Bridge of Sighs

“ A lofty bridge in Venice, built by Antonio Contino about 1595-1605. It spans the Rio della Paglia, connecting the Doge's Palace with the Carceri Prigioni. Its name was derived from the fact of its leading to the prisons. ”

“ Shapur I of Persia, 202. Shih-Chuan, in Western China, its important bridge, 247. Shoreham Bridge, Old, in Sussex, 41-3. Shrewsbury, Welsh Bridge at, used to be a fortified work, 261. Shrines, Wayside, 207, 230, 236, 246-7. Shrined Bridge at Elche in Spain, picture facing page 236; at Trier over the Moselle, 247. Shushter, in Persia, the Pul-i-Kaisar, 202-4. Sichuan, China, bridges in this province, 126, 145, 210 footnote, 248, 315, 347. Sighs, Bridge of, 307. Sin-Din-Fu, now called Ching-tu-fu, this city’s bridges as seen by Marco Polo, 210 footnote. ”

“ Great marble bridges of a single span stretch from mountain to mountain over deep chasms. Nothing can be more imposing than the construction and the situation of those bridges, cast into space as it were, and swimming in the white, moist atmosphere which seems to fall regretfully into the ravine. The road passes from one side of the gorge to the other seven times in the space of four leagues. When our travellers crossed the seventh bridge, they saw at the bottom of the gorge, which widened almost imperceptibly before them, the charming valley of Luz, bathed in the flames of the rising sun. ”

“ At Scia the road passes over a small bridge very high up, which commands another bridge, gray and abandoned. The double tier of arches bends gracefully over the blue torrent; meanwhile a pale light already floats in the diaphanous mist; a golden gauze undulates above the Gave; the aërial veil grows thin and will soon vanish.
Nothing can convey the idea of this light, so youthful, timid, and smiling, which glitters like the bluish wings of a dragon-fly that is pursued and is taken captive in a net of fog. ”

“ Instantly there was seen a deep, broad, and confused mass of men, horses, and chariots, besieging the narrow entrance of the bridge, and overwhelming it. The first, pushed forward by those behind them, and driven back by the guards and pontonniers, or stopped by the river, were crushed, trod underfoot, or precipitated among the floating ices of the Berezina. From this immense and horrible rabble-rout there arose at times a confused buzzing noise, at others a loud clamour, mingled with groans and fearful imprecations. ”

“ We wound up the narrow valley in splendid loops and curves, turning upon our tracks, running through numerous tunnels, and at one time crossing a chasm so narrow and with sides so steep and precipitous that it was found necessary to build the bridge in two parts, each against the face of the cliff, and then gradually lower them until they met above the river, three hundred and fifty feet below. ”

“ At several of the windings of the road, now steep but always smooth and broad, and almost always protected, we again hung over what seemed a miniature of Brieg and the valley as far as Tourtemagnen, till arrived at a certain height, it runs nearly on a level along the edge of the ravine of the Ganther to the bold bridge at its extremity. Beneath its arch, from the rocks which back it, rushes the torrent, forming a cascade in its leap, where in winter roll the avalanches. ”

“ The fall, which is split in two, is thundering beside you; foam, foam, foam is flying all about you; the basin or cauldron is boiling frightfully below you; grim rocks are frowning terribly above you, and above them forest trees, dank and wet with spray and mist, are distilling drops in showers from their boughs.
“But where is the bridge—the celebrated Bridge of the Evil One?
“From the bottom of the first flight of steps leading down into the hollow you see a modern-looking [84] bridge bestriding a deep chasm or cleft to the south-east, near the top of the dingle of the Monk’s River. ”

“ Every one fared alike, getting only bread and the plainest fare, but in sufficient quantities to keep body and soul together if each took no more than his fair share. Very few could get ferried through the flooded streets to the bridge into Seville, and indeed for a day or two wheeled traffic over the single bridge was forbidden, save to convey food, for the water was nearly up to the top of the arch, and the whole structure was threatened. Had the bridge gone, all Triana must have starved, for no boat could cross that raging torrent. ”

