John Finnemore

“ The only question is, before which barge will it happen? When the exciting moment draws near, chatter ceases, and tense stillness holds the crowd in thrall. The relentless pursuers creep on steadily, narrowing the gap between themselves and the first boat, and finally bump it exactly opposite its own barge! A moment's pause. The completeness of the triumph is too impressive to be grasped at once; then pandemonium—pistol-shots, rattles, hoots, yells, shrieks of joy, wildly waving parasols, and groans."
From the river some of the most striking and beautiful pictures of Oxford may be gained. ”

“ Next, you may go on up and up until you reach the top of the dome and look out far and wide over London, with the river winding through the huge maze of streets and houses, and the whole spread out at your feet as a bird sees a place on the wing. It is a wonderful sight on a clear day, and on a dull one it is hardly less striking, for the huge forest of smoking chimneys spreads and spreads till it is lost on the horizon, and you think that there is no end to this immense town, and that it is stretching on and on for ever. ”

“ It is packed with offices, warehouses, banks and public buildings, and it is the busiest part of London by day and the quietest by night. It is a wonderful sight to see the many, many thousands of people who work in the City pour in with the morning and stream out at evening. Every road, every bridge, leading to and from the City is packed with men and women, boys and girls, marching like a huge army, flowing and ebbing like the tides of the sea. ”

“ It is a hard and perilous life. A fishing-boat puts off in the quiet evening calm, as the lights shine out from the cottages along the shore, but the men on board are never sure that they will see those lights of home again. A sudden storm springs up; the heavy waves overwhelm the tiny craft, and perhaps its brave crew are swallowed up in the sea. A broken thwart or spar washed ashore may give a hint of their fate, but they are never seen again among living men. ”

“ No sooner do we enter the venerable building than we see on every side monuments and inscriptions to the memory of great men and women—kings, queens, princes, statesmen, famous writers, soldiers, sailors, travellers, all are there—some with a mere line or so of inscription, some with a huge sculptured monument. For many hundreds of years Westminster Abbey has been used as a burial-place, and to name those that lie there and to tell the story of their lives would be to narrate the history of England. ”

“ And bordering these heaths and downs are great stretches of smiling meadow and corn land, dotted by quaint and beautiful townlets and villages. Of large towns there are but few, for Wessex knows nothing of the toil and turmoil of great industrial centres. She tills her land and tends her flocks, and those occupations mean old farmhouses and cottages, half-timbered or stone-built, roofed with red tiles or grey thatch, and little country towns, silent and sleepy save on market-days, when the farmers and dealers come in and buy and sell their cattle and their produce. ”

“ On a fine summer day Hyde Park offers one of the most wonderful scenes in London. A constant stream of splendid carriages, drawn by magnificent horses, pours into the park and moves round and round the Drive and "The Row," with its riders, is even more interesting.
Rotten Row is a long, broad, tan-covered ride, where horsemen and horsewomen trot and canter to and fro. Finer horses and riders are not to be found. On a morning when the Row is fairly full, it is delightful to spend an hour or so, seated on one of the green chairs in shade of an elm or lime, watching the riders. ”

“ This lovely stretch of country is called the Lake District, and every year great numbers of people go to climb the rugged, broken heights, or to wander beside the shores of these pleasant stretches of water in this playground of England.
The great charm of the countryside lies in the wonderful variety of its scenery, and all the scenes so beautiful. The traveller passing through the land by coach or motor traverses, perhaps, a frowning pass, where huge bare rocks rise in gloomy grandeur, and the scene is one of savage desolation. ”

“ On the western side of Yorkshire the land heaves up to the Pennine Chain—the "backbone of England," as it is often called. It is not a chain of sharply-defined peaks; it is rather a great mass of rolling moorland whose tablelands, the "fells," are divided from each other by deep valleys, long and narrow—the famous "dales." At the foot of each dale flows a swift river, which, twisting and turning round sharp angles of rock, leaping from ledge to ledge in sheets of foam, or gliding in deep quiet stretches below an overhanging wood, affords most striking and picturesque scenery. ”

“ As we stand upon the summit of Bell Harry Tower—more happily called the Angel Steeple—of Canterbury Cathedral, looking down upon city and countryside, much of the history of England lies spread beneath our feet: the Britons were at work here before the Romans came marching with their stolid legions; here to Ethelbert St. Augustine preached the Gospel of Christ; in the church below, Becket was murdered and the Black Prince buried; to this city, to the shrine of St. Thomas, came innumerable pilgrims, one of them our first great English poet.... ”

