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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16325-8.txt b/16325-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f99dcb --- /dev/null +++ b/16325-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8208 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Science in Arcady, by Grant Allen + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Science in Arcady + +Author: Grant Allen + +Release Date: July 18, 2005 [EBook #16325] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENCE IN ARCADY *** + + + + +Produced by Clare Boothby, Peter Yearsley and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + SCIENCE IN ARCADY + + BY + + GRANT ALLEN + + + + + LONDON: + LAWRENCE & BULLEN, + 16, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 1892. + + + + To GRANT RICHARDS, + _IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MANY KIND OFFICES._ + + Avuncular Greeting. + + + + + + CONTENTS. + + PAGE + + MY ISLANDS 1 + + TROPICAL EDUCATION 21 + + ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND 40 + + A DESERT FRUIT 56 + + PRETTY POLL 71 + + HIGH LIFE 90 + + EIGHT-LEGGED FRIENDS 105 + + MUD 123 + + THE GREENWOOD TREE 140 + + FISH AS FATHERS 157 + + AN ENGLISH SHIRE 177 + + THE BRONZE AXE 212 + + THE ISLE OF RUIM 231 + + A HILL-TOP STRONGHOLD 250 + + A PERSISTENT NATIONALITY 266 + + CASTERS AND CHESTERS 274 + + + + + PREFACE. + +These essays deal for the most part with Science in Arcady. 'Tis my +native country: for I am not of those who 'praise the busy town.' On +the contrary, in the words of the great poet who has just departed to +join Milton and Shelley in a place of high collateral glory, I 'love to +rail against it still,' with a naturalist's bitterness. For the town is +always dead and lifeless. There are who admire it, they say--poor +purblind creatures--because, forsooth, 'there is so much life there.' +So much life, indeed! No grass in the streets; no flowers in the lanes; +no beetles or butterflies on the dull stone pavements! Brick and mortar +have killed out all life over square miles of Middlesex. For myself, I +love better the densely-peopled fields than this human desert, this +beflagged and macadamised man-made solitude. The country teems with +life on every hand; a thousand different plants and flowers in the +spangled meadows; a thousand varied denizens of pond, and air, and +heath, and copses. Their ways are endless. They attract me far more +with their infinite diversity than the grey and gloomy haunts of the +cab-horse and the stock-broker. + +But my Arcady, as you will see, is none the less tolerably broad and +eclectic in its limits. These various essays have been suggested to my +pen by rambles far and wide between its elastic confines. The little +tractate on _Mud_, for example, recalls to mind some pleasant weeks +among the Italian lakes and on the plain of Lombardy. _A Desert Fruit_ +owes its origin to a morning at Luxor. _High Life_ had its key-note +struck by a fortnight in the Tyrol. _Tropical Education_ is a dim +reminiscence of old Jamaican experiences. Our _Eight-Legged Friends_ +were observed at leisure on the window-panes of our own little nook at +Dorking. _A Hill-Top Stronghold_ was sketched _in situ_ at Florence by +a window that looked across the valley to Fiesole. Excursions into +books or into the remoter past have given occasion for the +archæological essays relegated here to the end of the volume. + +My thanks are due to Messrs. Longmans for permission to reprint from +their magazine _My Islands_, _A Hill-Top Stronghold_, _A Desert Fruit_, +_The Isle of Ruim_, _Eight-Legged Friends_, and _Tropical Education_. I +have also to acknowledge a similar courtesy on the part of Messrs. +Smith & Elder with regard to _Mud_, _The Bronze Axe_, _High Life_, +_Pretty Poll_, _The Greenwood Tree_, _On the Wings of the Wind_, +_Casters and Chesters_, and _Fish as Fathers_, all of which originally +appeared in the _Cornhill_. Messrs. Chatto & Windus have been equally +kind as regards the paper on _An English Shire_ contributed to the +_Gentleman's_. _A Persistent Nationality_ made its first bow in the +_North American Review_, and has still to be introduced to an English +audience. + +G.A. + +Hind Head, Surrey, _Oct._, 1892. + + + + + SCIENCE IN ARCADY. + + + + + MY ISLANDS. + +About the middle of the Miocene period, as well as I can now remember +(for I made no note of the precise date at the moment), my islands +first appeared above the stormy sheet of the North-West Atlantic as a +little rising group of mountain tops, capping a broad boss of submarine +volcanoes. My attention was originally called to the new archipelago by +a brother investigator of my own aerial race, who pointed out to me on +the wing that at a spot some 900 miles to the west of the Portuguese +coast, just opposite the place where your mushroom city of Lisbon now +stands, the water of the ocean, as seen in a bird's-eye view from some +three thousand feet above, formed a distinct greenish patch such as +always betokens shoals or rising ground at the bottom. Flying out at +once to the point he indicated, and poising myself above it on my broad +pinions at a giddy altitude, I saw at a glance that my friend was quite +right. Land making was in progress. A volcanic upheaval was taking +place on the bed of the sea. A new island group was being forced right +up by lateral pressure or internal energies from a depth of at least +two thousand fathoms. + +I had always had a great liking for the study of material plants and +animals, and I was so much interested in the occurrence of this novel +phenomenon--the growth and development of an oceanic island before my +very eyes--that I determined to devote the next few thousand centuries +or so of my æonian existence to watching the course of its gradual +evolution. + +If I trusted to unaided memory, however, for my dates and facts, I +might perhaps at this distance of time be uncertain whether the moment +was really what I have roughly given, within a geological age or two, +the period of the Mid-Miocene. But existing remains on one of the +islands constituting my group (now called in your new-fangled +terminology Santa Maria) help me to fix with comparative certainty the +precise epoch of their original upheaval. For these remains, still in +evidence on the spot, consist of a few small marine deposits of Upper +Miocene age; and I recollect distinctly that after the main group had +been for some time raised above the surface of the ocean, and after +sand and streams had formed a small sedimentary deposit containing +Upper Miocene fossils beneath the shoal water surrounding the main +group, a slight change of level occurred, during which this minor +island was pushed up with the Miocene deposits on its shoulders, as a +sort of natural memorandum to assist my random scientific +recollections. With that solitary exception, however, the entire group +remains essentially volcanic in its composition, exactly as it was when +I first saw its youthful craters and its red-hot ash-cones pushed +gradually up, century after century, from the deep blue waters of the +Mid-Miocene ocean. + +All round my islands the Atlantic then, as now, had a depth, as I said +before, of two thousand fathoms; indeed, in some parts between the +group and Portugal the plummet of your human navigators finds no +bottom, I have often heard them say, till it reaches 2,500; and out of +this profound sea-bed the volcanic energies pushed up my islands as a +small submarine mountain range, whose topmost summits alone stood out +bit by bit above the level of the surrounding sea. One of them, the +most abrupt and cone-like, by name now Pico, rises to this day, a +magnificent sight, sheer seven thousand feet into the sky from the +placid sheet that girds it round on every side. You creatures of +to-day, approaching it in one of your clumsy new-fashioned fire-driven +canoes that you call steamers, must admire immensely its conical peak, +as it stands out silhouetted against the glowing horizon in the deep +red glare of a sub-tropical Atlantic sunset. + +But when I, from my solitary aerial perch, saw my islands rise bare and +massive first from the water's edge, the earliest idea that occurred to +me as an investigator of nature was simply this: how will they ever get +clad with soil and herbage and living creatures? So naked and barren +were their black crags and rocks of volcanic slag, that I could hardly +conceive how they could ever come to resemble the other smiling oceanic +islands which I looked down upon in my flight from day to day over so +many wide and scattered oceans. I set myself to watch, accordingly, +whence they would derive the first seeds of life, and what changes +would take place under dint of time upon their desolate surface. + +For a long epoch, while the mountains were still rising in their active +volcanic state, I saw but little evidence of a marked sort of the +growth of living creatures upon their loose piles of pumice. Gradually, +however, I observed that spores of lichens, blown towards them by the +wind, were beginning to sprout upon the more settled rocks, and to +discolour the surface in places with grey and yellow patches. Bit by +bit, as rain fell upon the new-born hills, it brought down from their +weathered summits sand and mud, which the torrents ground small and +deposited in little hollows in the valleys; and at last something like +earth was found at certain spots, on which seeds, if there had been +any, might doubtless have rooted and flourished exceedingly. + +My primitive idea, as I watched my islands in this their almost +lifeless condition, was that the Gulf Stream and the trade winds from +America would bring the earliest higher plants and animals to our +shores. But in this I soon found I was quite mistaken. The distance to +be traversed was so great, and the current so slow, that the few seeds +or germs of American species cast up upon the shore from time to time +were mostly far too old and water-logged to show signs of life in such +ungenial conditions. It was from the nearer coasts of Europe, on the +contrary, that our earliest colonists seemed to come. Though the +prevalent winds set from the west, more violent storms reached us +occasionally from the eastward direction; and these, blowing from +Europe, which lay so much closer to our group, were far more likely to +bring with them by waves or wind some waifs and strays of the European +fauna and flora. + +I well remember the first of these great storms that produced any +distinct impression on my islands. The plants that followed in its wake +were a few small ferns, whose light spores were more readily carried on +the breeze than any regular seeds of flowering plants. For a month or +two nothing very marked occurred in the way of change, but slowly the +spores rooted, and soon produced a small crop of ferns, which, finding +the ground unoccupied, spread when once fairly started with +extraordinary rapidity, till they covered all the suitable positions +throughout the islands. + +For the most part, however, additions to the flora, and still more to +the fauna, were very gradually made; so much so that most of the +species now found in the group did not arrive there till after the end +of the Glacial epoch, and belong essentially to the modern European +assemblage of plants and animals. This was partly because the islands +themselves were surrounded by pack-ice during that chilly period, which +interrupted for a time the course of my experiment. It was interesting, +too, after the ice cleared away, to note what kinds could manage by +stray accidents to cross the ocean with a fair chance of sprouting or +hatching out on the new soil, and which were totally unable by original +constitution to survive the ordeal of immersion in the sea. For +instance, I looked anxiously at first for the arrival of some casual +acorn or some floating filbert, which might stock my islands with +waving greenery of oaks and hazel bushes. But I gradually discovered, +in the course of a few centuries, that these heavy nuts never floated +securely so far as the outskirts of my little archipelago; and that +consequently no chestnuts, apple trees, beeches, alders, larches, or +pines ever came to diversify my island valleys. The seeds that did +really reach us from time to time belonged rather to one or other of +four special classes. Either they were very small and light, like the +spores of ferns, fungi, and club-mosses; or they were winged and +feathery, like dandelion and thistle-down; or they were the stones of +fruits that are eaten by birds, like rose-hips and hawthorn; or they +were chaffy grains, enclosed in papery scales, like grasses and sedges, +of a kind well adapted to be readily borne on the surface of the water. +In all these ways new plants did really get wafted by slow degrees to +the islands; and if they were of kinds adapted to the climate they grew +and flourished, living down the first growth of ferns and flowerless +herbs in the rich valleys. + +The time which it took to people my archipelago with these various +plants was, of course, when judged by your human standards, immensely +long, as often the group received only a single new addition in the +lapse of two or three centuries. But I noticed one very curious result +of this haphazard and lengthy mode of stocking the country: some of the +plants which arrived the earliest, having the coast all clear to +themselves, free from the fierce competition to which they had always +been exposed on the mainland of Europe, began to sport a great deal in +various directions, and being acted upon here by new conditions, soon +assumed under stress of natural selection totally distinct specific +forms. (You see, I have quite mastered your best modern scientific +vocabulary.) For instance, there were at first no insects of any sort +on the islands; and so those plants which in Europe depended for their +fertilisation upon bees or butterflies had here either to adapt +themselves somehow to the wind as a carrier of their pollen or else to +die out for want of crossing. Again, the number of enemies being +reduced to a minimum, these early plants tended to lose various +defences or protections they had acquired on the mainland against slugs +or ants, and so to become different in a corresponding degree from +their European ancestors. The consequence was that by the time you men +first discovered the archipelago no fewer than forty kinds of plants +had so far diverged from the parent forms in Europe or elsewhere that +your savants considered them at once as distinct species, and set them +down at first as indigenous creations. It amused me immensely. + +For out of these forty plants thirty-four were to my certain knowledge +of European origin. I had seen their seeds brought over by the wind or +waves, and I had watched them gradually altering under stress of the +new conditions into fresh varieties, which in process of time became +distinct species. Two of the oldest were flowers of the dandelion and +daisy group, provided with feathery seeds which enable them to fly far +before the carrying breeze; and these two underwent such profound +modifications in their insular home that the systematic botanists who +at last examined them insisted upon putting each into a new genus, all +by itself, invented for the special purpose of their reception. One +almost equally ancient inhabitant, a sort of harebell, also became in +process of time extremely unlike any other harebell I had ever seen in +any part of my airy wanderings. But the remaining thirty new species or +so evolved in the islands by the special circumstances of the group had +varied so comparatively little from their primitive European ancestors, +that they hardly deserved to be called anything more than very distinct +and divergent varieties. + +Some five or six plants, however, I noted arrive in my archipelago, not +from Europe, but from the Canaries or Madeira, whose distant blue peaks +lay dim on the horizon far to the south-west of us, as I poised in +mid-air high above the topmost pinnacle of my wild craggy Pico. These +kinds, belonging to a much warmer region, soon, as I noticed, underwent +considerable modification in our cooler climate, and were all of them +adjudged distinct species by the learned gentlemen who finally reported +upon my island realm to British science. + +As far as I can recollect, then, the total number of flowering plants I +noted in the islands before the arrival of man was about 200; and of +these, as I said before, only forty had so far altered in type as to be +considered at present peculiar to the archipelago. The remainder were +either comparatively recent arrivals or else had found the conditions +of their new home so like those of the old one from which they +migrated, that comparatively little change took place in their forms or +habits. Of course, just in proportion as the islands got stocked I +noticed that the changes were less and less marked; for each new plant, +insect, or bird that established itself successfully tended to make the +balance of nature more similar to the one that obtained in the mainland +opposite, and so decreased the chances of novelty of variation. + +Hence, it struck me that the oldest arrivals were the ones which +altered most in adaptation to the circumstances, while the newest, +finding themselves in comparatively familiar surroundings, had less +occasion to be selected for strange and curious freaks or sports of +form or colour. + +The peopling of the islands with birds and animals, however, was to me +even a more interesting and engrossing study in natural evolution than +its peopling by plants, shrubs, and trees. I may as well begin, +therefore, by telling you at once that no furry or hairy quadruped of +any sort--no mammal, as I understand your men of science call them--was +ever stranded alive upon the shores of my islands. For twenty or thirty +centuries indeed, I waited patiently, examining every piece of +driftwood cast up upon our beaches, in the faint hope that perhaps some +tiny mouse or shrew or water-vole might lurk half drowned in some +cranny or crevice of the bark or trunk. But it was all in vain. I ought +to have known beforehand that terrestrial animals of the higher types +never by any chance reach an oceanic island in any part of this planet. +The only three specimens of mammals I ever saw tossed up on the beach +were two drowned mice and an unhappy squirrel, all as dead as +doornails, and horribly mauled by the sea and the breakers. Nor did we +ever get a snake, a lizard, a frog, or a fresh-water fish, whose eggs I +at first fondly supposed might occasionally be transported to us on +bits of floating trees or matted turf, torn by floods from those +prehistoric Lusitanian or African forests. No such luck was ours. Not a +single terrestrial vertebrate of any sort appeared upon our shores +before the advent of man with his domestic animals, who played havoc at +once with my interesting experiment. + +It was quite otherwise with the unobtrusive small deer of life--the +snails, and beetles, and flies, and earthworms--and especially with the +winged things: birds, bats, and butterflies. In the very earliest days +of my islands' existence, indeed, a few stray feathered fowls of the +air were driven ashore here by violent storms, at a time when +vegetation had not yet begun to clothe the naked pumice and volcanic +rock; but these, of course, perished for want of food, as did also a +few later arrivals, who came under stress of weather at the period when +only ferns, lichens, and mosses had as yet obtained a foothold on the +young archipelago. Sea-birds, of course, soon found out our rocks; but +as they live off fish only, they contributed little more than rich beds +of guano to the permanent colonising of the islands. As well as I can +remember, the land-snails were the earliest truly terrestrial casuals +that managed to pick up a stray livelihood in these first colonial days +of the archipelago. They came oftenest in the egg, sometimes clinging +to water-logged leaves cast up by storms, sometimes hidden in the bark +of floating driftwood, and sometimes swimming free on the open ocean. +In one case, as I recall to myself well, a swallow, driven off from the +Portuguese coast, a little before the Glacial period had begun to +whiten the distant mountains of central and northern Europe, fell +exhausted at last upon the shore of Terceira. There were no insects +then for the poor bird to feed upon, so it died of starvation and +weariness before the day was out; but a little earth that clung in a +pellet to one of its feet contained the egg of a land-shell, while the +prickly seed of a common Spanish plant was entangled among the winged +feathers by its hooked awns. The egg hatched out, and became the parent +of a large brood of minute snails, which, outliving the cold spell of +the Ice Age, had developed into a very distinct type in the long period +that intervened before the advent of man in the islands; while the seed +sprang up on the natural manure heap afforded by the swallow's decaying +body, and clinging to the valleys during the Glacial Age on the +hill-tops, gave birth in due season to one of the most markedly +indigenous of our Terceira plants. + +Occasionally, too, very minute land-snails would arrive alive on the +island after their long sea-voyage on bits of broken forest-trees--a +circumstance which I would perhaps hesitate to mention in mere human +society were it not that I have been credibly informed your own great +naturalist, Darwin, tried the experiment himself with one of the +biggest European land-molluscs, the great edible Roman snail, and found +that it still lived on in vigorous style after immersion in sea-water +for twenty days. Now, I myself observed that several of these bits of +broken trees, torn down by floods in heavy storm time from the banks of +Spanish or Portuguese rivers, reached my island in eight or ten days +after leaving the mainland, and sometimes contained eggs of small +land-snails. But as very long periods often passed without a single new +species being introduced into the group, any kind that once managed to +establish itself on any of the islands usually remained for ages +undisturbed by new arrivals, and so had plenty of opportunity to adapt +itself perfectly by natural selection to the new conditions. The +consequence was, that out of some seventy land-snails now known in the +islands, thirty-two had assumed distinct specific features before the +advent of man, while thirty-seven (many of which, I think, I never +noticed till the introduction of cultivated plants) are common to my +group with Europe or with the other Atlantic islands. Most of these, I +believe, came in with man and his disconcerting agriculture. + +As to the pond and river snails, so far as I could observe, they mostly +reached us later, being conveyed in the egg on the feet of stray waders +or water-birds, which gradually peopled the island after the Glacial +epoch. + +Birds and all other flying creatures are now very abundant in all the +islands; but I could tell you some curious and interesting facts, too, +as to the mode of their arrival and the vicissitudes of their +settlement. For example, during the age of the Forest Beds in Europe, a +stray bullfinch was driven out to sea by a violent storm, and perched +at last on a bush at Fayal. I wondered at first whether he would effect +a settlement. But at that time no seeds or fruits fit for bullfinches +to eat existed on the islands. Still, as it turned out, this particular +bullfinch happened to have in his crop several undigested seeds of +European plants exactly suited to the bullfinch taste; so when he died +on the spot, these seeds, germinating abundantly, gave rise to a whole +valleyful of appropriate plants for bullfinches to feed upon. Now, +however, there was no bullfinch to eat them. For a long time, indeed, +no other bullfinches arrived at my archipelago. Once, to be sure, a few +hundred years later, a single cock bird did reach the island alone, +much exhausted with his journey, and managed to pick up a living for +himself off the seeds introduced by his unhappy predecessor. But as he +had no mate, he died at last, as your lawyers would say, without issue. + +It was a couple of hundred years or so more before I saw a third +bullfinch--which didn't surprise me, for bullfinches are very woodland +birds, and non-migratory into the bargain--so that they didn't often +get blown seaward over the broad Atlantic. At the end of that time, +however, I observed one morning a pair of finches, after a heavy storm, +drying their poor battered wings upon a shrub in one of the islands. +From this solitary pair a new race sprang up, which developed after a +time, as I imagined they must, into a distinct species. These local +bullfinches now form the only birds peculiar to the islands; and the +reason is one well divined by one of your own great naturalists (to +whom I mean before I end to make the _amende honorable_). In almost all +other cases the birds kept getting reinforced from time to time by +others of their kind blown out to sea accidentally--for only such +species were likely to arrive there--and this kept up the purity of the +original race, by ensuring a cross every now and again with the +European community. But the bullfinches, being the merest casuals, +never again to my knowledge were reinforced from the mainland, and so +they have produced at last a special island type, exactly adapted to +the peculiarities of their new habitat. + +You see, there was hardly ever a big storm on land that didn't bring at +least one or two new birds of some sort or other to the islands. +Naturally, too, the newcomers landed always on the first shore they +could sight; and so at the present day the greatest number of species +is found on the two easternmost islands nearest the mainland, which +have forty kinds of land-birds, while the central islands have but +thirty-six, and the western only twenty-nine. It would have been quite +different, of course, if the birds came mainly from America with the +trade winds and the Gulf Stream, as I at first anticipated. In that +case, there would have been most kinds in the westernmost islands, and +fewest stragglers in the far eastern. But your own naturalists have +rightly seen that the existing distribution necessarily implies the +opposite explanation. + +Birds, I early noticed, are always great carriers of fruit-seeds, +because they eat the berries, but don't digest the hard little stones +within. It was in that way, I fancy, that the Portugal laurel first +came to my islands, because it has an edible fruit with a very hard +seed; and the same reason must account for the presence of the myrtle, +with its small blue berry; the laurustinus with its currant-like fruit; +the elder-tree, the canary laurel, the local sweet-gale, and the +peculiar juniper. Before these shrubs were introduced thus +unconsciously by our feathered guests, there were no fruits on which +berry-eating birds could live; but now they are the only native trees +or large bushes on the islands--I mean the only ones not directly +planted by you mischief-making men, who have entirely spoilt my nice +little experiment. + +It was much the same with the history of some among the birds +themselves. Not a few birds of prey, for example, were driven to my +little archipelago by stress of weather in its very early days; but +they all perished for want of sufficient small quarry to make a living +out of. As soon, however, as the islands had got well stocked with +robins, black-caps, wrens, and wagtails, of European types--as soon as +the chaffinches had established themselves on the seaward plains, and +the canary had learnt to nest without fear among the Portugal +laurels--then buzzards, long-eared owls, and common barn-owls, driven +westward by tempests, began to pick up a decent living on all the +islands, and have ever since been permanent residents, to the immense +terror and discomfort of our smaller song-birds. Thus the older the +archipelago got the less chance was there of local variation taking +place to any large degree, because the balance of life each day grew +more closely to resemble that which each species had left behind it in +its native European or African mainland. + +I said a little while ago we had no mammal in the islands. In that I +was not quite strictly correct. I ought to have said, no terrestrial +mammal. A little Spanish bat got blown to us once by a rough +nor'easter, and took up its abode at once among the caves of our +archipelago, where it hawks to this day after our flies and beetles. +This seemed to me to show very conspicuously the advantage which winged +animals have in the matter of cosmopolitan dispersion; for while it was +quite impossible for rats, mice, or squirrels to cross the intervening +belt of three hundred leagues of sea, their little winged relation, the +flitter-mouse, made the journey across quite safely on his own leathery +vans, and with no greater difficulty than a swallow or a wood-pigeon. + +The insects of my archipelago tell very much the same story as the +birds and the plants. Here, too, winged species have stood at a great +advantage. To be sure, the earliest butterflies and bees that arrived +in the fern-clad period were starved for want of honey; but as soon as +the valleys began to be thickly tangled with composites, harebells, and +sweet-scented myrtle bushes, these nectar-eating insects established +themselves successfully, and kept their breed true by occasional +crosses with fresh arrivals blown to sea afterwards. The development of +the beetles I watched with far greater interest, as they assumed fresh +forms much more rapidly under their new conditions of restricted food +and limited enemies. Many kinds I observed which came originally from +Europe, sometimes in the larval state, sometimes in the egg, and +sometimes flying as full-grown insects before the blast of the angry +tempest. Several of these changed their features rapidly after their +arrival in the islands, producing at first divergent varieties, and +finally, by dint of selection, acting in various ways, through climate, +food, or enemies, on these nascent forms, evolving into stable and +well-adapted species. But I noticed three cases where bits of driftwood +thrown up from South America on the western coasts contained the eggs +or larvae of American beetles, while several others were driven ashore +from the Canaries or Madeira; and in one instance even a small insect, +belonging to a type now confined to Madagascar, found its way safely by +sea to this remote spot, where, being a female with eggs, it succeeded +in establishing a flourishing colony. I believe, however, that at the +time of its arrival it still existed on the African continent, but +becoming extinct there under stress of competition with higher forms, +it now survives only in these two widely separated insular areas. + +It was an endless amusement to me during those long centuries, while I +devoted myself entirely to the task of watching my fauna and flora +develop itself, to look out from day to day for any chance arrival by +wind or waves, and to follow the course of its subsequent vicissitudes +and evolution. In a great many cases, especially at first, the +new-comer found no niche ready for it in the established order of +things on the islands, and was fain at last, after a hard struggle, to +retire for ever from the unequal contest. But often enough, too, he +made a gallant fight for it, and, adapting himself rapidly to his new +environment, changed his form and habits with surprising facility. For +natural selection, I found, is a hard schoolmaster. If you happen to +fit your place in the world, you live and thrive, but if you don't +happen to fit it, to the wall with you without quarter. Thus sometimes +I would see a small canary beetle quickly take to new food and new +modes of life on my islands under my very eyes, so that in a century or +so I judged him myself worthy of the distinction of a separate species; +while in another case, I remember, a south European weevil evolved +before long into something so wholly different from his former self +that a systematic entomologist would have been forced to enrol him in a +distinct genus. I often wish now that I had kept a regular collection +of all the intermediate forms, to present as an illustrative series to +one of your human museums; but in those days, of course, we none of us +imagined anybody but ourselves would ever take an interest in these +problems of the development of life, and we let the chance slide till +it was too late to recover it. + +Naturally, during all these ages changes of other sorts were going on +in my islands--elevations and subsidences, separations and reunions, +which helped to modify the life of the group considerably. Indeed, +volcanic action was constantly at work altering the shapes and sizes of +the different rocky mountain-tops, and bringing now one, now another, +into closer relations than before with its neighbours. Why, as recently +as 1811 (a date which is so fresh in my memory that I could hardly +forget it) a new island was suddenly formed by submarine eruption off +the coast of St. Michael's, to which the name of Sabrina was +momentarily given by your human geographers. It was about a mile around +and 300 feet high; but, consisting as it did of loose cinders only, it +was soon washed away by the force of the waves in that stormy region. I +merely mention it here to show how recently volcanic changes have taken +place in my islands, and how continuously the internal energy has been +at work modifying and re-arranging them. + +Up to the moment of the arrival of man in the archipelago the whole +population, animal and vegetable, consisted entirely of these waifs and +strays, blown out to sea from Europe or Africa, and modified more or +less on the spot in accordance with the varying needs of their new +home. But the advent of the obtrusive human species spoilt the game at +once for an independent observer. Man immediately introduced oranges, +bananas, sweet potatoes, grapes, plums, almonds, and many other trees +or shrubs, in which, for selfish reasons, he was personally interested. +At the same time he quite unconsciously and unintentionally stocked the +islands with a fine vigorous crop of European weeds, so that the number +of kinds of flowering plants included in the modern flora of my little +archipelago exceeds, I think, by fully one-half that which I remember +before the date of the Portuguese occupation. In the same way, besides +his domestic animals, this spoil-sport colonist man brought in his +train accidentally rabbits, weasels, mice, and rats, which now abound +in many parts of the group, so that the islands have now in effect a +wild mammalian fauna. What is more odd, a small lizard has also got +about in the walls--not as you would imagine, a native-born Portuguese +subject, but of a kind found only in Madeira and Teneriffe, and, as far +as I could make out at the time, it seemed to me to come over with +cuttings of Madeira vines for planting at St. Michael's. It was about +the same time, I imagine, that eels and gold-fish first got loose from +glass globes into the ponds and water-courses. + +I have forgotten to mention, what you will no doubt yourself long since +have inferred, that my archipelago is known among human beings in +modern times as the Azores; and also that traces of all these curious +facts of introduction and modification, which I have detailed here in +their historical order, may still be detected by an acute observer and +reasoner in the existing condition of the fauna and flora. Indeed, one +of your own countrymen, Mr. Goodman, has collected all the most salient +of these facts in his 'Natural History of the Azores,' and another of +your distinguished men of science, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, has given +essentially the same explanations beforehand as those which I have here +ventured to lay, from another point of view, before a critical human +audience. But while Mr. Wallace has arrived at them by a process of +arguing backward from existing facts to prior causes and probable +antecedents, it occurred to me, who had enjoyed such exceptional +opportunities of watching the whole process unfold itself from the very +beginning, that a strictly historical account of how I had seen it come +about, step after step, might possess for some of you a greater direct +interest than Mr. Wallace's inferential solution of the self-same +problem. If, through lapse of memory or inattention to detail at so +remote a period, I have set down aught amiss, I sincerely trust you +will be kind enough to forgive me. But this little epic of the peopling +of a single oceanic archipelago by casual strays, which I alone have +had the good fortune to follow through all its episodes, seemed to me +too unique and valuable a chapter in the annals of life to be withheld +entirely from the scientific world of your eager, ephemeral, nineteenth +century humanity. + + + + + TROPICAL EDUCATION. + +If any one were to ask me (which is highly unlikely) 'In what +university would an intelligent young man do best to study?' I think I +should be very much inclined indeed to answer offhand, 'In the +Tropics.' + +No doubt this advice sounds on first hearing just a trifle paradoxical; +and no doubt, too, the proposed university has certain serious +drawbacks (like many others) on the various grounds of health, expense, +faith, and morals. Senior Proctors are unknown at Honolulu; Select +Preachers don't range as far as the West Coast. But it has always +seemed to me, nevertheless, that certain elements of a liberal +education are to be acquired tropically which can never be acquired in +a temperate, still less in an arctic or antarctic academy. This is more +especially true, I allow, in the particular cases of the biologist and +the sociologist; but it is also true in a somewhat less degree of the +mere common arts course, and the mere average seeker after liberal +culture. Vast aspects of nature and human life exist which can never +adequately be understood aright except in tropical countries; vivid +side-lights are cast upon our own history and the history of our globe +which can never adequately be appreciated except beneath the searching +and all too garish rays of a tropical sun. + +Whenever I meet a cultivated man who knows his Tropics--and more +particularly one who has known his Tropics during the formative period +of mental development, say from eighteen to thirty--I feel +instinctively that he possesses certain keys of man and nature, certain +clues to the problems of the world we live in, not possessed in +anything like the same degree by the mere average annual output of +Oxford or of Heidelberg. I feel that we talk like Freemasons +together--we of the Higher Brotherhood who have worshipped the sun, +_præsentiorem deum_, in his own nearer temples. + +Let me begin by positing an extreme parallel. How obviously inadequate +is the conception of life enjoyed by the ordinary Laplander or the most +intelligent Fuegian! Suppose even he has attended the mission school of +his native village, and become learned there in all the learning of the +Egyptians, up to the extreme level of the sixth standard, yet how +feeble must be his idea of the planet on which he moves! How much must +his horizon be cabined, cribbed, confined by the frost and snow, the +gloom and poverty, of the bare land around him! He lives in a dark cold +world of scrubby vegetation and scant animal life: a world where human +existence is necessarily preserved only by ceaseless labour and at +severe odds; a world out of which all the noblest and most beautiful +living creatures have been ruthlessly pressed; a world where nothing +great has been or can be; a world doomed by its mere physical +conditions to eternal poverty, discomfort, and squalor. For green +fields he has snow and reindeer moss: for singing birds and flowers, +the ptarmigan and the tundra. How can he ever form any fitting +conception of the glory of life--of the means by which animal and +vegetable organisms first grew and flourished? How can he frame to +himself any reasonable picture of civilised society, or of the origin +and development of human faculty and human organisation? + +Somewhat the same, though of course in a highly mitigated degree, are +the disadvantages under which the pure temperate education labours, +when compared with the education unconsciously drunk in at every pore +by an intelligent mind in tropical climates. And fully to understand +this pregnant educational importance of the Tropics we must consider +with ourselves how large a part tropical conditions have borne in the +development of life in general, and of human life and society in +particular. + +The Tropics, we must carefully remember, are the norma of nature: the +way things mostly are and always have been. They represent to us the +common condition of the whole world during by far the greater part of +its entire existence. Not only are they still in the strictest sense +the biological head-quarters: they are also the standard or central +type by which we must explain all the rest of nature, both in man and +beast, in plant and animal. + +The temperate and arctic worlds, on the other hand, are a mere passing +accident in the history of our planet: a hole-and-corner development; a +special result of the great Glacial epoch, and of that vast slow +secular cooling which preceded and led up to it, from the beginning of +the Miocene or Mid-Tertiary period. Our European ideas, poor, harsh, +and narrow, are mainly formed among a chilled and stunted fauna and +flora, under inclement skies, and in gloomy days, all of which can give +us but a very cramped and faint conception of the joyous exuberance, +the teeming vitality, the fierce hand-to-hand conflict, and the +victorious exultation of tropical life in its full free development. + +All through the Primary and Secondary epochs of geology, it is now +pretty certain, hothouse conditions practically prevailed almost +without a break over the whole world from pole to pole. It may be true, +indeed, as Dr. Croli believes (and his reasoning on the point I confess +is fairly convincing), that from time to time glacial periods in one or +other hemisphere broke in for a while upon the genial warmth that +characterised the greater part of those vast and immeasurable primæval +æons. But even if that were so--if at long intervals the world for some +hours in its cosmical year was chilled and frozen in an insignificant +cap at either extremity--these casual episodes in a long story do not +interfere with the general truth of the principle that life as a whole +during the greater portion of its antique existence has been carried on +under essentially tropical conditions. No matter what geological +formation we examine, we find everywhere the same tale unfolded in +plain inscriptions before our eyes. Take, for example, the giant +club-mosses and luxuriant tree-ferns nature-printed on shales of the +coal age in Britain: and we see in the wild undergrowth of those +palæozoic forests ample evidence of a warm and almost West Indian +climate among the low basking islets of our northern carboniferous +seas. Or take once more the oolitic epoch in England, lithographed on +its own mud, with its puzzle-monkeys and its sago-palms, its crocodiles +and its deinosaurs, its winged pterodactyls and its whale-like lizards. +All these huge creatures and these broad-leaved trees plainly indicate +the existence of a temperature over the whole of Northern Europe almost +as warm as that of the Malay Archipelago in our own day. The weather +report for all the earlier ages stands almost uninterruptedly at Set +Fair. + +Roughly speaking, indeed, one may say that through the long series of +Primary and Secondary formations hardly a trace can be found of ice or +snow, autumn or winter, leafless boughs or pinched and starved +deciduous vegetation. Everything is powerful, luxuriant, vivid. Life, +as Comus feared, was strangled with its waste fertility. Once, indeed, +in the Permian Age, all over the temperate regions, north and south, we +get passing indications of what seems very like a glacial epoch, +partially comparable to that great glaciation on whose last fringe we +still abide to-day. But the Ice Age of the Permian, if such there were, +passed away entirely, leaving the world once more warm and fruitful up +to the very poles under conditions which we would now describe as +essentially tropical. + +It was with the Tertiary period--perhaps, indeed, only with the middle +subdivision of that period--that the gradual cooling of the polar and +intermediate regions began. We know from the deposits of the chalk +epoch in Greenland that late in Secondary times ferns, magnolias, +myrtles, and sago-palms--an Indian or Mexican flora--flourished +exceedingly in what is now the dreariest and most ice-clad region of +the northern