barrow, Bishop, 227

    Barskimming House, 334

    Barton aqueduct and locks, 254

    Basingwerk Abbey, 240

    Bass Rock, 345

    Bath:
      Names given to it, 74;
      beauty of approach from the east, Beau Nash, growth, bridges over
      the Avon, 75;
      the Skew Bridge, Abbey Church, 76;
      Twerton and Fielding, 76, 77;
      Kelston Round Hill, views of the Avon, 77

    Batherm, The, 30

    Battle, 7

    Beacons, The, 150, 152, 159-161

    Beaulieu Abbey, 20

    Beaulieu river, The, 20

    Beckford collection at Hamilton Palace, 353

    Beddgelert, 204

    Bekesbourne, 6

    Ben Cruachan, 369

    Ben Lomond, 367

    Ben Vorlich, 369

    Benbow, Admiral, Birthplace of, 91

    Benbow, Captain, and the capture of Shrewsbury, 91

    Benglog, Falls of, 207, 208

    Benson, Archbishop, and Truro Cathedral, 64

    Benthall, 99

    Benthall Edge, 98

    Berkeley Castle, 122, 123

    Berthon boats, 19, 20

    Berwyn hills, 232

    Bethesda, 208, 209

    Bettws-y-Coed, 212, 213

    Beult, The, 3

    Bewdley, 102

    Bickleigh Bridge, 31

    Bickleigh Vale, 50

    Bideford, its antiquity, bridge, and the Grenvilles, 48, 49

    Biggar, Plain of, 345

    Birchington, 6

    "Bird Rock" on the Dysynni, 197

    Birkenhead:
      Railway to Liverpool, 266;
      landing-stages and Docks, 267;
      shipbuilding yards, progress during the century, population,
      Parliamentary representation, tramways, Priory, 268

    Bishop's Sutton, 14

    Bishop's Tawton, 46

    Bishopsbourne Church and Bishop Hooker, 6

    Biss, The, 74

    Bizzyberry, 345

    Black Mountains, The, and the rise of the Usk, 149

    Black Prince and Rhuddlan Castle, 226

    Black Rock, 65

    Blackstone-edge Reservoirs, 244

    Bladenoch, The:
      Wigtown martyrs, 325, 326

    Blaenau Festiniog, 214

    Blaenhafren, 84

    Blantyre Priory, 354, 355

    Blantyre Town, 355

    Bleasdale Moor, 279

    Blundell, Peter, Grammar School of, 30

    Bodinnoc Ferry, 62

    Bolton-le-Sands, 286

    Bonhill, 367

    Bonnington House, 350

    Bonnington Linn, 347, 348

    Bothwell, visited by Mary Queen of Scots at Hermitage Castle, 314

    Bothwell Bridge, 353, 354

    Bothwell Castle, 354

    Bovey, The, 39

    Bowdler, Dr. Thomas, Burialplace of, 176

    Bowland Forest, 274, 279

    Bowling, 366

    Boxbrook, The, 75

    Boyd, Dr. Zachary, and the Laigh Barony Church, Glasgow, 359

    Brackenbank, 306

    Bradenstoke Priory, 73

    Bradford-on-Avon:
      Woollen industry, Church, and bridges, 74

    Bramber, 11

    Bran, The, 178

    Brantwood and its associations, 294

    Brathay, The, 291

    Braxfield, 350

    Bray, The, 29

    Brecknock Beacons, 150, 152, 159-161

    Brecon:
      Picturesque situation and Churchyard's verses, 150;
      history of the castle, birthplace of Mrs. Siddons, Church of St.
      John, 151

    Brede, The, 7

    Breidden Hills, The, 87

    Brendon Water, The, 35

    Bridgnorth, 99, 100

    Bridgwater:
      Manufacture of bath brick, 70, 71;
      Admiral Blake, St. Mary's Church, 71

    Brighton, 11

    Bristol:
      Birthplace of Cabot, Southey, and Chatterton, commerce, first
      bridge over the Avon, St. Mary Redcliffe, 78;
      Chatterton's forgeries and monument, 78, 79;
      Castle, Cathedral, and busts of Joseph Butler, Southey, and Mary
      Carpenter, floating harbour, "The Chasm," Clifton Suspension
      Bridge, 79

    Broadstairs, 6

    Broseley, 99

    Broughton Gifiord brook, 74

    Brown Willy, 60

    Brownsholm Hall and the Seal of the Commonwealth, 274

    Bruce, Robert, and Annandale, 318;
      his dispute with the Red Cumyn, 319

    Brue, The, 71

    Brydges, Sir Egerton, 6

    Buchanan House, 367

    Buckfastleigh, 41, 42

    Buckland Abbey, 46

    Buildwas Abbey, 98, 99

    Builth, 130

    Burgh-on-the-Sands, 310

    Burnham, 71

    Burnley, 276

    Burns, Robert, at Dumfries, 319;
      and Lincluden Abbey, 319;
      incident of his last days, and monument in St. Michael's
      Churchyard, 319;
      and the Glencairn family, 321;
      and the rivers and scenery of Ayrshire, 330, 331, 334, 335, 337;
      birthplace and relics, 339

    Bute, Marquess of, and the Cardiff Docks, 166

    Buttermere, 299

    Buxted, and the manufacture of the first cannon, 10


    Cabot, Sebastian, Birthplace of, 78

    Cadbury Castle, 31

    Cade, Jack, 3

    Cader Idris, 197, 200, 203

    Cadzow Castle, 353, 354

    Caerlaverock Castle and the Maxwell family, 320, 321

    Caerleon, its splendour in Roman times, Arthurian legends,
    university and bishopric, 155, 156

    Caersws fortress in Roman times, 86

    Cain, The, 202

    Cairntable, 332

    Calder, The (Lancashire), 279

    Caldew, The, 307

    Cale, The, 23

    Caledonian Forest, Remains of, 353

    Calstock, 56

    Cambuslang, 357

    Cambusnethan, 353

    Camel, The, 54

    Camlan, The, 202

    Camlan, Farmhouse of, 195

    Canford Hall, 23

    Canonbie, 314, 315

    Canterbury and its associations, 3, 4

    Capel Curig, 210

    Caradoc Hills, 94

    Cardiff:
      Water-supply, 162;
      Castle, mansion of the Marquis of Bute, 166;
      docks, streets, and exhibition, 166, 167

    Cardigan, 188

    Carew, Bampfylde Moore, the "King of the Beggars," 31

    Carew Castle, its historical associations and present condition,
    182, 183

    Carew family, The, 182, 183

    Carlisle: 307;
      incursions by the Northmen, the Castle, 308;
      lines by Mrs. Sigourney, 309;
      Edward I. and the oath enjoined on the Prince of Wales, 309, 310;
      "Kinmont Willie" and Buccleuch, 310, 311;
      execution of Jacobites, 311;
      Cathedral, 312

    Carlyle, Thomas, Birthplace of, 319

    Carmarthen, 79, 80

    Carmyle, 357

    Carnarvon, Town and Castle of, 206, 219

    Carnforth, 285

    Carrick Road estuary, 65

    Carron, The, 318

    Carstairs, 345

    Cartland Crags, 350

    Cartmel Peninsula, 288

    Cartsdyke, 367

    Cassilis and the Kennedys, 340

    Castell Coch, 164

    Castle Head (or Alterpite Castle), 288

    Castlerigg Top, View of Lakeland from, 299

    Caton, The Vale of, The poet Gray on, 282

    Catrine, 332, 334;
      and the visit of Burns to Dugald Stewart, 334

    Cefn Carnedd, British earthwork, 85

    Ceiriog, The, 234

    Cenarth, 187

    Cessnock, The, 334

    Ceunant Mawr, 205, 206

    Chagford, 38

    Charlecote and Sir Thomas Lucy, 111

    Chartists, Attack on Newport of, 158

    Chatterton, his birthplace, forgeries, and monument, 78, 79

    Chepstow, 146, 147

    Cheriton, Defeat of the Royalists at, 15

    Chester:
      Antiquity, "Rows," walls, Cathedrals, 238, 239

    Chetham, Humphrey, and Chetham College, 251

    Chillingham cattle, 274

    Chippenham, 73

    Chirk Castle, 234, 235

    Chow, The, 78

    Christchurch:
      Salmon-fishing, church, and Shelley memorial, 22

    Chudleigh, 38

    Churchyard, the poet, on the situation of Brecon, 150;
      on the Vale of Clwyd, 223;
      and Valle Crucis Abbey, 233;
      on the waters of the Dee, 233;
      and Offa's Dyke, 235

