Part 16
In 1831, the old African Association was merged into the Royal Geographical Society, and from then, right down to the present time, our knowledge of the Nile and its sources has been perfecting itself.
While resting on the plateau land above the south-west corner of the Albert Lake, on the 25th of May, 1888, Stanley’s attention was called to a towering mountain height capped with snow, which, from where he stood, lay about fifty miles away to the south-east. Twelve months later on his homeward journey, after crossing the Semliki River, which he found flowing into the south end of the Albert Lake, Stanley found himself following a range of hills, the tops of which towering up some 19,000 feet high, were covered with perpetual snow. This melting under the action of a tropical sun, poured its volumes of water into the Semliki River at his feet, which in turn conveyed it thence to the Albert Lake and onwards to swell the torrent of Father Nile.
Stanley writes: “Little did we imagine it, but the results of our journey from the Albert Nyanza to ---- where I turned away from the newly-discovered lake in 1876, established beyond a doubt that the snowy mountain, which bears the native name of Ruwenzori or Ruwenjura, is identical with what the ancients called ‘Mountains of the Moon.’
“Note what Scheadeddin, an Arabian geographer of the Fifteenth Century writes: ‘From the Mountains of the Moon the Egyptian Nile takes its rise. It cuts horizontally the equator in its course north. Many rivers come from this mountain and unite in a great lake. From this lake comes the Nile, the most beautiful and greatest of the rivers of all the earth.’”
THE NILE
ISAAC TAYLOR
After a few days at Cairo--one of the most amusing and picturesque cities in the world--the Express Nile Service of Messrs. Cook brings the traveller in three days to Luxor, where he will find enough to occupy him for as many weeks. The first view from the river shows the appositeness of the epithet Hecatompylos, applied to Thebes by Homer. Huge cubical masses of masonry--not the gateways of the city, which was never walled, but the pylons and propylons of the numerous temples--are seen towering above the palms, and, separated from each other by miles of verdant plain, roughly indicate the limits of the ancient city.
At Luxor the Nile valley is about ten miles across. The escarpment of the desert plateau, which elsewhere forms a fringing cliff of nearly uniform elevation, here breaks into cone-shaped peaks rising to a height of seventeen hundred feet above the level plain, which in January is already waving with luxuriant crops--the barley coming into ear, the lentils and vetches in flower and the tall sugar-canes beginning to turn yellow. The plain is dotted with Arab villages, each raised above the level of the inundation on its _tell_, or mound of ancient _débris_, and embosomed in a grove of date-palms mingled with the quaint dom-palms characteristic of the Thebiad. Animal life is far more abundant than in Italy or France. We note the camels and buffaloes feeding everywhere, tethered in the fields; the great soaring kites floating in the air; the graceful hoopoos, which take the place of our English thrushes; the white paddy-birds fishing on the sand-banks of the river; gay king-fishers, among them the fish-tiger pied in black and white; the sun-bird, a bee-eater clad in a brilliant coat of green and gold; the crested lark, the greater and lesser owl, as well as water-wagtails, pipits, chats and warblers, numerous swifts and swallows, with an occasional vulture, eagle, cormorant, pelican, or crane. The jackal is common; and the wolf, the hyena, and the fox are not unfrequently heard, but seldom seen.
The sunsets on the Nile, if not the finest in the world, are unique in character. This is probably due to the excessive dryness of the atmosphere, and to the haze of impalpable dust arising from the fine mud deposited by the inundation. As the sun descends, he leaves a pathway or glowing gold reflected from the smooth surface of the Nile. Any faint streaks of cloud in the west shine out as the tenderest and most translucent bars of rose; a lurid reflection of the sunset lights up the eastern sky; then half an hour after sunset a great dome of glow arises in the west, lemon, changing into the deepest orange, and slowly dying away into a crimson fringe on the horizon--the glassy mirror of the Nile gleaming like molten metal; and then, as the last hues of sunset fade, the zodiacal light, a huge milky cone, shoots up into the sky.
