Clive Holland

“ Kotmasu even is silent, and makes no further attempt to explain English ways and customs to Mousmé.
The hillside, with its drenched foliage and grassy slopes, is like a sheet of frosted silver. In the foreground lies our garden set thick with Nature’s flashing, gem-like rain-drops. The harbour can be seen again, as usual, an immense black pearl of irregular shape, with here and there a streak of moonlight pencilled on its tranquil surface. The cemeteries and tea-fields stretched below us to the right and left are but darker oxidised silver; the temples and tea-houses but embossed figures. ”

“ The approach to Innsbruck, whether one come to it by railway or by road from the west, north, east or south, is picturesque and even wonderfully beautiful. Most English and American travellers, however, we imagine, come to the old-time capital of Tyrol via Zurich and the Arlberg railway, with its marvellous tunnel all but six and a half miles in length, above which tower snow-clad peaks and glaciers. This route provides a wonder-world of delight, a succession of deep gorges lying at the foot of towering mountains covered on their summits with a mantle of spotless and eternal snow. ”

“ Away but a short distance under the hill of Trefusis lies the quaint little town of Flushing, with its stretch of quays and cottages clustered upon them, and its perfume of orange and lemon trees which flower and fruit in the open air. Opposite is St Mawes; and a little distance to the north-west lies Falmouth itself, with the picturesque jumble of grey and red roofs, and the docks and quays in which and alongside of which lie vessels from all parts rearing slender masts skyward, or perhaps with an added picturesqueness lent them by drying canvas flapping idly from the yards. ”

“ We go away down our garden—which has such narrow paths, some of them scarcely less pigmy than those associated in my memory with the garden of childhood’s days—now so dark and full of mysterious shadows, heavy with the strong scent of flowers, alive with the incessant noise of the cicalas, and movements of huge, soft- winged night-moths, which circle round the light of our lanterns, beating their wings with a soft, quick rattle against their distended sides, and every now and again flying into our faces and making Mousmé give a little scream of simulated terror, at which Kotmasu and I laugh. ”

“ The railway takes one through beautiful scenery in about an hour to the summit of the mountain, which is so favourite an 180 excursion with the well-to-do Salzburgers, and from which such a beautiful prospect is spread out at one's feet. To the north one can catch glimpses of the undulating foreground of the Alps and shining lakes; whilst Salzburg now more than 4000 feet below looks almost insignificant, and like a toy town set in the midst of a green plain through which winds a thin, silver line, the Salzach. ”

“ This county, of whose beauty poets from almost time immemorial have sung, possesses an added interest beyond the romantic elements afforded by its history, its magnificent survivals of bygone ages in castles, manor–houses, churches, and other domestic buildings, in that it is the land of Shakespeare. Around this beautiful district of England still hangs some of the unfading glamour which comes from the association with it of great deeds and great names; from amongst the latter of which that of “the nation’s poet” stands out with undimmed lustre as the centuries pass away. ”

“ To-day Bridport by the sea is just a quiet, picturesque little resort, where weary workers and holiday makers, whose taste is not for the bustling, fashionable type of watering-place, may find rest and quietude from the over-energetic and noisy world without, with the open and uninterrupted expanse of West Bay spread in front of them, sunlit, grey, peaceful or storm-driven by turns, whilst northward and north-eastward lie the green undulating hills and vales of Dorset. ”

“ There is no light to put out, because I always keep the lamp with its glowworm flame burning throughout the night. It permits, for one thing, Mousmé properly to arrange her head in the little hollow of her camphor-wood pillow; for another, it allows me to watch her fall asleep, and the antics of the moths outside our slate-blue gauze mosquito curtain when I cannot sleep myself.
To-night, however, I am lulled to rest by the sheer monotony of Oka’s wife’s song; and the last thing I remember is the twang, twing, twang of her samisen, which is quite loud now, I have my ear so close to the floor. ”

“ In leaving Tyrol by way of beautiful Bregenz, washed as it is by the waters of one of the most delightful of Swiss lakes, one carries with one a last impression which is fragrant with the memories of a hospitable race, charming scenery, and innumerable things of historic, artistic, and antiquarian interest. There is, indeed, no other gate through which one would rather leave this "Land within the Mountains," which, as yet unspoiled by crowds of tourists and general sophistication and the deterioration which arises therefrom, lures one to return to it again and again. ”