hemisphere. Later still, in the Eocene days, though the +plants of Greenland had grown slightly more temperate in type, we still +find among the fossils, not only oaks, planes, vines, and walnuts, but +also wellingtonias like the big trees of California, Spanish chestnuts, +quaint southern salisburias, broad-leaved liquidambars, and American +sassafras. Nay, even in glacier-clad Spitzbergen itself, where the +character of the flora already begins to show signs of incipient +chilling, we nevertheless see among the Eocene types such plants as the +swamp-cyprus of the Carolinas and the wellingtonias of the Far West, +together with a rich forest vegetation of poplars, birches, oaks, +planes, hazels, walnuts, water-lilies, and irises. As a whole, this +vegetation still bespeaks a climate considerably more genial, mild, and +equable than that of modern England. + +It was in this basking world of the chalk and the Eocene that the great +mammalian fauna first took its rise; it was in this easy world of +fruits and sunshine that the primitive ancestors of man first began to +work upwards toward the distinctively human level of the palæolithic +period. + +But then, in the mid-career of that third day of the geological drama, +came a frost--a nipping-frost; and slowly but surely the whole arctic +and antarctic worlds were chilled and cramped, degree after degree, by +the gradual on-coming of the Great Ice Age. I am not going to deal here +with either the causes or the extent of that colossal cataclysm; I +shall take all those for granted at present: what we are concerned with +now are the results it left behind--the changes which it wrought on +fauna and flora and on human society. Especially is it of importance in +this connection to point out that the Glacial epoch is not yet entirely +finished--if, indeed, it is ever destined to be finished. We are living +still on the fringe of the Ice Age, in a cold and cheerless era, the +legacy of the accumulated glaciers of the northern and southern +snow-fields. + +If once that ice were melted off--ah, well, there is much virtue in an +_if_. Still, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace seems to suggest somewhere that +the sun is gradually making inroads even now on those great +glacier-sheets of the northern cap, just as we know he is doing on the +smaller glacier-sheets of Switzerland (most of which are receding), and +that in time perhaps (say in a hundred thousand years or so) warm ocean +currents may once more penetrate to the very poles themselves. That, +however, is neither here nor there. The fact remains that we of +Northern Europe live to-day in a cramped, chilled, contracted world; a +world from which all the larger, fiercer, and grander types have either +been killed off or driven south; a world which stands to the full and +vigorous world of the Eocene and Miocene periods in somewhat the same +relation as Lapland stands to-day to Italy or the Riviera. + +This being so, it naturally results that if we want really to +understand the history of life, its origin and its episodes, we must +turn nowadays to that part of our planet which still most nearly +preserves the original conditions--that is to say, the Tropics. And it +has always seemed to me, both _à priori_ and _à posteriori_, that the +Tropics on this account do really possess for every one of us a vast +and for the most part unrecognised educational importance. + +I say 'for every one of us,' of deliberate design. I don't mean merely +for the biologist, though to him, no doubt, their value in this respect +is greatest of all. Indeed, I doubt whether the very ideas of the +struggle for life, natural selection, the survival of the fittest, +would ever have occurred at all to the stay-at-home naturalists of the +Linnæan epoch. It was in the depths of Brazilian forests, or under the +broad shade of East Indian palms, that those fertile conceptions first +flashed independently upon two southern explorers. It is very +noteworthy indeed that all the biologists who have done most to +revolutionise the science of life in our own day--Darwin, Huxley, +Wallace, Bates, Fritz Müller, and Belt--have without exception formed +their notions of the plant and animal world during tropical travels in +early life. No one can read the 'Voyage of the _Beagle_,' the +'Naturalist on the Amazons,' or the 'Malay Archipelago' without feeling +at every page how profoundly the facts of tropical nature had +penetrated and modified their authors' minds. On the other hand, it is +well worth while to notice that the formal opposition to the new and +more expansive evolutionary views came mainly from the museum and +laboratory type of naturalists in London and Paris, the official +exponents of dry bones, who knew nature only through books and +preserved specimens, or through her impoverished and far less plastic +developments in northern lands. The battle of organic evolution has +been waged by the Darwins, the Huxleys, and the Müllers on the one +hand, against the Cuviers, the Owens, and the Virchows on the other. + +Still, it is not only in biology, as I said just now, that a taste of +the Tropics in early life exerts a marked widening and philosophic +influence upon a man's whole mental horizon. In ten thousand ways, in +that great tropical university, men feel themselves in closer touch +than elsewhere with the ultimate facts and truths of nature. I don't +know whether it is all fancy and preconceived opinion, but I often +imagine when I talk with new-met men that I can detect a certain +difference in tone and feeling at first sight between those who have +and those who have not passed the Tropical Tripos. In the Tropics, in +short, we seem to get down to the very roots of things. Thousands of +questions, social, political, economical, ethical, present themselves +at once in new and more engagingly simple aspects. Difficulties vanish, +distinctions disappear, conventions fade, clothes are reduced to their +least common measure, man stands forth in his native nakedness. Things +that in the North we had come to regard as inevitable--garments, +firing, income tax, morality--evaporate or simplify themselves with +instructive ease and phantasmagoric readiness. Malthus and the food +question assume fresh forms, as in dissolving views, before our very +eyes. How are slums conceivable or East Ends possible where every man +can plant his own yam and cocoa-nut, and reap their fruit +four-hundred-fold? How can Mrs. Grundy thrive where every woman may +rear her own ten children on her ten-rood plot without aid or +assistance from their indeterminate fathers? What need of carpentry +where a few bamboos, cut down at random, can be fastened together with +thongs into a comfortable chair? What use of pottery where calabashes +hang on every tree, and cocoa-nuts, with the water fresh and pure +within, supply at once the cup, and the filter, and the Apollinaris +within? + +Of course I don't mean to assert, either, that this tropical university +will in itself suffice for all the needs of educated or rather of +educable men. It must be taken, _bien entendu_, as a supplementary +course to the Literæ Humaniores. There are things which can only be +learnt in the crowded haunts and cities of men--in London, Paris, New +York, Vienna. There are things which can only be learnt in the centres +of culture or of artistic handicraft--in Oxford, Munich, Florence, +Venice, Rome. There is only one Grand Canal and only one Pitti Palace. +We must have Shakespeare, Homer, Catullus, Dante; we must have Phidias, +Fra Angelico, Rafael, Mendelssohn; we must have Aristotle, Newton, +Laplace, Spencer. But after all these, and before all these, there is +something more left to learn. Having first read them, we must read +ourselves out of them. We must forget all this formal modern life; we +must break away from this cramped, cold, northern world; we must find +ourselves face to face at last, in Pacific isles or African forests, +with the underlying truths of simple naked nature. For that, in its +perfection, we must go to the Tropics; and there, we shall learn and +unlearn much, coming back, no doubt, with shattered faiths and broken +gods, and strangely disconcerted European prejudices, but looking out +upon life with a new outlook, an outlook undimmed by ten thousand +preconceptions which hem in the vision and obstruct the view of the +mere temperately educated. + +Nor is it only on the _élite_ of the world that this tropical training +has in its own way a widening influence. It is good, of course, for our +Galtons to have seen South Africa; good for our Tylors to have studied +Mexico; good for our Hookers to have numbered the rhododendrons and +deodars of the Himalayas. I sometimes fancy, even, that in the works of +our very greatest stay-at-home thinkers on anthropological or +sociological subjects, I detect here and there a certain formalist and +schematic note which betrays the want of first-hand acquaintance with +the plastic and expansive nature of tropical society. The beliefs and +relations of the actual savage have not quite that definiteness of form +and expression which our University Professors would fain assign to +them. But apart from the widening influence of the Tropics on these +picked minds, there is a widening influence exerted insensibly on the +very planters or merchants, the rank and file of European settlers, +which can hardly fail to impress all those who have lived amongst them. +The cramping effect of the winter cold and the artificial life is all +removed. Men live in a freer, wider, warmer air; their doors and +windows stand open day and night; the scent of flowers and the hum of +insects blow in upon them with every breeze; their brother man and +sister woman are more patent in every action to their eyes; the world +shows itself more frankly; it has fewer secrets, and readier +sympathies. I don't mean to say the result is all gain. Far from it. +There are evils inherent in tropical life which, as a noble lord +remarks of nature generally, "no preacher can heal." But viewed as +education, like Saint-Simon's thieving, it is all valuable. I should +think most men who have once passed through a tropical experience would +no more wish that full chapter blotted out of their lives than they +would consent to lose their university culture, their Continental +travel, or their literary, scientific, or artistic education. + +And what are the elements of this tropical curriculum which give it +such immense educational value? I think they are manifold. A few only +may be selected as of typical importance. + +In the first place, because first in order of realisation, there is its +value as a mental _bouleversement_, a revolution in ideas, a sort of +moral and intellectual cold shower-bath, a nervous shock to the system +generally. The patient or pupil gets so thoroughly upset in all his +preconceived ideas; he finds all round him a life so different from the +life to which he has been accustomed in colder regions, that he wakes +up suddenly, rubs his eyes hard, and begins to look about him for some +general explanation of the world he lives in. It is good for the +ordinary man to get thus unceremoniously upset. Take the average young +intelligence of the London streets, with its glib ideas already formed +from supply and demand in a civilised country, where soil is +appropriated, and classes distinct, and commodities drop as it were +from the clouds upon the middle-class breakfast-table--take such an +intelligence, self-satisfied and empty, and place its possessor all at +once in a new environment, where everything material, mental, and moral +seems topsy-turvy, where life is real and morals are rudimentary--and +unless he is a very particular fool indeed, what a lot you must really +give that blithe new-comer to turn over and think about! The sun that +shifts now north, now south of him; the seasons that go by fours +instead of twos; the trees that blossom and bear fruit from January to +December, with no apparent regard for the calendar months as by law +established; the black, brown, or yellow people, who know not his creed +or his social code; the castes and cross-divisions that puzzle and +surprise him; the pride and the scruples, deeper than those of +civilised life, but that nevertheless run counter to his own; the +economic conditions that defy his preconceptions; the virtues and the +vices that equally rub him up the wrong way--all these things are +highly conducive to the production of that first substratum of +philosophic thinking, a Socratic attitude of supreme ignorance, a pure +Cartesian frame of universal doubt. + +Then again there is the marvellous exuberance and novelty of the fauna +and flora. And this once more has something better for us all than mere +specialist interest. Sugar and ginger grow for all alike. For we must +remember that not only do the Tropics represent the vastly greater +portion of the world's past: they also represent the vastly greater +portion of the world's present. By far the larger part of the land +surface of the earth is tropical or subtropical; the temperate and +arctic regions make up but a minor and unimportant fraction of the soil +of our planet. And if we include the sea as well, this truth becomes +even more strikingly evident: the Tropics are even now the rule of +life; the colder regions are but an abnormal and outlying eccentricity +of nature. Yet it is from this starved and dwarfed and impoverished +northern area that most of us have formed our views of life, to the +total exclusion of the wider, richer, more varied world that calls for +our admiration in tropical latitudes. + +Insensibly this richness and vividness of nature all around one, on a +first visit to the Tropics, sinks into one's mind, and produces +profound, though at first unconscious, modifications in one's whole +mode of regarding man and his universe. Especially is this the case in +early life, when the character is still plastic and the eye still keen: +pictures are formed in that brilliant sunshine and under those dim +arches of hot grey sky that photograph themselves for ever on the +lasting tablets of the human memory. John Stuart Mill in his +Autobiography dwells lovingly, I remember, on the profound effect +produced on himself by his childish visits to Jeremy Bentham at Ford +Abbey in Dorsetshire, on the delightful sense of space and freedom and +generous expansion given to his mind by the mere act of living and +moving in those stately halls and wide airy gardens. Every university +man must look back with pleasure of somewhat the same sort to the free +breezy memories of the quadrangles and common rooms of Christ Church or +of Trinity. But in the tropical university everybody passes his time in +arcades of Greek or Pompeian airiness: the palm-trees wave and whisper +around his head as he sits for coolness on his wide verandah; the +humming-birds dart from flower to flower on the delicate bouquets that +crowd his drawing-room. I knew a lady who made a capital collection of +butterflies and moths at her own dinner-table by simply impounding in +paper boxes the insects that flitted about the lamp at dessert. Why, if +it comes to that, the very bread itself comprises generally a whole +entomological cabinet, and contains in fragments the _disjecta membra_ +of specimens enough to stock entire glass cases at severe South +Kensington. How's that for an inducement to study life where it is +richest and most abundant in its native starting-place? + +But above all in educational importance I rank the advantage of seeing +human nature in its primitive surroundings, far from the squalid and +chilly influences of the tail-end of the Glacial epoch. I admit at once +that cold has done much, exceeding much, for human development--has +been the mother of civilisation in somewhat the same sense that +necessity has been the mother of invention. To it, no doubt, we owe to +a great extent, in varying stages, clothing, the house, fire, the +steam-engine. Yet none the less is it true that the first levels of +society must needs have been passed under essentially tropical +conditions, and that nascent civilisation spread but slowly northward, +from Egypt and Asia, through Greece and Italy, to the cloudy regions +where its chief centres are at present domiciled under canopies of coal +smoke. And even to-day the sight of the tropics, green and luxuriant, +brings us into touch at once with earlier ideas and habits of the +race--makes us more able not only to understand, but also to sympathise +with, our ancient ancestors of the naked-and-not-ashamed era of +culture. Views formed exclusively in the North tend too much to imitate +the reduced gentlewoman's outlook upon life; views formed in the +Tropics correct this refractive influence by a certain genial and +tolerant virile expansion, not to be learned at the Common, Clapham. + +To one whose economic pendulum has hitherto oscillated between selfish +luxury in Mayfair and squalid poverty in Seven Dials, there is indeed a +world of novelty in the first view of the tropical poverty that is not +squalid but contentedly luxurious--of the dusky father with his wife or +wives (the mere number is a detail) sprawling at full length, half +clad, in the eye of the sun, before the palm-thatched hut, while the +fat black babies and the fat black little pigs wallow together almost +indistinguishably in the dust at his side, just out of reach of the +muscular foot that might otherwise of pure wantonness molest them. What +a flood of light it all casts upon the future possibilities of society, +that leisured, cultureless household, on whose garden-plot yam or +bread-fruit or bananas or sweet potatoes can be grown in sufficient +quantity to support the family without more labour than in England +would pay for its kitchen coals; where the hut is but a shelter from +rain, or a bed-curtain for night, and where the untaxed sun supplies +the place of a drawing-room fire all the year round, and warms the +water for the baby's bath at nothing the gallon! If there is any man +who doesn't sympathise with his dusky brother when he sees him thus at +home in his airy palace--any man who doesn't fraternise closely with +his kind when thus brought face to face with our primitive existence, I +don't envy him his stern and wild Caledonian ethics. The beach-comber +instinct should be strong in all sane minds. Or if that blunt way of +putting it perchance offend the weaker brethren, let us say rather, the +spirit of the Lotus-eaters. For the man who doesn't want to eat of the +Lotus just once in his life has become too civilised: the iron of the +Gradgrind era of universal competition and payment by results has +entered to deeply into his sordid soul. He wants a course of Egypt and +Tahiti. + +Oh, yes; I know what you are going to object, and I grant it at once: +the influence of the Tropics is by no means an ascetic one. They, tend +rather to encourage a certain genial and friendly tolerance of all +possible human forms of society--even the lowest. They are essentially +democratic, not to say socialistic and revolutionary in tone. By +bringing us all down to the underlying verities of life, apart from its +conventions, they beget perhaps a somewhat hasty impatience of Court +dress and the Lord Chamberlain's regulations. But, _per contra_, they +teach us to feel that every man, whether black, brown, or white, is +very human, and every woman and child, if possible, even a trifle more +so. Wicked as it all is, there is yet in tropical political economy +more of the Gospel according to St. John, and less of Adam Smith, +Ricardo, and Malthus, than in any orthodox political economy prescribed +by examiners for the University of London. It is something to see a +world where ceaseless toil is not the necessary and inevitable lot of +all who don't pay income tax on a thousand a year, even if Board +schools are unknown and quadratic equations a vanishing quantity. It is +something to see a stick of sugar-cane protruding from the mouth of +every child, and oranges retailed at twelve for a ha'penny. It is +something to know how the vast majority of the human race still live +and move and have their being, and to feel that after all their mode of +life, though lacking in Greek iambics, wallpapers, and the _Saturday +Review_, yet appeals in its own beach-comberish way to some of one's +inmost and deepest yearnings. The hibiscus that flames before the +wattled hut, the parrot that chatters from the green and golden +mango-tree, the lithe, healthy figures of the children in the stream, +are some compensation for the lack of London mud, London fog, and +London illustrations of practical Christianity in the Isle of Dogs and +the Bermondsey purlieus. I don't know whether I am knocking the last +nail into the completed coffin of my own contention, but I believe +every right-minded man returns from the Tropics a good deal more of a +Communist than when he went there. + +One word of explanation to prevent mistake. I am not myself, like +Kingsley or Wallace, an enthusiastic tropicist. On the contrary, viewed +as a place of permanent residence, I don't at all like the Tropics to +live in. I am pleading here only for their educational value, in small +doses. Spending two or three years there in the heyday of life is very +much like reading Herodotus--a thing one is glad one had once to do, +but one would never willingly do again for any money. We northern +creatures are remote products of the Great Ice Age, and by this time, +like Polar bears, we have grown adapted to our glacial environment. All +the more, therefore, is it a useful shaking-up for us to get +transported bodily from our cramped and poverty-stricken northern +slums, just once in our life, to the palms and temples of the South, +the lands where the human body is a hardy plant, not a frail exotic. We +come back to our chilly home among the fogs and bogs with wider +projects for the thawing down of the social ice-heap, and the +introduction of the bread-fruit-tree and the currant-bun-bush into the +remotest wilds of the borough of Hackney. I am not even quite sure that +tropical experience doesn't predispose us somewhat in favour of +planting the sweet potato instead of grazing battering-rams in the +uplands of Connemara. But hush; I hear an editorial frown. No more of +this heresy. + + + + + ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. + +Of course, you know my friend the squirting cucumber. If you don't, +that can be only because you've never looked in the right place to find +him. On all