Swat Valley

“ Both banks of the rivers are irrigated; the soil is very rich, and well adapted for rice cultivation. The valley has the reputation of being very unhealthy, owing, I have no doubt, to the effluvia arising from the damp soil. A Swatie is easily recognised by the sallow appearance he presents—a striking contrast to his nearest neighbours. ”

“ About a mile from Tintagel, along the hilly road leading to Boscastle, and passing the wonderful little Bossiney cove with its elephant-shaped rock, there is a small rapid stream which winds through the Rocky Valley and falls like a torrent at low tide into the sea. The Rocky Valley, with its three huge boulders, its narrow walk now leading to the side of the stream and now mounting far above it, and ending only where the iron cliffs beetle above the roughest of bays, is one of the most sublime spectacles that Nature has to display in that enchanted region. ”

“ The view along the steep valley extends for a few miles, and then is suddenly cut off by a sharp bend where the Swale, a silver ribbon along the bottom of the dale, disappears among the sombre woods and the shoulders of the hills.
In this aspect of Swaledale one sees its mildest and most civilized mood; for beyond the purple hill-side that may be seen in the illustration, cultivation becomes more palpably a struggle, and the gaunt moors, broken by lines of precipitous scars, assume control of the scenery. ”

“ More and more are the hill-sides wavy with grass as we descend, field after field shut in by stone fences, and the dalesmen are beginning to mow. The time of the hay harvest has come for the mountains: a month later than in the south. How beautifully the bright green contrasts with the dark purple distances, and softens the features of the dale! And as I looked from side to side, or around to the rear, as the fallen road made the hills seem higher, and saw how much Swaledale has in common with a valley of the Alps, I felt that here the desire for mountain scenery might be satisfied ”

“ From Panguitch to Orderville, fifty miles, the scenery opens with the dreary hills that had become so miserably familiar, alternating with level pasture-lands, among which the serpentine Sevier winds a curiously fantastic course. But gradually there grows upon the mind a sense of coming change. Verdure creeps over the plains, and vegetation steals on to the hill-sides, and then suddenly as if for a surprise, the complete beauty of Long Valley bursts upon the traveller. ”

“ So then Swatty made a face at the pieces of old stump.
“Garsh!” he said. “Garsh! who'd of thunk anybody cared for that old stump? We didn't know Ladylove cared that much for it, did we? Well, come on!”
“Come on where?” Bony sort of whined.
“Where do you think?” Swatty asked. “What do I care where? Anywhere we can get a tree to plant—that's where. We'll get a big tree, like those maple trees, and we'll fetch it here and plant it; that's what we'll do! I'll tell you what. We'll take the capstan rope and go out to the cow pasture and dig up a big tree and let my cow drag it here. ”

“ Beautiful it must be at all seasons and in all weathers, but it is only when the air is clear that the head of Swaledale may be seen on one side of the ridge and the far-away slopes of Wensleydale on the other, and it is only when the sun is sinking that those distant hills are washed with gold. The moors sweep round us far and near; a line of dark firs crosses them mid-way; patches of vivid green break through the heather; and down in [58] the valley the Swale shows as a thin thread of twisted silver. ”

“ The sites chosen in the open valleys are very good; but in the narrow valleys they are perforce much commanded by the neighbouring precipitous hills. On the Swat River, the enemy's position, with the fort of Ramora on one flank, rocky hills well prepared for defence on the other, the village of Chakdara in the centre, with much swampy ground restricting the advance of an enemy even after the passage of the river to a few well-defined paths, combined to make the position if scientifically held a remarkably strong one. ”

“ The road goes down through another valley, and then finally begins to scale the main slope of the Pentlands. A bouquet of old trees stands round a white farmhouse; and from a neighbouring dell, you can see smoke rising and leaves ruffling in the breeze. Straight above, the hills climb a thousand feet into the air. The neighbourhood, about the time of lambs, is clamorous with the bleating of flocks; and you will be awakened, in the grey of early summer mornings, by the barking of a dog or the voice of a shepherd shouting to the echoes. This, with the hamlet lying behind unseen, is Swanston. ”

