River Arun

“ That hollow sunken lane, which is the modern descendant of the old British road, runs from Bury just above the flood line on dry soil; it climbs up on to the spur close to an old and reverend inn called “The St. George and Dragon,” and then turns sharp to the left down along the crest of the spur, making for the shortest possible crossing which the marshes afford. It is not too much to say that we are certain the Arun has been crossed at this point since prehistoric men first attempted to pass the river as they journeyed north of the Downs. ”

“ The exploration of the valley of the Arun must be commenced by turning down the stream to see that least interesting section which lies between Arundel and the sea. At the mouth of the river stands the old port of Littlehampton, the direct road to which leaves the Arun to the right and passing Lyminster (Lemster) , sometimes spelt Leominster, which has a restored Transitional church, enters Littlehampton near the Railway station. The river road goes by way of Ford, where there is a little church interesting by reason of its many styles. ”

“ A steep ascent gives a superb view of a confused sea of mountains, and of a precipitous and tremendous gorge, the Tang-i-Ardal, through which the Karun passes, making a singularly abrupt turn after leaving a narrow and apparently inaccessible cañon or rift on the south side of the Ardal valley. A steep zigzag descent of 600 feet in less than three-quarters of a mile brings the path down to the Karun, a deep bottle-green river, now 343 swirling in drifts of foam, now resting momentarily in quiet depths, but always giving an impression of volume and power. ”

“ Along the bottom of this great chasm runs a limpid brook, winding through beautiful groves of oleanders and beside fertile patches of land, which are in marked contrast to the utterly barren and desolate cliffs above.
The Arnon. Farther south the Arnon, the chief river of Moab, rises on the border of the desert. ”

“ The Arno, as described by the Tuscan poets, for I have never seen it, must bear a strong resemblance to the Loire from Ancennis to Angers; nothing can be more beautiful than the natural distribution of lawn, wood, hill and valley, whilst the river, which borders this scenery, is ever giving it a new form by its serpentine shape. ”

“ At the present day the value of land in the neighbourhood of Arles that is subject to periodic inundation is three times that of the land guarded by costly embankments against the bounties of the river.
On descending the sinuous course of the lesser Rhone the hills disappear, the horizon is level as the sea, and all around is desert. Then the current of the Rhone seems to fail wholly, the waters of the river and of the lagoons on both sides of its bed mingle, and become confounded in one sheet. All nature is dead. ”

“ It is vaulted like a rainbow over the river Aras, which comes from the great Gok-yaila, and flows to the east; passes under Melázjerd, before the village of Artof, the castle of Khinis, beneath the bridge of Altún Khalkalí, supplies water to many hundred villages below the Bridge of the Shepherds, joins the Zengi river below Eriván, which falls into the Kúr (Cyrus) , and with it disembogues into the Caspian Sea. The river Aras (Aranes) is an impetuous river, which, at the melting of the snow, rages like the sea. ”

“ The so-called rivers of the delta, the Ngawun, Pyamalaw, Panmawaddy, Pyinzalu and Pantanaw, are simply the larger mouths of the Irrawaddy, and the whole country towards the sea is a close network of creeks where there are few or no roads and boats take the place of carts for every purpose. There is, however, one true river of some size, the Hlaing, which rises near Prome, flows southwards and meets the Pegu river and the Pazundaung creek near Rangoon, and thus forms the estuary which is known as the Rangoon river and constitutes the harbour of Rangoon. ”

“ With its barbaric novelties of colour, its wild, red-clad women, its background of grey rock, its glare of sunshine, Aran should be a place known to painters, but at the first sight of even the sketch book the village street becomes a desert; the mothers, spitting to avert the "bad eye," snatch their children into their houses, and bang their doors. The old women vanish from the door steps, the boys take to the rocks. As it is the creed of Aran that any one that has his "likeness dhrew out" will die within the year, it seems unfeeling to urge the matter upon them. ”

