Suds

“ A brief account of the west-coast of the South-land.
The South-land has sandy dunes forming many points on the sea-side; the dunes all consist of loose sand overgrown with grass into which a man will sink up to his ankles, and leave deep footprints on withdrawing his feet. ”

“ Warmth, earth, warmth,
The sky, the sun, the stars,
The magnolia-scented South.
Beautiful, like a woman,
Seductive as a dark-eyed whore,
Passionate, cruel,
Honey-lipped, syphilitic—
That is the South. ”

“ The tide is going out, and the breakers are shallowing to chiding curls of foam along the edge of the ebb. Gone are the thin-footed, light-winged peoples, the industrious waders, the busy pickup, runabout, and scurry-along folk. South, south with the sun, along bright beaches and across wide bays, south with the sun along the edge of a continent, with heaven knows what ancient mysteries stirring in their tiny minds and what ancient instincts waking in their veins. ”

“ If I could fly, I would away to those realms of light and warmth—far, far away in the southern clime, where the wants of the body should [486] be few, and where the vigour of life should be great. The glorious south is, like the joyous time of youth, full of hope and promise: all is sunny and bright: there, flowers bloom and birds sing merrily. ”

“ In the twinkling of an eye we have come into the kingdom of the South. With a deep breath of the sharp-scented sunny air, we inhale the beauty of it, and{170} understand—how intimately!—that horror of high mountains which has distinguished every race capable of appreciating beauty. Our recollection of the black gorge, the barren peaks, the swirling torrent, renders still keener our feeling for the fertile plain where the blood-red boughs of the Judas-tree make their deep southern blots of colour against the blue of the delicate, serrated hills behind. ”

“ There being no sun nor other heavenly bodies, it is impossible for us to determine the North in the usual way; but we have a method of our own. By a Law of Nature with us, there is a constant attraction to the South; and, although in temperate climates this is very slight—so that even a Woman in reasonable health can journey several furlongs northward without much difficulty—yet the hampering effect of the southward attraction is quite sufficient to serve as a compass in most parts of our earth. ”

“ AMONG THE PALMETTOS ON THE BANKS OF HALIFAX RIVER, FLORIDA.—This is a typical Southern scene, and one of the most delightful to human senses that could be imagined. It is so perfectly in accord with nature that in imagination we can hear the bursting of the buds as they grow beneath the fructifying influences of the Southern sun, and feel the soft, hazy atmosphere as it gently rolls in from the cooling waters of the sea, and floods the intervening spaces of the moss-covered trees. ”

“ The South Land has, on its coasts, downs covered with grass and sand so deep, that, in walking, one’s foot is buried ankle-deep, and leaves great traces behind it. At about a league from the shore there runs a reef of rock, on which here and there the sea is seen to break with great force. In some places there is a depth of from one, one and a half, to two fathoms, so that a boat can pass, after which the depth becomes greater up to the shore; but it is everywhere a dangerous coral bottom, on which it is difficult to find holding for an anchor. ”

“ Far south it is even more isolated—only this generation has been born and brought up on the Coast. The old generation came from another world. There is a certain sense forced upon one of the smallness and feebleness of man, when brought face to face with the Forest—when from some hill-top you look out over that undulating sea of green-blue hills and valleys, all untrodden, all impenetrable, wherein is no open track or glade save only up the bed of a torrent. ”

“ Southward through day and dark,
They drift in close embrace,
With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.
Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day ”

“ Away to the South, the peering summits of some lofty chain, are dimly drawn upon the sky. To the West, you hear the distant Ocean's sullen roar, as its waves, with crash tremendous, break upon its rock bound shores. ”

“ Perhaps in sheer beauty of pictorial isolation clouds are most lovely when viewed above sea horizons, from shores of islands, or promontories, or remote headlands. In the South this beauty is possibly more dream-like, more poignantly lovely, than in the North. ”

“ The Coming South.—For forty years the oppressed South has been under a cloud groping its way in the wilderness, a part of the time without even a feint hope of reaching the promised land, but the clouds are breaking and through the dense darkness can be traced at least the outline of a silver lining. To the most obscure vision a light appears, and the dullest prophet can forecast the sunshine soon to burst forth in magnificent splendor. ”

“ At dawn of day we again discovered land from west-south-west to west-north-west, and another island north-north-west, the latter a high round lump of but little extent: the southern land that we had passed in the night was still in sight. Being very wet and cold I served a spoonful of rum and a morsel of bread for breakfast. ”

“ Borne down by colonial subjugation, monopoly, and bigotry, these vast regions of the South were hardly visible above the horizon. But in our day there has been, as it were, a new creation. The southern hemisphere emerges from the sea. Its lofty mountains begin to lift themselves into the light of heaven; its broad and fertile plains stretch out, in beauty, to the eye of civilized man, and at the mighty bidding of the voice of political liberty the waters of darkness retire. ”

“ Southern man or woman to maintain the traditional courtesy and hospitality of the South toward the stranger within its gates. It is only semi-occasionally that one finds in some sour-natured relic of other days any other attitude than that of smiling welcome, and even with the thermometer ranging close to the zero mark I have learned why the Southland is in spirit anyhow the "Land of Roses." ”

“ When you shall have come upon the South-land in the said latitude or near it, you will skirt the coast of the same as far as Latitude 50°, in case the land should extend so far southward; but if the land should fall off before you have reached the said latitude, and should be found to trend eastward, you will follow its eastern extension for some time, and finding no further extension to southward, you will not proceed farther east, but turn back. You will do the same if you should find the land to turn to westward. ”