“ The valley of Swift Current is narrow and flanked on either side by high hills which, though at first rounded and grass-covered, grow steeper and nourish a growth of pines and aspens as one ascends the stream. The trail climbs steeply and, before long, splendid snow-capped mountain peaks cut off the view to the southwest. From time to time the stream enlarges into a series of lakes, in and about which Hugh detected much beaver sign. ”

“ It is a difficult matter to decide which is the more attractive means of exploring Swaledale; for if one keeps to the road at the bottom of the valley many beautiful and remarkable aspects of the country are missed, and yet if one goes over the moors it is impossible really to explore the recesses of the dale. The old road from Richmond to Reeth avoids the dale altogether, except for the last mile, and its ups and its downs make the traveller pay handsomely for the scenery by the way. ”

“ Soon after we started the rain ceased, and the clouds slowly uplifted themselves from the mountain sides. We were riding through the valley that leads from the Ashburton to the upper valley of the Rangitata, and kept on the right-hand side of it. It is a long, open valley, the bottom of which consists of a large swamp, from which rise terrace after terrace up the mountains on either side; the country is, as it were, crumpled up in an extraordinary manner, so that it is full of small ponds or lagoons—sometimes dry, sometimes merely swampy, now as full of water as they could be. ”

“ On the other side of the barrier lay the Swift River intervale. If that ridge were out of the way, if it could be easily surmounted, or if a rift could be found in it, the journey of nearly thirty miles from the southern spurs of Paugus, round through Conway to the northern spurs, would be reduced to eight or nine miles. The people living at 45 the upper end of Swift River valley, instead of having to travel sixteen miles to a post-office, doctor, minister, or store, could touch civilization by driving about eleven miles. ”

“ We used to go up to our cave and work on it. Scratch-Cat went with us mostly, but we didn't count her for a girl. So it looked pretty good.
Me and Swatty and Bony liked vacation because we never did have time to do all we wanted to do when school kept. What we wanted to do most was to finish up our cave in the clay bank up Squaw Creek. The Graveyard Gang had chased us away from it, but that was all right when vacation came because the Graveyard Gang kids all have to go to work when school is over. Some of them work for the farmers on the Island, and some work in the sawmills. ”

“ But there was not enough plow land to provide even a small family with enough vegetables for its own use. Here and there was a small patch of scrub timber, and almost all the rest was swamp land.
When they'd needed that above all else, Dog Tooth Valley had provided a safe haven for the once-numerous Gates men. They knew the only safe paths across their endless swamps and, to this day, nobody else did. But the feud was long since ended. ”

“ The wood road goes zigzagging across, and maybe—if it is a cold winter—the trotting-horse men have a speed track on the ice that is different from the wood road and marked off to show a mile. Wagon loads of waste stuff get dumped on the ice in piles and maybe a dozen or two dozen dead horses. You get so you know how it looks, and you get to feeling as if the river had always been frozen over and had always looked like that. Maybe you have names for things, so anybody like Swatty or Bony knows what you mean when you say: “You know, where the wood road comes nearest to the horseshoe air hole.” ”

“ Aiken, however, sixteen miles before you reach the Savannah river, has a pleasant aspect. It is situated on a comparatively high tract of country, sandy and barren, but healthy, and hither the planters resort in the hot months from their homes in the less salubrious districts. Pretty cottages stand dispersed among the oaks and pines, and immediately west of the place the country descends in pleasant undulations towards the valley of the Savannah. ”

