River Duddon

“ In the shade of the larches we found an almost level path to our left, worn, doubtless, by sheep ranging the glades of these woods. A jay screamed and flew away, its blue side-feathers attracting the eye as it winged through the maze of stems. The river was again close beside—a deep pool in which the sunlit water seemed to collect strength to go babbling down an inclined beach of smoothed stones. The river-bank became tangled with brambles and dense coppice, so we turned into a mysterious hollow where perhaps centuries ago Duddon’s stream varied from its present bed. ”

“ The alternative view is that by the 'dark dell' no particular spot is indicated but the whole of the upper valley of the Duddon, which is of a savage and forbidding aspect, and quite of a character to have inspired the sonnet. It is almost treeless, and the ground on either side of the stream is covered with bracken and loose blocks of slate, while the fells rise steeply on either hand, and are capped by naked crags. ”

“ One thing is worth mentioning. Wordsworth is describing the Duddon as a Cumberland stream, his native stream, and he is accurate as ever. For one is struck, in descending from the Three Shire Stones to Cockley Beck, at the way in which all the feeders of the Duddon rise to the north on the Cumbrian Fells, and how comparatively waterless are the slopes of Grey Friars, on the southern or Lancashire side of the pass." (H. D. Rawnsley.)
V
"SOLE LISTENER, DUDDON! ”

“ Now all is ready, and the younger man takes the long shaft, and with a sweep draws the net into the pool. In a moment it becomes saturated and sinks, then is carefully drawn forward. The strain on the netsman is great; he bends to the task and puts forward his utmost strength, but in vain. He cannot force his contrivance against the current—here, though flowing soft, Duddon is really very powerful—so his comrade comes to his assistance. ”

“ There are few more touching scenes in the Duddon Valley than the little lonely hillside burial-place of the early Friends, spoken of in Sonnet XXIX. All round the inside of the rude wall enclosure are still to be seen the stone seats used by the followers of Fox, who were forbidden to hold their meetings under any lower roof than the canopy of Heaven. The Scotch firs have grown into stately shade since the Quakers sat in silent meditation high up, lifted above the life of the valley and the noise of Duddon and the tributary stream just opposite. ”

“ At the stepping-stones people on wandering bent generally cross, and, turning upstream, are soon within the mighty Duddon gorge, where founts of green water dash through barriers of piled-up rocks crowned with heather and brambles. ”

“ It is certainly true that at Dulverton, which, if not Exmoor, is next door to it, visitors frequently imagine that they are in Devonshire, as I have myself proved, but, for my own part, I have never attributed this delusion to the influence of Lorna Doone. On the contrary, it{xv} has seemed to me that a river is the culprit. The Exe is universally esteemed a Devon stream, and lends its name to the metropolis of the West. ”

“ They who know only its coasts, though they know them well, may walk delicately, for of much that is most characteristic of its loveliness they are altogether ignorant. But anyone who has tracked a typical Devon river from its fount high up on the wild and lonely moorland to the estuary where it mingles its waters with the inflowing tide, following it as it brawls down the peaty hillsides, and winds its way through glen and gorge until it gains the rich lowlands where it rolls placidly towards its latter end, may boast that his is the knowledge of intimacy. ”

“ A change, however, in the land, seems to commence near this place, and it assumes here very much the aspect of red clay, but in some parts the sandy soil predominating, and all lying very irregular, except immediately upon the streams.
I was impressed with the adaptation of the Jundiahi river, a small stream which runs near our inn, for the location of machinery of limited water-power; and when the railroad reaches this place a good mill or cotton ginning establishment would be likely to prove very advantageous on this river. ”

“ The Dumot river, another mountain stream, joins the Morumbidgee opposite to Mr. Whaby’s residence. It is little inferior to the latter either in size or in the rapidity of its current, and, if I may rely on the information I received, waters a finer country, the principal rock–formation upon it being of limestone and whinstone. It rises amidst the snowy ranges to the S.E., and its banks are better peopled than those of the stream into which it discharges itself. ”

“ The present landing-slips or quays upon the Tay are situate at Dundee upon the north, and at Woodhaven and Newport on the south. The bed of the firth or river at Dundee is so much silted up and encumbered with sandbanks and mud, that the piers, which were no doubt originally built of sufficient extent, and perhaps commanding the necessary depth of water for floating the passage-boats at low tides, have at length become inadequate to so great a thoroughfare, and the boats are now left by the water at every spring-tide, to the great annoyance and inconvenience of the public. ”

“ Pay for it he must, and should. There was a meal-sack handy, and into it Hudden and Dudden popped Donald O'Neary, tied him up tight, ran a pole through the knot, and off they started for the Brown Lake of the Bog, each with a pole-end on his shoulder, and Donald O'Neary between. [60]
But the Brown Lake was far, the road was dusty, Hudden and Dudden were sore and weary, and parched with thirst. There was an inn by the roadside.
"Let's go in," said Hudden; "I'm dead beat. It's heavy he is for the little he had to eat." ”

“ Mrs. Floyd-Rosney and Mr. Ducie were left seated near each other amidst a cluster of vacant chairs. With that peculiar clarity of the twilight air when there is no mist every detail of this limited world was visible with special distinctness, as if there were no insufficiency of light, but one looked through amber glasses;—the slate-tinted lowering sky, the ceaseless silent flow of the vast murky river, the high bank so far above the water at this low stage that the grassy levee, an elevation of prominent emphasis in so level a country, was far withdrawn and invisible from this point of view. ”

“ Wordsworth often used to sit, she invariably had a thick sod of purple heather in full bloom. To the stream many anglers came, and drew from their holds the pink-spotted trout. The dipper and kingfisher darted by the door, and those who drank in the quiet and pastoral peace of Duddon never forgot it. The woman of the cottage, by great industry and exertion, had reared and settled comfortably in life a large family. ”