On moonless nights the stars shine out with a brilliancy unknown in our misty northern latitudes. About three in the morning the strange marvel of the Southern Cross rises for an hour or two, the lowest star of the four appearing through a fortunate depression in the chain of hills. When the moon is nearly full, the visitors sally out into the temples to enjoy in the clear, calm and balmy air the mystery of their dark recesses, enhanced by the brilliant illumination of the thickly clustered columns. It is a sight, once seen, never to be forgotten.
But the charm of Luxor does not consist mainly in its natural beauties, though these are not to be despised, but in its unrivalled historical interest. There is no other site of a great ancient city which takes you so far and so clearly back into the past. All the greater monuments of Thebes, all the chief tombs and temples, are older than the time of Moses; they bear in clearly readable cartouches on their sculptured walls the names of the great conquering kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties--Thotmes III., Amenhotep III., Seti I., and Rameses II.--who carried the victorious arms of Egypt to Ethiopia, Lybia, the Euphrates and the Orontes; the great wall-faces forming a picture-gallery of their exploits. More modern names on the temple-walls of Thebes are those of Shishak, who vanquished Rehoboam, and Tirhakah, the contemporary of Hezekiah. The earliest name yet found at Thebes is that of Usertasen, a king of the twelfth dynasty, who lived some forty-three centuries ago; the latest considerable additions were made by the Ptolemies, and the record finally closes with a cartouche in which we spell out the hieroglyphic name of the Emperor Tiberius. But practically the monumental history of Thebes has ended before that of ancient Rome begins. The arches of Titus and Constantine, the mausoleum of Hadrian, Trajan’s Column, the Colosseum and the Catacombs--in short, all the great structures of pre-Christian Rome--date from a time when Thebes had begun to be forsaken, and the ruin of her temples had commenced. Even the oldest Roman monuments, the Cloaca Maxima, the Agger, and the substructures of the Palatine belong to a period when the greater edifices of Thebes were hoary with the dust of centuries. When Herodotus, the father of European history, voyaged up the Nile to Thebes, at a time when the Greeks had not even heard of an obscure Italian town which bore the name of Rome, the great temples which he saw, the vocal Memnon which is the statue of Amenhotep III., and the buildings which he ascribed to a king he called Sesostris, already belonged to an antiquity as venerable as that which separates the Heptarchy and the Anglo-Saxon Kings from the reign of Queen Victoria.
Difficult as it is to realize the antiquity of these monuments, in many of which the chiselling is as sharp and the colouring as brilliant as if they had been executed only yesterday, it is still more difficult by any description to convey an impression of their vastness. The temples and tombs are scattered over a space of many square miles; single ruins cover an area of several acres; thousands of square yards of wall contain only the pictured story of a single campaign. For splendour and magnitude the group of temples at Karnak, about two miles from Luxor, forms the most magnificent ruin in the world.
THE DON
ÉLISÉE RÉCLUS
The lands draining to the Sea of Azov, form no sharply defined region, with bold natural frontiers and distinct populations. The sources of the Don and its head-streams intermingle with those of the Volga and Dnieper--some--like the Medveditza, flowing even for some distance parallel with the Volga. As in the Dnieper and Dniester valleys, the “black lands” and bare steppes here also follow each other successively as we proceed southwards, while the population naturally diminishes in density in the same direction. The land is occupied in the north and east by the Great Russians, westwards by the Little Russians, in the south and in New Russia by colonies of every race and tongue, rendering this region a sort of common territory, where all the peoples of the empire except the Finns are represented. Owing to the great extent of the steppes, the population is somewhat less dense than in the Dnieper basin and Central Russia, but it is yearly and rapidly increasing.
