River Tees

“ The tale goes on to say that, given a fine day and clear water, the impious farmer and his carts and horses may yet be seen floating deep down in these supposedly fathomless pools! De Foe, however, travelling this way in 1724, is properly impatient of these tales. “’Tis evident,” says he, “they are nothing but old coal-pits, filled with water by the river Tees.” ”

“ The river Tees appears to have separated Deira from Bernicia, and the Angles of Bernicia, 237with whom we have more immediately to do, were now in firm possession of the districts extending along the east coast as far as the Firth of Forth, originally occupied by the British tribe of the Ottadeni and afterwards by the Picts, and including the counties of Berwick and Roxburgh and that of East Lothian or Haddington, the rivers Esk and Gala forming here their western boundary. ”

“ Middlesbrough has its fine docks, crowded with shipping. Where, a few years ago, the Tees spread itself over a broad estuary, the channel of the river has been divided from the wide stretch of mud and sand and creeping waves by a curving groin of slag; lines of light stretch downward as far as the eye can follow, [Pg 219] guiding ships to the desired haven. Henceforth the Tees—
“Not hurled precipitous from steep to steep ”

“ It lies opposite Stockton-on-Tees, with which it is connected by a bridge, on the river Tees. There are blast furnaces, iron foundries, engineering works, iron ship-building yards, extensive saw-mills, flour-mills and a manufactory of “blue and white” pottery. ”

“ They are as vital to our commerce and industry as any matter now dealt with by the State, affecting our material well-being, and they are every year increasing in extent and importance. As regards the principal rivers—the Mersey, the Tyne, the Tees, the Clyde, and the Wear especially—they are now controlled in accordance with the recommendation made by the Duke of Richmond’s Select Committee, that “each catchment area should be placed under a single body of conservators, who should be responsible for maintaining the river, from its source to its outfall, in an efficient state.” ”

“ On either bank below the castle they are built down into the bed of the river, and as, in Scott’s words, the Tees here “flows in a deep trench of solid rock,” the houses by the riverside descend as much below the level of the street as they rise above it. Yet despite the stoutness and the elaboration of these buildings, the riverside streets present that appearance of misery and squalor which seems inevitable in every manufacturing town, however limited may be the field of its industry. ”

“ It is in those central highlands south of the Tyne, made up of portions of the counties of Northumberland, Durham, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, that the Tees, with its tributaries the Greta and Lune, also the Swale and Lancashire Lune, and last, but not least, the Eden, all find their source, not merely in this wild upland, but actually within the confines of west Westmoreland. The Eden, though nowhere touching that famous district known as Lakeland which the two counties mostly share, is by far the foremost river in Westmoreland or Cumberland. ”

“ E. of Liverpool; a handsome viaduct spans the river; has an old grammar-school, free library, technical school, &c.; during the present century has grown to be a busy centre of cotton manufactures, and has besides flourishing iron and brass foundries, machine-shops, breweries, &c.
Stockton-on-Tees (69) , a prosperous manufacturing town and port of Durham, on the Tees, 4 m. from its mouth; an iron bridge spanning the river connects it with Thornaby-on-Tees; has the usual public buildings; steel and iron shipbuilding building, potteries, foundries, machine-shops are flourishing industries ”

“ At Newcastle its valley is broad again, with wooded hills on all sides, enclosing the pretty little village and its castle. Put thence to Cardigan it is majestic all the way, zigzagging with glorious curves, and with high, densely-wooded banks in the main. Seen when the tints are on its trees, this part of Teifi’s course makes an enduring mark on the memory. The salmon-fisher who comes once to Teifi here (and it is a prolific river, in spite of the “professionals,” who take heavy tolls at its mouth) will have abundant compensation, even though he have poor sport. ”

