Lake Biwa

“ But what shall we say of the poet who uses it as a prefix to the inland sea of Ōmi, now called Lake Biwa, where, needless to observe, whales are an unknown phenomenon? "Creeper-clad" is well enough as an epithet of a rock, but it tries one's patience a little to find it applied to the province of Iwami, simply because Iwa means rock. ”

“ Beyond the city, on the right, is the water of the bay, which opens into the Pacific, while on the left is the plain that stretches away to Kobe and Hiogo. Beyond the plain is the range of sharp hills and mountains; and as one turns slowly to the west and north he can sweep the landscape almost to the gates of Kioto and the shores of Lake Biwa. To the east, again, there are mountains rising sharply from the fertile plain, so that one seems to be standing in a basin of low land with a curving rim of mountains. ”

“ The blue and silver of the lake that we had crossed, and the sweetness of its air, were shut out in the dust and the heat of mountain sides. We had not seen the Eight Beauties of Biwa Lake. [11] The "Autumn Moon from Ishiyama" had set long before we passed, and the idea of other temples to be seen brought out A——'s antagonism to more climbing, only to be rewarded by promenades through lanterns and shrines and confused struggling with dates and divinities. "The Evening Snow on Hira-yama" was not to fall until we should be across the Pacific ”

“ Ōsaka citizens, happier in the possession of the Yodo River, which, taking its way direct from the great lake of Biwa, sweeps generously but gently through their streets, spend much of their summer-evening life floating on the water amid the flashing of fireworks and the twanging of samisens. ”

“ Still we were a goodly company,—nineteen men in all, of whom two were masters, one the servant, and the rest the runners who were to get us and our baggage to Otzu on Biwa Lake long before noon. There was to be no novelty on our road, it being merely the highway from the capital to the lake. It was a lovely morning, the sun long risen, and all the places and buildings now a part of our memories glistening in the shadow and the dew. We turned our backs for the last time on Kiyomidzu, and ran through the great gate of the temple near us ”

“ When Heaven and earth were first created, there was neither Lake of Biwa nor Mountain of Fuji. Suruga and Omi were both plains. Even for long after men inhabited Japan and the Mikados had ruled for centuries there was neither earth so nigh to heaven nor water so close to the Under-world as the peaks of Fuji and the bottom of Biwa. Men drove the plow and planted [Pg 211] the rice over the very spot where crater and deepest depth now are. ”

“ Beaver Lake is twelve miles in length and six in breadth. The flat limestone country rises into bold rocks on its banks and at the mouth of the Ridge River the limestone discontinues. The lake is very deep and has already been noticed for the number and excellence of its fish. The Ridge River is rapid and shallow. We had emerged from the muddy channels through an alluvial soil, and the primitive rocks interrupted our way with frequent portages through the whole route to Isle à la Crosse Lake. ”

“ The rights of the riparian proprietors in the bed of the stream, and in the stream itself, were thus clearly defined. But when this rule is attempted to be applied to lakes and ponds, practical difficulties are encountered. They have no current, and, being more or less circular, it would hardly be possible to run the boundary lines beyond the water's edge, so as to define the rights of shore owners in the beds. Beaver lake is seven and a half miles east and west, and less than five miles north and south. ”

“ There are dozens of deep bays, which look about alike, and if you start into the wrong one, you get wholly astray. Once during the day it became a little foggy, and Jonas at once went ashore and waited for the veil to lift, as he said no one could find his way there in thick weather. These large lakes are all long and narrow, and very crooked. Like Kippewa and Victoria, Lake Kakebonga is nowhere wide, but its shore-line is very long, and the canoe route often cuts across a portage to save miles of travelling. ”

“ There are but few places where a canoe can land, and at those the beaches are very short and narrow: they are covered with pumice and black sand, and always indicate the entrance o 1 a small stream of water. There are a number of small waterfalls round the lake, but none of any consequence; the only river or stream of any size which runs into it being the Waikato, which runs in at the only part of the lake (the south end) where the banks for any distance are level, and the water shallow. ”