“ Dundonians love to survey their city and its surroundings from the “Law.” The spectacle is one they may well be proud of. Marvellous has been the change here since Dundee consisted of only four straggling streets, meeting at the central “place” of the “Market Gait,” and a congeries of narrow lanes running from these down to the harbour, consisting, as the local historian tells us, of rude jetties added to the natural haven opening between the headlands of the Chapel Craig and the Castle Rock. Even then, however—four centuries ago and more—it had an interesting history ”

“ We need not linger on this theme, as our mission is to view the wild grandeur of this river, towards which the steamer steadily bears us. In front rises a bluff—a bold projecting rock, which seems to arrest the further progress of the river, as, in days long past, it doubtless did, but now, after a long struggle, it has had to succumb and allow the water to make its way over its hard breast, wearing it down, until now the river course is deep enough to float half a dozen of the largest ships in the world. ”

“ It should perhaps be stated, with reference to Pope’s fable of Lodona, that it was not connected with the Loddon proper, but with one of the inconsiderable tributaries of a tributary that ripple through part of Windsor Forest. The poet was, nevertheless, quite accurate in his description of the Loddon as “slow,” and “with verdant alders crowned.” It is an altogether different river from the Kennet, which is bright, and abounding in gravelly shallows, after the fashion of the Hampshire chalk streams, and is a famous trout river. ”

“ It is plain that a stream having great declivity will be able to carry more sediment than one having little, and in a barren country would always be highly charged with sand, which would cut and scour the bed of the channel like a grindstone. As Dutton says, a river cuts, however, only its own width, the rest of a canyon being the “work of the forces of erosion, the wind, frost, and rain.” That is why we have canyons. The powers of erosion are far slower than those of corrasion, especially in an arid region, because they are intermittent. ”

“ Beaton and Mrs. Penn—had prepared themselves for a trip to Richmond, when Miss Kilner suddenly presented herself.
"One longs to escape from London to-day," she said. "So you are going to Richmond? I have a school-friend who lives down by the river, and I told Miss Saxon that I should go to see her."
"Will you come with us?" Mrs. Beaton asked, brightening.
"Yes," Elsie answered; and the three went off together.
Down by the river there are old houses set deep in leafy gardens; creepers hang drowsily in the delicious air; long aisles open upon terraces bright with flowers. ”

“ Dunlop's range certainly was not high, but its undulating crest, vanishing far in the south-east, showed its connection with the high ground south of the Bogan; and a long line of smoke skirting its northern base afforded fair promise of some river or chain of ponds near which a native population could live. The course of the Darling was clearly marked out by its extensive plains and the darker line of large trees vanishing far in the west. ”

“ I didn’t think much about that dam just then, nor about water-power, but before we got through with things I did a heap of thinking about them, and so did Mark Tidd. Up till then a river didn’t mean anything to me but a thing to fish in or swim in, but before I was many months older I discovered that rivers weren’t invented just for kids to monkey with, nor yet to make a home for fish. They have business, just like anybody else, and they’re valuable just like any other business, getting more valuable the more business they can do. ”

“ In selecting a site for the town it had been necessary to find some spot that would be easy to reach by the ships coming through the Delta and also through Lake Pontchartrain. The highest place was taken, but even that could not be very high in this low flood-plain.
When the energetic citizen Dubreuil took a shovel and threw up this levee, and then dug a ditch inside to carry away the drip, he did a sensible act. The water was standing two feet deep in the houses after every freshet. Yellow fever followed all inundations. ”

“ It was the intention of Captain Irwin to call at Vasse; and he also contemplated a visit to the Murray River, for the purpose of inspecting that outport, but a foul wind frustrated these purposes.
A river called the Donnelly, fresh at the mouth, and having ten feet of water at the bar, is said to have been seen by Mr. Preston, falling into the sea, about thirty miles east of Augusta. If this be the case (which I doubt) it differs very much from every other known river in this climate; to counteract the force of the salt water at the mouth, it must have a powerful stream. ”

“ They said the Government ought to have asphalted the ditch for them. It was unreasonable to expect men, each six foot four inches in height, carrying arms and accoutrements, which they were bound by the regulations to keep clean and in good order, to plunge into that river of mud, and to spoil all their clothes.
Turton's Creek was soon worked out, and before any professional jumpers or lawyers could put their fingers in the pie, the plums were all gone. The gully was prospected from top to bottom, and the hills on both sides were tunnelled, but no more gold, and no reefs were found. ”

“ Curtis (1924, 13:67) says the line crosses at the mouth of the Van Duzen. Nomland (1938, map 1) , Loud, and Merriam all agree with this. Powers (1877, p. 101) and Kroeber both locate the line a few miles up the river from this point at Eagle Prairie, while Nomland's Wiyot informant (Nomland and Kroeber, 1936, map 1) places the line even farther south at the mouth of Larabee Creek. The weight of evidence indicates that the line was probably near the mouth of the Van Duzen; Goddard (1929, p. 292) states that there was a Bear River village near there. ”

“ The waterfall is graceful rather than fine, a steep slide of seventy feet in height in the midst of woods. From this the river Lyd should be ascended for three miles by a path through a ravine that grows in grandeur till it is spanned by a bridge. The ascent may well be continued to Kits Steps, another fall of a totally different character, much spoiled by refuse-heaps from an abandoned mine. From Lydford a visitor should take a walk across the shoulder of Hare Tor to the rocks of Tavy Cleave, perhaps the grandest scene on Dartmoor. ”

“ The river is shallow, and banks and bed are chiefly composed of boulders; grassy slopes, however, occur at intervals along its banks, especially on the shores of Dubawnt Lake, and are the feeding grounds of large bands of cariboo. ”