“ Falmouth Harbour, too, is the very paradise of charming creeks, many of the largest of which have sufficient water to let one sail right in with a moderate-sized vessel, while almost all the others can be explored in a launch or dinghy. The vast expanse of green sea, enclosed on all sides save the south with sweet woods and fields, flower-spangled at almost all seasons of the year, has a wonder-spell peculiarly its own at sunset and sunrise, and during the half-lights which succeed and precede day-dawn and dusk. ”

“ Along the coast westward, past pretty Gurnard Bay beloved by those who picnic, and Newtown haven, where, hidden away—much as is Buckler’s Hard across the Solent in Beaulieu River—lies the decaying Francheville, once an important harbour and town, rivalling in prosperity and population Newport itself, and then Yarmouth comes in sight almost at the extreme north-western corner of the Island.
It is a quaint, quiet, foreign-looking old place, lying low with a fine sweep of hills for a background, where a day or two can be pleasantly enough spent. ”

“ In the Gnadenwald, which was a grant of forest land made by Tyrolese rulers to their household servants in olden times, there are several villages of great picturesqueness. The road from Hall is a truly delightful one through pine forests, sweet with aromatic perfume in the warm air of summer, and upland fields, which seem to almost hang on the sides of the grey, craggy peaks of the Bavarian Alps. And if one but turns and gazes back occasionally there are charming vistas to be had of the Inn Valley far below, and the great chain of the southern mountain range on the further side. ”

“ From my position I can overlook the road which runs away up alongside my boundary fence, higher and higher, till at last it vanishes amid the greenery and the tea-gardens. Down below, the older quarters of the town lie huddled together like a flock of sheep crushing each other in the endeavour to avoid some danger, swarming with people of the poorer class. It is not quite so fine an evening as last night was, and the hill-tops are hidden in the woolly masses of threatening clouds. The twilight is gloomy, and not orange-hued as before, and darkness comes more quickly upon its heels. ”

“ In times of war it has experienced all the terror and excitement which comes in the train of outgoing battle fleets and incoming victorious galleons, men-of-war, and privateers. In times of peace it has known not a little of the romance of wrecking, smuggling, and the pure joy of life which is borne inland by soft, salt breezes and cleansing winds. Of its beauty those can tell who like ourselves have coasted along its varying shores of high chalk cliffs, shingle, sand, and fretted granite. ”

“ As one nears the goal of one's pilgrimage, the way is marked by stations of the cross. One passes through a silent region, and, as one ascends, the pretty villages scattered below in the valley of the Inn are gradually and for a time lost to view. Scarcely any one is met save a stray pilgrim or some tourist curious enough to make the ascent, and no sound is heard save the soughing of the summer breeze in the pines and the tinkle of little streams or the water-music of the Stallen torrents. ”

“ As one passes up the wide expanse of that unequalled anchorage known as the Sound, where have floated almost from time immemorial the argosies and battle fleets of England, and into which so much of the wealth of the world has been borne in the past as now, the spoil of enterprise or of war, one realizes something at least of the spirit of ancient times. Plymouth has forged ahead whilst many of her sister ports of bygone ages have slowly decayed. Throughout the centuries there has been no rest, no idle contentment with things that are until they cease to be. ”

“ To leave this fascinating old-world town, where so much of the most beautiful in modern ideas stands side by side with ancient things, without a visit to some of the charming and interesting places in the immediate district—lovely lakes rivalling the deep-blue sky above them in the tint of their waters; peaceful valleys, where pure air invigorates scented by passage through pinewoods and across flower-decked Alpine pastures; wonderful peaks covered with that eternal weight of glorious snow, and bound about in some cases by the immemorial fastnesses of environing glaciers—should be impossible. ”

“ We go along the street, brightly illuminated by hundreds of lanterns, pendent and ambulatory, at some small risk of being run over by rikishas taken at a rapid, nay, almost reckless pace by their active drawers.
Mousmé walks along quite gaily, her wooden clogs making a great clatter on the stones which crop up in the street, in concert with those of scores of other women who are out with husbands, brothers or escorts for an evening’s amusement or stroll. She is so naïvely proud of her “English sir,” who is a real husband after all. ”