“ The Pacific Gas and Electric Company, of San Francisco, controls the waters of the South Yuba river, and its Colgate plant is on the main Yuba, though it obtains some of its water supply from the North Yuba. Lake Spaulding, one of the largest artificial lakes in the world, is a creation of this same company. It is situated near Emigrant Gap and is used for the development of power.
The Northern Water and Power Company controls the Bowman reservoir and a string of lakes on the headwaters of Canyon Creek, a branch of the South Yuba river. As yet its power possibilities are not developed. ”

“ Some of the Baganda fish in the lake, and when they go on journeys it is often quicker to travel by boat on the lake. Many Africans can only make boats out of rough tree-trunks with the inside scooped out, but the Baganda had learnt to build long, narrow boats with high carved wooden ends. These canoes shot through the water very swiftly, as twenty or thirty men paddled together in each boat. It is well they learnt to travel quickly, because the lake is very wide and distances are great. ”

“ This tree resists the action of air and water longer than any other, and, if not submerged throughout the whole year, will retain life for an extraordinary period. Lake Bistineau, as well as Black Lake, Cado Lake, Spanish Lake, Natchitoches Lake, and many others, have been formed, according to Darby, by the gradual elevation of the bed of Red River, in which the alluvial accumulations have been so great as to raise its channel, and cause its waters, during the flood season, to flow up the mouths of many tributaries, and to convert parts of their courses into lakes. ”

“ The changes which a lapse of nearly two thousand years may be supposed to have occasioned on the northern coast of Africa, are fully sufficient to have reduced the river Lathon to the spring which now flows into the Lake of Bengazi.
The lake itself is salt, and in the summer is nearly dry; while the small stream in question takes its rise within a few yards of the lake, and running along a channel of inconsiderable breadth, bordered with reeds and rushes, might be mistaken by a common observer for an inroad of the lake into the sandy soil which bounds it. ”

“ It does not happen above every other day that one end of the lake is to be seen from the other—at least so the natives said. I saw the two ends at the same time but twice, and each time very early in the morning. Frequently, even the east shore is invisible from the west, in spite of its equal height. The cliffs around the greater part of the lake are of a dark greenish colour, tinged sometimes with red, and are basaltic. The fissures are irregular, but run quite perpendicular; and the whole face of the rock presents much the appearance of a mass of common starch, but on a gigantic scale. ”

“ We spent several melancholy days wandering on the borders of the east end of the lake, surveying the various remains of what we now contemplated to have been an unoffending and cruelly extirpated people. At several places, by the margin of the lake, are small clusters of winter and summer wigwams in ruins. One difference, among others, between the Boeothick wigwams and those of the other Indians, is, that in most of the former there are small hollows, like nests, dug in the earth around the fireplace, one for each person to sit in. ”

“ McLeod agreed to send a canoe after us to the Methye Portage with the pemmican, and we calculated that the diminution of our provision would there enable us to receive it.
The Beaver River enters this lake on the South-East side, and another river which has not been named on the South-West. Both these rivers are branches of the Missinippi as it is the only outlet from the lake. The banks appeared to be rocky and the beach in many places sandy but its waters are yellow and muddy. It produces a variety of fish among which its white-fish are esteemed the best in the country. ”

“ We push on rapidly, lest the news of our coming might reach the people of Ujiji before we come in sight, and are ready for them. We halt at a little brook, then ascend the long slope of a naked ridge, the very last of the myriads we have crossed. This alone prevents us from seeing the lake in all its vastness. We arrive at the summit, travel across and arrive at its western rim, and— pause, reader—the port of Ujiji is below us, embowered in the palms, only five hundred yards from us! ”

“ In summer, Long Lake has no great beauty and shrinks, leaving a white saline crust on its wide margin of sun-baked mud, but it is a picturesque stretch of water when the snow melts in spring and the reflections of the birches quiver on the smooth belt along its windward edge. Farther out, the shadows of flying clouds chase each other across the flashing surface. Two or three leaky canoes generally lie among the trees, and in the afternoon Charnock dragged one down, and helping Sadie on board, paddled up the lake. ”