The Don, the root of which is probably contained in its Greek name Tanaïs, is one of the great European rivers, if not in the volume of its waters, at least in the length of its course, with its windings some 1,335 miles altogether. Rising in a lakelet in the government of Tula, it flows first southwards to its junction with the nearly parallel Veronej, beyond which point it trends to the south-east, and even eastwards, as if extending to reach the Volga. After being enlarged by the Khopor and Medveditza, it arrives within forty-five miles of that river, above which it has a mean elevation of 138 feet. Its banks, like those of the Volga, present the normal appearance, the right being raised and steep, while the left has already been levelled by the action of the water. Thus the Don flows, as it were, on a sort of terrace resembling a stair step, the right or western cliffs seemingly diverting it to the lower Volga bed. Nevertheless, before reaching that river, it makes a sharp bend first southwards, then south-westwards to the Sea of Azov.
From a commercial stand-point, it really continues the course of the Volga. Flowing to a sea which, through the Straits of Yeni-Kaleh, the Bosphorus, Dardanelles, and Gibraltar, communicates with the ocean, it has the immense advantage over the Volga of not losing itself in a land-locked basin. Hence most of the goods brought down the Volga are landed at the bend nearest the Don, and forwarded to that river. When besieging Astrakhan the Sultan Selim II. had already endeavoured to cut a canal between the two rivers, in order to transport his supplies to the Caspian. Peter the Great resumed the works, but the undertaking was abandoned, and until the middle of the present century the portage was crossed only by beasts of burden and wagons. But since 1861 the rivers have been connected by rail. Free from ice for about two hundred and forty days at its easternmost bend, the Don is sometimes so low and blocked with shoals that navigation becomes difficult even for flat-bottomed boats. During the two floods, at the melting of the ice in spring, and in the summer rains, its lower course rises eighteen to twenty feet above its normal level, overflowing its banks in several places for a distance of eighteen miles. The most important, although not the most extensive, coal-fields of Russia cover an area of about 10,000 square miles, chiefly in the southern part of the Donetz basin. Since 1865, nearly 650 beds have been found, mostly near the surface, the seams varying in thickness from one foot to twenty-four feet, and containing every description of combustible material, from the anthracite to the richest bituminous coal. The ravines here furrowing the land facilitate the study of the strata and the extraction of the mineral. Yet these valuable deposits were long neglected, and even during the Crimean war the Russians, deprived of their English supplies, were still without the necessary apparatus to avail themselves of these treasures.
Even the iron ores, which here also abound, were little utilized till that event, since when the extraction both of coal and iron has gone on continually increasing in the Donetz basin. In 1839, the yield scarcely exceeded 14,000 tons, whereas the output of the Grushova mines alone now amounts to 210,000 tons, and the total yield of the coal-pits exceeded 672,000 tons in 1872. The coal is now used by the local railways and steamers of the Don, Sea of Azov, and Euxine.
Already reduced in extent by the terrestrial revolutions which separated it from the Caspian, the Sea of Azov has been further diminished in historic times, although far less than might be supposed from the local traditions. No doubt Herodotus gives the Palus Mæotis an equal area to that of the Euxine. But as soon as the Greeks had visited and founded settlements on this inland sea they discovered how limited it was compared with the open sea. Nevertheless, fifteen hundred years ago it was certainly somewhat larger and deeper than at present, the alluvia of the Don having gradually narrowed its basin and raised its bed. Its outline also has been completely changed, Strabo’s description no longer answering to the actual form of its shores.
The town of Tanaïs, founded by the Greeks, at the very mouth of the Don, and which at the time of Ptolemy was already at some distance from the coast, has ceased to exist. But the architectural remains and inscriptions discovered by Leontiyev between Siniavka and the village of Nedoigovka, show that its site was about six miles from the old mouth of the Great Don, since changed to a dry bed. The course of the main stream has been deflected southwards, and here is the town of Azov, for a time the successor of Tanaïs in strategic and commercial importance. But where the flow is most abundant, there also the alluvium encroaches most rapidly, and the delta would increase even at a still more accelerated rate for the fierce east and north-east gales prevailing for a great part of the year. The sedimentary matter brought down, in the proportion of about one to 1,200 of fluid, amounts altogether to 230,160,000 cubic feet, causing a mean annual advance of nearly twenty-two feet.