waste ground outside most southern cities--Nice, Cannes, +Florence: Rome, Algiers, Granada: Athens, Palermo, Tunis, where you +will--the soil is thickly covered by dark trailing vines which bear on +their branches a queer hairy green fruit, much like a common cucumber +at that early stage of its existence when we know it best in the +commercial form of pickled gherkins. As long as you don't interfere +with them, these hairy green fruits do nothing out of the common in the +way of personal aggressiveness. Like the model young lady of the books +on etiquette, they don't speak unless they're spoken to. But if +peradventure you chance to brush up against the plant accidentally, or +you irritate it of set purpose with your foot or your cane, then, as +Mr. Rider Haggard would say, 'a strange thing happens': off jumps the +little green fruit with a startling bounce, and scatters its juice and +pulp and seeds explosively through a hole in the end where the stem +joined on to it. The entire central part of the cucumber, in short +(answering to the seeds and pulp of a ripe melon), squirts out +elastically through the breach in the outer wall, leaving the hollow +shell behind as a mere empty windbag. + +Naturally, the squirting cucumber knows its own business best, and is +not without sufficient reasons of its own for this strange and, to some +extent, unmannerly behaviour. By its queer trick of squirting, it +manages to kill at least two birds with one stone. For, in the first +place, the sudden elastic jump of the fruit frightens away browsing +animals, such as goats and cattle. Those meditative ruminants are +little accustomed to finding shrubs or plants take the aggressive +against them; and when they see a fruit that quite literally flies in +their faces of its own accord, they hesitate to attack the uncanny vine +which bristles with such magical and almost miraculous defences. +Moreover, the juice of the squirting cucumber is bitter and nauseous, +and if it gets into the eyes or nostrils of man or beast, it impresses +itself on the memory by stinging like red pepper. So the trick of +squirting serves in a double way as a protection to the plant against +the attacks of herbivorous animals and other enemies. + +But that's not all. Even when no enemy is near, the ripe fruits at last +drop off of themselves, and scatter their seeds elastically in every +direction. This they do simply in order to disseminate their kind in +new and unoccupied spots, where the seedlings will root and find an +opening in life for themselves. Observe, indeed, that the very word +'disseminate' implies a general vague recognition of this principle of +plant-life on the part of humanity. It means, etymologically, to +scatter seed; and it points to the fact that everywhere in nature seeds +are scattered broadcast, infinite pains being taken by the mother-plant +for their general diffusion over wide areas of woodland, plain, or +prairie. + +Let us take as examples a single little set of instances, familiar to +everybody, but far commoner in the world at large than the inhabitants +of towns are at all aware of: I mean, the winged seeds, that fly about +freely in the air by means of feathery hairs or gossamer, like +thistle-down and dandelion. Of these winged types we have many hundred +varieties in England alone. All the willow-herbs, for example, have +such feathery seeds (or rather fruits) to help them on their way +through life; and one kind, the beautiful pink rose-bay, flies about so +readily, and over such wide spaces of open country, that the plant is +known to farmers in America as fireweed, because it always springs up +at once over whole square miles of charred and smoking soil after every +devastating forest fire. It travels fast, for it travels like Ariel. In +much the same way, the coltsfoot grows on all new English railway +banks, because its winged seeds are wafted everywhere in myriads on the +winds of March. All the willows and poplars have also winged seeds: so +have the whole vast tribe of hawkweeds, groundsels, ragworts, thistles, +fleabanes, cat's-ears, dandelions, and lettuces. Indeed, one may say +roughly, there are very few plants of any size or importance in the +economy of nature which don't deliberately provide, in one way or +another, for the dispersal and dissemination of their fruits or +seedlings. + +Why is this? Why isn't the plant content just to let its grains or +berries drop quietly on to the soil beneath, and there shift for +themselves as best they may on their own resources? + +The answer is a more profound one than you would at first imagine. +Plants discovered the grand principle of the rotation of crops long +before man did. The farmer now knows that if he sows wheat or turnips +too many years running on the same plot, he 'exhausts the soil,' as we +say--deprives it of certain special mineral or animal constituents +needful for that particular crop, and makes the growth of the plant, +therefore, feeble or even impossible. To avoid this misfortune, he lets +the land lie fallow, or varies his crops from year to year according to +a regular and deliberate cycle. Well, natural selection forced the same +discovery upon the plants themselves long before the farmer had dreamed +of its existence. For plants, being, in the strictest sense, 'rooted to +the spot,' absolutely require that all their needs should be supplied +quite locally. Hence, from the very beginning, those plants which +scattered their seeds widest throve the best; while those which merely +dropped them on the ground under their own shadow, and on soil +exhausted by their own previous demands upon it, fared ill in the +struggle for life against their more discursive competitors. The result +has been that in the long run few species have survived, except those +which in one way or another arranged beforehand for the dispersal of +their seeds and fruits over fresh and unoccupied areas of plain or +hillside. + +I don't, of course, by any means intend to assert that seeds always do +it by the simple device of wings or feathery projections. Every variety +of plan or dodge or expedient has been adopted in turn to secure the +self-same end; and provided only it succeeds in securing it, any +variety of them all is equally satisfactory. One might parallel it with +the case of hatching birds' eggs. Most birds sit upon their eggs +themselves, and supply the necessary warmth from their own bodies. But +any alternative plan that attains the same end does just as well. The +felonious cuckoo drops her foundlings unawares in another bird's nest: +the ostrich trusts her unhatched offspring to the heat of the burning +desert sand: and the Australian brush-turkeys, with vicarious maternal +instinct, collect great mounds of decaying and fermenting leaves and +rubbish, in which they deposit their eggs to be artificially incubated, +as it were, by the slow heat generated in the process of putrefaction. +Just in the same way, we shall see in the case of seeds that any method +of dispersion will serve the plant's purpose equally well, provided +only it succeeds in carrying a few of the young seedlings to a proper +place in which they may start fair at last in the struggle for +existence. + +As in the case of the fertilization of flowers, so in that of the +dispersal of seeds, there are two main ways in which the work is +effected--by animals and by wind-power. I will not insult the +intelligence of the reader at the present time of day by telling him +that pollen is usually transferred from blossom to blossom in one or +other of these two chief ways--it is carried on the heads or bodies of +bees and other honey-seeking insects, or else it is wafted on the wings +of the wind to the sensitive surface of a sister-flower. So, too, seeds +are for the most part either dispersed by animals or blown about by the +breezes of heaven to new situations. These are the two most obvious +means of locomotion provided by nature; and it is curious to see that +they have both been utilized almost equally by plants, alike for their +pollen and their seeds, just as they have been utilized by man for his +own purposes on sea or land, in ship, or windmill, or pack-horse, or +carriage. + +There are two ways in which animals may be employed to disperse +seeds--voluntarily and involuntarily. They may be compelled to carry +them against their wills: or they may be bribed and cajoled and +flattered into doing the plant's work for it in return for some +substantial advantage or benefit the plant confers upon them. The first +plan is the one adopted by burrs and cleavers. These adhesive fruits +are like the man who buttonholes you and won't be shaken off: they are +provided with little curved hooks or bent and barbed hairs which catch +upon the wool of sheep, the coat of cattle, or the nether integuments +of wayfaring humanity, and can't be got rid of without some little +difficulty. Most of them, you will find on examination, belonged to +confirmed hedgerow or woodside plants: they grow among bushes or low +scrub, and thickets of gorse or bramble. Now, to such plants as these, +it is obviously useful to have adhesive fruits and seeds: for when +sheep or other animals get them caught in their coats, they carry them +away to other bushy spots, and there, to get rid of the annoyance +caused by the foreign body, scratch them off at once against some +holly-bush or blackthorn. You may often find seeds of this type +sticking on thorns as the nucleus of a little matted mass of wool, so +left by the sheep in the very spots best adapted for the free growth of +their vigorous seedlings. + +Even among plants which trust to the involuntary services of animals in +dispersing their seeds, a great many varieties of detail may be +observed on close inspection. For example, in hound's-tongue and +goose-grass, two of the best-known instances among our common English +weeds, each little nut is covered with many small hooks, which make it +catch on firmly by several points of attachment to passing animals. +These are the kinds we human beings of either sex oftenest find +clinging to our skirts or trousers after a walk in a rabbit-warren. But +in herb-bennet and avens each nut has a single long awn, crooked near +the middle with a very peculiar S-shaped joint, which effectually +catches on to the wool or hair, but drops at the elbow after a short +period of withering. Sometimes, too, the whole fruit is provided with +prehensile hooks, while sometimes it is rather the individual seeds +themselves that are so accommodated. Oddest of all is the plan followed +by the common burdock. Here, an involucre or common cup-shaped +receptacle of hooked bracts surrounds an entire head of purple tubular +flowers, and each of these flowers produces in time a distinct fruit; +but the hooked involucre contains the whole compound mass, and, being +pulled off bodily by a stray sheep or dog, effects the transference of +the composite lot at once to some fitting place for their germination. + +Those plants, on the other hand, which depend rather, like London +hospitals, upon the voluntary system, produce that very familiar form +of edible capsule which we commonly call in the restricted sense a +fruit or berry. In such cases, the seed-vessel is usually swollen and +pulpy: it is stored with sweet juices to attract the birds or other +animal allies, and it is brightly coloured so as to advertise to their +eyes the presence of the alluring sugary foodstuff. These instances, +however, are now so familiar to everybody that I won't dwell upon them +at any length. Even the degenerate schoolboy of the present day, much +as he has declined from the high standard set forth by Macaulay, knows +all about the way the actual seed itself is covered (as in the plum or +the cherry) by a hard stony coat which 'resists the action of the +gastric juice' (so physiologists put it, with their usual frankness), +and thus passes undigested through the body of its swallower. All I +will do here, therefore, is to note very briefly that some edible +fruits, like the two just mentioned, as well as the apricot, the peach, +the nectarine, and the mango, consist of a single seed with its outer +covering; in others, as in the raspberry, the blackberry, the +cloudberry, and the dew-berry, many seeds are massed together, each +with a separate edible pulp; in yet others, as in the gooseberry, the +currant, the grape, and the whortleberry, several seeds are embedded +within the fruit in a common pulpy mass; and in others again, as in the +apple, pear, quince, and medlar, they are surrounded by a quantity of +spongy edible flesh. Indeed, the variety that prevails among fruits in +this respect almost defies classification: for sometimes, as in the +mulberry, the separate little fruits of several distinct flowers grow +together at last into a common berry: sometimes, as in a fig, the +general flower-stalk of several tiny one-seeded blossoms forms the +edible part: and sometimes, as in the strawberry, the true little nuts +or fruits appear as mere specks or dots on the bloated surface of the +swollen and overgrown stem, which forms the luscious morsel dear to the +human palate. + +Yet in every case it is interesting to observe that, while the seeds +which depend for dispersion upon the breeze are easily detached from +the parent plant and blown about by every wind of doctrine, the seeds +or fruits which depend for their dispersion upon birds or animals +always, on the contrary, hang on to their native boughs to the very +last, till some unconscious friend pecks them off and devours them. +Haws, rose-hips, and holly-berries will wither and wilt on the tree in +mild winters, because they can't drop off of themselves without the aid +of birds, while the birds are too well supplied with other food to care +for them. One of the strangest cases of all, however, is that of the +mistletoe, which, living parasitically upon the forest-boughs and +apple-trees, would of course be utterly lost if its berries dropped +their seeds on to the ground beneath it. To avoid such a misfortune, +the mistletoe berries are filled with an exceedingly viscid and sticky +pulp, surrounding the hard little nut-like seeds: and this pulp makes +the seeds cling to the bills and feet of various birds which feed upon +the fruit, but most particularly of the missel thrush, who derives his +common English name from his devotion to the mistletoe. The birds then +carry them away unwittingly to some neighbouring tree, and rub them +off, when they get uncomfortable, against a forked branch--the exact +spots that best suits the young mistletoe for sprouting in. Man, in +turn, makes use of the sticky pulp for the manufacture of bird-lime, +and so employs against the birds the very qualities which the plant +intended as a bribe for their kindly services. + +Among seeds that trust for their disposal to the wind, the commonest, +simplest, and least evolved type is that of the ordinary capsule, as in +the poppies and campions. At first sight, to be sure, a casual observer +might suppose there existed in these cases no recognisable device at +all for the dissemination of the seedlings. But you and I, most +excellent and discreet reader, are emphatically _not_, of course, mere +casual observers. _We_ look close, and go to the very root of things. +And when we do so, we see for ourselves at once that almost all +capsules open--where? why, at the top, so that the seeds can only be +shaken out when there is a high enough wind blowing to sway the stems +to and fro with some violence, and scatter the small black grains +inside to a considerable distance. Furthermore, in many instances, of +which the common poppy-head is an excellent example, the capsule opens +by lateral pores at the top of a flat head--a further precaution which +allows the seeds to get out only by a few at a time, after a distinct +jerk, and so scatters them pretty evenly, with different winds, over a +wide circular space around the mother plant. Experiment will show how +this simple dodge works. Try to shake out the poppy-seed from a ripe +poppy-head on the plant as it grows, without breaking the stem or +bending it unnaturally, and you will easily see how much force of wind +is required in order to put this unobtrusive but very effective +mechanism into working order. + +The devices of this character employed by various plants for the +dispersal of seeds even in ordinary dry capsules are far too numerous +for me to describe in full detail, though they form a delightful +subject for individual study in any small suburban garden. I will only +give one more illustrative case, just to show the sort of point an +amateur should always be on the look-out for. There is an extremely +common, though inconspicuous, English weed, the mouse-ear chickweed, +found everywhere in flower-beds or grass-plots, however small, and +noticeable for its quaint little horn-shaped capsules. These have a +very odd sort of twist or cock-up in the middle, just above the part +where the seeds lie; and they open at the top by ten small teeth, +pointed obliquely outward for no apparent reason. Yet every point has a +meaning of its own for all that. The plant is one that lies rather +close upon the ground; and the effect of this twist in the capsule is +that the seeds, which are relatively heavy, and well stored with +nutriment, can never get out at all, unless a very strong wind is +blowing, which sweeps over the herbage in long quick waves, and carries +everything it shakes out for great distances before it. So much design +have even the smallest weeds put into the mechanism for the dispersion +of their precious seeds, the hope of their race and the earnest of +their future! + +Artillery marks a higher stage than the sling and the stone. Just so, +in many plants, a step higher in the evolutionary scale as regards the +method of dispersion, the capsule itself bursts open explosively, and +scatters its contents to the four winds of heaven. Such plants may be +said to discharge their grains on the principle of the bow and arrow. +The balsam is a familiar example of this startling mode of moving to +fresh fields and pastures new: its capsule consists of five long +straight valves, which break asunder elastically the moment they are +touched, when fully ripe, and shed their seeds on all sides, like so +many small bombshells. Our friend the squirting cucumber, which served +as the prime text for this present discourse, falls into somewhat the +same category, though in other ways it rather resembles the true +succulent fruits, and belongs, indeed, to the same family as the melon, +the gourd, the pumpkin, and the vegetable-marrow, almost all of which +are edible and in every way fruit-like. Among English weeds, the little +bittercress that grows on dry walls and hedge-banks forms an excellent +example of the same device. Village children love to touch the long, +ripe, brown capsules on the top with one timid finger, and then jump +away, half laughing, half terrified, when the mild-looking little plant +goes off suddenly with a small bang and shoots its grains like a +catapult point-blank in their faces. + +It is in the tropics, however, that these elastic fruits reach their +highest development. There they have to fight, not merely against such +small fry as robins, squirrels, and harvest-mice, but against the +aggressive parrot, the hard-billed toucan, the persistent lemur, and +the inquisitive monkey. Moreover, the elastic fruits of the tropics +grow often on spreading forest trees, and must therefore shed their +seeds to immense distances if they are to reach comparatively virgin +soil, unexhausted by the deep-set roots of the mother trunk. Under such +exceptional circumstances, the tropical examples of these elastic +capsules are by no means mere toys to be lightly played with by babes +and sucklings. The sand-box tree of the West Indies has large round +fruits, containing seeds about as big as an English horsebean; and the +capsule explodes, when ripe, with a detonation like a pistol, +scattering its contents with as much violence as a shot from an +air-gun. It is dangerous to go too near these natural batteries during +the shooting season. A blow in the eye from one would blind a man +instantly. I well remember the very first night I spent in my own house +in Jamaica, where I went to live shortly after the repression of +'Governor Eyre's rebellion,' as everybody calls it locally. All night +long I heard somebody, as I thought, practising with a revolver in my +own back garden: a sound which somewhat alarmed me under those very +unstable social conditions. An earthquake about midnight, it is true, +diverted my attention temporarily from the recurring shots, but didn't +produce the slightest effect upon the supposed rebel's devotion to the +improvement of his marksmanship. When morning dawned, however, I found +it was only a sand-box tree, and that the shots were nothing more than +the explosions of the capsules. As to the wonderful tales told about +the Brazilian cannon-ball tree, I cannot personally endorse them from +original observation, and will not stain this veracious page with any +second-hand quotations from the strange stories of modern scientific +Munchausens. + +Still higher in the evolutionary scale than the elastic fruits are +those airy species which have taken to themselves wings like the eagle, +and soar forth upon the free breeze in search of what the Americans +describe as 'fresh locations.' Of this class the simplest type may be +seen in those forest-trees, like the maple and the sycamore, whose +fruits are flattened out into long expansions or parachutes, +technically known as 'keys,' by whose aid they flutter down obliquely +to the ground at a considerable distance. The keys of the sycamore, to +take a single instance, when detached from the tree in autumn, fall +spirally through the air owing to the twist of the winged arm, and are +carried so far that, as every gardener knows, young sycamore trees rank +among the commonest weeds among our plots and flower-beds. A curious +variant upon this type is presented by the lime, or linden, whose +fruits are in themselves small wingless nuts; but they are born in +clusters upon a common stalk, which is winged on either side by a large +membranous bract. When the nuts are ripe, the whole cluster detaches +itself in a body from the branch, and flutters away before the breeze +by means of the common parachute, to some spot a hundred yards or more, +where the wind chances to land it. + +The topmost place of all in the hierarchy of seed life, it