    Chweffru, The, 130

    Cilhepste Fall, The, 170

    Claerwen, The, 127

    "Clam" Bridge over the Wallabrook, 38

    Clapdale Ravine, 282

    Clare, Richard, Earl of, Murder of, 153

    Cleghorn, Roman bridge at, 351

    Cletwrs, The two, 187

    Clifford Castle and Rosamond, 132, 133

    Clough, Memorial stone to, 289

    Clun Gwyn Falls, 170

    Clwyd, The:
      Rhyl, Rhuddlan, 223-226;
      junction with the Elwy, 226

    Clyde, The:
      Its importance, the population and wealth within its basin, and
      variety of scenes on its banks, 342;
      source and some of its tributaries, 342, 343;
      the "sea of hills" of Clydesdale, 343, 344;
      the trees on the banks, 344;
      smoky industries of the Upper Ward at Leadhills and Wanlockhead,
      344;
      its course past Tower Lindsay, the churchyard of St. Constantine,
      or Kirkton, the woods and lawns of Abington, and the fragment of
      Lamington Tower, 344;
      Tinto Hill--"Hill of Fire"--and the prospects it commands, 344,
      345;
      its meandering through haughs and holmlands, by Covington,
      Carstairs, and Hyndford Bridge, 345;
      scenes of Wallace's exploits, 345;
      Douglas Water, 345, 347;
      the Church of St. Bride of Douglas and the struggle between the
      "good Sir James" and St. John de Walton, 345, 346;
      Douglas Castle, 345, 347;
      Falls at Bonnington Linn, 347, 348;
      Corra Linn Falls--"Clyde's most majestic daughter," 348-350;
      meeting the Douglas Water, 347;
      "Wallace's Tower" and "Wallace Chair," 350;
      Braxfield, Lanark, "Trough of the Clyde," 350;
      Mouse Water and Cartland Crags, 351;
      Roman bridge at Cleghorn and site of Watling Street, 351;
      Stonebyres Linn, the Nethan, Craignethan Castle and Mary Stuart,
      351;
      "Orchard of Scotland," 351;
      Hamilton, 353;
      Hamilton Palace and the Beckford collection, 353;
      Cadzow Castle, 353, 354;
      remains of the Caledonian Forest, 353;
      Bothwell Castle, 354, 355;
      Blantyre, 355;
      Uddington, Dalbowie, Carmyle, Cambuslang, 357;
      Rutherglen, 358, 361;
      Glasgow, 358-365;
      St. Mungo, 358, 364;
      the early days of steamships, 364;
      widening and deepening the channel, 364;
      Partick, Whiteinch, Govan, shipbuilding yards, 365;
      the opening of an "ampler mirror," 366;
      Renfrew, valley of the White Cart, Inchinnan, Yoker, Clydebank,
      Dalmuir and its purification works, Erskine House, Castle of
      Dunglass, and Hill of Dumbuck, 366;
      Dumbarton Castle and town, 366;
      prospects from Dumbarton Rock, 367;
      Greenock, Gourock, Fort Matilda, Whin Hill, the Clock Light, the
      "Tail of the Bank," Ardmore, Roseneath, and the Duke of Argyll's
      mansion, 368;
      Gare Loch, 368, 369;
      Craigendoran Pier, Helensburgh, Row, and Shandon, 369;
      view of the peaks of Ben Lomond, Ben Vorlich, The Cobbler,
      "Argyll's Bowling Green," and Ben Cruachan, 369;
      seaside residences and watering-places, 369

    Clydebank, 366

    Clydesdale, The hills of, 343

    Coalbrook Dale, 99

    Cobbler Peak, The, 369

    Cobden, Richard:
      Statue at Stockport, 245

    Coccium, Roman station of, 278

    Cocker, The:
      Crummock Water, scenery, cataracts, Vale of Lorton, Cockermouth,
      Workington, 299, 300

    Cockermouth, 299, 300

    Codale Tarn, 288

    Coelbren, 177

    Coilsfield House (Castle o' Montgomerie) and "Highland Mary," 335

    Coldwell Rocks, 138, 140, 141

    Coleridge, Birthplace of, 27

    Coleridge, Hartley, Burialplace of, 289

    Condover, 98

    Coniston Water, 294

    Conway, 206, 220

    Conway, The:
      Bettws and Llanrwst, 217, 218;
      Gwydir Castle, Llanbedr and ancient British post, Trefriw, 218;
      Castle, 219, 220;
      Conway town, 220;
      Deganwy, pearl-fishery and Castle, 221, 222;
      Llandudno, 222

    Conway Castle, 219, 220

    Corby Castle, 307

    Cornbrook, The, 246

    Corra Linn, 348, 349

    Corwen and associations of Owen Glendower, 230, 231

    Cotehele House, 58

    Cotehill, 306

    Cothi, 179

    Countess Weir, 34

    Courtfield and Henry V., 138

    Courthose, Robert, eldest son of the Conqueror, tomb in Gloucester
    Cathedral, 122

    Coventry, 108

    Covington, 345

    Coyle, The, 335

    Craig-y-Nos and Madame Patti, 177, 178

    Craigendoran, 369

    Craigenputtock, 318

    Craigie, 337

    Craignethan Castle, 351

    Craigs of Kyle, 335

    Crake, The, 293;
      and Coniston Water, Brantwood and Gerald Massey, 294

    Cranbrook, 38

    Cranmer and his palace at Bekesbourne, 6

    Cranmere Pool, 37, 41, 45

    Crawford, 343, 344

    Crawford Moor, 344

    "Cray," Drayton's, 150

    Cree, The:
      Scenery near Newton Stewart and bridge, 323;
      the "Cruives of Cree," 323, 324

    Creedy, The, 31

    Crewkerne, 67

    Crickhowell, 153

    Crockett, Mr., Scenes of some of the stories by, 341

    Cromwell, Oliver, and the siege of Pembroke Castle, 183;
      statue at Manchester, 250;
      Greystoke Castle, 307;
      at Ayr, 339

    Cromwell, Sir Richard, and Neath Abbey, 172

    Crosthwaite, 299

    Crow Castle, 234

    Crummock Water, 299, 300

    Cuckfield, 10

    Cuckmere, The:
      Alfriston and its church and cross, 9;
      Lullington Church, 10

    Culm, The, 31

    Cumyn, The Red, and Robert Bruce in the Greyfriars' Monastery, 319

    Cunningham, Allan, his allusions to the Annan, 317

    Cunsey Beck and Esthwaite Water, 292

    Cutler Fell, 345

    Cwm Porth, The, 170

    Cynicht, The, "the Matterhorn of Wales," 204


    Daer Water, The, 322

    Dalbowie, 357

    Dale, David, and his mills at New Lanark, 350, 355

    Dalmuir, 366

    Dalserf, 353

    Dalziel, 353

    Dart, The:
      Mingling of waters of East and West Dart, 40;
      features of the upper waters, Buckland Beacon, and Holne, 41;
      Buckfastleigh, 41, 42;
      Dean Prior and Herrick, Staverton and Dartington Hall, 42;
      Totnes, its claim to antiquity and general features, 42, 43;
      the "English Rhine," 43;
      Sharpham House, Sandridge House and John Davis, Greenway and Sir
      Humphrey Gilbert, 44;
      Kingswear, Dartmouth and its associations, 44, 45

    Dartington Hall, 42

    Dartmoor, 26, 27, 37

    Dartmouth, 44, 45

    Darwin, Charles, Birthplace of, 91

    Davis, John, Birthplace of, 44

    Dean Prior and Herrick, 42

    Dee, The:
      Source and length, 82, 228, 229;
      Bala Lake, 229, 230;
      Llanuwchllyn, 229;
      reputed sacred character, 230;
      Llandderfel and the Vale of Edeyrnion, 230;
      Corwen and the mark of Owen Glendower's dagger, 230, 231;
      encampment of Owen Gwynedd, 231;
      Vale of Llangollen, 232, 234;
      Valle Crucis Abbey, 232, 233;
      Bridge of Llangollen, 233;
      Llangollen town and derivation of name, 234;
      Dinas Bran, Eglwyseg Rocks, Crow Castle, viaduct and Telford's
      aqueduct, junction with the Ceiriog, Chirk Castle, and Wynnstay,
      234;
      Offa's Dyke and Watt's Dyke, 235, 236;
      Overton Churchyard, Bangor-on-Dee, 236;
      junction with the Alyn, Eccleston, 237;
      Chester and its history, 238, 239;
      swing railway bridge, Hawarden, Castle of Flint, 239;
      Castle of Mostyn, Basingwerk Abbey, Fountain of Holywell, "The
      Sands of Dee," 240, 241

    Dee, The (Kirkendbrightshire):
      Its rise, meaning of name, confluence with the water of Ken,
      scenery at Douglas Tongueland, 322;
      Threave Castle, 322, 323

    Deerhurst, 119

    Deganwy, 218;
      ancient pearl-fishery and castle, 221, 222

    Denbigh and its castle, 227, 228

    Dering family, The, 3

    Derry Ormond column and its romance, 187

    Derwent, The, also known as the Grange, its rise and course, 299

    Derwentwater, 299

    Devon, Earl of, Seat of, 34

    Devonport, 51, 53

    Devorgilla, mother of John Baliol, and the bridge over the Nith at
    Dumfries, 319;
      her endowment of Balliol College, Oxford, 319;
      and Sweetheart Abbey, 322

    Dewi Fawr, The, 180

    Dihouw, The, 130

    Dinas Bran, 234

    Dinas Castle and the daughter of Alfred the Great, 153

    Dinas Mowddwy, 195

    Docks at Liverpool, 263, 264, 266

    Doethiau, The, 178

    Dolbadarn Castle, 205, 206

    Dolbury Hill, 31

    Dolgelley, 200, 201

    Dolwyddelen Castle, 214

    Donnerdale and Wordsworth's sonnets, 294

    Doon, The, 330;
      in the poems of Burns, 331;
      its attraction, 339;
      Auchendrane, 339, 340;
      Cassilis, Dalmellington, Loch Doon, Castle of the Baliols, hills
      of Galloway, 340;
      sources, 341