“ There are far wilder and higher looking hills in both Wales and Scotland, which have inhabitants, which are ploughed in patches and dotted with whitewashed cottages. Yet the Downs remain lonely, their sky-line unbroken by any sign of the presence of man. Just as the Roman saw them from his trireme, the Saxon from his long ship, the Dane from his war-boat, so we see them to-day—great solitary green mounds, 600, 700, 800 feet high. ”

“ The most famous of these islands was the Isle of Ely, a patch of dry land seven miles long and four miles broad, well remembered as one of the last strongholds of the Saxons against William the Conqueror. But the vast morass which once surrounded Ely has long been drained and converted into fruitful soil, forming the immense flat amidst which rises in stately and majestic fashion the noble cathedral of Ely.
Yet the sea is not altogether the loser in the battle with man along this coast. Much land has been won from it, much land has been lost to it, and is being lost to this day. ”

“ Wessex is a land of downs and dales, and broad stretches of fertile country. It is the home of the chalk hills—those great, smooth, rolling heights, covered with short, sweet grass, on which great flocks of sheep pasture and speck the vast slopes with dots of white.
"There is hardly any part of our land which has remained so little unchanged as these Downs of Wessex. It is not because they are rugged and difficult to climb: they are not; they are often easy to surmount. ”

“ They had seemed far too large for the little river pushing over the stones: they seem none too strong now to withstand the terrific rush of flood-water sent down from the broad faces of the fells.
As we gain the higher parts of the dale, trees and corn and rich meadow-land are left behind. The farms are sheep-farms, and the moors stretch on every hand. The houses are strongly built of grey stone, and where there are fields, grey stone walls divide them, for hedges cannot grow on these windy, storm-swept heights. ”

“ England has many workers, but none braver than the toilers of the sea. Her coasts are dotted with hamlets, each with its little quay or open beach, where her fishermen hoist their brown sails and set off, as evening falls, to reap the harvest of the waters. ”

“ In our quiet days a bridge of stone has replaced the wooden bridge which rose and fell, but the old oak doors which once barred the archway leading to the house are still in position, and we can see upon them the marks of musket-balls fired at the defenders of the place in troublous times. ”

“ What prize do those stalwart fellows race to gain? The prize of risking their lives to help their fellow-creatures. There is a wreck off shore, and the bell is calling volunteers to man the lifeboat. The first men to gain the house form the crew, and these at once begin to jump into oilskins and fasten huge cork belts round their bodies, while the great boat is run out and hurried down to the beach. ”

“ Its chimneys, too, rise in a veritable forest of quaintly-shaped stacks, and form as puzzling a labyrinth as the windows.
There was a meaning in this tangle of windows and chimneys, for Compton Wynyates is full of secret hiding-places. Hundreds of years ago there was need of them. To-day no man needs to hide himself unless he has done wrong. Then, an innocent man might stand in great danger of a powerful enemy or of an unjust law. So the old houses were furnished with places where men could hide from their foes until an opportunity came for escape. ”

“ Long lines of tall elms, just flashing green in the spring hedges, run down to the very water's edge, their boughs unwarped by any blast; and here and there apple orchards are just bursting into flower in the soft sunshine, and narrow strips of water-meadows line the glens, where the red cattle are already lounging knee-deep in rich grass within two yards of the rocky, pebbly beach. ”

“ We may talk of millions of people, of thousands of streets, of hundreds of thousands of houses, but words will give us little grasp of what London means. And if we go to see for ourselves, we may travel up and down its highways and byways until we are dizzy with the rush of its hurrying crowds, its streams of close-packed vehicles, its rows upon rows of houses, shops, banks, churches, museums, halls, theatres, and begin to think that at last we have seen London. ”

“ Away to the east and south are the narrow seas, crossed by conquering Romans and Normans, crossed for centuries by a constant stream of travellers from all ends of the earth, citizens of every clime, to some of whom the sight of the English coast was the first glimpse of home, to others the first view of a strange land; away to the north and west are the Medway and the Thames, Rochester and London. From no other tower, perhaps, can so wide a bird's-eye view of our history be obtained ”

“ It is often said that those who care for Dutch landscape have no need to leave our own country to enjoy it, for the Fenland is Holland in miniature. There may be seen the same long flat stretches of country, cut by long, straight canals bordered by willow and alder; the same kind of dikes making the same fight against the encroaching sea, the windmills pumping water into drains and out of some pool which is being reclaimed; the green fields deep in grass, and the dark peat-cuttings whence the peasantry obtain their fuel. ”

“ Springing in the Cotswolds, the infant Thames, first known as the Isis, runs thirty miles eastwards to gain the meadows around Oxford. Here the river spreads into a beautiful sheet of water at the foot of Christchurch Meadow, and glides gently past "the City of the Dreaming Spires."
In the summer term this stretch of the river presents a gay and busy scene. The rowing-men are out in racing boats, skiffs, canoes, punts, and almost every kind of boat that swims. ”