“ It is very hard to die when one is young. Can the Sahib, standing here, see the railway bridge? Look, there are the lights of the mail-train going to Peshawur! The bridge is now twenty feet above the river, but upon that night the water was roaring against the lattice-work and against the lattice came I feet first. But much driftwood was piled there and upon the piers, and I took no great hurt. Only the river pressed me as a strong man presses a weaker. Scarcely could I take hold of the lattice-work and crawl to the upper boom. ”

“ The Evan Water was in flood this black and boisterous night, and, raving in its stony bed, tore furiously at the newly rebuilt bridge that spanned the torrent. Down through the wild obscurity from the heights above Douglas Mill came the mail from Glasgow for Carlisle, and no sooner did the horses place foot upon the bridge than it collapsed, as suddenly and completely as any stage property. ”

“ When he unrolls before us the varied-colored robe of life we look in vain to find one color missing. It is a fancy that is not only vivid, but that is most poetic. How touching is that return of Shylock to his lonely home, walking wearily over the deserted bridge,—the bridge that echoed only a moment before to the shouts and laughter of the merry maskers! ”

“ Findlayson laughed and then sighed. It was years since he had seen a steamer, and he was sick for home. As his trolley passed under the tower, Peroo descended by a rope, ape-fashion, and cried: “It looks well now, Sahib. Our bridge is all but done. What think you Mother Gunga will say when the rail runs over?” ”

“ Beyond the towers workmen in great numbers deepened a fosse, heaped ramparts, strengthened walls, and in the earth over which Montmaure must advance planted sharpened stakes and all gins and snares that the inventive mind might devise. To hold this bridge was of an importance!—South and east stretched the yet unharried lands and the roads by which must come in food for the town, the roads by which it might keep in touch with the world without, the roads by which might travel succour! ”

“ Here the bald face of a rock, across which not the trace of a road could be perceived, projected a smooth surface of compact stone, from beneath a super stratum of a loose schistose formation of several hundred feet high, whilst below us appeared an almost perpendicular wall, with just such a sliding inclination as suggested an idea of the bridge said to be situated by some Orientalists between heaven and earth, for there required scarcely the impetus of a wish, to have slipped from life to death during the walk across. ”

“ On the river the white wooden bridge has been pulled down, and a huge, red, brick structure, like a ponderous railway bridge, hideous, grotesque, and shutting out all the sylvan view up stream, has been erected in its stead, altogether unfitted for the slender rural traffic which alone passes there, and costing a heavy price, levied by taxation from a rural, and far from rich, community. ”

“ At times, when the frail structure caught the full force of the wind, it swung fully ten feet out beyond its center, hung a second, and then dropped back with a jar that threatened to snap the cables or hurl into the abyss any human being who was crossing the bridge. ”

“ Let those who have no concern with old times take their easeful way through the gloomy portals of the High Level Bridge, eighty-five feet above high-water mark. But let us examine the steep and smelly street, paved with vile granite setts and strewn with refuse, which conducts to the Tyne Bridge, or the Swing Bridge as it is nowadays, since the old structure was removed, the channel of the river deepened, and the wonderful swinging portion of the remodelled bridge, 281 feet in length, and swung open or closed by hydraulic power, constructed in 1876. ”

“ Our arrangement was to meet at night by a city in the south-west corner of el-Lejâʾ, whence we hoped to penetrate that forbidding region. We rode down a ruin-covered slope, on a paved road—monument of the wise old warrior Romans, and crossed, by an ancient bridge, the little brook which, fed by springs on the southern slopes of Hermon, affords a perennial supply of water. The bridge, having served men for centuries, now failing, is almost dangerous to horsemen. ”

“ Entering a tunnel in the vast wall of rock the train emerges again at one end of the bridge, and after crossing the gulf turns along the other side so that for some long time this narrowest part remains in sight, the maroon red ironwork of the bridge staring dramatically in the centre of a desolate landscape of silver grey. No patch of grass or shrub or any other live thing is to be seen—only the immensity of the scale is marked {289} by one small block-house, a minute sentinel which shows against the sky on the tallest height of cliff. ”

