Title to land

“ O father of waters! O river so vast!
So deep, so strong, and so wondrous wild,—
He embraces the land as he rushes past,
Like a savage father embracing his child.
His sea-land is true and so valiantly true,
His leaf-land is fair and so marvellous fair,
His palm-land is filled with a perfumed air
Of magnolia blooms to its dome of blue.
His rose-land has arbors of moss-swept oak,—
Gray, Druid old oaks; and the moss that sways
And swings in the wind is the battle-smoke
Of duellists, dead in her storied days.
His love-land has churches and bells and chimes ”

“ The perpetual gliding of sails, and the rapid movement of steamers, brilliant with their evening lights, give to the prospect of the surrounding sea continual variety and interest. The Narrows, that watery pathway, through which the voyager to distant climes passes, his heart broken with the tender farewells of beloved ones, and by which he returns, in joy unutterable, every thought filled to overflowing with the imagery of home and native land, can never be viewed with indifference by those who have felt these emotions. ”

“ So thin the land is that from the little steamer's deck, as from a great altitude, the eye can range over immense distances. These are the skirts of the continent, trending in multitudinous tatters southward to the sea;—and the practiced gaze of the geologist can discern the history of prodigious alluvial formation, the slow creation of future prairie lands, in those long grassy tongues—those desolate islands, shaped like the letters of an Oriental alphabet—those reaches of flesh-colored sand, that shift their shape with the years, but never cease to grow. ”

“ In the stillness of the mountain-glen, he will see on every side traces of the waves of ocean, and when dipping his oars into the unruffled sea among groups of wasted rocks, miles from shore, he will bethink him, perchance, of some old forest-covered land, of which these battered islets are the sole memorials. His enjoyment of the scenery of nature is thus increased manifold, and he carries about with him a power of making even the tamest landscape interesting. ”

“ As we pass from valley to valley, from one range of highlands to another, from broad and heaving plains to plains still broader, from the fresh waters of great rivers and inland seas to the salt waves of the ocean, everywhere, on either hand, the bounties of Providence fill the land; the earth is teeming with the richest of blessings. ”

“ He does not see before him a beautiful blessed land bright with fadeless flowers, nor a great multitude of people in shining garments and garlands who will come down to the shore to welcome him with sounds of shouting and singing and playing on instruments of divers forms, and who will lead him in triumph to the gardens of everlasting delight and to mansions of crystal with emerald and amethyst colonnades and opal domes and turrets and pinnacles. ”

“ Of the travellers who passed over the vast stretches of prairie or mountain or woodland, many saw the possibilities of this vast land, and prophesied as to what might be wrought here, when, in the dim and distant future, which none could yet foresee, settlements should have pushed out from the east and occupied the land. ”

“ Shall the mighty rivers, poured out by the hand of nature, as channels of communication between numerous nations, roll their waters in sullen silence and eternal solitude to the deep? Have hundreds of commodious harbors, a thousand leagues of coast, and a boundless ocean, been spread in the front of this land, and shall every purpose of utility to which they could apply be prohibited by the tenant of the woods? ”

“ Ridge succeeds ridge. Valley opens into valley. As far as the eye can reach in every direction are ragged peaks and spurs. The country of the plains is left, and we have entered a strange land, as tangled as the maze at Hampton Court, with mountains instead of hedges. ”

“ The great rivers seem not only to meet in the ocean, but barely to miss each other in the hills: the whole land, though low as a whole, leans towards the west in shouldering mountains; and a prehistoric tradition has taught it to look towards the sunset for islands yet dreamier than its own. ”

“ I know nothing in America to compare it with or to help the American reader to an approximate idea of it. Imagine a land-lake, apparently shut in completely by a circular wall of mountains of every stature, the tallest looking over the shoulders of the lower hills, like grand giants standing in steel helmets and green doublets and gilded corselets, to see the soft and quiet beauty of the valley sleeping under their watch and ward. ”

“ The great object is to get a way opened up with the greatest expedition and at the least expense. Now let us turn our eyes west of the settlements, and we shall see a belt of fertile land, in some places one hundred, in others fifty miles wide, extending for eight hundred miles, to the very base of the Rocky Mountains. This magnificent belt of land has already been traversed from one end to the other by exploring expeditions, and emigrant parties with carts, dragged by oxen travelling at the rate of twenty miles a day. ”

“ The land is drawing nearer—we can see the shape of the end promontory and peninsula—and a white speck like a church. The bulk of the land is forlorn and rather shapeless, coming towards us: but attractive. ”

“ Yes, under the soil I can see barren cliffs, and under the barren cliffs I behold arable stretches of land. So with Nature, so with Man and the races of Man. In this sense, at least, my native horizon, methinks, is the horizon of my race, and under the seasons of the year are the seasons of my country. ”

“ The first sight of land to one on sea is always an event of uncommon interest; but how greatly increased is the feeling, when that land is to be the scene of a perilous exploit—the cradle of his ambition, or perhaps his grave! All my speculations about the expedition—all my day-dreams of success, or my anxious hours of dark forebodings—never brought the matter so palpably before me, as the dim outline of a distant headland, which, I was told, was part of the Irish coast. ”

“ Below, winds the river, silent and still, Nestling so calmly 'mid island and hill, Above, like warriors, proudly and grand, Tower the forest trees, monarchs of land. A land mark for all to admire and wonder, With thy history ancient, for nations to ponder, Boldly thou liftest they head to the breeze, Crowned with they plumes, the nodding trees. Years are now gone—forever more fled, Since the Indians crept, with cat-like tread, With mocasined foot, with eagle eye— The red men our foes in ambush lie. ”