The Gulf of Taganrog, about eighty miles long and forming the north-east extremity of the sea, may, on the whole, be regarded as a simple continuation of the Don, as regards both the character of its water and its current, and the windings of its navigable channel. This gulf, with a mean depth of from ten to twelve and nowhere exceeding twenty-four feet, seems to have diminished by nearly two feet since the first charts, dating from the time of Peter the Great. But a comparison of the soundings taken at various times is somewhat difficult, as the exact spots where they were taken and the kind of feet employed are somewhat doubtful, not to mention the state of the weather, and especially the direction of the winds during the operations. Under the influence of the winds the level of the sea may be temporarily raised or lowered at various points as much as ten or even sixteen or seventeen feet. The mean depth of the whole sea is about thirty-two feet, which, for an area of 14,217 square miles, would give an approximate volume of 13,000 billion cubic feet, or about four times that of Lake Geneva. The bed, composed, like the surrounding steppes, of argillaceous sands, unbroken anywhere by a single rock, is covered, at an extremely low rate of progress, with fresh strata, in which organic remains are mingled with the sandy detritus of the shores. If a portion of the sedimentary matter brought down by the Don were not carried out to the Euxine, the inner sea would be filled up in the space of 56,500 years.
THE COLUMBIA
J. BODDAM-WHETHAM
The Mackenzie River flows through the plain, and is singularly beautiful. Great blocks of basalt come sheer down to the water’s edge, and are divided naturally with great exactitude into huge segments. Their yellow and brown colours are reflected with wondrous effect on the surface of the stream. After a few most pleasant days, passed in the neighbourhood of Eugene City, I went on to Oregon City, and there remained to visit the Falls of the Willamette.
The river narrows near the town, and the water, rushing very swiftly, is precipitated down a fall of about fifty feet. The rocks on either side are of deep black basalt; and these huge walls, when viewed from the south, are extremely grand. It is only when they are seen from below that the mind is fully impressed with the magnificence of these falls. They have been worn into a horseshoe form by the action of the stream, and the river plunges into the depths below in great curves and sweeping currents. Masses of broken basalt show their heads amidst the rush of foaming waters, and altogether there is a noise, mist, and confusion enough to justify the Oregonians in their pride of their miniature Niagara. Formerly, these falls were the only obstruction to the free navigation of the river, but now it is overcome by the construction of locks, which have been built in the most substantial manner. The scenery of the river is very picturesque and diversified, and a lovely panorama of hill and dale, water and forest is continually passing before the view.
Portland had lately been nearly destroyed by fire, consequently I had not a good opportunity of judging of the town. It is, however, beautifully situated on the Willamette River, and is surrounded by magnificent forests. There are some delightful drives through the woods, one especially to a place called the White House, through a succession of glades and glens full of splendid trees and sweet-scented shrubs, and with views of peculiar quiet loveliness.
The Willamette runs into the Columbia River about twelve miles below Portland; so, taking the morning steamer, I prepared to ascend that river, which for grandeur of scenery is not surpassed by any river (with the exception, perhaps, of the Fraser) on the American continent.
We started so early that a grey fog swallowed up everything, and the only objects visible were the paddle-boxes and the funnel.
We steamed very slowly and cautiously down the Willamette, and as we approached the junction of that river with the Columbia the mist lifted. As it slowly crept back to the shores and up the hills and away to the north, mountains, sky and river came out with intense brilliancy and colour under the rays of the rising sun.
Wonderful forests extended from the far distance down to the very edge of the river. Beeches, oaks, pines, and firs of enormous size formed a sombre background, against which the maple and ash flamed out in their early autumn tints. On the north, the four stately snow-crowned mountains, Rainier, St. Helen’s, Jefferson, and Adams lifted themselves, rose-flushed, high up in the heavens; the great river flowed rapidly and smoothly between mountain shores, from a mile to a mile and a quarter apart, and the bold rocky heights towered thousands of feet in the air.