“ Once across, the traveller might find his path or make it for himself. Parapets are not provided on the old bridges, and the surface is a flight of broad and shallow steps. If you walk unwarily and are drowned in the torrent below, that is no concern of these resolute but unluxurious bridge-builders. Their business is simply to span the stream. ”

“ The breakwaters jut out too far, and meet the current with angles of even less than forty-five degrees; while the buttresses behind, on the down-stream side, are rectangular and almost without projection. Last of all, there is no ornament to dress the nude spandrils and to set them apart from the parapets. C’est là, en fait, une œuvre barbare....”
Let us conjecture, then, that this barbaric bridge at Albi, with its seven pointed arches, may belong, not to the time of Saint Bénézet, but to the year 1035, or thereabouts. ”

“ It would be easy in a shallow river to make a fish-pool by heaping boulders into a dam of this rude sort, and the completed work would rank no higher than the beavers contests against running water. So I tell myself that many a tribe in the great period of prehistoric art, about 50,000 years B.C., ought to have built for itself a bridge as elementary as the Pont-y-Pant and a perforated dam as uncouth as the one at Thirlmere. ”

“ Sometimes a hanging bridge has to be crossed, spanning a horrid chasm, at the bottom of which roars a foaming torrent—the bridge itself, composed of ropes and brambles, all the while swinging like a hammock under the tread of the affrighted traveller! ”

“ He crawls along fallen trees over some torrents and chasms; across a flooded river here and there he leaps in a shambling, lopsided fashion, when stepping-stones and boulders rise above water-level; he roams into hilly districts where many a ledge of rock spans a dangerous gap; but he enjoys himself most of all when a suspension bridge of branches enables him to amble from tree to tree across a deep-lying river pent up between high cliffs. ”

“ Considering that we two, with Hitchcock Sahib, built, as it were, that bridge, I came also upon the boat, which came riding on horseback, as it were, on the nose of this island, and so, splitting, cast us ashore. I made a great cry when the boat left the wharf, and without doubt Hitchcock Sahib will come for us. As for the bridge, so many have died in the building that it cannot fall.”
A fierce sun, that drew out all the smell of the sodden land, had followed the storm, and in that clear light there was no room for a man to think of the dreams of the dark. ”

“ In the wizard country of the French Pyrenees there are some very notable bridges, such as the Pont Napoléon, near Saint-Sauveur, the Pont d’Espagne, beyond Cauterets, and the Vieux Pont at Orthez. To study these three works, side by side, is to learn that modern bridge-building has achieved in stone a few great works as daring as any that the Middle Ages produced. The Pont d’Orthez has a graceful distinction, and for nearly six hundred years it has borne the formidable spates of the Gav-de-Pau. In the tierce-point arches, and particularly in the largest one, there is good drawing ”

“ In building the north coast line which connects Sydney with the Queensland border, a feat of a totally different character from the zigzag was completed. This is the massive bridge, 3000 feet in length, which carries the track across the Hawkesbury River, 36 miles distant from the capital. It is divided into seven spans, each of which measures 416 feet in length, supported on substantial masonry piers. ”

“ In such a town, situated as has been shewn, on both sides of the river, and to a people like the Romans, accustomed to facilitate communication with all parts of their provinces, as well as to adorn their towns with public works, a bridge would be much more indispensable than at such places as Pontes, ad Pontem, Pons Ælii, Tripontium, Durolipons, &c., the etymology of which names shews that bridges were not uncommon in Britain. ”

“ This crossing—in all probability a ferry—laid the foundation-stone of the prosperity of London town, and the building of the first bridge cemented that foundation.
Why? Simply because such a bridge, in addition to being a passage across the River, [129] became a barrier to any passage up and down the stream. Bridge-building was not at a very advanced stage, and, of necessity, the arches were small and narrow. This effectively stopped traffic passing up from the seaward side. ”