    Dorchester, 24

    Dore, The, 142

    Douglas, Countess of, and the siege of Threave Castle, 323

    Douglas, House of, Story of the, 345, 347

    Douglas, William, eighth Earl of, and the murder of Maclellan, 322;
      his death, 323

    Douglas, Sir William, his imprisonment of Sir Alexander Ramsay, 313;
      slain by the Earl of Douglas, 313, 314

    Douglas Castle, 347

    Douglas Tongueland, 322

    Douglas Water, 345, 347

    Douglases, The Black, 354

    Dovey (or Dyfi), The:
      Aberdovey, and source, 194;
      estuary, angling, Dinas Mowddwy, Aran Mowddwy, church at Mallwyd,
      farmhouse of Camlan, farmhouse of Mathafarn, 195;
      Machynlleth, 195, 196;
      the Dulas, 196

    Dowlais Steel and Iron Works, 163

    Drake, Sir Francis, 50, 51

    Drayton, Lines on the Mersey by, 268

    Dringarth, The, 168, 169

    Drumclog, 354

    Drumlanrig Castle, 319, 320

    Dryslwyn Castle, 179

    Duddon, The:
      Its rise, Donnerdale, Seathwaite, Wordsworth's allusions, 294;
      the most picturesque approach, likened to the Thames, 295

    Dulas, The, 124, 196

    Dumbarton, 358, 366;
      Rock and Castle of, 366, 367;
      prospects from the Rock, 367;
      shipbuilding industry and manufactories, 366

    Dumbuck, Hill of, 366

    Dumfries:
      Its memories of Robert Burns, 319;
      Lincluden Abbey, St. Michael's Churchyard, Devorgilla's Bridge,
      Bruce's dispute with the Red Cumyn, 319

    Dunglass, Ancient Castle of, 366

    Dunglass, Lord, heir of the Douglas line, 345

    Dunsford Bridge, 38

    Dyer the poet, and Golden Grove, 179

    Dynevor Castle, 179

    Dysynni, The:
      Source, scenery, Bird Rock, manor-house, and Prince Llewelyn, 197;
      mansion of Ynys-y-Maengwyn, Towyn, and St. Cadfan's Church, 198


    Eamont, The, 303

    Easedale Tarn, 288

    East and West Dean, 9

    Eastham Locks, 258

    Eastwell Park, 3

    Eaton Hall, 237

    Ebbw, The, 158

    Ecclefechan and Thomas Carlyle, 318

    Eccleston, 237

    Eden, The:
      Length, source, junction with the Eamont, Eden Hall, 303;
      Armathwaite and John Skelton, 304, 305;
      Wetheral, Cotehill, Brackenbank, Corby Castle, 306, 307;
      Carlisle, 307-312

    Eden Hall and the Musgrave family, 303, 304;
      and the story of the fairies' goblet, 303, 304

    Edeyrnion, Vale of, 230

    Edw, The, 130

    Edward I.:
      Carnarvon Castle, 206;
      Conway Castle, 220;
      takes Rhuddlan Castle, 226;
      his last Scots expedition and the oath enjoined on the Prince of
      Wales, 309, 310

    Edward II.:
      Memorial in Gloucester Cathedral, 122;
      at Neath Abbey, 173;
      and Corby Castle, 307

    Egbert, King, and Minster nunnery, 6

    Eggesford, 46

    Eglwys Newydd, 190

    Eglwyseg Rocks, 232, 234

    Egremont, 298

    Ehen, The, 298

    Elan, The, 127, 128

    Elizabeth, Queen, visit to Bristol, 78;
     and Buccleuch's rescue of "Kinmont Willie," 311

    Ellesmere Canal, Aqueduct of, 234

    Elvan, The, 343

    Elwy, The:
      Junction with the Clwyd, 226;
      St. Asaph, Denbigh and its castle, 227, 228;
      Ruthin and its castle, 228

    Ennerdale Water, 297, 298

    Enterkin, 318, 335

    Erme, The, 49

    Erskine House, 366

    Esk, The (Cumberland):
      Source, 295;
      Scafell, Wastdale, Langdale, and Borrowdale, Esk Falls, Cam Spout
      Cataract, Hardknott, Baker Force and Stanley Gill Waterfalls, 296

    Esk, The (Solway):
      Scenery, angling, the Tarras tributary, 314;
      Gilnockie Tower, Hollows Tower and Johnnie Armstrong, 315;
      the romance of Lochinvar, 315, 316

    Eskdale, Upper, 295

    Esthwaite Water, 292

    Ethelbert, Murder of, 134

    Etherow, The, 243, 244

    Evesham, its Abbey and the death of Simon de Montfort, 114, 115

    Exbridge, 29

    Exe, The:
      Source and length, 28;
      characteristics, and confluence with the Barle, 29;
      Bampton, Tiverton, and Twy-ford-town, 30;
      Bickleigh Bridge, Bickleigh Court and the Carews, 31;
      Cadbury Castle, Dolbury Hill, and the seats of the Aclands and
      the Earls of Iddesleigh, 31;
      Exeter, 31-34;
      Countess Weir, canal to Topsham, Powderham Castle, Starcross,
      Lympstone, and Exmouth, 34

    Exeter:
      Situation, 31;
      meaning of name, 32;
      Castle of Rougemont, 33;
      Cathedral, 33, 34;
      Guildhall, canal communication with the sea, 34

    Exmoor, 26, 27, 35, 37

    Exmouth, 34


    Fail, The, 335

    Failford, 334

    Fair Maid of Galloway, The, 323

    Fairfax, General, his rout of the Royalist forces near Taunton, 68;
      and the river Parret, 71

    Fairfield, 285

    Fal, The:
      Its rise in Tregoss Moor, Treviscoe, length of course, Grampound,
      view about Tregothnan and Queen Victoria's visit, the Kenwyn and
      Allen, 63;
      Truro and its cathedral, scenery between King Harry's Passage and
      Roseland, 64;
      grounds of Trelissick, view from Malpas Road, Carrick Road, Black
      Rock and the claim of Truro, 65;
      Falmouth and its harbour, 65, 66;
      the Lords of Arwenack, the creeks of Falmouth Harbour, 66

    Falls of Clyde, 347-349, 351

    Falls of the Hepste, 170

    Falmouth and its harbour, 65, 66;
      and the Lords of Arwenack, 66

    Fareham, 12

    Feni, The, 180

    Fingle Bridge, 38

    Fishbourne Creek, 22

    Fitzalan, William, Priory founded by, 95

    Fleetwood, 279, 280

    Fleming of Redhall and Helen, The romance of, 316, 317

    Fletching Common, the burialplace of Gibbon, 10

    Flint, Town and Castle of, 239, 240

    Fordwich, 4;
      its former name, and Izaak Walton's allusions, 5

    Forest of Brecon, 150

    Forest of Dean, 123, 138

    Fowey, The:
      Its rise, also called the Dranes, 60;
      St. Neot, features of scenery, seat of Lord Vivian, Lanhydrock
      House, 61;
      Restormel Castle, Lostwithiel, Colonel Titus and the silver oar,
      Bodinnoc Ferry, 62;
      Fowey Harbour, 62, 63;
      seat of the Treffry family, and French assault on Place House, 63

    Fowey Harbour, 62, 63

    Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, and Pendle Hill, 276

    Frampton Court, 24

    Frome, The:
      Branches, Dorchester, Frampton Court, the Black Downs, Roman and
      British remains, Maiden Castle, and Wareham, 24;
      tributary of the Avon, 74, 75

    Funtley Abbey, 13

    Furness Peninsula, 288


    Gadsgirth, 335

    Gaer, The, Roman camp, 150

    Galloway, 321, 340

    Gannel, The, 55

    Gare Loch, 368, 369

    Gaunt's House, 23

    Gerald de Windsor and Carew Castle, 182

    Gibbon, Burialplace of, 10

    Giggleswick, 273

    Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, Birthplace of, 44

    Gilnockie Tower and Johnnie Armstrong, 315

    Gilpin, The, 288

    Gilpin, Bernard, Birthplace of, 286

    Gisburne Hall, 274

    Gladstone, Mr., and the swing railway bridge over the Dee, 239;
      Hawarden Park, 239;
      his connection with Liverpool, 267

    Glasgow:
      Its chief armorial device, 342;
      population at the period of the Reformation, 358;
      legend of St. Kentigern, 359;
      its extent in the seventeenth century, 358;
      the Cathedral, Cross, and other ancient buildings, 358, 359;
      Laigh Barony Church, 359;
      St. Roche's Chapel, 359;
      streets and bridges, 360;
      the Green, 361;
      population at the beginning of the nineteenth century, 362;
      George Square and the monuments, 362, 363;
      the Municipal buildings, and population in 1891, 363;
      shipbuilding industry and drainage, 363, 364;
      sunsets seen from the harbour, docks, and quays, 364;
      adjoining places, 364-366

