River Esk

“ Like such a great river as that he knew so well and frequented all his days, his life flowed steadily and strongly, the brimming stream augmenting always, deepening and widening, the heavier current moving, at the end, more slowly but not through slackening of power, until, at the last turn, the majestic estuary opens and broadens, as, with no hurry of fretting waves, no straining through silted sandbanks, undiminished, the mighty mass of waters mingles with the sea. ”

“ When full they are inevitably muddy, and when empty are very empty indeed; lifeless, and mute at the best, at the worst actually dry. The river of low-country birth acquires, in short, neither{2} character nor quality worthy of consideration till as a full-grown stream it can trace a shining coil in the valley, or reflect the shadow of spire, bridge or mill, of willow or poplar. ”

“ The river itself has a character of wildness all its own-now, brawling over rugged rocks-now foaming between high and narrow sides, abrupt as walls, sometimes, flowing over a ledge of granite, without a ripple on the surface-then plunging madly into some dark abyss, to emerge again, lower down the valley, in one troubled sea of foam and spray: its dull roar the only voice that echoes in the mountain gorge. ”

“ Its scenery has the characteristic features of all these Border streams: wild hills, bare save for a fringe of heather at the source; then richly wooded meadows, with fertile fields in the lower reaches. The Esk and its tributaries are much praised of anglers; nowhere will you find better salmon-fishing. Three miles below Langholm, on the left bank, the Tarras falls into the Esk. Its narrow channel is broken by huge masses of rock over which the water foams and swirls in wild fury. ”

“ Did he then realize the length and great turnings of the mighty waterway whose first white companion he was from its fountain-head to its confluence with the ocean? If you read the history of the River and company with it by sun and stars for scarcely one hundred miles, you have strange feelings not unmingled with wonder and melancholy, when you come to its source. Dwellers in the Happy Valley strike their roots deep and love their River and Mountains as they love the flag. ”

“ I took my seat between the centre bars, and was in admiration at the perfect composure and sangfroid with which these two men managed it--now shooting across the stream to find better water, and always putting in their poles exactly at the right instant, and singing some Indian cantata all the while. The upper falls at length burst on our view, on rounding a point. The river has a complete drop, of some forty feet, over a formation of sandstone. The water forms a complete curtain. There is nothing to break the sheet, or intercept it, till it reaches the deep water below. ”

“ The scene becomes peculiarly desolate and mournful, often giving one the impression of being far removed from civilization, threading the course of some hitherto unexplored stream. Penetrate the deep fringe of forest and morass on foot, however, and smiling prairies are found beyond, stretching to the horizon and cut up into prosperous farms. The river is here from a half to three-quarters of a mile broad, but the shallows and snags are as numerous as ever and navigation is continually attended with some danger of being either grounded or capsized. ”

“ The tidal river, on the left, wanders away to Rye Harbour and its bar, where the black fishing-boats, half the time at lop-sided rest in the mud, make a cluster of slanting spears against the sky. When the river is full we are proud of its wide light and many curves ”

“ Here at our feet is another river, a little brook flowing in clear stream over the roadside sand, born of the last snow-drift and living till the sun drinks it up. And beside it are half a dozen happy boys, paddling with their bare feet, making mud dams, scraping new channels and short cuts for the stream. ”

“ The sight of a proud lad with a string of undersized trout will scatter half the idlers in town into the pastures next day, but everybody patiently accepts the depopulation of a fine clear river, where the tide comes fresh from the sea to be tainted by the spoiled stream, which started from its mountain sources as pure as heart could wish. ”

“ As we passed through the short and winding reaches of the now quickly lessening stream, Ellen said: "How pleasant this little river is to me, who am used to a great wide wash of water; it almost seems as if we shall have to stop at every reach-end. I expect before I get home this evening I shall have realised what a little country England is, since we can so soon get to the end of its biggest river." ”