seems to me, +is taken by the feathery fruits and seeds which float freely hither and +thither wherever the wind may bear them. An immense number of the very +highest plants--the aristocrats of the vegetable kingdom, such as the +lordly composites, those ultimate products of plant evolution--possess +such floating feathery seeds; though here, again, the varieties of +detail are too infinite for rapid or popular classification. Indeed, +among the composites alone--the thistle and dandelion tribe with downy +fruits--I can reckon up more than a hundred and fifty distinct +variations of plan among the winged seeds known to me in various parts +of Europe. But if I am strong, I am merciful: I will let the public off +with a hundred and forty-eight of them. My two exceptions shall be +John-go-to-bed-at-noon and the hairy hawkweed, both of them common +English meadow-plants. The first, and more quaintly named, of the two +has little ribbed fruits that end in a long and narrow beak, supporting +a radial rib-work of spokes like the frame of an umbrella; and from rib +to rib of this framework stretch feathery cross-pieces, continuous all +round, so as to make of the whole mechanism a perfect circular +parachute, resembling somewhat the web of a geometrical spider. But the +hairy hawkweed is still more cunning in its generation; for that clever +and cautious weed produces its seeds or fruits in clustered heads, of +which the central ones are winged, while the outer are heavy, squat, +and wingless. Thus does the plant make the best of all chances that may +happen to open before it: if one lot goes far and fares but ill, the +other is pretty sure to score a bull's-eye. + +These are only a few selected examples of the infinite dodges employed +by enlightened herbs and shrubs to propagate their scions in foreign +parts. Many more, equally interesting, must be left undescribed. Only +for a single case more can I still find room--that of the subterranean +clover, which has been driven by its numerous enemies to take refuge at +last in a very remarkable and almost unique mode, of protecting its +offspring. This particular kind of clover affects smooth and +close-cropped hillsides, where the sheep nibble down the grass and +other herbage almost as fast as it springs up again. Now, clover seeds +resemble their allies of the pea and bean tribe in being exceedingly +rich in starch and other valuable foodstuffs. Hence, they are much +sought after by the inquiring sheep, which eat them off wherever found, +as exceptionally nutritious and dainty morsels. Under these +circumstances, the subterranean clover has learnt to produce small +heads of bloom, pressed close to the ground, in which only the outer +flowers are perfect and fertile, while the inner ones are transformed +into tiny wriggling corkscrews. As soon as the fertile flowers have +begun to set their seed, by the kind aid of the bees, the whole stem +bends downward, automatically, of its own accord; the little corkscrews +then worm their way into the turf beneath; and the pods ripen and +mature in the actual soil itself, where no prying ewe can poke an +inquisitive nose to grub them up and devour them. Cases like this point +in certain ways to the absolute high-water-mark of vegetable ingenuity: +they go nearest of all in the plant-world to the similitude of +conscious animal intelligence. + + + + + A DESERT FRUIT. + +Who knows the Mediterranean, knows the prickly pear. Not that that +quaint and uncanny-looking cactus, with its yellow blossoms and +bristling fruits that seem to grow paradoxically out of the edge of +thick fleshy leaves, is really a native of Italy, Spain, and North +Africa, where it now abounds on every sun-smitten hillside. Like Mr. +Henry James and Mr. Marion Crawford, the Barbary fig, as the French +call it, is, in point of fact, an American citizen, domiciled and half +naturalised on this side of the Atlantic, but redolent still at heart +of its Columbian origin. Nothing is more common, indeed, than to see +classical pictures of the Alma-Tadema school--not, of course, from the +brush of the master himself, who is impeccable in such details, but +fair works of decent imitators--in which Caia or Marcia leans +gracefully in her white stole on one pensive elbow against a marble +lintel, beside a courtyard decorated with a Pompeian basin, and +overgrown with prickly pear or "American aloes." I need hardly say +that, as a matter of plain historical fact, neither cactuses nor agaves +were known in Europe till long after Christopher Columbus had steered +his wandering bark to the sandy shores of Cat's Island in the Bahamas. +(I have seen Cat's Island with these very eyes, and can honestly assure +you that its shores _are_ sandy.) But this is only one among the many +pardonable little inaccuracies of painters, who thrust scarlet +geraniums from the Cape of Good Hope into the fingers of Aspasia, or +supply King Solomon in all his glory with Japanese lilies of the most +recent introduction. + +At the present day, it is true, both the prickly-pear cactus and the +American agave (which the world at large insists upon confounding with +the aloe, a member of a totally distinct family) have spread themselves +in an apparently wild condition over all the rocky coasts both of +Southern Europe and of Northern Africa. The alien desert weeds have +fixed their roots firmly in the sunbaked clefts of Ligurian Apennines; +the tall candelabrum of the western agave has reared its great spike of +branching blossoms (which flower, not once in a century, as legend +avers, but once in some fifteen years or so) on all the basking +hillsides of the Mauritanian Atlas. But for the origin, and therefore +for the evolutionary history, of either plant, we must look away from +the shore of the inland sea to the arid expanse of the Mexican desert. +It was there, among the sweltering rocks of the Tierras Calientes, that +these ungainly cactuses first learned to clothe themselves in prickly +mail, to store in their loose tissues an abundant supply of sticky +moisture, and to set at defiance the persistent attacks of all external +enemies. The prickly pear, in fact, is a typical instance of a desert +plant, as the camel is a typical instance of a desert animal. Each lays +itself out to endure the long droughts of its almost rainless habitat +by drinking as much as it can when opportunity offers, hoarding up the +superfluous water for future use, and economising evaporation by every +means in its power. + +If you ask that convenient fiction, the Man in the Street, what sort of +plant a cactus is, he will probably tell you it is all leaf and no +stem, and each of the leaves grows out of the last one. Whenever we set +up the Man in the Street, however, you must have noticed we do it in +order to knock him down again like a nine-pin next moment: and this +particular instance is no exception to the rule; for the truth is that +a cactus is practically all stem and no leaves, what looks like a leaf +being really a branch sticking out at an angle. The true leaves, if +there are any, are reduced to mere spines or prickles on the surface, +while the branches, in the prickly-pear and many of the ornamental +hot-house cactuses, are flattened out like a leaf to perform foliar +functions. In most plants, to put it simply, the leaves are the mouths +and stomachs of the organism; their thin and flattened blades are +spread out horizontally in a wide expanse, covered with tiny throats +and lips which suck in carbonic acid from the surrounding air, and +disintegrate it in their own cells under the influence of sunlight. In +the prickly pears, on the contrary, it is the flattened stem and +branches which undertake this essential operation in the life of the +plant--the sucking-in of carbon and giving-out of oxygen, which is to +the vegetable exactly what the eating and digesting of food is to the +animal organism. In their old age, however, the stems of the prickly +pear display their true character by becoming woody in texture and +losing their articulated leaf-like appearance. + +Everything on this earth can best be understood by investigating the +history of its origin and development, and in order to understand this +curious reversal of the ordinary rule in the cactus tribe we must look +at the circumstances under which the race was evolved in the howling +waste of American deserts. (All deserts have a prescriptive right to +howl, and I wouldn't for worlds deprive them of the privilege.) Some +familiar analogies will help us to see the utility of this arrangement. +Everybody knows our common English stone-crops--or if he doesn't he +ought to, for they are pretty and ubiquitous. Now stone-crops grow for +the most part in chinks of the rock or thirsty sandy soil; they are +essentially plants of very dry positions. Hence they have thick and +succulent little stems and leaves, which merge into one another by +imperceptible gradations. All parts of the plant alike are stumpy, +green, and cylindrical. If you squash them with your finger and thumb +you find that though the outer skin or epidermis is thick and firm, the +inside is sticky, moist, and jelly-like. The reason for all this is +plain; the stone-crops drink greedily by their roots whenever they get +a chance, and store up the water so obtained to keep them from +withering under the hot and pitiless sun that beats down upon them for +hours in the baked clefts of their granite matrix. It's the camel trick +over again. So leaves and stem grow thick and round and juicy within; +but outside they are enclosed in a stout layer of epidermis, which +consists of empty glassy cells, and which can be peeled off or flayed +with a knife like the skin of an animal. This outer layer prevents +evaporation, and is a marked feature of all succulent plants which grow +exposed to the sun on arid rocks or in sandy deserts. + +The tendency to produce rounded stems and leaves, little +distinguishable from one another, is equally noticeable in many seaside +plants which frequent the strip of thirsty sand beyond the reach of the +tides. That belt of dry beach that stretches between high-water mark +and the zone of vegetable mould, is to all intents and purpose a +miniature desert. True, it is watered by rain from time to time; but +the drops sink in so fast that in half an hour, as we know, the entire +strip is as dry as Sahara again. Now there are many shore weeds of this +intermediate sand-belt which mimic to a surprising degree the chief +external features of the cactuses. One such weed, the common +salicornia, which grows in sandy bottoms or hollows of the beach, has a +jointed stem, branched and succulent, after the true cactus pattern, +and entirely without leaves or their equivalents in any way. Still more +cactus-like in general effect is another familiar English seaside weed, +the kali or glasswort, so called because it was formerly burnt to +extract the soda. The glasswort has leaves, it is true, but they are +thick and fleshy, continuous with the stem, and each one terminating in +a sharp, needle-like spine, which effectually protects the weed against +all browsing aggressors. + +Now, wherever you get very dry and sandy conditions of soil, you get +this same type of cactus-like vegetation--_plantes grasses_, as the +French well call them. The species which exhibit it are not necessary +related to one another in any way; often they belong to most widely +distinct families; it is an adaptive resemblance alone, due to +similarity of external circumstances only. The plants have to fight +against the same difficulties, and they adopt for the most part the +same tactics to fight them with. In other words, any plant of whatever +family, which wishes to thrive in desert conditions, must almost, as a +matter of course, become thick and succulent, so as to store up water, +and must be protected by a stout epidermis to prevent its evaporation +under the fierce heat of the sunlight. They do not necessarily lose +their leaves in the process; but the jointed stem usually answers the +purpose of leaves under such conditions far better than any thin and +exposed blade could do in the arid air of a baking desert. And +therefore, as a rule, desert plants are leafless. + +In India, for example, there are no cactuses. But I wouldn't advise you +to dispute the point with a peppery, fire-eating Anglo-Indian colonel. +I did so once, myself, at the risk of my life, at a _table d'hôte_ on +the Continent; and the wonder is that I'm still alive to tell the +story. I had nothing but facts on my side, while the colonel had fists, +and probably pistols. And when I say no cactuses, I mean, of course, no +indigenous species; for prickly pears and epiphyllums may naturally be +planted by the hand of man anywhere. But what people take for thickets +of cactus in the Indian jungle are really thickets of cactus-like +spurges. In the dry soil of India, many spurges grow thick and +succulent, learn to suppress their leaves, and assume the bizarre forms +and quaint jointed appearance of the true cactuses. In flower and +fruit, however, they are euphorbias to the end; it is only in the thick +and fleshy stem that they resemble their nobler and more beautiful +Western rivals. No true cactus grows truly wild anywhere on earth +except in America. The family was developed there, and, till man +transplanted it, never succeeded in gaining a foothold elsewhere. +Essentially tropical in type, it was provided with no means of +dispersing its seeds across the enormous expanse of intervening ocean +which separated its habitat from the sister continents. + +But why are cactuses so almost universally prickly? From the grotesque +little melon-cactuses of our English hothouses to the huge and ungainly +monsters which form miles of hedgerows on Jamaican hillsides, the +members of this desert family are mostly distinguished by their +abundant spines and thorns, or by the irritating hairs which break off +in your skin if you happen to brush incautiously against them. Cactuses +are the hedgehogs of the vegetable world; their motto is _Nemo me +impune lacessit_. Many a time in the West Indies I have pushed my hand +for a second into a bit of tangled 'bush,' as the negroes call it, to +seize some rare flower or some beautiful insect, and been punished for +twenty-four hours afterwards by the stings of the almost invisible and +glass-like little cactus-needles. When you rub them they only break in +pieces, and every piece inflicts a fresh wound on the flesh where it +rankles. Some of the species have large, stout prickles; some have +clusters of irritating hairs at measured distances; and some rejoice in +both means of defence at once, scattered impartially over their entire +surface. In the prickly pear, the bundles of prickles are arranged +geometrically with great regularity in a perfect quincunx. But that is +a small consolation indeed to the reflective mind when you've stung +yourself badly with them. + +The reason for this bellicose disposition on the part of the cactuses +is a tolerably easy one to guess. Fodder is rare in the desert. The +starving herbivores that find themselves from time to time belated on +the confines of such thirsty regions would seize with avidity upon any +succulent plant which offered them food and drink at once in their last +extremity. Fancy the joy with which a lost caravan, dying of hunger and +thirst in the byways of Sahara, would hail a great bed of melons, +cucumbers, and lettuces! Needless to say, however, under such +circumstances melon, cucumber, and lettuce would soon be exterminated: +they would be promptly eaten up at discretion without leaving a +descendant to represent them in the second generation. In the ceaseless +war between herbivore and plant, which is waged every day and all day +long the whole world over with far greater persistence than the war +between carnivore and prey, only those species of plant can survive in +such exposed situations which happen to develop spines, thorns, or +prickles as a means of defence against the mouths of hungry and +desperate assailants. + +Nor is this so difficult a bit of evolution as it looks at first sight. +Almost all plants are more or less covered with hairs, and it needs but +a slight thickening at the base, a slight woody deposit at the point, +to turn them forthwith into the stout prickles of the rose or the +bramble. Most leaves are more or less pointed at the end or at the +summits of the lobes; and it needs but a slight intensification of this +pointed tendency to produce forthwith the sharp defensive foliage of +gorse, thistles, and holly. Often one can see all the intermediate +stages still surviving under one's very eyes. The thistles, themselves, +for example, vary from soft and unarmed species which haunt +out-of-the-way spots beyond the reach of browsing herbivores, to such +trebly-mailed types as that enemy of the agricultural interest, the +creeping thistle, in which the leaves continue themselves as prickly +wings down every side of the stem, so that the whole plant is amply +clad from head to foot in a defensive coat of fierce and bristling +spearheads. There is a common little English meadow weed, the +rest-harrow, which in rich and uncropped fields produces no defensive +armour of any sort; but on the much-browsed-over suburban commons and +in similar exposed spots, where only gorse and blackthorn stand a +chance for their lives against the cows and donkeys, it has developed a +protected variety in which some of the branches grow abortive, and end +abruptly in stout spines like a hawthorn's. Only those rest-harrows +have there survived in the sharp struggle for existence which happened +most to baffle their relentless pursuers. + +Desert plants naturally carry this tendency to its highest point of +development. Nowhere else is the struggle for life so fierce; nowhere +else is the enemy so goaded by hunger and thirst to desperate measures. +It is a place for internecine warfare Hence, all desert plants are +quite absurdly prickly. The starving herbivores will attack and devour +under such circumstances even thorny weeds, which tear or sting their +tender tongues and palates, but which supply them at least with a +little food and moisture: so the plants are compelled in turn to take +almost extravagant precautions. Sometimes the leaves end in a stout +dagger-like point, as with the agave, or so-called American aloe; +sometimes they are reduced to mere prickles or bundles of needle-like +spikes; sometimes they are suppressed altogether, and the work of +defence is undertaken in their stead by irritating hairs intermixed +with caltrops of spines pointing outward from a common centre in every +direction. When one remembers how delicately sensitive are the tender +noses of most browsing herbivores, one can realize what an excellent +mode of defence these irritating hairs must naturally constitute. I +have seen cows in Jamaica almost maddened by their stings, and even +savage bulls will think twice in their rage before they attempt to make +their way through the serried spears of a dense cactus hedge. To put it +briefly, plants have survived under very arid or sandy conditions +precisely in proportion as they displayed this tendency towards the +production of thorns, spines, bristles, and prickles. + +It is a marked characteristic of the cactus tribe to be very tenacious +of life, and when hacked to pieces, to spring afresh in full vigour +from every scrap or fragment. True vegetable hydras, when you cut down +one, ten spring in its place: every separate morsel of the thick and +succulent stem has the power of growing anew into a separate cactus. +Surprising as this peculiarity seems at first sight, it is only a +special desert modification of a faculty possessed in a less degree by +almost all plants and by many animals. If you cut off the end of a rose +branch and stick it in the ground under suitable conditions, it grows +into a rose tree. If you take cuttings of scarlet geraniums or common +verbenas, and pot them in moist soil, they bud out apace into new +plants like their parents. Certain special types can even be propagated +from fragments of the leaf; for example, there is a particularly +vivacious begonia off which you may snap a corner of one blade, and +hang it up by a string from a peg or the ceiling, when, hi, presto! +little begonia plants begin to bud out incontinently on every side from +its edges. A certain German professor went even further than that; he +chopped up a liverwort very fine into vegetable mincemeat, which he +then spread thin over a saucerful of moist sand, and lo! in a few days +the whole surface of the mess was covered with a perfect forest of +sprouting little liverworts. Roughly speaking, one may say that every +fragment of every organism has in it the power to rebuild in its +entirety another organism like the one of which it once formed a +component element. + +Similarly with animals. Cut off a lizard's tail, and straightway a new +tail grows in its place with surprising promptitude. Cut off a +lobster's claw, and in a very few weeks that lobster is walking about +airily on his native rocks, with two claws as usual. True, in these +cases the tail and the claw don't bud out in turn into a new lizard or +a new lobster. But that is a penalty the higher organisms have to pay +for their extreme complexity. They have lost that plasticity, that +freedom of growth, which characterizes the simpler and more primitive +forms of life; in their case the power of producing fresh organisms +entire from a single fragment, once diffused equally over the whole +body, is now confined to certain specialized cells which, in their +developed form, we know as seeds or eggs. Yet, even among animals, at a +low stage of development, this original power of reproducing the whole +from a single part remains inherent in the organism; for you may chop +up a fresh-water hydra into a hundred little bits, and every bit will +be capable of growing afresh into a complete hydra. + +Now, desert plants would naturally retain this primitive tendency in a +very high degree; for they are specially organized to resist +drought--being the survivors of generations of drought-proof +ancestors--and, like the camel, they have often to struggle on through +long periods of time without a drop of water. Exactly the same thing +happens at home to many of our pretty little European stone-crops. I +have a rockery near my house overgrown with the little white sedum of +our gardens. The birds often peck off a tiny leaf or branch; it drops +on the dry