“ A great feature of the county of Norfolk is the Broads—wide stretches of water connected by rivers and streams, large and small—a district beloved by yachtsmen and fishermen. All who love to sail a boat find the Broads a summer paradise. They can go by innumerable waterways from lake to lake, from pool to pool, from mere to mere, through a wide district. ”

“ When a boat is filled, it heads at once for the shore, and a waiting boat takes its place; and so it goes on till the great seine-net is empty.
On shore the scene is every whit as busy as on sea. Every living soul in the fishing village swarms down to the beach to lend a hand. The boats are rapidly emptied, and sail or pull back to the shoal; the workers ashore carry the fish to the cellars, where the women take them in hand. Anything and everything that will carry fish is pressed into service. The pilchards are piled on donkey-carts, wheelbarrows, and hand-carts ”

“ The silent, deserted village becomes a scene of the busiest life and animation. Doors burst open on every hand, and out rush men, and race head down against the wind for the building where the bell is ringing. ”

“ From hills and slopes, dales and uplands, we will take our departure and look at the flattest land of England, the wide, level stretches of country around the Wash, the Fens. A fen is a marsh, and once these immense stretches of flat land were marshes pure and simple. ”

“ Opposite Windsor, most famous of all English palaces, stands Eton, most famous of all English schools. From the well-known North Terrace of Windsor Castle—open to the public from sunrise to sunset—it is possible to obtain a fine view of the great school. "We can look down on the whole of Eton—the church, with its tall spire; the buttresses and pinnacles of the chapel standing up white against an indigo background; the red and blue roofs piled this way and that; and the green playing-fields, girdled by the swift river."
The Thames is a great playground of the Eton boys. ”

“ Voices argued with the priest, whose cross, firmly planted by the edge of the lake, was surrounded by terror-struck lake-men. At the end of a long altercation the demon released from thrall the soul of the boatman, and craved for mercy. For its peace, the priest laid the evil thing in the depths, there to remain until 'dry-shod men walk on Winander [the lake] and trot their ponies through the solid crags.'"
As we advance into the northern basin of the great lake, the scene grows in grandeur. "Over a vast plain of water the distant mountains seem to hang. ”

“ England is full of castles, abbeys, and manor-houses, which are still occupied by the descendants of those who built them or by those into whose hands they have passed in later days, and among these stately piles it is hard to pick one as a type of a fine old English house. But, putting aside the great castles, like Warwick, whose frowning walls and grim battlements tell of an age when defence was the first thought in the mind of a builder, let us take a mansion erected at a more peaceful time. Such a mansion is to be found in Compton Wynyates, a fine old Warwickshire house, built in 1509. ”

“ A summer journey by boat through this land of streams and pools is a very pleasant excursion. The traveller must fit out his yacht with plenty of food, for the region is lonely, and houses and inns few and far between. Very particular people carry fresh water as well, for the drinking water drawn from the marshy soil is a very doubtful liquid; the watermen who live on the Broads just dip up what they want from the river, and there are those who say that the plan is as good as any.
Even better than a yacht for a trip through the Broads is the local barge, a Norfolk wherry. ”

“ If we journey on south-west beyond the chalk ranges of Wessex we come to a very different country indeed: we enter on a land of granite hills. The granite rocks are as different as possible from the chalk heights. Instead of rounded slopes, we see sharp, jagged peaks and broken, rocky ridges. The smooth, open stretches of turf are exchanged for wild, heathery moorland, broken by deep dells, and the waterless chalk slopes are replaced by glens, through which leap foaming torrents.
The granite hills rise to their wildest at Dartmoor, in the centre of the county of Devon. ”

“ From the upper windows of the White Tower we can see the river crowded with ships and steamers and barges, and on a fine day it is a most beautiful sight. But the most striking thing in the view is the Tower Bridge. "This is a new bridge, and it has two great towers rising one on each side, as it seems, to the sky, and the bridge lies across low down between those towers. But when a big ship comes and wants to get up the river under the bridge, what is to be done? The bridge is not high enough! ”

“ The shore is silent now, the tide far out, but six hours hence it will be hurling columns of rosy foam high into the sunlight, and sprinkling passengers, and cattle, and trim gardens which hardly know what frost and snow may be, but see the flowers of autumn meet the flowers of spring, and the old year linger smilingly to twine a garland for the new. ”

“ When we speak of parks that brings at once to the mind the thought of Hyde Park, finest of all London's fine open spaces, so we will go to it from St. Paul's by bus, and our way will be through some of the most famous streets of London. A seat on top of a London bus is a capital place from which to see the street scenes of the great city, and we climb up and, if we are lucky, get a front seat. ”