Eyrie

“ There, deep amid the Blueridge Mountains rises the crest called the Great Eyrie. Its huge rounded form is distinctly seen from the little town of Morganton on the Catawba River, and still more clearly as one approaches the mountains by way of the village of Pleasant Garden.
Why the name of Great Eyrie was originally given this mountain by the people of the surrounding region, I am not quite sure. It rises rocky and grim and inaccessible, and under certain atmospheric conditions has a peculiarly blue and distant effect. ”

“ The eyrie or nest is an object of the greatest care with the parent birds, the site being chosen with a view to the greatest possible security, generally in some crevice on the face of a perpendicular precipice several hundred feet in height. It is built of dry sticks of wood coated on the inside with moss. Hansel informed me of a surmise that the eyrie of this pair would be discovered in the face of the terribly steep "Falknerwand;" ”

“ As each finished preening, it backs to the edge of the eyrie and, grasping the rock firmly with its talons, beats its wings vigorously for a minute or two. The young ravens used to do the same thing during their last week at home. There are other signs of wandering as they emulate one another's efforts in climbing on to the surrounding rocks; one of the young females has, in fact, disappeared from the eyrie. One young male seems very empty, and is whimpering every few minutes. ”

“ The down is nearly fully developed now, and they keep their eyes open more. The earholes are still prominent, and when moving in the eyrie they hobble about on their tarsi, not on their talons. There has been no brooding worth mentioning to-day, and he cannot cover them when he tries. About 9 p.m., while changing plates, I heard the Tiercel flop down, and when I looked out, at 9.10, he was standing on B, from which he moved into the eyrie later on. The last I saw of him-he was standing close to the young, with his feathers ruffled out. ”

“ The shed itself was quite satisfactory, but a new focal-plane shutter, in which I had invested four pounds, was apparently unfinished when finally delivered a day or two before I started, and ruined most of my exposures. The weather only permitted three watches at the eyrie, and, to crown all, the young left it a week sooner, as, owing to there only being two of them, they were more abundantly fed and developed more rapidly, a fact I had previously noted with ravens. ”

“ And, indeed, we have come into quite a new life, for now we are going to wander among the conquerors of the air, who have learned to rise far beyond our solid ground, and to soar, like the lark, into the clouds, or, like the eagle, to sail over the topmost crags of the mountains, there to build his solitary eyrie. ”

“ When visiting about the same time the precipitous mountain of Rosheen, near Dunfanaghy, in that county, I was told that for a long time previous to the preceding twelve years, a pair of eagles had built their eyrie in one of the inaccessible cliffs.The situation selected for this eyrie indicates that the species was most probably the golden eagle. ”

“ I note that the youngsters are beginning to stand more on their talons. June 4th was a very hot day, and in landing I put the half-gallon jar of water down carelessly, and it separated into two. So, after shutting me up. Jim kindly went for more water. Soon after 7 p.m, the eyrie THE TIERCEL SHELTERING YOUNG FOURTEEN DAYS OLD FROM RAIN.
THE TIERCEL SHELTERING YOUNG FOURTEEN DAYS OLD FROM RAIN.
woke to life and the young began to move about. First one and then another lurches unsteadily across the eyrie. ”

“ Notwithstanding their liveliness in getting to the front when feeding was going on, and the fact that the Tiercel always seemed to take care that the males got enough, yet one always seemed to fare the worst, so that at the end of their stay in the eyrie, though there was no perceptible difference between the two females, one of the males might always be singled out as the Benjamin of the family. ”

“ The writer has visited fourteen eagles' nests, and robbed several of the eggs, which were never more than two in number. A few years ago it was considered a dangerous undertaking to rob an eyrie, and persons went armed with guns to protect the aggressor, but my informant has never himself been assailed, nor known men to be attacked Footnote 14 by the parent birds. They appear to breed for a number of years in the same nest, renewing it every season. ”