“ It is on the fat meadows near Aberdeen that a portion of those innumerable flocks and droves are raised which have so great a reputation in the London market. These are the two extremes, but between them there is every variety of Highland scenery. He who has seen the banks of Dee has seen, as in an epitome or abridgment, all that the north of Scotland has to show. In the midst of variety one thing is constant, whatever landscape you may be passing through: you always have the great hill masses on the horizon. Thus the Dee is a typical Highland river. ”

“ The railway runs close at hand for almost the whole of its course, which, for the present, lies through what is the peculiar country of Owen Glendower. We have encountered traces of this valiant chieftain at Machynlleth, Dolgelley, and almost everywhere that we have been; but here, at Corwen and roundabout, the country fairly reeks with his memory. The Dee is a fair, wide river when it leaves Bala Lake, and flows for a while through open meadow lands, to plunge before long and with great suddenness into a beautiful mountain gorge, where it is overhung by trees. ”

“ We had doubled the shoaly point which stretches from the mouth of the creek, and were making way merrily across the bay, at the head of which was the port of the little settlement, when we beheld to our dismay, a few miles down the river, the signs of the violent day breeze coming down upon us—a long, rapidly advancing line of foam with the darkened water behind it. Our men strove in vain to gain the harbour; the wind overtook us, and we cast anchor in three fathoms, with two miles of shoaly water between us and the land on our lee. ”

“ As a plain matter of fact, it is five miles from High Force to Caldron Snout, a much more amazing waterfall, and there are more than seven miles as the crow flies between Caldron Snout and Tees Head. It is a country bare of inhabitants and abounding in game. There is no village beyond Langdon Beck, where we begin the ascent of the moors. The Tees is joined by numerous little streams before it leaves Cumberland, and flows through the four or five miles of ste [Pg 199] rn valley where Westmorland and Durham face each other. ”

“ Below the bridge at Middleton the Tees leaves behind it the stern Yorkshire moorlands and scaurs, the hills on either bank withdrawing themselves that it may glitter in the sunbeams over a pebbly bed. Henceforth, until it approaches the large towns, and when it encounters the sea-tides, it flows, broad and open, past richly-wooded banks. In all England there is no more pleasant valley than that which the Tees waters between Middleton and Pierce Bridge. There is an almost equal beauty in the valleys of its numerous tributaries. ”

“ The Tyne is a brighter and clearer stream than the Mersey, is immeasurably purer than the Thames, is only occasionally muddied like the Humber, and is at no time discoloured by coal. When there are floods in the upper reaches, so much brown soil is carried down by the impetuous water that the current of the river can be traced far out to sea ”

“ There is reason to suppose that at a period beyond the reach of history, the river Dee must have discharged its waters into the sea at the Craiglug—where the Chain Bridge is seen in the engraving—and that by their alluvial deposits, and the effects of the north-east winds, in accumulating the sands in the neighbourhood, the ground now occupied by the village of Footdee, the shorelands and Sandilands, the Links and the islands in the estuary were gradually raised above the level of the sea. ”

“ Leaving Wynstay on the right, we were conducted along the banks of a beautiful canal (the same that crossed the valley at Chirk) which was here planted with larch and hazel in pleasing variety on either side. On a sudden, an opening in the foliage presented us with a splendid view of the vale of the Dee, with the grand aqueduct stretching from hill to hill and the waters of the river making their way among broken rocks, amid embowering trees, and rolling under the arches of the aqueduct, with that delightful sound which is only heard in mountain scenery. ”

“ As we advanced, the hills on both sides grew constantly lower; on the right, retreating from the shore, and forming a somewhat extensive bottom of intermingled prairie and wooded land. In the course of a few hours, and opposite to a small stream corning in from the north, called the Tea Prairie river, the highlands on the left declined to the plains, and three or four miles more disappeared entirely on both sides, and the river entered the low country. ”

“ Along the valley, bare sandy and boggy plains alternated with tea-tree thickets and mangrove swamps, in one of which our horses got deeply bogged. After five miles we came on a large piece of salt water, which, according to Brown, was a tributary creek of the river. It flowed between low banks fringed with tea-trees. We followed a foot-path of the natives, who seemed very numerous, which led towards another range west by south; and crossed several tea-tree creeks, Pandanus groves, and swamps full of a high blady grass. ”