soil, and remains there for days without giving a sign of +life. But its thick epidermis effectually saves it from withering; and +as soon as rain falls, wee white rootlets sprout out from the under +side of the fragment as it lies, and it grows before long into a fresh +small sedum plant. Thus, what seem like destructive agencies +themselves, are turned in the end by mere tenacity of life into a +secondary means of propagation. + +That is why the prickly pear is so common in all countries where the +climate suits it, and where it has once managed to gain a foothold. The +more you cut it down, the thicker it springs; each murdered bit becomes +the parent in due time of a numerous offspring. Man, however, with his +usual ingenuity, has managed to best the plant, on this its own ground, +and turn it into a useful fodder for his beasts of burden. The prickly +pear is planted abundantly on bare rocks in Algeria, where nothing else +would grow, and is cut down when adult, divested of its thorns by a +rough process of hacking, and used as food for camels and cattle. It +thus provides fresh moist fodder in the African summer when the grass +is dried up and all other pasture crops have failed entirely. + +The flowers of the prickly pear, as of many other cactuses, grow +apparently on the edge of the leaves, which alone might give the +observant mind a hint as to the true nature of those thick and +flattened expansions. For whenever what look like leaves bear flowers +or fruit on their edge or midrib, as in the familiar instance of +butcher's broom, you may be sure at a glance they are really branches +in disguise masquerading as foliage. The blossoms in the prickly pear +are large, handsome, and yellow; at least, they would be handsome if +one could ever see them, but they are generally covered so thick in +dust that it is difficult properly to appreciate their beauty. They +have a great many petals in numerous rows, and a great many stamens in +a rosette in the centre; and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, +as lawyers put it, they are fertilized for the most part by tropical +butterflies; but on this point, having observed them but little in +their native habitats, I speak under correction. + +The fruit itself, to which the plant owes its popular name, is +botanically a berry, though a very big one, and it exhibits in a highly +specialized degree the general tactics of all its family. As far as +their leaf-like stems go, the main object in life of the cactuses +is--not to get eaten. But when it comes to the fruit, this object in +life is exactly reversed; the plant desires its fruit to be devoured by +some friendly bird or adapted animal, in order that the hard little +seeds buried in the pulp within may be dispersed for germination under +suitable conditions. At the same time, true to its central idea, it +covers even the pear itself with deterrent and prickly hairs, meant to +act as a defence against useless thieves or petty depredators, who +would eat the soft pulp on the plant as it stands (much as wasps do +peaches) without benefiting the species in return by dispersing its +seedlings. This practice is fully in accordance with the general habit +of tropical or sub-tropical fruits, which lay themselves out to deserve +the kind offices of monkeys, parrots, toucans, hornbills, and other +such large and powerful fruit-feeders. Fruits which arrange themselves +for a _clientèle_, of this character have usually thick or nauseous +rinds, prickly husks, or other deterrent integuments; but they are full +within of juicy pulp, embedding stony or nutlike seeds, which pass +undigested through the gizzards of their swallowers. + +For a similar reason, the actual prickly pears themselves are +attractively coloured. I need hardly point out, I suppose, at the +present time of day, that such tints in the vegetable world act like +the gaudy posters of our London advertisers. Fruits and flowers which +desire to attract the attention of beasts, birds, or insects, are +tricked out in flaunting hues of crimson, purple, blue, and yellow; +fruits and flowers which could only be injured by the notice of animals +are small and green, or dingy and inconspicuous. + + + + + PRETTY POLL. + +It is an error of youth to despise parrots for their much talking. +Loquacity isn't always a sign of empty-headedness, nor is silence a +sure proof of weight and wisdom. Biologists, for their part, know +better than that. By common consent, they rank the parrot group as the +very head and crown of bird creation. Not, of course, because pretty +Poll can talk (in a state of nature, parrots only chatter somewhat +meaninglessly to one another), but because the group display on the +whole, all round, a greater amount of intelligence, of cleverness, and +of adaptability to circumstances than any other birds, including even +their cunning and secretive rivals, the ravens, the jackdaws, the +crows, and the magpies. + +What are the efficient causes of this exceptionally high intelligence +in parrots? Well, Mr. Herbert Spencer, I believe, was the first to +point out the intimate connection that exists throughout the animal +world between mental development and the power of grasping an object +all round so as to know exactly its shape and its tactile properties. +The possession of an effective prehensile organ--a hand or its +equivalent--seems to be the first great requisite for the evolution of +a high order of intellect. Man and the monkeys, for example, have a +pair of hands; and in their case one can see at a glance how dependent +is their intelligence upon these grasping organs. All human arts base +themselves ultimately upon the human hand; and even the apes approach +nearest to humanity in virtue of their ever-active and busy little +fingers. The elephant, again, has his flexible trunk, which, as we have +all heard over and over again, _usque ad nauseam_, is equally well +adapted to pick up a pin or to break the great boughs of tropical +forest trees. (That pin, in particular, is now a well-worn classic.) +The squirrel, once more, celebrated for his unusual intelligence when +judged by a rodent standard, uses his pretty little paws as veritable +hands, by which he can grasp a nut or fruit all round, and so gain in +his small mind a clear conception of its true shape and properties. +Throughout the animal kingdom generally, indeed, this correspondence, +or rather this chain of causation, makes itself everywhere felt; no +high intelligence without a highly developed prehensile and grasping +organ. + +Perhaps the opossum is the very best and most crucial instance that +could possibly be adduced of the intimate connection which exists +between touch and intellect. For the opossum is a marsupial; it belongs +to the same group of lowly-organized, antiquated, and pouch-bearing +animals as the kangaroo, the wombat, and the other belated Australian +mammals. Now everybody knows the marsupials as a class are nothing +short of preternaturally stupid. They are just about the very dullest +and silliest of all existing quadrupeds. And this is reasonable enough, +when one comes to think of it, for they represent a very antique and +early type, the first rough sketch of the mammalian idea, if I may so +describe them, with wits unsharpened as yet by contact with the world +in the fierce competition of the struggle for life as it displays +itself on the crowded stage of the great continents. They stand, in +short, to the lions and tigers, the elephants and horses, the monkeys +and squirrels, of Europe and America, as the Australian blackfellow +stands to the Englishman or the Yankee. They are the last relic of the +original secondary quadrupeds, stranded for ages in a remote southern +island, and still keeping up among Australian forests the antique type +of life that went out of fashion in Europe, Asia, and America before +the chalk was laid down or the London Clay deposited on the bed of our +northern oceans. Hence they have still very narrow brains, and are so +extremely stupid that a kangaroo, it is said--though I don't vouch for +it myself--when struck a smart blow, will turn and bite the stick that +hurts him instead of expending his anger on the hand that holds it. + +Now, every Girton girl is well aware that the opossum, though it is a +marsupial too, differs inexpressibly in psychological development from +the kangaroo and the wombat. Your opossum, in short, is active, sly, +and extremely intelligent. He knows his way about the world he lives +in. 'A 'possum up a gum-tree' is accepted by the observant American +mind as the very incarnation of animal cleverness, cunning, and +duplicity. In negro folk-lore the resourceful 'possum takes the place +of Reynard the Fox in European stories: he is the Macchiavelli of wild +beasts: there is no ruse on earth of which he isn't amply capable, no +artful trick which he can't design and execute, no wily manoeuvre which +he can't contrive and carry to an end successfully. All guile and +intrigue, the 'possum can circumvent even Uncle Remus himself by his +crafty diplomacy. And what is it that makes all the difference between +this 'cute Yankee marsupial and his backward and belated Australian +cousins? Why, nothing but the possession of a prehensile hand and tail. +Therein lies the whole secret. The opossum's hind foot has a genuine +opposable thumb; and he also uses his tail in climbing as a +supernumerary hand, almost as much as do any of the monkeys. He often +suspends himself by it, like an acrobat, swings his body to and fro to +get up steam, then lets go suddenly, and flies away to a distant +branch, which he clutches by means of his hand-like hind feet. If the +toes play him false, he can 'recover his tip,' as circus-folk put it, +with his prehensile tail. The consequence is that the opossum, being +able to form for himself clear and accurate conceptions of the real +shapes and relations of things by these two distinct grasping organs, +has acquired an unusual amount of general intelligence. And further, in +the keen competition of the American continent, he has been forced to +develop an amount of cleverness and low cunning which leaves his +Australian poor relations far behind in the Middle Ages of evolution. + +At the risk of seeming to run off at a tangent and forsake our +ostensible subject, pretty Poll, altogether, I must just pause for one +moment more to answer an objection which I know has been trembling on +the tip of your tongue any time the last five minutes. You've been +waiting till you could get a word in edgeways to give me a friendly +nudge and remark very wisely, 'But look here, I say; how about the dog +and the horse in your argument? _They've_ got no prehensile organ that +ever I heard of, and yet they're universally allowed to be the +cleverest and most intelligent of all earthly quadrupeds.' True, O most +sapient and courteous objector. I grant it you at once. But observe the +difference. The cleverness of the horse and the dog is acquired, not +original. It has probably arisen in the course of their long hereditary +intercourse and companionship with man, the cleverest and most +serviceable individuals being deliberately selected from generation to +generation, as dams and sires to breed from. We can't fairly compare +these artificial human products, therefore, with wild races whose +intelligence is all native and self-evolved. Moreover, the horse at +least _has_ to some slight extent a prehensile organ in his very mobile +and sensitive lip, which he uses like an undeveloped or rudimentary +proboscis to feel things all over with. So that the dog alone remains +as a contradictory instance; and even the dog derives his cleverness +indirectly from man, whose hand and thumb in the last resort are really +at the bottom of his vicarious wisdom. + +We may conclude, then, I believe, that touch, as Mr. Herbert Spencer +admirably words it, is 'the mother-tongue of the senses;' and that in +proportion as animals have or have not highly developed and serviceable +tactile organs will they rank high or low in the intellectual hierarchy +of nature. Now, how does this bear upon the family of parrots? Well, in +the first place, everybody who has ever kept a cockatoo or a macaw in +domestic slavery is well aware that in no other birds do the claws so +closely resemble a human or simian hand, not indeed in outer form or +appearance, but in opposability of the thumbs and in perfection of +grasping power. The toes on each foot are arranged in opposite +pairs--two turning in front and two backward, which gives all parrots +their peculiar firmness in clinging on a perch or on the branch of a +tree with one foot only, while they extend the other to grasp a fruit +or to clutch at any object they desire to take possession of. True, +this peculiarity isn't entirely confined to the parrots alone, as such. +They share the division of the foot into two thumbs and two fingers +with a whole large group of allied birds, called, in the charmingly +concise and poetical language of technical ornithology, the Scansorial +Picarians, and more generally, known to the unlearned herd (meaning you +and me) by their several names of woodpeckers, cuckoos, toucans, and +plantain-eaters. All the members of this great group, of which the +parrots proper are only the most advanced and developed family, possess +the same arrangement of the digits into front-toes and back-toes. But +in none is the arrangement so perfect as in the parrots, and in none is +the power of grasping an object all round so completely developed and +so pregnant in moral and intellectual consequences. + +All the Scansorial Picarians, however (if the reader with his +proverbial courtesy will kindly pardon me the inevitable use of such +very bad words), are essentially tree-haunters; and the tree-haunting +and climbing habit, as is well beknown, seems particularly favourable +to the growth of intelligence. Thus schoolboys climb trees--but I +forgot: this is a scientific article, and such levity is inconsistent +with the dignity of science. Let us be serious! Well, at any rate, +monkeys, squirrels, opossums, wild cats, are all of them climbers, and +all of them, in the act of clinging, jumping, and balancing themselves +on boughs, gain such an accurate idea of geometrical figure, +perspective, distance, and the true nature of space-relations, as could +hardly be acquired in any other manner. In one word, they thoroughly +understand space of three dimensions, and the tactual realities that +answer to and underlie each visible appearance. This is the very +substratum of all intelligence; and the monkeys, possessing it more +profoundly than any other animals, have accordingly taken the top of +the form in the competitive examination perpetually conducted by +survival of the fittest. + +So, too, among birds, the parrots and their allies climb trees and +rocks with exceptional ease and agility. Even in their own department +they are the great feathered acrobats. Anybody who watches a +woodpecker, for example, grasping the bark of a tree with its crooked +and powerful toes, while it steadies itself behind by digging its stiff +tail-feathers into the crannies of the outer rind, will readily +understand how clear a notion the bird must gain into the practical +action of the laws of gravity. But the true parrots go a step further +in the same direction than the woodpeckers or the toucans; for, in +addition to prehensile feet, they have also a highly-developed +prehensile bill, and within it a tongue which acts in reality as an +organ of touch. They use their crooked beaks to help them in climbing +from branch to branch; and being thus provided alike with wings, legs, +hands, fingers, bill and tongue, they are in fact the most truly +arboreal of all known animals, and present in the fullest and highest +degree all the peculiar features of the tree-haunting existence. + +Nor is that all. Alone among birds or mammals, the parrots have the +curious peculiarity of being able to move the upper as well as the +lower jaw. It is this strange mobility of both the mandibles together, +combined with the crafty effect of the sideways glance from those +artful eyes, that gives the characteristic air of intelligence and +wisdom to the parrot's face. We naturally expect so clever a bird to +speak. And when it turns upon us suddenly with a copy-book maxim, we +are in no way astonished at its surpassing smartness. + +Parrots are vegetarians; with a single degraded exception to whom I +shall recur hereafter, Sir Henry Thompson himself couldn't find fault +with their regimen. They live chiefly upon a light but nutritious diet +of fruit and seeds, or upon the abundant nectar of rich tropical +flowers. And it is mainly for the sake of getting at their chosen food +that they have developed the large and powerful bills which +characterise the family. You may have perhaps noted that most tropical +fruit-eaters, like the hornbills and the toucans, are remarkable for +the size and strength of their beaks: if you haven't, I dare say you +will generously take my word for it. And, _per contra_, it may also +have struck you that most tropical fruits have thick or hard or +nauseous rinds, which need to be torn off before the monkeys or birds +for whose use they are intended, can get at them and eat them. Our +little northern strawberries, and raspberries, and currants, and +whortleberries, developed with a single eye to the petty robins and +finches of temperate climates, can be popped into, the mouth whole and +eaten as they stand: they are meant for small birds to devour, and to +disperse the tiny undigested nut-like seeds in return for the bribe of +the soft pulp that surrounds them. But it is quite otherwise with +oranges, shaddocks, bananas, plantains, mangoes, and pine-apples: those +great tropical fruits can only be eaten properly with a knife and fork, +after stripping off the hard and often acrid rind that guards and +preserves them. They lay themselves out for dispersion by monkeys, +toucans, and other relatively large and powerful fruit-eaters; and the +rind is put there as a barrier against small thieves who would rob the +sweet pulp, but be absolutely incapable of carrying away and dispersing +the large and richly-stored seeds it covers. + +Parrots and toucans, however, have no knives and forks to cut off the +rind with; but as monkeys use their fingers, so the birds use for the +same purpose their sharp and powerful bills. No better nut-crackers and +fruit-parers could possibly be found. The parrot, in particular, has +developed for the purpose his curved and inflated beak--a wonderful +weapon, keen as a tailor's scissors, and moved by powerful muscles on +either side of the face which bring together the cutting edges with +extraordinary energy. The way the bird holds the fruit gingerly in one +claw, while he strips off the rind dexterously with his under-hung +lower mandible, and keeps a sharp look-out meanwhile on either side +with those sly and stealthy eyes of his for a possible intruder, +suggests to the observing mind the whole living drama of his native +forest. One sees in that vivid world the watchful monkey ever ready to +swoop down upon the tempting tail-feathers of his hereditary foe: one +sees the canny parrot ever prepared for his rapid attack, and ever +eager to make him pay with five joints of his tail for his impertinent +interference with an unoffending fellow-citizen of the arboreal +community. + +Still, there are parrots and parrots, of course. Not all this vast +family are in all things of like passions one with another. The great +black cockatoo, for example, the largest of the tribe, lives almost +entirely off the central shoot or 'cabbage' of palm-trees: an expensive +kind of food, for when once the 'cabbage' is eaten the tree dies +forthwith, so that each black cockatoo must have killed in his time +whole groves of cabbage-palms. Others, again, feed off fruits and +seeds; and not a few are entirely adapted for flower-haunting and +honey-sucking. + +As a group, the parrots are comparatively modern birds. Indeed, they +could have no place in the world till the big tropical fruits and nuts +were beginning to be developed. And it is now pretty certain that +fruits and nuts are for the most part of very recent and special +evolution. To put it briefly, the monkeys and parrots developed the +fruits and nuts, while the fruits and nuts returned the compliment by +developing conversely the monkeys and parrots. In other words, both +types grew up side by side in mutual dependence, and evolved themselves +_pari passu_ for one another's benefit. Without the fruits there could +be no fruit-eaters; and without the fruit-eaters to disperse their +seeds, there could just to the same extent be no fruits to speak of. + +Most of the parrots very much resemble the monkeys and other tropical +fruit-feeders in their habits and manners. They are gregarious, +mischievous, noisy, and irresponsible. They have no moral sense, and +are fond of practical jokes and other schoolboy horseplay. They move +about in flocks, screeching aloud as they go, and alight together on +some tree well covered with berries. No doubt, they herd together for +the sake of protection and screech both to keep the flock in a body and +to strike alarm and consternation into the breasts of their enemies. +When danger threatens, the first bird that perceives it sounds a note +of warning; and in a moment the whole troop is on the wing at once, +vociferous and eager, roaring forth a song in their own tongue which +may be roughly interpreted as stating in English that they don't want +to fight, but by Jingo, if they do, they'll tear their enemy to shreds +and drink his blood up too. + +The common grey parrot, the best known in confinement of all his kind, +and unrivalled as an orator for his graces of speech, is a native of +West Africa; so that he shares with other West Africans that perfect +command of language which has always been a marked characteristic of +the negro race. He feeds in a general way upon palm-nuts, bananas, +mangoes, and guavas, but he is by no means averse, if opportunity +offers, to the Indian corn of the industrious native. His wife +accompanies him in his solitary rambles, for they are not gregarious. +In her native haunts, indeed, Polly is an unsociable bird. It is only +in confinement that her finer qualities come out, and that she develops +into a speech-maker of distinguished attainments. + +A very peculiar and exceptional offshoot of the parrot group is the +brush-tongued lory, several species of