“ Imagine a bright day towards the end of June on the banks of a typical North Country river. The gate just passed through brings one to the tail end of a rapid stream some fifty yards in length, broken here and there by boulders, some submerged and others just showing their dark mossy heads above the surface of the water. ”

“ Throughout this portion of the Nile Valley the river scenery presents a series of beautiful pictures. The mountains bar the stream on the west, rising almost vertically, with scarred and scarped faces, like a Titanic wall. To the east low, wooded hills run parallel to the river—at times, little more than stony ridges, but occasionally rising some hundred feet above the water. ”

“ Back of the granite barriers the river spread right and left, and then went out to sea in a deep and narrow stream, curiously free from ice. Indeed, there was but little ice in the main basin, and a kind of steam hung over it so that the Poor Boy was compelled and delighted to conclude (with the aid of his companions) that the river toward its mouth must be swollen by warm springs. ”

“ For hundreds of miles on both banks of the river—more especially on the right—the bottom lands are scarred and seamed by a labyrinthine network of creeks, bayous, and lagoons, all old channels of the river, which the current in its caprice has long since forsaken, leaving them in deep, dark stagnation, or only moving sluggishly to and fro, during the season of floods. ”

“ And the river itself, which I had formerly seen so gay with all kinds of craft, watermen plying up and down constantly, and great sea-going ships coming and going, and lesser vessels crowding the noble stream, now seemed as desolate as the town that lay on its banks; only as we went on we came to many ships lying at anchor, by two and two; sometimes two or three lines of these ships lay in the breadth of the river, and as we threaded our way between them, men, women, and children came and looked over the sides at us. ”

“ Nor does the chalk stream usually run like a western river. It moves at most times but little faster than the rivers on which men go boating or float-fishing for roach. Its environment is smooth, its course is peaceful, and its fall gradual. It is all this that gives the flavour and charm of the unexpected, when you{66} arrive at the bank and find a stream gliding past your feet as translucent as if it had just gushed out from a limestone mountain in Cumberland. ”

“ For about two hundred miles from its mouth, it has many long and narrow lakes, of about the width of the river itself; and probably they were formerly its channel. These lakes generally have an outlet into the river, [Pg 87] and these so much resemble it, that a person not well acquainted with the stream, would be puzzled to know what channel to take. The river occupies too much ground for its quantity of water, and for about half of the year, it is a difficult stream to navigate. ”

“ Grand River, which is a narrow but deep and violent stream, ran roaring and plunging beneath the masses of ice as if enraged at being so obstructed; but the lad picked his path in safety and soon stood on the opposite bank. ”

“ The bending of the river shuts out the channel by which you have made your approach, giving the semblance of a lake, on whose surface vessels of every nation lie at anchor, some with the sails hung out to dry, gracefully drooping from the taper spars; others refitting again for sea, and loading the huge pine-trunks, moored as vast rafts to the stern. There were people everywhere; all was motion, life, and activity. Jolly-boats with twenty oars, man-of-war gigs bounding rapidly past them with eight ”

“ Though the lower river is one of the foulest streams on the face of the earth, the upper river is one of the fairest. It wanders up between fresh green fields, bordered by tall yellow flags, loosestrife, and creamy meadow-sweet, all unconscious of the fate that awaits it from vile man below. ”

“ Indeed, as Harry freed her from her moorings, she fairly seemed to bound out into the river with the keen enjoyment of a creature alive in every part. It is hard to picture that East River as it looked a hundred years ago, with wooded and grass-grown banks in place of wharves and warehouses, and with only an occasional sail, where to-day the great, unwieldy ferry-boats plow from shore to shore, and an army of smaller craft steam noisily hither and thither. ”

“ The majestic and broad river branches off into several small creeks, and assumes the form of mountain torrents forcing their way through the ledge of rocks. When the river rises, and only three islands are to be seen, the immense sheet of water rushing down the declivity at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, must afford a magnificent spectacle. ”