“ After several days of hard work—for the portages around the falls and rapids were many, and several times we had to wade through muskegs or morasses up to our knees for miles together, carrying all our load on our heads or backs—we at length reached Beaver Lake. Here we camped for the night and talked over our future movements. We had come two hundred and forty miles through these northern wilds, and yet had about sixty miles to go ere we expected to see human beings, and were all absolutely ignorant of the direction in which to go. ”

“ On this plateau, as on the great north-western plain of Tibet, neither wheat nor barley will grow, and the district is fit only for pasturage, and that only during the summer months. Lake Lham tso abounds in fish of all kinds, from seven to twelve inches in length, and it is much frequented during the summer by fishermen who catch and dry the fish for winter consumption. During the winter, when fishing is impossible, they take to begging, and so the population around the Lake consists mainly of people who are half fishermen and half beggars. ”

“ Eastward of the lake the highest point of the plateau is attained near to the northern slope of the Kaimanawa mountains, whence it dips in a north-easterly course, in the direction of the Bay of Plenty. Over a large area, along the western shore of the lake, the table-land maintains a more equal elevation than near the eastern shore-line, until it reaches the head of the Waihora river, whence it inclines north-westerly, around the high mountains of Titiraupenga, until it gradually merges into the broad, low valley of the Upper Waipa. ”

“ The man who loves the breath of the storm and the glow of excitement will loose his boat from Tallac when the clouds swing down the canyon and speed forth borne, as it were, on the wings of the waves toward the distant foot of the Lake—past the black water wall where the waves of Emerald Bay sweep into Tahoe, through the frothy waters where the wind shifts and whips around Rubicon Point, over the white caps of Meek's Bay until by skillful maneuvering the jutting cape is weathered and quieter water is found in McKinney Bay. ”

“ Many other peaks and domes with eternal snow rise over this sea of tumbled waves, but, after all, the finest sight is the lake itself, which charms and fascinates the spectator by its intense ultramarine hue, a couple of shades deeper and stronger than turquoise. When one first comes to the saddle of the pass and this wealth of colouring strikes the retina, one can scarcely restrain an exclamation of astonishment and admiration. We look down straight on the lake, and its southern shore is just below us. ”

“ Besides the Gobard and Hawash, no other river enters the Abhibhad Lake, although the extensive plain to the south, as far as the hills of Hurrah that form the water-shed of the river Whabbee, is drained by a stream, the waters of which flow close to the western side of this lake, through Killaloo to the Hawash. ”

“ They do eat whomsoever they assault, and he that catches anybody of another tribe, kills him and eats him, as the game eaten. The situation of these lakes is from 50-56° longitude from the springs of the river, and from 6-7° latitude on the south of the equator. The Oriental lake is called Kúkû and Tamim es-Sudanese, and the occidental Damâdim and Galjûr and Hajami. ”

“ We traveled at a speed of about three hundred miles an hour which brought us to the vicinity of Lake Byblis about 10 o'clock, A.M. From our elevated position of several thousand feet we had a full view of the surroundings. The lake is an expansion of the river, from five to ten miles in width and thirty in length surrounded by a magnificent boulevard, on which we could see numerous vehicles moving. The surface of the lake was dotted over with water craft of various sizes and descriptions. ”

“ We had how crossed the summit between Leech Lake and the source of the Crow Wing River. We commenced the descent on the morning of the 19th, and passed successively through eleven lakes, connected by a series of short channels. The names of these in their order, are Kaginogamaug, Little Vermilion, Birch, Ple, Assawa, Vieu Desert, Summit, Longrice, Allen's, Johnston's, and Kaitchibo Sagitawa. Two tributary streams enter the river in this distance, the principal of which is Shell River; the stream assumes an ample size, and there is no further apprehension of shallows. ”