which are common in Australia, +India, and the Molucca Islands. These pretty and interesting creatures +are in point of fact parrots which have practically made themselves +into humming-birds by long continuance in the poetical habit of +visiting flowers for food. Like Mr. Oscar Wilde in his æsthetic days, +they breakfast off a lily. Flitting about from tree to tree with great +rapidity, they thrust their long extensible tongues, pencilled with +honey-gathering hairs, into the tubes of many big tropical blossoms. +The lories, indeed, live entirely on nectar, and they are so common in +the region they have made their own that all the larger flowers there +have been developed with a special view to their tastes and habits, as +well as to the structure of their peculiar brush-like honey-collector. +In most parrots the mouth is dry and the tongue horny; but in the +lories it is moist and much more like the same organ in the +humming-birds and sun-birds. The prevalence of very large and +brilliantly coloured flowers in the Malayan region must be set down for +the most part to the selective action of these æsthetic and +colour-loving little brush-tongued parrots. + +Australia and New Zealand, as everybody knows, are the countries where +everything goes by contraries. And it is here that the parrot group has +developed some of its strangest and most abnormal offshoots. One would +imagine beforehand that no two birds could be more unlike in every +respect than the gaudy, noisy, gregarious cockatoos and the sombre, +nocturnal, solitary owls. Yet the New Zealand owl-parrot is, to put it +plainly, a lory which has assumed all the outer appearance and habits +of an owl. A lurker in the twilight or under the shades of night, +burrowing for its nest in holes in the ground, it has dingy brown +plumage like the owls, with an undertone of green to bespeak its parrot +origin: while its face is entirely made up of two great disks, +surrounding the eyes, which succeed in giving it a most marked and +unmistakable owl-like appearance. + +Now, why should a parrot so strangely disguise itself and belie its +ancestry? The reason is plain. It found a place for it ready made in +nature. New Zealand is a remote and sparsely-stocked island, peopled by +mere casual waifs and strays of life from adjacent but still very +distant continents. There are no dangerous enemies there. Here, then, +was a clear chance for a nightly prowler. The owl-parrot with true +business instinct saw the opening thus clearly laid before it, and took +to a nocturnal and burrowing life, with the natural consequence that it +acquired in time the dingy plumage, crepuscular eyes, and broad +disk-like reflectors of other prowling night-fliers. Unlike the owls, +however, the owl-parrot, true to the vegetarian instincts of the whole +lory race, lives almost entirely upon sprigs of mosses and other +creeping plants. It is thus essentially a ground bird; and as it feeds +at night in a country possessing no native beasts of prey, it has +almost lost the power of flight, and uses its wings only as a sort of +parachute to break its fall in descending from a rock or tree to its +accustomed feeding-ground. To get up again, it climbs, parrot-like, +with its hooked claws, up the surface of the trunk or the face of a +precipice. + +Even more aberrant in its ways, however, than the burrowing owl-parrot, +is that other strange and hated New Zealand lory, the kea, which, alone +among its kind, has abjured the gentle ancestral vegetarianism of the +cockatoos and macaws, in favour of a carnivorous diet of singular +ferocity. And what is odder still, this evil habit has been developed +in the kea since the colonization of New Zealand by the English, those +most demoralizing of new-comers. The settlers have taught the Maori to +wear tall hats and to drink strong liquors: and they have thrown +temptation in the way of even the once innocent native parrot. Before +the white man came, in fact, the kea was a mild-mannered fruit-eating +or honey-sucking bird. But as soon as sheep-stations were established +in the island these degenerate parrots began to acquire a distinct +taste for raw mutton. At first, to be sure, they ate only the sheep's +heads and offal that were thrown out from the slaughter-houses picking +the bones as clean of meat as a dog or a jackal. But in process of +time, as the taste for blood grew upon them, a still viler idea entered +into their wicked heads. The first step on the downward path suggested +the second. If dead sheep are good to eat, why not also living ones? +The kea, pondering deeply on this abstruse problem, solved it at once +with an emphatic affirmative. And he straightway proceeded to act upon +his convictions, and invent a really hideous mode of procedure. +Perching on the backs of the living sheep he has now learnt the exact +spot where the kidneys are to be found; and he tears open the flesh to +get at these dainty morsels, which he pulls out and devours, leaving +the unhappy animal to die in miserable agony. As many as two hundred +ewes have thus been killed in a night at a single station. I need +hardly add that the sheep-farmer naturally resents this irregular +proceeding, so opposed to all ideals of good grazing, and that the days +of the kea are now numbered in New Zealand. But from the purely +psychological point of view the case is an interesting one, as being +the best recorded instance of the growth of a new and complex instinct +actually under the eyes of human observers. + +One word as to the general colouring of the parrot group as a whole. +Tropical forestine birds have usually a ground tone of green because +that colour enables them best to escape notice among the monotonous +verdure of equatorial woodland scenery. In the north, to be sure, green +is a very conspicuous colour; but that is only because for half the +year our trees are bare, and even during the other half they lack that +'breadth of tropic shade' which characterises the forests of all hot +countries. Therefore, in temperate climates, the common ground-tone of +birds is brown, to harmonise with the bare boughs and leafless twigs, +the clods of earth and dead turf or stubble. But in the evergreen +tropics green is the right hue for concealment or defence. Therefore +the parrots, the most purely tropical family of birds on earth, are +mostly greenish; and among the smaller and more defenceless sorts, like +the familiar little love-birds, where the need for protection is +greatest, the green of the plumage is almost unbroken. Of the tiny +Pigmy Parrots of New Guinea, for instance, Mr. Bowdler Sharpe says: +'Owing to their small size and the resemblance of their green colouring +to the forests they inhabit, they are not easily seen, and until recent +years were very hard to procure.' And of the green parrot of Jamaica, +Mr. Gosse remarks: 'Often we hear their voices proceeding from a +certain tree, or else have marked the descent of a flock on it; but on +proceeding to the spot, though the eye has not wandered from it, we +cannot discover an individual. We go close to the tree, but all is +silent and still as death. We institute a careful survey of every part +with the eye, to detect the slightest motion, or the form of a bird +among the leaves, but all in vain. We begin to think they have stolen +off unperceived; but on throwing a stone into the tree, a dozen throats +burst forth into a cry, and as many green birds rush forth upon the +wing. Green may thus be regarded as the normal or basal parrot tint, +from which all other colours are special decorative variations. + +But fruit-eating and flower-feeding creatures, like butterflies and +humming-birds--seeking their food ever among the bright berries and +brilliant flowers, almost invariably acquire in the long run an +æsthetic taste for pure and varied colouring, and by the aid of sexual +selection this taste stereotypes itself at last in their own wings and +plumage. They choose their mates for colour as they choose their +foodstuffs. Hence all the larger and more gregarious parrots, in which +the need for concealment is less, tend to diversify the fundamental +green of their coats with crimson, yellow, or blue, which in some cases +take possession of the entire body. The largest kinds of all, like the +great blue and yellow or crimson macaws, are as gorgeous as Solomon in +all his glory: and they are also the species least afraid of enemies; +for in Brazil you may often see them wending their way homeward openly +in pairs every evening, with as little attempt at concealment as rooks +in England. In the Moluccas and New Guinea, says Mr. Wallace, white +cockatoos and gorgeous lories in crimson and blue are the very +commonest objects in the local fauna. Even the New Zealand owl-parrot, +however, still retains many traces of his original greenness, mixed +with the dirty brown and dingy yellow of his acquired nocturnal and +burrowing nature. + +If fruit-eaters are fine, flower-haunters are magnificent. And the +brush-tongued lories, that search for nectar among the bells of Malayan +blossoms, are the brightest-coloured of all the parrot tribes. Indeed, +no group of birds, according to Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace (who ought to +know, if anybody does), exhibits within the same limited number of +types so extraordinary a diversity and richness of colouring as the +parrots. 'As a rule,' he says, 'parrots may be termed green birds, the +majority of the species having this colour as the basis of their +plumage, relieved by caps, gorgets, bands and wing-spots of other and +brighter hues. Yet this general green tint sometimes changes into light +or deep blue, as in some macaws; into pure yellow or rich orange, as in +some of the American macaw-parrots; into purple, grey or dove-colour, +as in some American, African, and Indian species; into the purest +crimson, as in some of the lories; into rosy-white and pure white, as +in the cockatoos; and into a deep purple, ashy or black, as in several +Papuan, Australian, and Mascarene species. There is in fact hardly a +single distinct and definable colour that cannot be fairly matched +among the 390 species of known parrots. Their habits, too, are such as +to bring them prominently before the eye. They usually feed in flocks; +they are noisy, and so attract attention; they love gardens, orchards, +and open sunny places; they wander about far in search of food, and +towards sunset return homeward in noisy flocks, or in constant pairs. +Their forms and motions are often beautiful and attractive. The +immensely long tails of the macaws and the more slender tails of the +Indian parroquets, the fine crest of the cockatoos, the swift flight of +many of the smaller species, and the graceful motions of the little +love-birds and allied forms, together with their affectionate natures, +aptitude for domestication, and power of mimicry, combine to render +them at once the most conspicuous and the most attractive of all the +specially tropical forms of bird life.' + +I have purposely left to the last the one point about parrots which +most often attracts the attention of the young, the gay, the giddy, and +the thoughtless: I mean their power of mimicry in human language. And I +believe I am justified in passing it over lightly. For in fact this +power is but a very incidental result of the general intelligence of +parrots, combined with the other peculiarities of their social life and +forestine character. Dominant woodland animals, indeed, like monkeys, +parrots, toucans, and hornbills, at least if vegetarian in their +habits, are almost always gregarious, noisy, mischievous, and +imitative. And the imitation results directly from the unusual +intelligence; for, after all, what is the power of learning itself--at +least, in all save its very highest phases--but the faculty of +accurately imitating another? Monkeys for the most part imitate action +only, because they haven't very varied or flexible voices. Parrots and +many other birds, on the contrary--like the starling and still more +markedly the American mocking-bird--being endowed with considerable +flexibility of voice, imitate either songs or spoken words with great +distinctness. In the parrot the power of attention is also very +considerable, for the bird will often try over with itself repeatedly +the lesson it has set itself to learn. But people too generally forget +that at best the parrot knows only the general application of a +sentence, not the separate meanings of its component words. It knows, +for example, that 'Polly wants a lump of sugar' is a phrase often +followed by a present of food. But to believe it can understand an +abstract expression, like the famous 'By Jove! what a beastly lot of +parrots!' is to confound learning by rote with genuine comprehension. A +careful review of all the evidence makes almost every scientific +observer conclude that at most a parrot knows a word of command as a +horse knows 'Whoa!' or a dog knows the order to hunt for rats in the +wainscot. + + + + + HIGH LIFE. + +Everybody knows mountain flowers are beautiful. As one rises up any +minor height in the Alps or the Pyrenees below snow-level, one notices +at once the extraordinary brilliancy and richness of the blossoms one +meets there. All nature is dressed in its brightest robes. Great belts +of blue gentian hang like a zone on the mountain slopes; masses of +yellow globe-flower star the upland pastures; nodding heads of +soldanella lurk low among the rugged boulders by the glacier's side. No +lowland blossoms have such vividness of colouring, or grow in such +conspicuous patches. To strike the eye from afar, to attract and allure +at a distance, is the great aim and end in life of the Alpine flora. + +Now, why are Alpine plants so anxious to be seen of men and angels? Why +do they flaunt their golden glories so openly before the world, instead +of shrinking in modest reserve beneath their own green leaves, like the +Puritan primrose and the retiring violet? The answer is, Because of the +extreme rarity of the mountain air. It's the barometer that does it. At +first sight, I will readily admit, this explanation seems as fanciful +as the traditional connection between Goodwin Sands and Tenterden +Steeple. But, like the amateur stories in country papers, it is +'founded on fact,' for all that. (Imagine, by the way, a tale founded +entirely on fiction! How charmingly aerial!) By a roundabout road, +through varying chains of cause and effect, the rarity of the air does +really account in the long run for the beauty and conspicuousness of +the mountain flowers. + +For bees, the common go-betweens of the loves of the plants, cease to +range about a thousand or fifteen hundred feet below snow-level. And +why? Because it's too cold for them? Oh, dear, no: on sunny days in +early English spring, when the thermometer doesn't rise above freezing +in the shade, you will see both the honey-bees and the great black +bumble as busy as their conventional character demands of them among +the golden cups of the first timid crocuses. Give the bee sunshine, +indeed, with a temperature just about freezing-point, and he'll flit +about joyously on his communistic errand. But bees, one must remember, +have heavy bodies and relatively small wings: in the rarefied air of +mountain heights they can't manage to support themselves in the most +literal sense. Hence their place in these high stations of the world is +taken by the gay and airy butterflies, which have lighter bodies and a +much bigger expanse of wing-area to buoy them up. In the valleys and +plains the bee competes at an advantage with the butterflies for all +the sweets of life: but in this broad sub-glacial belt on the +mountain-sides the butterflies in turn have things all their own way. +They flit about like monarchs of all they survey, without a rival in +the world to dispute their supremacy. + +And how does the preponderance of butterflies in the upper regions of +the air affect the colour and brilliancy of the flowers? Simply thus. +Bees, as we are all aware on the authority of the great Dr. Watts, are +industrious creatures which employ each shining hour (well-chosen +epithet, 'shining') for the good of the community, and to the best +purpose. The bee, in fact, is the _bon bourgeois_ of the insect world: +he attends strictly to business, loses no time in wild or reckless +excursions, and flies by the straightest path from flower to flower of +the same species with mathematical precision. Moreover, he is careful, +cautious, observant, and steady-going--a model business man, in fact, +of sound middle-class morals and sober middle-class intelligence. No +flitting for him, no coquetting, no fickleness. Therefore, the flowers +that have adapted themselves to his needs, and that depend upon him +mainly or solely for fertilisation, waste no unnecessary material on +those big flaunting coloured posters which we human observers know as +petals. They have, for the most part, simple blue or purple flowers, +tubular in shape and, individually, inconspicuous in hue; and they are +oftenest arranged in long spikes of blossom to avoid wasting the time +of their winged Mr. Bultitudes. So long as they are just bright enough +to catch the bee's eye a few yards away, they are certain to receive a +visit in due season from that industrious and persistent commercial +traveller. Having a circle of good customers upon whom they can depend +with certainty for fertilisation, they have no need to waste any large +proportion of their substance upon expensive advertisements or gaudy +petals. + +It is just the opposite with butterflies. Those gay and irrepressible +creatures, the fashionable and frivolous element in the insect world, +gad about from flower to flower over great distances at once, and think +much more of sunning themselves and of attracting their fellows than of +attention to business. And the reason is obvious, if one considers for +a moment the difference in the political and domestic economy of the +two opposed groups. For the honey-bees are neuters, sexless purveyors +of the hive, with no interest on earth save the storing of honey for +the common benefit of the phalanstery to which they belong. But the +butterflies are full-fledged males and females, on the hunt through the +world for suitable partners: they think far less of feeding than of +displaying their charms: a little honey to support them during their +flight is all they need:--'For the bee, a long round of ceaseless toil; +for me,' says the gay butterfly, 'a short life and a merry one.' Mr. +Harold Skimpole needed only 'music, sunshine, a few grapes.' The +butterflies are of his kind. The high mountain zone is for them a true +ball-room: the flowers are light refreshments laid out in the +vestibule. Their real business in life is not to gorge and lay by, but +to coquette and display themselves and find fitting partners. + +So while the bees with their honey-bags, like the financier with his +money-bags, are storing up profit for the composite community, the +butterfly, on the contrary, lays himself out for an agreeable flutter, +and sips nectar where he will, over large areas of country. He flies +rather high, flaunting his wings in the sun, because he wants to show +himself off in all his airy beauty: and when he spies a bed of bright +flowers afar off on the sun-smitten slopes, he sails off towards them +lazily, like a grand signior who amuses himself. No regular plodding +through a monotonous spike of plain little bells for him: what he wants +is brilliant colour, bold advertisement, good honey, and plenty of it. +He doesn't care to search. Who wants his favours must make himself +conspicuous. + +Now, plants are good shopkeepers; they lay themselves out strictly to +attract their customers. Hence the character of the flowers on this +beeless belt of mountain side is entirely determined by the character +of the butterfly fertilisers. Only those plants which laid themselves +out from time immemorial to suit the butterflies, in other words, have +succeeded in the long run in the struggle for existence. So the +butterfly-plants of the butterfly-zone are all strictly adapted to +butterfly tastes and butterfly fancies. They are, for the most part, +individually large and brilliantly coloured: they have lots of honey, +often stored at the base of a deep and open bell which the long +proboscis of the insect can easily penetrate: and they habitually grow +close together in broad belts or patches, so that the colour of each +reinforces and aids the colour of the others. It is this cumulative +habit that accounts for the marked flowerbed or jam-tart character +which everybody must have noticed in the high Alpine flora. + +Aristocracies usually pride themselves on their antiquity: and the high +life of the mountains is undeniably ancient. The plants and animals of +the butterfly-zone belong to a special group which appears everywhere +in Europe and America about the limit of snow, whether northward or +upward. For example, I was pleased to note near the summit of Mount +Washington (the highest peak in New Hampshire) that a large number of +the flowers belonged to species well known on the open plains of +Lapland and Finland. The plants of the High Alps are found also, as a +rule, not only on the High Pyrenees, the Carpathians, the Scotch +Grampians, and the Norwegian fjelds, but also round the Arctic Circle +in Europe and America. They reappear at long distances where suitable +conditions recur: they follow the snow-line as the snow-line recedes +ever in summer higher north toward the pole or higher vertically toward +the mountain summits. And this bespeaks in one way to the reasoning +mind a very ancient ancestry. It shows they date back to a very old and +cold epoch. + +Let me give a single instance which strikingly illustrates the general +principle. Near the top of Mount Washington, as aforesaid, lives to +this day a little colony of very cold-loving and mountainous +butterflies, which never descend below a couple of thousand feet from +the wind-swept summit. Except just there, there are no more of there +sort anywhere about: and as far as the butterflies themselves are +aware, no others of their species exist on earth: they never have seen +a single one of their kind, save of their own little colony. One might +compare them with the Pitcairn Islanders in the South Seas--an isolated +group of English origin, cut off by a vast distance from all their +congeners in Europe or America. But if you go north some eight or nine +hundred miles from