The mountains line the river for miles. When occasionally a deep ravine opens you catch a glimpse of distant levels, bounded, in their turn, by the never-ending chain of mountains.
There is a rare combination, too, of beauty about these mountains; vegetation and great variety of colour heightening the picturesque effect of the huge masses of bold bare rock. Now and then the cliffs impeded the flow of the river, which then ran, disturbed and dangerous, between rocky islands and sand-bars. Often the agitated waters became gradually calm and formed long narrow lakes, without any apparent outlet, until a sudden turn showed a passage through the lofty walls into another link of the water-chain.
Sometimes a cataract of marvellous beauty came leaping down the rocks from a height of 200 and 300 feet.
The Multanomah Falls in particular are most beautiful, possessing both the swift resistless rush of the downpour of water and that broken picturesque outline which is the principal charm of a fall.
Castle Rock, a huge boulder with basaltic columns like those of Staffa, stands out grandly and alone from a feathery mass of cotton-wood, whose golden splendour rivals in beauty that of the spreading dark green boughs of the pines, whilst the contrast of colour heightens the effect of each brilliant hue.
On the crest of the rock a fringe of pine trees, growing out of the bare stone and dwarfed to insignificance, shows the vast height of this rifted dome.
And now we are approaching Cape Horn, whose ramparts rise sheer and straight, like a columnar wall, 800 feet high.
This majestic portal forms a worthy entrance to the cascades. Fierce, seething rapids extend for six miles up the river, and the track of the “portage” runs near the water’s edge for the entire distance. The river is narrowed here by lofty heights of trap rock, and the bed itself is nothing but sharp gigantic rocks, sometimes hidden by the water and sometimes forming small islands, between which the foaming torrent rushes with tremendous uproar.
Near where the “portage” begins, a relic of Indian warfare, in the shape of an old block-house, stands under the fir-trees.
A small party of white men held a very large body of Indians at bay for several days in 1856; and as the provisions ran short, a grand attack was made on the red men, who were totally routed with great slaughter.
The scene in this gorge is wild in the extreme. Passing Rooster Rock, the mountain-sides approach each other, and the river flows faster and fiercer; the pillared walls rise sometimes to a height of nearly 3,000 feet, and the wind roaring through the ravine beats up huge waves and adds to the wild grandeur of the view. Whenever the mountains recede to the south, Mount Hood fills the horizon. Rising 14,000 feet, its snow-covered head shines out magnificently against the blue sky, with unvarying grandeur and a strangely attractive form.
Soon we pass an Indian burial-ground called Caffin Rock, a more desolate slope, covered with rude monuments of rock and circular heaps of piled grey stones.
Dalles City, where we now arrive, ranks as the second place of importance in Oregon. It takes its name from the “dales” or rough flag-stones, which impede the river, making narrow crooked channels, and thereby causing another “portage” for a distance of fifteen miles. Above the town the scene changes; the cliffs disappear, and from splendid forests and mountains we pass into a region of sand and desert. One tall pillar of red rock, overlooking the sandy waste, stands up forlorn and battered, as if it were the last fragment of a giant peak; and numbers of birds hovering over it seem to regard it as their special observatory.
Hot white sand is everywhere, and the wind scatters it about in a most uncomfortable manner, covering the track and half-stifling you in its blinding showers. The river scenery is very fine all along this passage, the Dalles being a succession of rapids, falls, and eddying currents.
Although it was late in the season hundreds of salmon were still ascending, and on the flat shore-rocks were several Indian lodges; their occupants busily engaged in spearing and catching the fish.
Their usual mode of catching salmon is by means of nets fastened to long handles. They erect wooden scaffolds by the riverside among the rocks, and there await the arrival of the fish--scooping up thirty or forty per hour. They are also very skilful at spearing them; rarely missing a fair mark.