“ They are the Mills of the Gods, slowly grinding, and though they grind exceedingly small, they have made, in time, through the agency of these great snow-fed rivers, a land that is of a verity flowing with milk and honey—a land that is already the granary of the islands. ”

“ For there shall be one fold and one Shepherd, and all nations shall be brought to acknowledge that He alone “restoreth our souls, and leadeth us in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” On the left hand of the hill, as I advanced eastward, and immediately under its declivity, extended a beautiful tract of land intersected by a large arm of the sea, which (as the tide was fast flowing in) formed a broad lake or haven of three miles in length. Woods, villages, cottages, and churches, surrounded it in most pleasing variety of prospect. ”

“ As in the encroaching of the land upon the sea, the strength of the sandy bastions is raised out of the sifted ruin of ancient inland hills—for every tongue of level land that stretches into the deep, the fall of Alps has been heard among the clouds, and as the fields of industry enlarge, the intercourse with Heaven is shortened. ”

“ Till every dike and pier were flooded,
And all the land with islands studded,
For once to teach all human kind,
Both those that plow and those that grind,
There is no fixture in the land,
But all unstable is as sand. ”

“ Every mountain and hill shall have its treasured name, every river shall keep some solemn title, every valley and every lake shall cherish its honored register; and till the mountains are worn out, and the rivers forget to flow—till the clouds are weary of replenishing springs, and the springs forget to gush, and the rills to sing, shall their names be kept fresh with reverent honors which are inscribed upon the book of National Remembrance!... ”

“ And while the descendants of those who landed on her rocky coast have gone abroad, and amount to nearly five millions of souls, she holds on her way, with her soil trodden by the free, and the air of her mountains still breathed by a noble race of men. ”

“ But it is on shore that the story of a gigantic land-slide is most easily and plainly written and recorded. Extending back from the sea for a mile is a tract of land worthy to be made a show place by the government. Large trees are standing on naked roots which must have once clasped fallen timber of enormous diameter, pieces of which are still remaining in their embrace. A horse-man could ride under them, or a party could make a camp beneath them. ”

“ Sea charts with which captains are furnished are marvels of exactness to a landsman, shoals, rocks, lights, jutting points of 39 land, sea currents and courses being as clearly marked as are rivers, turnpikes and railways on land maps. ”

“ Being on elevated ground, and high in themselves, they serve as landmarks,—for there are no tall trees, or other objects commonly, which can be seen at a distance in the horizon; though the outline of the land itself is so firm and distinct that an insignificant cone, or even precipice of sand, is visible at a great distance from over the sea. Sailors making the land commonly steer either by the wind-mills or the meeting-houses. In the country, we are obliged to steer by the meeting-houses alone. ”

“ It has prairies, forests, mountains, barren wastes, and rivers; rivers whose single lengths roll through twice a thousand miles of shoreland; prairies over which a rider can steer for months without resting his gaze on aught save the dim verge of the ever-shifting horizon; mountains rent by rivers, ice-topped, glacier-seared, impassable; forests whose sombre pines darken a region half as large as Europe ”

“ For convenience the country may be said to be divided into sandy land, agricultural land, and mountain land, and still there remains the necessity of more special description, and to include desert land. ”

“ In this land of hills, covered by unbroken forest, they took root and flourished, stretching in a broad belt from north to south, a shield of sinewy men thrust in between the people of the seaboard and the red warriors of the wilderness. ”

“ To understand clearly the nature of the country, let us suppose ourselves standing on the banks of the Red River, looking west. In front we have the fertile belt stretching out before, us, consisting chiefly of rich level prairie land, ascending gradually towards the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ The block of land on which we are lies between three large rivers, and, owing to the conformation of the country and the winding of the rivers, its fourth side is a narrow neck of land not more than a mile and a half wide. ”

“ Mountains. And the note of unsatisfied wonder struck that day has lingered through nearly fifty years’ unusually intimate knowledge of our beautiful West Country border land, and I know now that my sub-conscious self had prepared the ground and worked at the problem I now see solved. ”

“ It is no boy’s play to commit yourself to mule and horse, the yawls of the prairie, riding yourself sore and thirsty over the gracefully rolling, never-breaking swells, the green seas sparkling with dewy flowers, but never coming ashore. The ocean done up in solid land is weary voyaging to one whose youthful footsteps were over the fields, to the sound of sabbath bells. ”

“ Where land adjoining a freshwater river, or above tide-water, is described as bounded by a monument, whether natural or artificial, such as a tree or a stake standing on the bank, and a course is given as running from it up or down the river to another monument standing upon the bank, these words necessarily imply, as a general rule, that the line is to follow the river, according to its meanderings and turnings, and the grantee takes to the middle of the river. ”

“ There's a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And deaths that just hang by a hair; There are hardships that nobody reckons; There are valleys unpeopled and still; There's a land — oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back — and I will. ”

“ These islands which we call “home” are far away; afar off we idealize them, in the forest depths we dream bright visions of their firesides of welcome; in the snow-sheeted lake, and the icy stretch of river, and the motionless muskeg, how sweetly sound the notes of brook and bird; how brightly rise the glimpses of summer eves when the white mists float over the scented meadows, and the corn-craik sounds from his lair in the meadow-sweet! ”

“ Let them follow the track to the boundary of their land, and show it to the lord of the adjoining land, so that pursuit may be made with all diligence from land to land till the malefactors are captured. ”

“ But if the mountains in their vast irregularity defied the early explorers, the rivers were even still more perplexing. Mountains have a right to behave in an irregular kind of way, but rivers are usually supposed to conduct themselves on more peaceful principles. ”