“ The River Earn, if it lacks the majesty of the Tay and the impetuosity of the Garry, makes itself recognised as the dominating feature, whether in its quiet meandering moods or in the flooded temper, overflowing its banks and spreading its deposit of alluvial soil. ”

“ Arnold, the famous Rugby teacher. His principal works are his poems and “Essays in Criticism.” The Edinburgh Review says of him: “For combined culture and fine natural feeling in versification, Dr. Arnold has no superior.”
P. 365, c. 1.—“Oxus.” A classic name for the Amoor Darya or Jihoon River. It flows into the Aral Sea, though geologists affirm that it once flowed into the Caspian.
P. 365, c. 1.—“Kal ́mucks;” “Kuz ́zacks.” Tribes living north of what is now Eastern Russia. ”

“ Even there, however, the Arun is so hid among precipices, that it is approachable in only a few places, where there are passes of the utmost difficulty. Again, behind this opening in the snowy ridge, at a considerable distance farther north, is another range of hills, not so high and broken as the immense peaks of Emodus, but still so elevated as to be totally p. 90impassable in winter, owing to the depth of snow; for the road is said to be tolerable, that is, it will admit of cattle carrying loads. ”

“ This river, gaining continually in volume, makes a turbulent descent to the Karun a few miles from the point where we left it. This was the finest day's march of the journey. The mountain forms were grander and more definite, the vegetation richer, the scenery more varied, and a kindlier atmosphere pervaded it. In the midst of a wood of fine walnut trees, ash, and hawthorn, laced together by the tendrils of vines, a copious stream tumbles over rocks fringed with maiden-hair, and sparkles through grass purple with orchises. ”

“ It was on such a stream as this that the men launched their boats anew, with hearts refreshed at so much more agreeable prospects. They came in sight of a very high and bold mountain as they sailed onward, whose base came down to the river, and whose distant summit was already covered with snow. It seemed like a great friend to them all, --a huge rock casting down its welcome shadow in the wilderness. Here they encamped for a couple of days. Arnold believed it was a good place to find rest. There was not a single one, either, who was not glad enough to lie down under its broad shelter. ”

“ The Arkansa, below the great bend, becomes more serpentine than it is above, and very much obstructed by sand-bars and islands, either naked or clothed with a recent vegetation; they are but little elevated above the water, and are covered to some depth during the prevalence of floods in the river. At Belle Point, and some distance above, these islands almost wholly disappear, but the sandy shores still continue, and are, as above, alternately situated on either side of the river, as the stream approaches or recedes from the opposite river bottoms. The colour of the water was now olive green. ”

“ The water of the Aral is drinkable. It is seldom frozen in winter. In one of its many islands they relate some tales of a colony that passed over the ice with their herds and flocks, and has since had no opportunity of returning. The banks of the Aral are peopled by wandering tribes, who cultivate great quantities of wheat and other grain, which, with fish, that are caught in abundance, form their food. The neighbourhood of the Aral is not frequented by caravans.
Capabilities of the Oxus.
The Oxus is a navigable river throughout the greater portion of its course. ”

“ On the north side of the Arno, between Ponte Vecchio and Ponte Santa Trinita, is a row of immemorial houses that back on the river, in whose yellow flood they bathe their sore old feet. Anything more battered and befouled, more cracked and disjointed, dirtier, drearier, poorer, it would be impossible to conceive. ”

“ The two streams unite in that green vale over which Dr. Arnold used to gaze in humorous despair. “It is no wonder,” he said, “we do not like looking that way, when one considers that there is nothing fine between us and the Ural Mountains;” and, in a letter to Archbishop Whately,” ... we have no hills, no plains, not a single wood, and but one single copse; no heath, no down, no rock, no river,{22} no clear stream, scarcely any flowers—for the lias is particularly poor in them—nothing but one endless monotony of enclosed fields and hedge-row trees;” ”

“ The wide and densely-wooded valley of the Arkansa lay on our route. The course of the river was marked by a long and undulating line of mist, brightening in the beams of the rising sun; beyond rose the blue summits of the Point Sucre and Cavaniol mountains, "in the clear light above the dews of morn." Though the region about us had all the characters of a mountain district, we could discover little uniformity in the direction of the ranges. ”