“ The excessive cold, the many islands and vast floats of ice, all tend to prove that there must be land to the south; and for my persuasion that this southern land must lie, or extend, farthest to the north opposite to the southern Atlantic and Indian oceans, I have already assigned some reasons; to which I may add the greater degree of cold experienced by us in these seas, than in the southern Pacific ocean under the same parallels of latitude. ”

“ Far south rises a murk of sand against the sky; it grows, the wind shakes itself, and has a smell of earth. The cloud of small dust takes on the color of gold and shuts out the neighborhood, the push of the wind is unsparing. Only man of all folk is foolish enough to stir abroad in it. ”

“ Here in my den it’s quiet; the sea-wind taps on the pane;
There’s comfort and ease and plenty, the smile of the South is sweet.
All that a man might long for, fight for and seek in vain,
Pictures and books and music, pleasure my last retreat. ”

“ To the southward, the plain is more mingled with low projecting promontories, and unites almost every kind of beauty. However, even among her northern lakes, the richness of the low climate, and the magnificence of form and colour presented by the distant Alps, raise the character of the scene immeasurably above that of most hill landscapes, even were those natural features entirely unassisted by associations which, though more sparingly scattered than in the south, are sufficient to give light to every leaf, and voice to every wave. ”

“ The descent on the south side is much more precipitous and wonderful than the ascent from the north. On the south, the rocks are craggy and stupendous; the little river falls headlong down; it is not a stream, it is one broken, panting cascade far away in the gulley below, in the darkness. ”

“ Whenever I go southward, if it be only twenty miles, I begin to look out for the south, prepared as I am to find the careless grace of those latitudes even in things of which it may, be said that they may be south of something, but are not southern. ”

“ I never saw the South Downs look so glorious or so mountainous as they looked with their crowning of mists and their dark shadowed bases. To realise the full beauty of the downs you must see them in all weathers and not in sunshine alone. Sunshine is cheerful, but sunshine is a tamer ”

“ The scenery of the South below the mountain regions, seldom impresses at first, but it grows upon acquaintance; and in a little while, where once all things looked monotonous and unattractive, we learn to discover sweet influences that ravish us from ourselves at every step we take, into worlds and wilds, where all is fairy-like, wooing, and unchangingly sweet. ”

“ Look at the birds; there's not a colored bird in the north that hasn't come from the south; look at the shells and the corals, and the flowers and the people; look at the sun. No, the south holds everything worth having or seeing. ”

“ The south wind is full of longing and unrest, of effeminate suggestions of luxurious ease, and perhaps we might say of modern poetry,—at any rate, modern poetry needs a change of air. I am not sure but the south is the most powerful of the winds, because of its sweet persuasiveness. Nothing so stirs the blood in spring, when it comes up out of the tropical latitude; it makes men “longen to gon on pilgrimages.” ”

“ The sandstone mesas of the Southwest, the terracing of canyon walls, the castellation, battlementing, and cliff making, the cutting down of a whole landscape except its precipitous islands of flat-topped rock, the thin lava table-cloths on tables 100 feet high—these are a few of the things which make the Southwest wonderful alike to the scientist and the mere sight-seer. ”

“ In the Southland is a certain appearance of mobility, lent by the deciduous trees, the warm sun, the intimate nooks in which grow the commoner homely weeds and flowers, the abundance of bees and musical insects, the childhood familiarity of the well-known birds, even the pleasantly fickle aspects of the skies. ”

“ West and south-west into the unknown must he go who follows the lure of those peaceful, sunny glades where there are no hills, no valleys, nothing save trees and trees and trees again, and shallow streams with jungle edging them, and lonely lakes set with cypress, and sunny clearings, never made by human hands, where last year's grass, shoulder-high, silvers under the white sun of the South. ”

“ Much sea ran on the shore which made landing impracticable. At noon we were abreast of a high headland; the extremes of the land bore south-west half west, and north-north-east half east; our distance offshore being three miles; latitude by observation 9 degrees 59 minutes south; and my longitude by dead reckoning from the north part of New Holland 15 degrees 6 minutes west.
With the usual allowance of bread and water for dinner I divided the bird we had caught the night before, and to the surgeon and Lebogue I gave a little wine. ”

“ The dry land in the southern hemisphere is to that of the northern in the ratio only of one to three, excluding from our consideration that part which lies between the pole and the 78° of south latitude, which has hitherto proved inaccessible. ”

“ When the easternmost bore north I tried for soundings, being then 10 miles distant from the nearest of them, and found bottom at 75 fathoms, a fine white sand: and again at noon, having run six leagues more to the east-south-east, we had soundings at 104 fathoms, a fine brimstone-coloured sand. ”

“ They are very attentive to the Positions of the Sun and Stars, and on the Lakes can steer their Course by them. The different Aspects which the Hills exhibit on the North Side, from that which the South has impressed on their Eyes, suggest, habitually, at the Moment, in every Spot, an almost intuitive Knowledge of the Quarters of the Heavens which we, mechanically, mark by the Compass. ”

“ In the first place, in the world that is called the south where the sun is in its greatest altitude above the earth, north where it is in its opposite position beneath the earth, east where it rises at an equinox, and west where it then sets. ”

“ But how different in color, in sentiment! Here, perfect sunshine can never dust the water with the purple bloom of the South, can never mellow its hard, cold tint of greenish-blue. The distant hills, whether dark or light, are equally cold, and are seen too nakedly through the crystal air to admit of any illusion. ”

“ A Glance at the South.—There is something interesting, as you go through the South at the present time, in watching the progress of events. It is a region, speaking of it as a whole, that strikes the Northern man with many peculiarities. One is, where is the population that made that stern resistance to the Northern arms? The cities are all small; there are no villages; whence came that force that withstood us so many years, and withstood us with such might? And then again, you are struck with many things so different from what we find at the North. ”