    Glaslyn, The, 204

    Glencairn family, The, 321

    Glenderamakin, The, 298

    Glendower, Owen, his stronghold on Plinlimmon, 125, 126;
      at Hay, 130;
      defeat at Usk, 155;
      and Aberdovey, 194;
      his Parliament at Machynlleth, 196;
      Parliament House at Dolgelley, 200;
      tight with Howell Selé, 202;
      and Corwen Churchyard, 231

    Gloucester:
      The Cathedral, 119-122;
      a Roman station, 119;
      monastery, 119;
      during the Civil War, 120

    Goat Fell, 345

    Golden Grove, 179

    Golden Valley, The, 142

    Goodrich Castle, 138

    Gourock Bay and Castle, 368

    Govan, 364, 365

    Govan Point, 364

    Gowy, The, 258

    Goyt, The, 243, 244

    Grampound, 63

    Grasmere:
      Wordsworth's cottage, the Church, graves of Wordsworth, Hartley
      Coleridge, and memorial to Clough, 289;
      length of Lake and its beautiful surroundings, 290

    Gray, The poet, on the Vale of Caton, 282;
      on Grasmere, 290

    Graygarth, 282

    Great Gable Mountain, 297

    Greenock, 367, 368

    Grenville, Richard, and Bideford, 48

    Greta, The:
      Source, 298;
      Keswick, 298, 299;
      Crosthwaite, view from Castlerigg Top, 299

    Greta, The (Lancashire), 282

    Gretna Green, 312

    Grey, Sir Patrick, and the Earl of Douglas, 322, 323

    Greystoke Castle, 307

    Grongar Hill, 179

    Grove Ferry, 5

    Guild of St. George at Barmouth, 203

    Guild-Merchants' Festival at Preston, 278, 279

    Gunnislake, 55

    Gwbert-on-the-Sea, 189

    Gwedderig, The, 178

    Gwryney, The, 153

    Gwydir Castle, 218

    Gwynedd, Owen, 231

    Gwynne, Nell, Birthplace of, 135

    Gynin, The 180


    Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, and the country round Burnley, 278

    Hamilton and Hamilton Palace, 353

    Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, 353

    Hamoaze, The, 58, 59

    Hardham, 11

    Harewood Forest, 19

    Harlech, Castle of, 203

    Harold Godwinson and Rhuddlan fortress, 226

    Hastings, 8

    Haughmond Hill, 94, 95

    Haverfordwest, past and present, 186

    Haverigg Point, 295

    Hawarden Park, 239

    Hawes Tarn, 286

    Hawkeshead, 292

    Hay, its castle and legends, 130-132

    Hayle, The, 55

    Hel, The, 55

    Helensburgh, 369

    Hellifield, Peel-house at, 273, 274

    Helm Crag, 289

    Helvellyn, 285

    Hemans, Mrs.:
      Monument in the Cathedral of St. Asaph, 227;
      crossing the Ulverston sands, 286

    Henfield, 11

    Henry IV. and Hotspur at the battle of Shrewsbury, 91, 95

    Henry VII. and Carew Castle, 183;
      at Milford Haven, 185;
      at Mathafarm, 195

    Henry VIII. and his Welsh pedigree, 233

    Henwen, The, 149

    Hepste The, 170

    Herbert of Coldbrook, Sir Richard, 154, 155

    Herberts of Cherbury, The, 86, 87

    Hereford:
      Offa's Palace, Llewelyn's raid, 133;
      murder of Ethelbert, the Cathedral, the "Mappa Mundi," 134, 135;
      Nell Gwynne, 135

    Hermitage Castle and its historical associations, 313, 314

    Heslock Towers, 286

    Hestbank, 286

    Heysham, 286

    High Blantyre, 357

    Highbridge and the Glastonbury Canal, 71

    Hobbes, Birthplace of, 72

    Holker Hall, 288

    Hollows Tower and Johnnie Armstrong, 315

    Holme Island, 286, 288

    Holne and Charles Kingsley, 41

    Holy Loch, 369

    Holywell, Fountain of, 240

    Home, Earl of, Estate of, 347

    Honddu, The, 142, 150

    Honiton, 27

    Hooker, Bishop, 6

    Hornby Castle, 282

    Horton Priory, 3

    Horton-in-Ribblesdale, 272

    Howgill, Fairy glens at, 281

    Hyndford Bridge, 345

    Hythe, 7


    Iddesleigh, Earls of, Seat of, 31;
      statue to the first Earl, 33

    Idwal, The, 207

    Ill Hell, 292

    Ingleborough Cave, 282

    Ingleborough Heights, 272, 282

    Ingleton, 282

    Irk, The, 246

    Irlam, 245, 254, 255

    Ironbridge, 99

    Irt, The:
      Outlet of Wastwater, 296, 297

    Irving, Edward, Birthplace of, 318

    Irwell, The:
      Confluence with the Mersey, 246;
      rise, course, and tributary streams, 246;
      bridges, 252, 254

    Isle, The, 68

    Isle of Oxney, 8

    Isle of Thanet, 3, 4, 6

    Isle of Wight:
      Lack of running water and woods, 22;
      the Medina, 22

    Itchen, The, 12;
      source, 13, 14;
      salmon-fishing, 14, 15;
      Alresford Pond, 14;
      tributaries, Cheriton and the defeat of the Royalists, Tichborne
      and "the Claimant," 15;
      Nun's Walk, Winchester and Izaak Walton, 16;
      Hospital of St. Cross, 17;
      St. Catherine's Hill, 18;
      Southampton, its docks, piers, etc., 19

    Ithon, The, 128, 129


    Jacobites, Execution at Carlisle of, 311

    James V. and Johnnie Armstrong, 315

    Jedburgh, Abbey of, 355

    Jesuits, The, and Stonyhurst College, 274

    John, King, at Deganwy Castle, 222;
      and Liverpool, 259, 261

    John of Gaunt and Lancaster Castle, 282-284

    Johnson, Dr., at Plymouth with Sir Joshua Reynolds, 53


    Kemsey, 104

    Kendal, 286-288

    Kenilworth Castle, 108

    Kenmuir, 357

    Kennedys, The, Seat of, 340

    Kent, The:
      Kentmere village and Kentmere Hall, 286;
      Kendal, 286-288

    Kentmere, 286

    Kenwyn, The, 63

    Keswick, 298, 299

    Kidderminster, 102

    Kilgerran Castle, 188

    Kilpeck Church, 142

    King's Road Estuary, 65

    King's Worthy, 15

    Kingsley, Charles, Birthplace of, 41;
     his description of the Dee estuary, 240

    Kingswear, 44, 45

    Kinnaston, "The Wonder" of, 135

    Kirkby Lonsdale, 281

    Kirkconnel and the romance of Helen and her lover, 316, 317

    Kirkgate, 300

    Kirtle Water and the romance of Helen and her lover, 316, 317

    Kit Hill, 58

    Kyrle, John, "The Man of Ross," 137, 138


    Laiglan, 337, 338

    Laira Bridge, 51

    Laird, Mr. John, 268

    Lamington Tower, 344

    Lanark, 350

    Lancaster:
      Former prosperity as a port, 282;
      associations of John of Gaunt, 282-284;
      a Roman settlement, ancient fisheries, and first charter, 283;
      the castle, 283, 284;
      monastic establishments, proclamation of the Pretender, 283;
      birthplace of Whewell, Grammar School, 284

    Lancaster Bay, 286

    Landing-stage at Liverpool, 265, 266

    Landor, Walter Savage, and Llanthony, 142, 143

    Langdale, Great and Little, 291

    Langport, 68

    Lansdowne and the defeat of Sir William Waller, 75

    Latchford, 255, 256, 257

    Lauries, The, The Seat of, 321

    Leadhills, 344

    Leamington, 108

    Lee Priory, 6

    Lemon, The, 39

    Lenham, The, 3

    Lerrin Creek, The, 62

    Leven, The, 293

    Lewes, Battle of, 10

    Liddel, The:
      Hermitage Castle and its associations, 313, 314

    Lid, The, 46

    Lincluden Abbey, 319

    Lind, Jenny, and Manchester Infirmary, 252

    Lindfield, 10

    Linton the engraver and Brantwood, 294

    Listers, The, Family seat of, 274

    Littlebourne, 6

    Littlehampton, 11

    Liverpool:
      Early history and variations in name, 259;
      castles, and feuds between the Molineux and Stanley families, 260;
      King John and Toxteth Park, Parliamentary representation, 261;
      during the Civil Wars, 262;
      allusion by Camden, and population, 262;
      tonnage of ships entering the port, 263;
      New Brighton Lighthouse, 263;
      docks, 263, 264;
      landing-stage, 265, 266;
      electric overhead railway, 266;
      railway to Birkenhead, view of the city from Birkenhead, Lime
      Street Station, St. George's Hall, etc., 266;
      Town Hall, Royal Exchange, University College, Infirmary, Sefton
      Park, water-supply, 88, 267;
      bishopric, eminent men, 267