“ One soon grows tired of the noise and stir around this oasis of the ice. Indeed, the laughter and the movement seem almost sacrilege in a place where so lately the autumn leaves dropped silently into the clear brown water below, where the plash of a trout made stillness felt, and the solitude was unbroken by the step of man. Away, then, from the coffee-stands and the curling-rink, from the shouting of the shinty-players, and the fragrance of intolerable cigarettes! The loch is frozen all the way to Luss; last night’s wind has swept every particle of snow from the surface ”

“ A bright stream is the Iser, and plenteous of trout: a water such as the angler loves, now brawling over shallows, now sleeping in hazel-fringed pools. You will pause more than once while climbing the hill beyond to scan the vale. All the greater slopes are broken up with lesser undulations—wherein much is half seen, and thickly-patched with wood; little cottages nestle everywhere among the trees, the little chapel near the summit; and here and there on the outskirts a dark ridge of firs reminds you of the melancholy miles of forest beyond. ”

“ For presently the rain ceases, the grey mist melts into the lucent blue of the sky, and wet hill and woodland sparkle and glow in a flood of hot sunshine. Immediately the shallow trout burn that comes down to the stepping-stones under the edge of the wood laughs gaily and dances over its pebbles; the mountain in front becomes a great sapphire burning gloriously under the blue; the larks rise, true sun-worshippers, pouring forth rills of song, libations to their God, at heaven’s own gate ”

“ The charms of the Ewe are manifold,—the wooded knolls on its upper reaches; the lovely peeps of the mountains of Loch Maree, and of the nearer range of Craig Tollie; the stories of the past that linger about its neighbourhood; the beauties of the river itself, replete with bird life and with wild flowers; and above all the exciting sport, are attractions which cannot fail to delight the angler, especially if he be successful. And there are pools in the Ewe that yield an occasional fish, even when the river is at its lowest. ”

“ Half-way down between the island and the shore we plunged into the swift current, intending to float after the canoes, holding on by the painter,—a most enjoyable and interesting thing to do. When you lie at utter rest in the water and watch the shore go by, it seems too delicious for waking life; but this is not the best. Let your whole body and head sink well under the surface, keeping your eyes open; the river becomes an aquarium,—you see the weeds, the stones, and the fishes as clearly almost as if they were in the air. ”

“ In 1874, surveyor Lewis, the gallant and tireless spirit whose indefatigable efforts had pulled the Warburton Expedition out of the fire took charge of an expedition equipped by Sir Thomas Elder to define the many affluents of Lake Eyre. Starting from the overland line, Lewis skirted Lake Eyre to the north, penetrated to Eyre's Creek, traced that stream and the Diamantina into Lake Eyre, and confirmed the opinion that the waters of Cooper's Creek as well as the more westerly streams found their way into that inland sea. ”

“ In a fisherman’s boat we rowed down the loch, sometimes in mid-channel and sometimes skirting the cliffs, which rose like a wall of rock to a great height above us. We passed little islets, and the mouths of caverns which filled with clouds of spray as the long rolling waves swept in from the Atlantic. On the ledges of the rocks, hovering over our heads, swimming and diving in the sea, were cormorants, puffins, oyster catchers, gulls, curlews and guillemots. ”

“ Happy just now must be the speckled trout that dwell in the loch’s clear depths; and when the fiery-flowering sun rolls ablaze in the zenith there are few mortals who will not envy the cool green domain of the salmon king. But now that the sunset has died away upon the hills, like “the watch-fires of departing angels,” a breath of air begins mysteriously to stir along the shore, and from the undergrowth about the streamlet that runs close by into the loch, blackbird and water-ousel send forth more liquid pipings. ”

“ Regaining the car and main road, we pass by small silvery lakes from which the trout are leaping, “bekase,” says our driver, “the wather's so full o' fish that whinever they want to turn round they must jist jump out and do it in the air,” through a country prettily diversified with
“Woods and corn-fields, and the abode of men, Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke, Arising from such rustic roofs”
as are only to be seen in Ireland, and so come to Inchigeela. ”