“ We just stood and looked at it, and pretty soon Swatty says, “Gosh!” Only he always says “Garsh!” And I said, “Gee!” That was all we said, and Bony didn't say anything. He just stepped backward three or four steps and looked frightened. That's the way you always feel when you see the old Mississippi on a rampage. You feel as if you ought to do something to stop it, and you know you can't—that nobody can. When it gets going it is going to keep right on. So we went down to the levee.
Well, there wasn't any levee! Our levee is just a long down-hill of sand, and it wasn't there. ”

“ We left “Sidmouth Valley” early on the following morning, through a good bush-road, and arrived at a portion of thinly-timbered country, having a character of park scenery, abounding in fine herbage. This brought us almost immediately upon a cattle station, the property of Capt. P. P. King, R.N. There was no one in the hut, so, after feeding our horses, we again proceeded; and, after a four miles ride, arrived at a cattle station, belonging to Mr. Scarvell, called “Brisbane Valley,” although from its quality and locality, “swamp” would have been a more correct nomenclature. ”

“ The country adjacent to the village where I was studying, is, on two sides, swamp of the vilest, muddiest nature imaginable, with occasional tracts of fine land, generally situated on some bayou or lake; frequently an “island” of tillable land will be found rising out of the muddy swamp, accessible to footmen or horse only, when the river is within its banks, varying in size from fifty to two hundred acres; and, wherever existing, generally occupied by a small planter. ”

“ The smooth, bare slope beyond the Mesquite Valley, he said, was really very rough, cut by deep water-channels and covered with brush; and rose in that gradual way nearly 3,000 feet before it reached the mountains. The curious streak in the bottom of the Mesquite Valley was the swamp of Salt Creek, where the water was so bad you could not drink it. It joined the morass in the bottom of Death Valley. There were quicksands there, that you could not get out of if you got in. Men and burros had been lost that way. ”

“ The Valley was not entirely given up to wild life, though it seemed likely that it was only used by man as a pasture ground, and that he preferred the higher country, the hillocks on either side of the plain, for his habitations, out of the way of floods and swamps. But large herds of cattle browsed among antelopes and zebra and were watched over by herdsmen who displayed singularly little curiosity over this first invasion of the Happy Valley by the white man. The Stotts who had preceded Roger and Lucy seemed to have satisfied their curiosity, once and for all. ”

“ There has yet been made no permanent settlement in the Valley of St. Wakine. The causes of this are, that until now, there were other portions of the country which were thought to offer greater inducements to the settler; and the Indians, who live in the bordering mountains, and who roam through the valley, are, by no means to be trusted. In consequence of there having been no settlements made here, the Valley of the St. Wakine abounds with all kinds of game common to the country. Elk, in large bands, are scattered over it in every direction. Deer are numerous. ”

“ The glass fell all around us and one piece cut Swatty on the hand, but he only said, “Jump! Jump!”
Maybe we would have jumped, but we didn't. The firemen had got to the back of the building and had turned the hose in at the back window, and just when Swatty said, “Jump!” the stream of water hit us like a board. It took us as if we were pieces of paper and slammed us out of the broken window and halfway across the street, and threw us head over heels in the mud, and the fashion plate, with Mamie Little's father, came flying with us. ”

“ A lot of boys came and looked through the picket fence and wished we would let them come in and help us capstan the stump, but we wouldn't. What's the use of having something somebody else hasn't got, if you are going to let them have it too?
Pretty soon we got the stump all pulled. There was only a hole where it had been and the rotted wood was scattered around on the grass, and we felt pretty good about it, because nobody wants old stumps sticking up in their yards. Swatty said maybe my father would give me a quarter for pulling the stump and I thought maybe he would, too. ”

“ We saw the men with the mill's hose trying to throw water on the oil house, and every one was shouting at the tops of their voices. We saw men on top of the nearest lumber piles, but almost as soon as we saw them we saw them dodge away and climb down as quick as they could, and the next minute those lumber piles were afire on one side. They were red flames, and they climbed right up the sides of the piles and waved at the top.
Me and Swatty and Bony kept backing down the railway track as the fire got too hot for us. ”