    Livesey, Joseph, and the first total abstinence pledge, 278

    Livingstone, David, Birthplace of, 355

    Liza, The and the Great Gable, 297, 298

    Llanbedr and its ancient fortifications, 218

    Llanberis, and the Pass, 205

    Llandaff Cathedral, 165;
      village and Bishop's palace, 166

    Llandderfel, 230

    Llanddewi Brefi, 187

    Llandilo, 179

    Llandingat, Vicar of, Story of the, 179

    Llandogo, 144

    Llandovery, 178, 179

    Llandrindod and its wells, 129

    Llandudno, 222

    Llanegwad, 179

    Llangadock, 179

    Llangattoc Park, 153

    Llangollen, Vale of, 232;
      bridge of, 233;
      town of, and derivation of name, 234

    Llangurig, 126

    Llangwryney, 153

    Llanidloes, 84, 85

    Llanrwst, 217, 218

    Llanspyddid, 150

    Llanthony and its priory, 142;
      and Walter Savage Landor, 142, 143

    Llanuwchllyn, 229

    Llanymddyfri, 178

    Lledr, The, 213, 214

    Llewelyn, Last stand and burialplace of, 128, 129;
      ride to Builth, 130;
      at Hereford, 133;
      and the Dysynni, 197;
      birthplace of, 214;
      and Deganwy Castle, 222;
      at Rhuddlan, 226

    Llewelyn, David Llwyd ap, 195

    Llia, The, 168, 169

    Llugwy, The:
      At Capel Curig, turbulent course and scenery, 210;
      Swallow Falls, 210, 211;
      Moel Siabod, 210, 211;
      Bettws-y-Coed, 211-213

    Llyffnant, The, 124

    Llyn-Gwyn Lake, The, 127

    Loch Doon, 340

    Loch Enoch, 341

    Loch Lomond, 367, 369

    Loch Long, 369

    Lochinvar, The romance of, 315, 316

    Lochmaben, the supposed birthplace of Robert Bruce, 318

    Lodore, Falls of, 299

    "Logan" stone, in Teign valley, 38

    Loman, The, 30

    Long Mountain, The, 87

    Longridge Fell, 279

    Looe, The, 55

    Lostwithiel, 62

    Love, The, 55

    Loweswater, 299, 300

    Ludlow, its castle and church, 104

    Lug, The, 135

    Lugar, The, 334

    Lundy, 47

    Lune, The:
      Spencer's allusion, its rise, uplands, highlands, valleys, fairy
      glens, Howgill, Kirkby Lonsdale, 281;
      the Greta and the Wenning, Vale of Caton, Morecambe Bay and Little
      Fylde, 212;
      Lancaster, 282-284;
      Drayton's lines, 284

    Lutterworth and Wiclif, 108

    Lydney, 123

    Lyminge Church, 3

    Lymington river, The, 20

    Lympstone, 34

    Lyn, The (also called the East Lyn):
      Source, length, general features, places and scenes described in
      "Lorna Doone," 35;
      its beauty between Malmsmead and Watersmeet, 35, 36;
      Lynton and Lynmouth, 36

    Lynher, The, 59

    Lynmouth, 36

    Lynton, 36, 47


    Machno, The:
      Scenery, Pandy Mill, Falls of the Conway, 215;
      Fairy Glen, 217

    Machynlleth, 195, 196

    Madoc, Prince, Tales of, 204, 220

    Madoc ap Gruffydd Maelor, 234

    Maiden Newton, 24

    Mallwyd Church, 195

    Malmesbury, ruins of the abbey, William of Malmesbury, and Hobbes,
    72

    Malpas Road estuary, 65

    Manchester:
      Water-supply, 244;
      earliest industries, in Tudor times, and population, 246;
      progress of manufacture and trade, 247;
      Ship-Canal, 247, 248, 250, 254, 255;
      during the Civil Wars, Peterloo massacre, Parliamentary
      representation, Free Trade Hall, incorporation, 250;
      Cathedral, 250, 251;
      Chetham College, Grammar School, Owens College, Victoria
      University, Free Libraries, 251;
      Albert Memorial, Town Hall, Infirmary and other buildings, 252;
      the Irwell, 246, 252, 253;
      Salford docks, 254

    "Mappa Mundi," 134

    Maresfield and the remains of iron-smelting industry, 10

    Margate, 6

    Marias, The, 180

    Marlan, The, 73

    Marteg, The, 127

    Martyr's Worthy, 15

    Mary Queen of Scots, her landing at Workington, 300;
      visit to Bothwell, 314;
      at Craignethan Castle, 351;
      at Cadzow, 353

    Massey, Gerald, and Brantwood, 294

    Mauchline, 334

    Maud de Saint Wallery and the Castle of Hay, 131

    Mauldslie Castle, 353

    Mawddach, The, 198;
      Ganllwyd Glen, 201;
      the Falls, 201, 202;
      Barmouth and Wordsworth, Penmaenpool, Abbey of St. Mary, 202;
      antiquity and appearance of Barmouth, Guild of St. George, hill
      of Craig Abermaw, 203

    Maxwell family, The, and Caerlaverock Castle, 320, 321

    Maxwelltown, 321

    Meavy, The, 50

    Medina river, The, 22

    Medlock, The, 246

    Melksham, 74

    Mellte, The, 169-171

    Menai Strait, 206

    Meonware, 12

    Merlin's Grotto, 179

    Mersey, The:
      A modern river, 242;
      derivations of name, 242, 243;
      origin, 243, 244;
      Blackstone-edge reservoirs and the Manchester water-supply, 244;
      Stockport, 244, 245;
      Northenden, Stretford, 245;
      the Irwell, 245, 246;
      Manchester and Salford, 246, 247, 250-252, 254, 255, 257;
      the Ship-Canal, 247, 248, 250;
      Ordsall, Eccles, Barton, Warburton, Irlam, 254;
      Warrington, 255, 256;
      Latchford, 256, 257;
      Runcorn and Widnes, 257, 258;
      the Weaver, Saltport, Eastham Locks, Ellesmere Port, 258;
      entrance to estuary and Wirral Peninsula, 258, 259;
      Liverpool, 259-268;
      Birkenhead, 266, 268;
      New Brighton, Perch Rock Lighthouse, sandbanks, length, lines of
      Drayton, 268

    Merthyr, Manufactories of, 162, 163

    Midford, The, 75

    Milford, Old and New, 183-186

    Milford Haven, 182-186

    Minnick Water, The, 318

    Minster, 6

    Minsterworth, 123

    Mint, The, 2-6

    Moel Famman, 228

    Moel Siabod, 210, 211, 214, 217

    Moel Wyn, 204

    Mold, 237

    Molineux family, The, and Liverpool, 260

    Monkton Priory, 183

    Monmouth in olden time, 141;
      St. Mary's Church, St. Thomas's Chapel, Benedictine Priory, the
      "Monmouth Cap," 142

    Monmouth, Earl of, his defeat of the Covenanters at Bothwell
    Bridge, 354

    Monnow, The, 141, 142

    "Mons Meg" gun, The, 323

    Monteith, John, and the Blantyre mills, 355

    Montgomery, its castle and the Herberts of Cherbury, 86;
      the church and its monuments, 87

    Mordiford and the legend of a serpent, 135

    Morecambe Bay, 282, 284, 285, 286

    Morgan, Bishop, 227

    Morley, Earls of, Seat of, 51

    Morriston, 175, 176

    Morton, Bishop, at Brecon Castle, 151

    Morwell Rocks, 55, 56

    Morwellham, 56

    Moselle, The, its resemblance to the Wye, 140

    Mossgiel, 334

    Mostyn, Castle of, 240

    Motherwell, 353

    Mouse Water, The, 350, 351

    Much Wenlock, 98

    Muchelney Abbey, 68

    Muir, James, "The Grey Man," 340

    Muirkirk, 332

    Mumbles, The, 175

    Murray, John, and Mrs. Randell's "Domestic Cookery," 175

    Musgrave family, Seat of the, 303, 304

    Myddleton, Sir Hugh, and Chirk Castle, 234


    Nadder, The, 22

    Nailbourne, 6

    Nant Francon, Vale of, 206, 208

    Naseby, Battle of, 107

    Neath, The, 159, 160;
      its rise, 168;
      the Stone of Llia, scenery near Ystradfellte, 169;
      the Mellte, 169, 170;
      the Little Neath, the Hepste, and the Sychnant, 169-171;
      the Cwm Porth, 170;
      waterfalls, 170, 171;
      Pont Neath Vaughan, 171;
      Neath and its abbey, 171-173

    Neath town, 160, 171;
      Abbey, 172, 173

    Nelson monument near Carmarthen, 179

    New Brighton, 268

    New Forest, its streams, 20

    New Lanark, 350

    Newcastle Emlyn, 187

    Newgale Bridge, 181

    Newmarch, Bernard, Church at Brecon founded by, 151

    Newnham, 123

    Newport:
      Trade, docks, and castle, 157;
      Church of St. Woollos, 158

    Newton Abbot, 39

    Newton Stewart, 323

    Newtown, 86

    Nith, The:
      Its rise, course, and tributaries, 318;
      Dumfries, 319;
      Drumlanrig Castle, 319, 320;
      Caerlaverock Castle, 320, 321;
      the Cairn, Maxwelltown, 321;
      Sweetheart Abbey, 322

    North, Christopher, on Troutbeck village, 292

    North Foreland, 6

    North Tamerton, 55

    Northenden, 245


    Offa, Palace at Hereford of, 133;
      his murder of Ethelbert and founding of Hereford Cathedral, 134;
      battle with the Welsh at Rhuddlan, 225