“ Returning down the Cor burn to the Tyne, our way lies eastward by the side of the river, which here, after splashing and sparkling over the shallows below Corbridge, narrows again to a deeper stream of swifter current, and flows between green meadows and leafy woods, fern-clad steeps and level haughs, all the way down to Ryton, where the picturesque aspect of the river ceases, and it becomes an industrial waterway. ”

“ The Tawe cannot be much more than twenty-five miles in length, from its source in the lakelet on the Brecknock Van, or summit, of the Fforest Fawr Mountains, to the Swansea Docks. As fully half its course is through a colliery district, it may be supposed that its claims to beauty cannot be of the strongest. But the Neath river has taught us that these South Wales streams cannot be judged thus summarily. One must, therefore, proceed up the long valley of Tawe in the hope of charms other than those that emanate from pit-gear, long chimneys, and factories. ”

“ Two or three hundred yards has been the limit of the view ahead, as the stream swerves gracefully from the slightest rise of land, and flows now east, now north, now east, now south again. So long a stretch of navigable water is not common on the Delectable River, and we make the most of it, moving leisurely, and prisoning the everchanging picture with the imperfect camera of the eyes. ”

“ Tay, a river of Scotland whose drainage area lies almost wholly within Perthshire; rises on the northern slope of Ben Lui, on the Argyll and Perthshire border, and flowing 25 m. NE. under the names of Fillan and Dochart, enters Loch Tay, whence it sweeps N., SE., and E., passing Aberfeldy, Dunkeld, Perth, and Dundee, and enters the North Sea by a noble estuary 25 m. long and from 1⁄2 m. to 31⁄2 m. broad; chief affluents are the Tummel, Isla, Almond, and Earn; discharges a greater body of water than any British stream ”

“ From the slope which is occupied by the village of Cotherstone one may see the domes of the Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle, rising out of what appears to be a vast forest, interspersed here and there with patches of cultivated ground. No sparkle of water is anywhere visible in the whole wide landscape, but the course of the Tees may be traced by a wavy and depressed line in the woodland verdure ”

“ That evening we left the main river and tracked up a tributary stream until we came to a broad canal, which Akong informed us led direct to our destination.
Turning out of our beds the next morning we found the boat moored to the bank of the canal, opposite a long, rambling, one-storied building, which proved to be the "hong" of the tea-merchant to whom the neighboring plantations belonged. We were really in the tea country at last. On every side of us, as far as the eye could reach, the dark-green tea-plants were growing in their beds of reddish sandy soil. ”

“ It was already all but encircled by the stream, and it was evident, from the numerous large logs, and the considerable area of bare boulders in the neighbourhood on nearly the same level, that the upper part of the island—and under extraordinary circumstances, perhaps the whole of it—is occasionally overflown. The river at this point runs between ranges 3000 and 4000 ft. high, some of them rising almost precipitously from the banks of the stream, and all of them more or less snow-clad. ”

“ Before we were aware, we were close in to Tahaa (pronounced Tah-hah- ah, with equal accents) , and Tehei was grinning approval of the vahine's proficiency at bailing. The canoe grounded on a shallow shore, twenty feet from land, and we waded out on a soft bottom where big slugs curled and writhed under our feet and where small octopuses advertised their existence by their superlative softness when stepped upon. Close to the beach, amid cocoanut palms and banana trees, erected on stilts, built of bamboo, with a grass- thatched roof, was Tehei's house. ”

“ The Tees, whose northern bank is Durham territory for nearly the whole of its course, flows into the North Sea, having its own ample and busy estuary at Middlesborough. Through the centre of Yorkshire, running north and south, is the great plain, or by comparison a plain with which the traveller on the Great Northern railroad to Scotland is so familiar, and whence thousands of persons no doubt derive their impressions of this distinguished county. ”