“ There, this great central water-parting, so formidable in its altitudes for many hundreds of miles, sinks to insignificant levels and the comparatively gentle gradients of a debased and disintegrated range. This divide is parted and split by the passage of the Hari Rud River; but the passage of the river is hill-enclosed and narrow, with many a rock-bound gorge which would not readily lend itself to railway-making (although by no means precluding it) , so that the ridges of the divide could be better passed elsewhere. ”

“ On the march we perceived for the first time, to our left, at a distance of about 10 miles, the low sandy bluffs of the Arkansas river, partly wooded with cotton trees. The Little Arkansas, its tributary, was now a small, very fordable creek; but when swelled by rains it becomes a wild torrent, overflowing its steep banks, and the whole valley. The soil is sandy; grass rather indifferent. ”

“ We draw near to a small projecting height, behind which the road runs to Kangan and Leh. Side branches debouch into the canal, but we make for a lake called Anchar; its water is greyish blue, and comes from the Sind, or Send as they here pronounce the name of the river.
After a while eddies and sandbanks show that we are in the river. The sun has set; the summer evening is quiet and peaceful, only the gnats buzz over the water.
Though the rowers work steadily, putting forth all their strength, we make slow progress, for the current is strong 33 against us. ”

“ Our course for the rest of the day lay on this bank of the river; the road leaves the plain and dives into the narrows, where walls of rock enclose the swirling stream. The Kur is following the base of the border ranges, piercing the spurs where they meet the outskirts of the Dochus Punar. In places it has a width of some 50 yards or more, and the eye cannot penetrate the dull depths; but more often it is a narrow and shallow torrent, wreathing and foaming over the rocks. ”

“ Leaving the Highwood we moved out to Arrow River (Ap-si-is-i-sak-ta) , and once more I felt that I was in country that white men had never seen. The Arrow River valley is for most of its course a deep, walled gash in the plains; there are long stretches of it where neither man nor any animal, except the bighorn, can climb its red rock cliffs. ”

“ As you approach the Arkansaw on this route within 15 or 20 miles, the country appears to be low and swampy; or the land is covered with ponds extending out from the river some distance. The river at the place where I struck it is nearly 500 yards wide, from bank to bank, those banks not more than four feet high, thinly covered with cottonwood. The north side is a swampy low prairie [Cheyenne Bottoms] , and the south a sandy sterile desert. Thence, about halfway to the mountains, the country continued with low prairie hills, and scarcely any streams putting into the river ”

“ Much of the country is absolutely without streams, and would be uninhabitable were it not for the kanats or kareezes—subterranean channels made by art for the conveyance of spring water to be used in irrigation. The most desolate portion of the mountain tract is towards the north and north-east, where it adjoins upon the third region, which is the worst of the three. This is a portion of the high tableland of Iran, the great desert which stretches from the eastern skirts of Zagros to the Hamoon, the Helmend, and the river of Subzawur. ”

“ Besides the tributaries which have been specified, the Irrawaddy is fed by unnumbered mountain torrents of whose nomenclature the tediousness shall not be inflicted on the reader.
Rangoon River. The Rangoon river is important solely on account of the port after which it is called. Rising in the Prome district some 150 miles from its mouth, under the name of Myitmaka it flows through Prome and Tharrawaddy, taking further down the name of Hlaing, and passes Rangoon, twenty-one miles from the sea. ”

“ After some stay, we set out with fresh boats and crews, and were five days passing the wild rapids between here and Wieng Chan. The river finds its way among low hills in a narrow, deep channel between clay-slate rocks alternating with sandstones and conglomerates with a general easterly dip. The rapids are of the whirlpool and eddy character, and extend for miles on end; the water is in places confined to a width of 150 feet, and the rushes, boilings, spinnings, and general deafening pandemonium which results is astounding; not one place is like another, nor one whirlpool like the next. ”