    Offa's Dyke, 235, 236

    Ogwen, The:
      Length, Falls of Benglog, 207;
      Vale of Nant Francon, Bethesda slate quarries, cascades, 208, 209;
      Penmaenmawr, Penrhyn Castle, 209

    Old Man of Coniston, 294

    Old Sarum, 22, 23

    Oldham, Bishop, and Manchester Grammar School, 251

    Olwey, The, 155

    Ordericus, Birthplace of, 96

    Ordsall, 254

    Otter, The:
      Honiton, Ottery St. Mary, and Coleridge's reminiscences of his
      birthplace, 27, 28

    Ottery St. Mary, 27

    Ouse, The Sussex:
      Course, Fletching Common, Maresfield and its remains of
      iron-smelting industry, battle of Lewes, 10

    Overton Churchyard, 236

    Owen, Sir Richard, and Lancaster Grammar School, 284

    Owen, Robert, Birthplace of, 86;
      his mills at New Lanark, 350

    Owens, John, and Owens College, 251

    Oxenbridge Ogre, The, 7

    Oxenhams, The, Tradition relating to, 46


    Paisley, 366

    Paley and the Grammar School at Giggleswick, 273

    Parr, Catherine, Birthplace of, 287

    Parret, The:
      Source, and view at Crewkerne, 67;
      Church of St. Bartholomew, ruins of Muchelney Abbey, Langport,
      historical associations, the Tone and Taunton, 68;
      Athelney Island and Alfred the Great, 69, 70;
      Sedgemoor, 70;
      Bridgwater and its trade, Burnham, Highbridge, Wookey Hole, 70, 71

    Partick, 363, 365

    Patrixbourne, 6

    Patti, Madame, and Craig-y-Nos, 177, 178

    Paxton, Sir Joseph, 268

    Pearl-fishery at Deganwy, 221

    Peden the Covenanter, 334

    Peel Castle, 286

    Pegwell Bay, 6

    Pembroke, Old and New, 183, 184

    Pembroke Castle, 183

    Pendle Hill, 276

    Penmaenmawr, 209

    Penmaenpool, 198, 202

    Penrhyn Castle, 209

    Pentillie Castle, 58

    Perddyn, The, 171

    Peterloo massacre, 250

    Petteril, The, and Greystoke Castle, 307

    Pillar Mountain, 297

    Plinlimmon, source of five rivers, 82, 124;
      legendary associations, 125, 126

    Plym, The:
      Rise and outlet, 49;
      Cadaford Bridge, Shaugh Prior, the Dewerstone, the Meavy,
      Sheepstor, Bickleigh Vale, Plympton Priory, 50;
      Plympton, Earl, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, Laira Bridge, and
      Saltram, 51;
      Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse, 52, 53

    Plymouth, 50-53

    Plympton Earl and Sir Joshua Reynolds, 51

    Plympton St. Mary, 50

    Pont Neath Vaughan, 171

    Pontypridd and its bridge, 163, 164

    Portmadoc, 203, 204

    Portsmouth, Earl of, Seat of, 46

    Postling and the southern branch of the Canterbury Stour, 3

    Potrail, The, 343

    Poulton-le-Fylde, 280

    Powderham Castle, 34

    Powys Castle, 87

    Prehistoric animals, Remains of, 273

    Preston:
      Antiquity, Anglo-Saxon remains, rout of the Royalists, buildings,
      278;
      port and docks, 279

    Prestonbury, 38

    Pretenders, The, at Lancaster, 283

    Priesthill and the shooting of John Brown, 332

    Prior Matthew, Birthplace of, 23

    Pulborough, 11


    "Q.," Old, 320

    Quatford, 102

    Queensberry, First Duke of, and Drumlanrig Castle, 319

    Quicksands of Morecambe Bay, 285, 286

    Quothquan, 345


    Raglan Castle and its siege, 155

    Ramsgate, 6

    Red Scar, 278

    Red Screes, 285

    Redbridge, 20

    Renfrew, 366, 367

    Restormel Castle, 61, 62

    Reynolds, Sir Joshua, and his birthplace, 51;
      at Plymouth with Dr. Johnson, 53

    Rhayader Gwy, 126, 127

    Rheidol, The, 189, 190

    Rhuddlan, 223;
      Castle and historical associations, 225, 226

    Rhyl, 223

    Rhys ap Thomas, Sir and Carew Castle, 182

    Ribble, The:
      Source, 271, 272;
      Settle, formation of the railway and diversion of the river,
      Horton-in-Ribblesdale, 272;
      legendary giants, Giggleswick, cascades near Stainforth,
      whortleberry and mushroom produce, 273;
      peel-house at Hellifield, 273, 274;
      Gisburne Hall, wild cattle, Bowland Forest, the Hodder, Whitewell
      Chapel, Brownsholm Hall, and the Seal of the Commonwealth, 274;
      Stonyhurst College and the Sherburne family, 274-276;
      the Calder, Burnley, Pendle Hill, and a story of Fox, 276;
      Towneley Hall and the ruins of Whalley Abbey, 276, 278;
      allusions of Philip Gilbert Hamerton, 278;
      Preston, 278, 279

    Richard II., landing at Milford Haven on his return from Ireland,
    185;
      at Conway Castle, 220;
      a captive at Rhuddlan Castle, 226;
      at Flint Castle, 239

    Richborough Castle, 6

    Rivington Pike, 279

    Robartes, Lord, Cornish home of, 61

    Robertsbridge and the Cistercian Abbey, 8

    Roch, The, 246

    Romsey:
      Salmon-fishing, and the abbey, 19

    Ropley Dean, and the source of the Itchen, 14

    Roseneath, 368

    Ross Town and the "Man of Ross," 136-138

    Rothay (or Rotha), The:
      Its feeders, Codale Tarn, Easedale, 288;
      Helm Crag, Wordsworth's allusion, Grasmere, the Church, aspect of
      the country in former times, 289;
      Wordsworth's Cottage, 289, 290;
      hills and other scenery round Grasmere, 290;
      Rydal, Rydal Water and Forest, 290, 291;
      Ambleside, junction with the Brathay, fall into Windermere, 291

    Rother, The Eastern, and Bodiam Castle, 7, 8;
      source, Robertsbridge and its abbey, tributaries, scenery, Isle
      of Oxney, and Winchelsea, 8

    Row, 369

    Royal Military Canal, 7

    Rugby, 108

    Runcorn, 255, 257, 258

    Rupert, Prince, and the siege of Liverpool, 262

    Ruskin, Mr.:
      Guild of St. George at Barmouth, 203;
      allusion to scenery in the Vale of Llangollen, 232;
      and Brantwood, 294

    Rutherglen, 358, 361

    Rydal Water, 290, 291

    Rye, 7, 8


    Saddleback, 298

    St. Asaph and its cathedral, 227

    St. Augustine, Arrival of, 4;
      and Littlebourne, 6

    St. Austell, The, 55

    St. Bride of Douglas, Church of, and the Douglas family, 347

    St. Cadoc creek, The, 62

    St. Constantine, Churchyard of, 344

    St. Finbarrus, first Bishop of Cork, Church dedicated to, 63

    St. Giles's Park, 24

    St. John's Beck, The, 298

    St. Kentigern, Legendary story of, 358

    St. Leonard's Forest, 10, 11

    St. Michael's, Lancashire, 280

    St. Mungo, 358

    St. Neot, 61

    St. Nicholas-at-Wade, Ford at, 6

    St. Patrick, Birthplace of, 366

    St. Wilfrid and the South Saxons, 13

    Salford, 246, 248, 254.
      (_See also_ Manchester)

    Salisbury and the Avon, 22;
      Cathedral, 23

    Saltash, 55, 59

    Saltport, 258

    Sandwich, 6, 7

    Sark, The, 312

    Sarr, 5, 6

    Sawddy, The, 178

    Scafell, 295

    Scorhill Down and the "Clam" Bridge, 37, 38

    Scott, Sir Walter, at Wordsworth's cottage when an Inn, 290;
      his visit to the Church of St. Bride of Douglas, 347;
      and "Old Mortality," 351, 354

    Seaford, 8, 10

    Seal of the Commonwealth, The, at Brownsholm Hall, 274

    Seaton, The, 55

    Sedgemoor, 70

    Sefton Park, 267

    Seiont, The:
      Length, Pass of Llanberis, 205;
      Dolbadarn Castle and Ceunant Mawr, 205, 206;
      view of Snowdon, Carnarvon Castle, Carnarvon, Conway, and the
      Isle of Anglesea, 206