“ They are snow-fed from the high ranges, and each nor'-wester restores many a glacier or avalanche to its original form, and sends it flowing down the steep sides of yonder distant beautiful mountains to join the creeks, which, like a tangled skein of silver threads, ensure a good water supply to the New Zealand sheep-farmer. In the holes, under steep overhanging banks, the eels love to lurk, hiding from the sun's rays in cool depths, and coming out at night to feed. ”

“ Lake Erie is unchequered by islands, till we begin to approach its western regions; where, instead of an open sea, the beautiful and curving shores of the main land, and of the insular territories, covered as they generally are with unbroken forests, and opening channels and bays in every direction, lend a vision of enchantment, rarely equalled, to the eye of the passenger, borne along upon the bosom of the deep. ”

“ In reflecting upon this painful march of Eyre's round the Great Bight, one feels an exceeding great pity that so much heroic suffering should have been spent on the execution of a purpose the fulfilment of which promised but little of economic value. The maritime surveys had fairly established the fact that no considerable creek or river found its way into the Southern Ocean, either in or about the Great Bight. ”

“ A gleam of light falls upon a broad expanse of the estuary beyond that point under which the schooner lies at anchor, and brings out the thickly wooded banks of an opposite shore, causing us to note the fact that, for some reason or other, no timber seems ever to have spread down so far toward the sea on this side of the stream, or where the settlement stands, since nothing but scattered copses of alder- and willow-bushes grow on its suburbs or anywhere else as far as an eye can range up the valley. ”

“ Shores devoid of inhabitants look upon seas devoid of ships; you alight from the unfrequented waves upon unfrequented coasts.
Lake Erie.
Lake Erie is over one hundred leagues in circumference. The nations of the water-side were exterminated by the Iroquois two centuries ago. It is an appalling thing to see the Indians venturing in their birch-bark wherries upon this lake famed for its tempests, in which myriads of serpents swarmed in former days. These Indians hang their manitous upon the prow of their canoes and dart into the midst of the eddies among the heaving waves. ”

“ Here is an island eighteen miles in diameter surrounded by salt water with an elevation of 1,800 feet, and 1,200 feet above the ocean are three fine lakes, Eagle Lake, Crooked Lake, and Echo Lake. In which lakes are trout weighing eight or ten pounds. On this small island are to be found thousands of springs pouring out from every crack and crevice. The water is pure and clear as in all such cases. Where does it come from? No more generous gift to man and all animated nature, has been bestowed by Providence than the universal distribution of springs all over the world. ”

“ The next morning we were still five miles from Lake Erie, a distance which we accomplished at about ten o'clock, when we reached the little town of Cleveland. The sea-like expanse of the large Lake Erie was very striking when emerging from the wooded valleys, and the sight of it reminded me of my approaching voyage to my native country. The dark blue lake stretches to the far horizon, like the ocean; [Pg 159] the eye is attracted by the white sails and the smoke of the steam-boats; while the finest weather and the purest atmosphere favoured the illusion. ”

“ Once on the stream or lake and all is changed. For the shores are green; the river or brook is clear and cold—and tarry black in the deep places; the water leaps and dashes in whirlpools and torrents, and the lakes are fairy lakes, full of green islands—mere ledges, many of them, with two or three curious sentinel pines—and everywhere the same clear, black water, and always the trout, the wonderful, wild, abounding Nova Scotia trout. ”

“ The range of hills we had followed under so long still continued, but as they stretched to the northward they had increased in elevation and in barrenness of appearance, and we rarely found even the dry channel of a water-course emanating from them. The last of these creeks that I found to the northward was about 26 miles from our dep6t, and though dry in the plains, had large reaches of very salt water in it among the hills, and in the ledges of rock where the water had evaporated we found a great abundance of pure white salt. ”

“ For, as I stated above, there are numerous islands, rocks, shoals, banks, and breakers on all sides, so that it is marvellous to behold.
Now to resume our course: as one enters the river, there are beautiful islands, which are very pleasant and contain fine meadows. We proceeded to a place to which the savages guided us, where the river is not more than an eighth of a league broad, and at a distance of some two hundred paces from the western shore there is a rock on a level with the water, of a dangerous character. [98] From here to the Isle Haute, it is fifteen leagues. ”