“ Those who have not may try to picture tremendous—and the word is used with its amplest significance—walls of slightly overhanging rock, through which aided by grinding boulders and scoring shingle, the river has widened as well as deepened its channel a little every century, while between the white welter at their feet lies a breadth of troubled green where the stream flows heaped up, as it were, in the center. ”

“ The stream is not perceived till you stand on the very edge. Its bed is between 300 and 400 yards broad, and is about 200 or 300 feet below the average surface of the table-land. The body of water which forms this river is very inconsiderable, and becomes more and more so as it nears the sea. ”

“ The river itself had many of the elements of nobility and beauty as, taking its rise in the snowy heights of the New England ranges, it clove its way eastward, finally debouching into the blue waters of the Pacific. The river-flats formed magnificent stretches of arable lands; too rich, indeed, for such cereals as wheat and oats, for their rank growth rendered them liable to the fatal rust. ”

“ The causeway which might therefore be necessary to approach the stream from the south in all states of the tide need only have been such a hardening of the track over the mud as is necessary between the high- and low-water mark of any tidal river where a ferry is to be established, and we must believe that the river at high water washed the gravel spit. ”

“ The name of it was Thlew-ee-choh-deeseth, or Great Fish River, and how doggedly he traced it to the sea, amid perils from the ice and the rapids, managing the Indians, and making friends with the Esquimaux, he has vividly recounted in his 'Narrative of the Arctic Land Expedition to the Mouth of the Great Fish River, in 1834 and 1835.' The narrative is beautifully illustrated by sketches made by himself. ”

“ Give orders for landing. Having got a body of about 700 Men on Shore, we march to the further end of the Village, being about a league. From whence, by the tracks we found, we judged that the Inhabitants had but lately retired and drove off their cattle. Here we found the Lime that had been taken in a schooner in the spring, which they had landed as our Pilots supposed to lighten the schooner, to get her higher up or to hide her in some Creeke—as they supposed that they would certainly have carry’d the Lime up to St. Anns would the depth of the River have admitted of it. ”

“ A river that spreads out into the indeterminate earthform of a marsh is an effective barrier; but one that gathers waters into a natural basin and forms a lake retains the uniting power of a navigable stream and also, by the extension of its area and elimination of its current, approaches the nature of an enclosed sea. Mountain rivers, characterized by small volume and turbulent flow, first become navigable when they check their impetuosity and gather their store of water in some lake basin. ”

“ We journey on through avenues till we reach the River Styx, which we cross in a boat, then we walk a little farther till we get to Lethe. We sail along it in our frail bark till the water becomes so shallow that we can go no farther. Echo River is the great one we have to cross, and as the guides are uncertain about the state of it, they leave us till they ascertain by what means we are to get to the other side. ”

“ We embarked at six A.M., taking with us only old Keskarrah. The other Indians walked along the banks of the river. Throughout this day’s voyage the current was very strong, running four or five miles an hour, but the navigation was tolerable and we had to lighten the canoes only once, in a contracted part of the river where the waves were very high. The river is in many places confined between perpendicular walls of rock to one hundred and fifty yards in width, and there the rapids were most agitated. ”

“ There were others further down the stream, and almost every day men passed either up or down the river, going from one set of houses to another. Finally we heard, and, before we had been there a week, saw with our own eyes, that only some ten miles further on, where our stream joined another and made a mighty river, there was a town, which had all sprung up since last winter, in which hundreds of men lived together. ”

“ Other rills meet this, and form a larger stream, which is called a brook or creek.
As the brook flows on, it is joined by other streams, until, little by little, it becomes a wide and deep river on which large boats may float. At last, it finds its way into the ocean.
Where a river begins is its source. The place where it flows into another body of water is called its mouth. The land over which it flows is its bed.
A river has two banks. As we go toward its mouth, the right bank is on our right hand, and the left bank is on our left. ”