    Serpent of the Wye, The, Legend of, 135

    Settle, 272

    "Seven Wonders of Wales," 232, 233, 236

    Severn, The:
      Source, 82;
      length, 82 and _note_;
      and the course of the Dee, 83;
      scenery near source, 83;
      its ancient names, 84;
      Llanidloes, 84, 85;
      Blaenhafren, 84;
      Cefn Carnedd, 85, 86;
      Caersws fortress, Newtown and Robert Owen, 86;
      Montgomery, its castle and the Herberts of Cherbury, 86, 87;
      Welshpool, Powys Castle, Roman entrenchments, the Long Mountain,
      the Breidden Hills, 87;
      Vyrnwy tributary, Liverpool water-supply, 88;
      views from the hills, 87;
      Shrewsbury, 90-94;
      Haughmond Hill, 94, 95;
      Augustinian Priory, 95;
      Atcham, Wroxeter Church, site of Uriconium, 96;
      relics of Roman times, 97;
      Condover, the Wrekin, Benthall Edge, Much Wenlock, Buildwas
      Abbey, 98;
      Coalbrook Dale, Ironbridge, Broseley, Benthall, 99;
      Bridgnorth, 99, 100;
      Quatford, Bewdley, Kidderminster, Stourport and the canal, 102;
      Worcester, 102-104;
      the Teme, Ludlow Castle and Church, 104;
      Kemsey and Upton, 104;
      Tewkesbury, 106;
      Deerhurst, 119;
      Gloucester, its cathedral and historical associations, 119-122;
      Telford's bridge, 122;
      tidal wave, 122;
      Minsterworth, Westbury, Newnham, Berkeley, Lydney, Sharpness
      Bridge, tunnel, the estuary, 123

    Shaftesbury, Earls of, and St. Giles's Park, 23

    Shakespeare, his associations with Stratford-on-Avon, 111-114;
      his allusions to Kendal, 288

    Shandon, 369

    Sharpness, 123

    Sheffield, Earl of, Seat of, 10

    Shelley and Tremadoc, 204

    Sherburne family, The, and Stonyhurst College, 274, 275

    Ship-Canal, Manchester, 247, 248, 250, 254, 255, 257

    Shoreham, 11

    Shottery and Anne Hathaway, 111

    Shrewsbury:
      Situation and history, 90;
      attacks on the fortress, bridges over the Severn, birthplace of
      Admiral Benbow and Charles Darwin, school, 91;
      black-timbered houses, Ireland's Mansion, 92;
      churches, 94;
      museum, 97

    Sid, The, 27

    Siddons, Mrs., Birthplace of, 151

    Sigourney, Lydia, Lines on Carlisle by, 309

    Silverdale, 285, 286

    Simon de Montfort, Death of, 115

    Simonsbath, 28

    Skelton, John, Lampoons of, 305;
     in sanctuary at Westminster, and story of his student days, 306

    Skiddaw, 298, 307

    Smeaton and the Eddystone, 52

    Smollett, The home of, 367

    Snowdon, 204, 205, 210

    Solway Firth, 301, 302, 312

    Sorn, 332;
      the castle, 333;
      the village and the memories of Burns, 333, 334

    South Molton, 46

    South Tawton, 46

    Southampton, 13, 14;
      docks, piers, suburbs, etc., 19

    Southampton Water, 1

    Southey, Birthplace of, 78;
      his allusion to the Vale of St. John's, 298;
      burialplace, 299

    Southwick, 13

    Spencer:
      Allusions to the Dee, 229, 237;
      allusions to the Lune, 281, 284

    Sprint, The, 286

    Stainforth, 273

    Stair House, 335

    Stanley, Mr. H. M., Birthplace of, 228

    Stanley family, The, and Liverpool, 260

    Starcross, 34

    Staverton, 42

    Steele, Sir Richard, and Carmarthen, 179, 180

    Stephen, King, and his siege of Shrewsbury, 90, 91

    Stevenson, R. L., his character of the Lord Justice Clerk in "Weir
    of Hermiston," 350

    Stewart, Dugald, entertains Robert Burns at Catrine House, 334

    Steyning, 11

    Stockbridge, 19

    Stockport:
      A railway centre, 244;
      antiquity, historical associations and trade, 245

    Stonebyres Linn, 351

    Stonehouse, 51, 53

    Stoneleigh Abbey, 108

    Stonyhurst College, 274-276

    Stour, The (Canterbury):
      Peculiarities, 2;
      branches, length of course and valley, 3;
      angling, 3, 5;
      Ashford, Lenham, Postling, Lyminge, and Wye, 3;
      Canterbury, 4;
      Fordwich, 4, 5;
      Grove Ferry and Sarr, 5, 6;
      Isle of Thanet, 6;
      Pegwell Bay, 6

    Stour, The (Dorsetshire):
      Source, and confluence with the Avon, 23;
      Canford Hall, Gaunt's House, St. Giles's Park, Wimborne and
      Matthew Prior, 23

    Stour, The Lesser:
      Source and course, Bishopsbourne Church and Bishop Hooker,
      Cranmer's Palace at Bekesbourne, and general features of the
      watershed, 6;
      Sandwich, 7

    Stourhead, 23

    Stourmouth, 6

    Stourport, 102

    Strata Florida Abbey, 186

    Stratford-on-Avon:
      The town, 110;
      Shakespeare, Anne Hathaway, and Sir Thomas Lucy, 111;
      the church, the poet's burialplace, and monument, 113, 114

    Stretford, 245

    Sundrum, 335

    Swallow Falls, 210, 211

    Swanbourne Mill, 11

    Swansea:
      Origin of name, industrial history, 174;
      Morriston Castle, the Mumbles, literary associations, 175

    Sweetheart Abbey, 322

    Swift, The, 108

    Sychnant, The, 170, 171

    Symond's Yat, View from, 140, 141


    Taf, The, 180

    Taff, The, 159, 160;
      sources, 161;
      water-supply of Cardiff, 163;
      Merthyr and its factories, Dowlais Steel and Iron Works, scenery
      of affluents, 163;
      Pontypridd, 163, 164;
      Castell Coch and its wines, 164;
      Llandaff, its cathedral and village, 165, 166;
      Cardiff, 166-168

    Tal-y-Llyn, 197

    Talsarn Mountain, 149

    Tamar, The, 46;
      its rise, course, scenery on upper waters, cascade at Weir Head,
      55;
      Morwell Rocks, 55, 56;
      Morwellham, Harewood, and Calstock, 56;
      Cotehele House, Kit Hill, Danescombe Valley, Pentillie Castle,
      Cargreen, St. Budeaux Church, Trematon Castle, and junction with
      the Tavy, 58;
      width at Saltash, characteristics of Saltash, the Hamoaze, 59

    Tame, The, 243

    Tarbolton, 335

    Tarel, The, 150

    Tarras, The, 314

    Taunton, 68-70

    Tavistock and Drake, 45

    Tavy, The:
      Course and richness of scenery, 45;
      Tavistock and Drake, 45;
      Buckland Abbey, tributaries, and confluence with the Tamar, 46, 58

    Taw, The:
      Length, general features, South Tawton and the Oxenhams,
      Eggesford, Chulmleigh, view from Coddon Hill, Bishop's Tawton,
      and Tawstock Park, 46;
      Barnstaple, its history and antiquity, 47;
      Lundy, Hartland Point, and Baggy Point, 47

    Tawe, The, 159, 160;
      Swansea, 174-176;
      Mumbles, 175;
      length, Morriston, 176;
      the Twrch affluent, 176;
      Craig-y-Nos and Madame Patti, 177, 178;
      source, 178

    Teifi (or Tivy), The:
      Source, Great Monastery, the "Westminster of Wales," 186;
      Tregaron, Llanddewi Brefi, Derry Ormond column and its romance,
      Newcastle, Cenarth, 187;
      Kilgerran Castle, Cardigan, 188;
      Gwbert-on-the-Sea, 189

    Teign, The:
      Source and tributaries, 37;
      the "Clam" bridge near Scorhill, 37, 38;
      Leigh Bridge, Chagford, "logan" stone, view of gorge from Fingle
      Bridge, Prestonbury, Cranbrook, Dunsford Bridge, Heltor,
      Blackstone, Chudleigh and its limestone, 38;
      waters of the Bovey, Newton Abbot and the Prince of Orange's
      proclamation, 39;
      Teignmouth, 40

    Teignmouth, 40

    Teme, The, 104

    Tennyson at Freshwater, 20;
      allusions to the Wye, 144;
      and Llanberis, 205;
      allusion to Bala Lake, 230

    Tern, The, 96

    Test, The, 12;
      source, 13;
      characteristics, length, tributaries, Stockbridge, angling at
      Romsey, 19

    Tewkesbury, 106;
      Abbey Church and timbered houses, 115, 116;
      the last battle between Lancaster and York, 117, 118

    Thirlmere, 298

    Threave Castle and its history, 322, 323

    Tichborne, 15

    Tintern Abbey, 145, 146

    Tinto Hill, 344;
      prospect from, 345

    Titchfield, The, 12

    Titus, Colonel Silas, 62

    Tiverton:
      Former name, Church of St. Peter, Castle, the Grammar School and
      Peter Blundell, 30

    Tomb, Miraculous, at Christchurch, 157

    Tone, The, 68

    Tong, The, 246

    Topsham, 34

    Torridge, The, 37, 46;
      its rise and circuitous course, 47;
      features of the valley, 47;
      Torrington and its church, 47, 48;
      Bideford and its historical associations, 48, 49;
      Hubbastone, Instow, and Appledore, 49

    Torrington and its church, 47, 48

    Tortington, 11

    Totnes, 42, 43

    Tower Lindsay, 344

    Towneley Hall and the Towneley family, 276, 278

    Towy, The:
      Source, scenery, absence of pollution, affluents, Ystradffin and
      the story of Twm Shon Catti, Llandovery, 178;
      bridges, Llandilo, Dynevor Castle, Golden Grove, Dryslwyn Castle,
      Nelson monument, the Cothi, Llanegwad, 179;
      Carmarthen, 79, 80

    Towyn, 198

    Traeth Bach, The, 204

    Train, George Francis, 268

    Trecastle, 150

    Treffry family, The, Seat of, 63

    Trefriw, 218

    Tregaron, 187

    Tregony, 63

    Tregothman, 63, 64

    Tremadoc and Shelley, 204

    Trothey, The, 143

    "Trough of the Clyde," The, 350, 351

    Troutbeck, The:
      Troutbeck village, Ill Bell, 292

    Truro, 63, 64;
      and the jurisdiction over Falmouth, 65;
      rivalry with Falmouth, 66

    Truro River, 63

    Twy-ford-town. (_See_ Tiverton)


    Uddington, 357

    Ulleswater, 303

    Ulverston Sands, 286

    University College, Liverpool, 267

    Upavon, 22

    Upton, 104

    Urieoninm, Site of, 96, 97

    Usk, The:
      Its rise, the Henwen brook, 149;
      Trecastle and earthworks of Bernard Newmarch's Castle, Drayton's
      "Cray," Forest of Brecon and its outlaws, the Yscir, remains of
      Roman camp, view from Llanspyddid, 150;
      Brecon, 150, 151;
      "Arthur's Chair," 151;
      the Beacons, 150, 152;
      Bwlch, 152;
      Dinas Castle and Alfred the Great's daughter, Crickhowell and
      the Well of St. Cenan, Llangattock Park and its cave,
      Llangwryney, junction with the Gwryney, 153;
      Abergavenny, 153, 154;
      Raglan Castle, salmon and trout fishing, Usk and its castle,
      Caerleon and Roman relics, centre of one of the ancient British
      kingdoms, 156;
      miraculous tomb, Newport, Earl of Gloucester's Castle, 157;
      tower of St. Woollos' Church, 158

    Usk town, a Roman station, castle, and scene of defeat of Owen
    Glendower, 155


    Vale of St. John, 298

    Valle Crucis Abbey, 232, 233

    Victoria University, 251

    Vivian, Lord, Seat of, 61

    Vyrnwy, The, and the Liverpool water-supply, 88


    Wallabrook, The, 37, 38

    Wallace, William, Legends of, 337;
      scenes of his exploits in Clydesdale, 345;
      his "Tower" and "Chair," 350;
      and Marion Bradfute, 350;
      and the "Castle of the Quaw," 351;
      at Blantyre Priory, 355

    Walney Island, 294

    Walton, Izaak, his allusions to Fordwich, 5;
      grave and memorial at Winchester, 16

    Wanlockhead, 344

    Wantsum, The, 6

    War of the Roses and the town of Shrewsbury, 91;
      battle of Tewkesbury, 117

    Warburton, 254, 255

    Wareham, 24

    Warre, Thomas de la, and Manchester Cathedral, 250

    Warrington, 255, 256

    Warton the poet, and Wickham, 13

    Warwick and its church and castle, 110

    Warwick, Guy, Earl of, and Guy's Cliff, 108

    Wastwater, 296, 297

    Water of Ken, The, 322

    Watling Street, Clydesdale, 351

    Watt, James, and Glasgow Green, 361;
      birthplace of, 368

    Watt's Dyke, 235, 236

    Waugh, the Lancashire poet, and a stranger's description of
    Wordsworth, 296

    Wear Gifford, 48

    Wear Water, The, 26

    Weaver, The, 258

    Weld, Cardinal, and Stonyhurst College, 275

    Well of St. Cenau, 153

    Welshpool, 87

    Wenning, The, 282

    Werrington stream, The, 55

    West Lynn, The, 29

    West Okement, The, 37, 47

    Westbury-on-Severn, 123

    Westminster, Duke of, and Eaton Hall, 237

    Weston-Zoyland, 70

    Wetheral, The "Safeguards" and the priory at, 306

    Wethercoats Cave, Waterfall of, 282

    Whaddon streamlet, The, 74

    Whalley Abbey, 276, 278

    Wharton Crags, 286

    Whernside Heights, 272

    Wherwell, 19

    Whewell, Dr., Birthplace of, 284

    Whitchurch, 19

    White Cart, Valley of the, 366

    Whiteinch, 365, 366

    Whitewell Chapel, 274

    Wickham, birthplace of William Wykeham, and residence of Warton the
    poet, 13

    Wickham Breaux, 6

    Wiclif and Lutterworth, 108

    Widnes, 257

    Wigtown martyrs, 325, 326

    Wiley, The, 22

    William III., his portrait at Drumlanrig Castle stabbed by
    Highlanders, 320

    William Rufus and Armathwaite, 305

    William of Wykeham, 13

    Wilson, Professor, on the neighbourhood of Windermere, 291

    Wilson, Richard, Burialplace of, 237

    Wimborne, 23

    Winchelsea, 7, 8

    Winchester, 15;
      memorial to Izaak Walton, 16

    Windermere:
      Dimensions, islets, and feeders, 291, 292;
      depth, angling for char, beauties of the southern end, 293

    Winster, The, 288

    Wirral Peninsula, 259, 268

    Wnion, The:
      Troutfishing, the Torrent Walk, 198;
      cataract, 199;
      Dolgelley, 200, 201

    Wookey Hole, 71

    Wootton river, The, 22

    Worcester:
      History, 102, 103;
      Cathedral, 103, 104

    Wordsworth, his lines on the Wye, 144;
      and the estuary of the Mawddach, 202;
      and Mrs. Hemans crossing the Ulverston Sands, 286;
      allusion to Kendal, 288;
      and Easedale Tarn, 288, 289;
      his cottage and burialplace, 289, 290;
      on the river Duddon, 294;
      sonnets on Donnerdale, 294, 295;
      described by a local gossip, 297;
      birthplace, 300;
      on the Eden river, 303;
      on the scenery of the Clyde, 349, 350

    Workington, 300

    Wrekin, The, 94, 98

    Wrexham Church, 236

    Wroxeter, 96

    Wrynose Fell, 294

    Wye, The:
      Source, 82, 124;
      Llangurig, Rhayader Gwy, 126, 127;
      the Llyn-Gwyn, 127;
      the Elan tributary, Nantgwillt and Shelley, scenery on the Elan,
      the Yrfon and Wolf's Leap, 128;
      burialplace of Llewelyn, 129;
      Llandrindod and its wells, 129;
      Builth and Llewelyn's ride, Hay and its castle and legends,
      130-132;
      Clifford Castle and Rosamond, 132, 133;
      Hereford, Offa, Llewelyn, 133;
      murder of Ethelbert and origin of the cathedral, 134;
      "Mappa Mundi," 134, 135;
      Wye Bridge, Mordiford and the legend of a serpent, "The Wonder,"
      135;
      Ross and the "Man of Ross," 136-138;
      Goodrich Castle, Forest of Dean, Courtfield, 138;
      Coldwell Rocks, 138, 140;
      resemblance to the Moselle, 140;
      view from Symond's Yat, 141;
      Monmouth, 141, 142;
      Golden Valley, Abbey Dore, Norman church of Kilpeck, tributaries,
      142;
      Llanthony and W. S. Landor, 142, 143;
      Wordsworth's and Tennyson's lines, 144;
      Tintern Abbey, 145, 146;
      view from Wyndcliff, 146;
      Chepstow, 146, 147;
      junction with the Severn, 148

    Wye racecourse, 3

    Wyndcliff, View of nine counties from, 146

    Wynn, Sir John, 218

    Wynn, Sir Richard, 221

    Wynn, Sir Watkin Williams, Seat of, 234

    Wynnstay, 234, 235

    Wyre, The:
      Source, Fleetwood, the fells, 279;
      St. Michael's, Poulton-le-Fylde, 280

    Wyre Water, 280


    Yar, The, rising at Freshwater, 22

    Yar, The eastern, 22

    Yarmouth, 20

    Yealm, The, 49

    Yeo, The, or Ivel, 68

    Yoker, 366

    Yrfon, The, 128

    Yscir, The, 150

    Ystradfellte, 169

    Ystradffin and the story of Twm Shon Catti, 178

    Ystradgynlais, 176

    Ystwith, The:
      Rise and length, 189;
      Eglwys Newydd and mountain scenery, 190;
      Aberystwith, 190, 192

[Illustration]


    /Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage,
    London, E. C./




FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The Severn is about 200 miles in length, the Thames being
about 250. The Dee is hardly more than 90 miles.]

[Footnote 2: "Our Own Country," Vol. V., p. 160.]

[Footnote 3: "Our Own Country," Vol. V., p. 169.]

[Footnote 4: "Our Own Country." Vol. V., p. 183.]

[Footnote 5: "Our Own Country." Vol. V. p. 186.]

[Footnote 6: Dean Spence in "Cathedrals, Abbeys and Churches," p. 774.]

[Footnote 7: Green. "Short History of the English People," ch. iii.]

[Footnote 8: Quoted in "The Wye and its Associations," by Leitch
Ritchie.]

[Footnote 9: For Map of the Usk _see ante_, p. 127.]

[Footnote 10: "Our Own Country," Vol. V.]