New Hampshire to Labrador, at a certain point the +same butterfly reappears, and spreads northward toward the pole in +great abundance. Now, how did this little colony of chilly insects get +separated from the main body, and islanded, as it were, on a remote +mountain-top in far warmer New Hampshire? + +The answer is, they were stranded there at the end of the Glacial +epoch. + +A couple of hundred thousand years ago or thereabouts--don't let us +haggle, I beg of you, over a few casual centuries--the whole of +northern Europe and America was covered from end to end, as everybody +knows, by a sheet of solid ice, like the one which Frithiof Nansen +crossed from sea to sea on his own account in Greenland. For many +thousand years, with occasional warmer spells, that vast ice-sheet +brooded, silent and grim, over the face of the two continents. Life was +extinct as far south as the latitude of New York and London. No plant +or animal survived the general freezing. Not a creature broke the +monotony of that endless glacial desert. At last, as the celestial +cycle came round in due season, fresh conditions supervened. Warmer +weather set in, and the ice began to melt. Then the plants and animals +of the sub-glacial district were pushed slowly northward by the warmth +after the retreating ice-cap. As time went on, the climate of the +plains got too hot to hold them. The summer was too much for the +glacial types to endure. They remained only on the highest mountain +peaks or close to the southern limit of eternal snow. In this way, +every isolated range in either continent has its own little colony of +arctic or glacial plants and animals, which still survive by +themselves, unaffected by intercourse with their unknown and +unsuspected fellow-creatures elsewhere. + +Not only has the Glacial epoch left these organic traces of its +existence, however; in some parts of New Hampshire, where the glaciers +were unusually thick and deep, fragments of the primæval ice itself +still remain on the spots where they were originally stranded. Among +the shady glens of the white mountains there occur here and there great +masses of ancient ice, the unmelted remnant of primæval glaciers; and +one of these is so large that an artificial cave has been cleverly +excavated in it, as an attraction for tourists, by the canny Yankee +proprietor. Elsewhere the old ice-blocks are buried under the _débris_ +of moraine-stuff and alluvium, and are only accidentally discovered by +the sinking of what are locally known as ice-wells. No existing +conditions can account for the formation of such solid rocks of ice at +such a depth in the soil. They are essentially glacier-like in origin +and character: they result from the pressure of snow into a crystalline +mass in a mountain valley: and they must have remained there unmelted +ever since the close of the Glacial epoch, which, by Dr. Croll's +calculations, must most probably have ceased to plague our earth some +eighty thousand years ago. Modern America, however, has no respect for +antiquity: and it is at present engaged in using up this palæocrystic +deposit--this belated storehouse of prehistoric ice--in the manufacture +of gin slings and brandy cocktails. + +As one scales a mountain of moderate height--say seven or eight +thousand feet--in a temperate climate, one is sure to be struck by the +gradual diminution as one goes in the size of the trees, till at last +they tail off into mere shrubs and bushes. This diminution--an old +commonplace of tourists--is a marked characteristic of mountain plants, +and it depends, of course, in the main upon the effect of cold, and of +the wind in winter. Cold, however, is by far the more potent factor of +the two, though it is the least often insisted upon: and this can be +seen in a moment by anyone who remembers that trees shade off in just +the self-same manner near the southern limit of permanent snow in the +Arctic regions. And the way the cold acts is simply this: it nips off +the young buds in spring in exposed situations, as the chilly +sea-breeze does with coast plants, which, as we commonly but +incorrectly say, are "blown sideways" from seaward. + +Of course, the lower down one gets, and the nearer to the soil, the +warmer the layer of air becomes, both because there is greater +radiation, and because one can secure a little more shelter. So, very +far north, and very near the snow-line on mountains, you always find +the vegetation runs low and stunted. It takes advantage of every crack, +every cranny in the rocks, every sunny little nook, every jutting point +or wee promontory of shelter. And as the mountain plants have been +accustomed for ages to the strenuous conditions of such cold and +wind-swept situations, they have ended, of course, by adapting +themselves to that station in life to which it has pleased the powers +that be to call them. They grow quite naturally low and stumpy and +rosette-shaped: they are compact of form and very hard of fibre: they +present no surface of resistance to the wind in any way; rounded and +boss-like, they seldom rise above the level of the rooks and stones, +whose interstices they occupy. It is this combination of characters +that makes mountain plants such favourites with florists: for they +possess of themselves that close-grown habit and that rich profusion of +clustered flowers which it is the grand object of the gardener by +artificial selection to produce and encourage. + +When one talks of the 'the limit of trees' on a mountain side, however, +it must be remembered that the phrase is used in a strictly human or +Pickwickian sense, and that it is only the size, not the type, of the +vegetation that is really in question. For trees exist even on the +highest hill-tops: only they have accommodated themselves to the +exigencies of the situation. Smaller and ever smaller species have been +developed by natural selection to suit the peculiarities of these +inclement spots. Take, for example, the willow and poplar group. Nobody +would deny that a weeping willow by an English river, or a Lombardy +poplar in an Italian avenue, was as much of a true tree as an oak or a +chestnut. But as one mounts towards the bare and wind-swept mountain +heights one finds that the willows begin to grow downward gradually. +The 'netted willow' of the Alps and Pyrenees, which shelters itself +under the lee of little jutting rocks, attains the height of only a few +inches; while the 'herbaceous willow,' common on all very high +mountains in Western Europe, is a tiny creeping weed, which nobody +would ever take for a forest tree by origin at all, unless he happened +to see it in the catkin-bearing stage, when its true nature and history +would become at once apparent to him. + +Yet this little herb-like willow, one of the most northerly and hardy +of European plants, is a true tree at heart none the less for all that. +Soft and succulent as it looks in branch and leaf, you may yet count on +it sometimes as many rings of annual growth as on a lordly Scotch +fir-tree. But where? Why, underground. For see how cunning it is, this +little stunted descendant of proud forest lords: hard-pressed by +nature, it has learnt to make the best of its difficult and precarious +position. It has a woody trunk at core, like all other trees; but this +trunk never appears above the level of the soil: it creeps and roots +underground in tortuous zigzags between the crags and boulders that lie +strewn through its thin sheet of upland leaf-mould. By this simple plan +the willow manages to get protection in winter, on the same principle +as when we human gardeners lay down the stems of vines: only the willow +remains laid down all the year and always. But in summer it sends up +its short-lived herbaceous branches, covered with tiny green leaves, +and ending at last in a single silky catkin. Yet between the great +weeping willow and this last degraded mountain representative of the +same primitive type, you can trace in Europe alone at least a dozen +distinct intermediate forms, all well marked in their differences, and +all progressively dwarfed by long stress of unfavourable conditions. + +From the combination of such unfavourable conditions in Arctic +countries and under the snow-line of mountains there results a curious +fact, already hinted at above, that the coldest floras are also, from +the purely human point of view, the most beautiful. Not, of course, the +most luxuriant: for lush richness of foliage and 'breadth of tropic +shade' (to quote a noble lord) one must go, as everyone knows, to the +equatorial regions. But, contrary to the common opinion, the tropics, +hoary shams, are not remarkable for the abundance or beauty of their +flowers. Quite otherwise, indeed: an unrelieved green strikes the +keynote of equatorial forests. This is my own experience, and it is +borne out (which is far more important) by Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, +who has seen a wider range of the untouched tropics, in all four +hemispheres--northern, southern, eastern, western--than any other man, +I suppose, that ever lived on this planet. And Mr. Wallace is firm in +his conviction that the tropics in this respect are a complete fraud. +Bright flowers are there quite conspicuously absent. It is rather in +the cold and less favoured regions of the world that one must look for +fine floral displays and bright masses of colour. Close up to the +snow-line the wealth of flowers is always the greatest. + +In order to understand this apparent paradox one must remember that the +highest type of flowers, from the point of view of organisation, is not +at the same time by any means the most beautiful. On the contrary, +plants with very little special adaptation to any particular insect, +like the water-lilies and the poppies, are obliged to flaunt forth in +very brilliant hues, and to run to very large sizes in order to attract +the attention of a great number of visitors, one or other of whom may +casually fertilise them; while plants with very special adaptations, +like the sage and mint group, or the little English orchids, are so +cunningly arranged that they can't fail of fertilisation at the very +first visit, which of course enables them to a great extent to dispense +with the aid of big or brilliant petals. So that, where the struggle +for life is fiercest, and adaptation most perfect, the flora will on +the whole be not most, but least, conspicuous in the matter of very +handsome flowers. + +Now, the struggle for life is fiercest, and the wealth of nature is +greatest, one need hardly say, in tropical climates. There alone do we +find every inch of soil 'encumbered by its waste fertility,' as Comus +puts it; weighed down by luxuriant growth of tree, shrub, herb, +creeper. There alone do lizards lurk in every hole; beetles dwell +manifold in every cranny; butterflies flock thick in every grove; bees, +ants, and flies swarm by myriads on every sun-smitten hillside. +Accordingly, in the tropics, adaptation reaches its highest point; and +tangled richness, not beauty of colour, becomes the dominant note of +the equatorial forests. Now and then, to be sure, as you wander through +Brazilian or Malayan woods, you may light upon some bright tree clad in +scarlet bloom, or some glorious orchid drooping pendant from a bough +with long sprays of beauty: but such sights are infrequent. Green, and +green, and ever green again--that is the general feeling of the +equatorial forest: as different as possible from the rich mosaic of a +high alp in early June, or a Scotch hillside deep in golden gorse and +purple heather in broad August sunshine. + +In very cold countries, on the other hand, though the conditions are +severe, the struggle for existence is not really so hard, because, in +one word, there are fewer competitors. The field is less occupied; life +is less rich, less varied, less self-strangling. And therefore +specialisation hasn't gone nearly so far in cold latitudes or +altitudes. Lower and simpler types everywhere occupy the soil; mosses, +matted flowers, small beetles, dwarf butterflies. Nature is less +luxuriant, yet in some ways more beautiful. As we rise on the mountains +the forest trees disappear, and with them the forest beasts, from bears +to squirrels; a low, wind-swept vegetation succeeds, very poor in +species, and stunted in growth, but making a floor of rich flowers +almost unknown elsewhere. The humble butterflies and beetles of the +chillier elevation produce in the result more beautiful bloom than the +highly developed honey-seekers of the richer and warmer lowlands. +Luxuriance is atoned for by a Turkey carpet of floral magnificence. + +How, then, has the world at large fallen into the pardonable error of +believing tropical nature to be so rich in colouring, and circumpolar +nature to be so dingy and unlovable? Simply thus, I believe. The +tropics embrace the largest land areas in the world, and are richer by +a thousand times in species of plants and animals than all the rest of +the earth in a lump put together. That richness necessarily results +from the fierceness of the competition. Now among this enormous mass of +tropical plants it naturally happens that some have finer flowers than +any temperate species; while as to the animals and birds, they are +undoubtedly, on the whole, both larger and handsomer than the fauna of +colder climates. But in the general aspect of tropical nature an +occasional bright flower or brilliant parrot counts for very little +among the mass of lush green which surrounds and conceals it. On the +other hand, in our museums and conservatories we sedulously pick out +the rarest and most beautiful of these rare and beautiful species, and +we isolate them completely from their natural surroundings. The +consequence is that the untravelled mind regards the tropics mentally +as a sort of perpetual replica of the hot-houses at Kew, superimposed +on the best of Mr. Bull's orchid shows. As a matter of fact, people who +know the hot world well can tell you that the average tropical woodland +is much more like the dark shade of Box Hill or the deepest glades of +the Black Forest. For really fine floral display in the mass, all at +once, you must go, not to Ceylon, Sumatra, Jamaica, but to the far +north of Canada, the Bernese Oberland, the moors of Inverness-shire, +the North Cape of Norway. Flowers are loveliest where the climate is +coldest; forests are greenest, most luxuriant, least blossoming, where +the conditions of life are richest, warmest, fiercest. In one word, +High Life is always poor but beautiful. + + + + + EIGHT-LEGGED FRIENDS. + +A singular opportunity was afforded me last summer for making myself +thoroughly at home with the habits and manners of the common English +geometrical spider. By the pure chance of circumstance, two ladies of +that intelligent and interesting species were kind enough to select for +their temporary residence a large pane of glass just outside my +drawing-room window. Now, it so happened that this particular pane was +constructed not to open, being, in fact, part of a big bow-window, the +alternate sashes of which were alone intended for ventilation. Hence it +came to pass that by diligent care I was enabled to preserve my two +eight-legged acquaintances from the devouring broom of the British +housemaid, and to keep them constantly under observation at all times +and seasons during a whole summer. Of course this result was only +obtained by a distinct exercise of despotic authority, for I know those +poor spiders were a constant eyesore in Ellen's sight--the housemaid of +the moment bore the name of Ellen--but I persisted in my prohibition of +any forcible ejectment, and I carried my point in the end in the very +teeth of that constituted domestic authority. So successful was I, +indeed, that when at last we flitted southwards ourselves with the +swallows on our annual migration to the Mediterranean shores, we left +Lucy and Eliza--those were the names we had given them--in undisturbed +possession of their prescriptive rights in the drawing-room windows. +This year they are gone, and our home is left spiderless. + +They were curious and uninviting pets, I'm bound to admit, those great +juicy-looking creatures. Nobody could say that any form of spider is +precisely what our Italian friends prettily describe in their liquid +way as _simpatico_. At times, indeed, the conduct of Lucy and Eliza was +so peculiarly horrible and blood-curdling in its atrocity, that even I, +their best friend, who had so often interceded for their lives and +saved them from the devastating duster of the aggressive +housemaid--even I myself, I say, more than once debated in my own mind +whether I was justified in letting them go on any longer in their +career of crime unchecked, or whether I ought not rather to rush out at +once, avenging rag in hand, and sweep them away at one fell swoop from +the surface of a world they disgraced with their unbridled wickedness. +Eliza, in particular, I'm constrained to allow, was a perfect monster +of vice--a sort of undeveloped arachnid Borgia, quick to slay and +relentless in pursuit; a mass of eight-legged sins, stained with the +colourless gore of ten thousand struggling victims, and absolutely +without a single redeeming point in her hateful character. And yet, +whenever any more than usually horrible massacre of some pretty and +innocent fly almost moved me in my righteous wrath to rush out into the +garden in hot haste and put an end at once to the cruel wretch's +existence with a judicial antimacassar, a number of moral scruples, +such as could only be adequately resolved by the editor of the +_Spectator_, always occurred spontaneously to my mind and conscience +just in time to ensure that wicked Eliza a fresh spell of life in which +to continue unabashed her atrocious behaviour. + +Has man, I asked myself at such moments, mere human man, any right to +set himself up in the place of earthly providence, as so much better +and more moral than insentient nature? If the spider cruelly devours +living flies and intelligent or highly sensitive bees, we must at least +remember that she has no choice in the matter, and that, as the poet +justly remarks, ''tis her nature to.' But then, on the other hand, it +might be plausibly argued that 'tis our nature equally to kill the +creature that we see so hatefully fulfilling the law of its own cruel +being. And yet again it might be pleaded by any able counsel who +undertook the defence of Lucy or Eliza on her trial for her life +against her human accusers, that she was impelled to all these evil +deeds by maternal affection, one of the noblest and most unselfish of +animal instincts. Moreover, if the spider didn't prey, it would +obviously die; and it seems rather hard on any creature to condemn it +to death for no better reason than because it happens to have been born +a member of its own kind, and not of any other and less morally +objectionable species. Jedburgh justice o£ that sort rather savours of +the method pursued by the famous countryman who was found cutting a +harmless amphibian into a hundred pieces with his murderous spade, and +saying spitefully as he did so, at every particularly savage cut: 'I'll +larn ye to be a twoad, I will; I'll larn ye to be a twoad!' + +Nevertheless, in spite of all this my vaunted philosophy, I will +frankly confess that more than once Eliza and Lucy sorely tried my +patience, and that I was often a good deal better than half-minded in +my soul to rush out in a feverish fit of moral indignation and put an +end to their ghastly career of crime without waiting to hear what they +had to say in their own favour, showing cause why sentence of death +should not be executed upon them. And I would have done it, I believe, +had it not been for that peculiar arrangement of the drawing-room +windows, which made it impossible to get at the culprits direct, +without going out into the garden and round the house; which, of +course, is a severe strain in wet or windy weather to put upon +anybody's moral enthusiasm. In the end, therefore, I always gave the +evil-doers the benefit of the doubt; and I only mention my ethical +scruples in the matter here lest scoffers should say, when they come to +read what manner of things Lucy and Eliza did: 'Oh yes, that's just +like those scientific folks; they're always so cold-blooded. He could +stand by and see these poor helpless flies tortured slowly to death, +without a chance for their lives, and never put out a helping hand to +save them!' Well, I would only ask you one question, my sapient friend, +who talk like that: Has it ever occurred to you that, if you kill one +spider, you merely make room in the overflowing economy of nature for +another to pick up a dishonest livelihood? Have you ever reflected that +the prime blame of spiderhood rests with Nature herself (if we may +venture to personify that impersonal entity); and that she has provided +such a constant supply or relay of spiders as will amply suffice to +fill up all the possible vacancies that can ever occur in insect-eating +circles? Unless you have considered all these points carefully, and +have an answer to give about them, you are not in a position to +pronounce upon the subject, and you had better be referred for six +months longer, as the medical examiners gracefully put it, to your +ethical, psychological, and biological studies. The great point about +the position in which Eliza and Lucy had placed themselves was simply +this. They stood full against the light, so that we could see right +through their translucent bodies, which were almost liquid to look +upon, and beautifully dappled with dark spots on a grey ground in a +very pretty and effective pattern. So favourable was the opportunity +for observation, indeed, that we could clearly make out with the naked +eye even the joints of their legs, the hairs on their tarsi--excuse the +phrase--and the very shape of their cruel tigerlike claws, as they +rushed forth upon their prey in a sort of carnivorous frenzy. At all +hours of the day we could notice exactly what they were doing or +suffering; and so familiar did we become with them individually and +personally, that before the end of the season we recognized in detail +all the differences of their characters almost as one might do with +cats or dogs, and spoke of them by their Christian names like old and +well-known acquaintances. + +As the webs which Lucy and Eliza spun were several times broken or +mutilated during the year, either by accident or the gardener, we had +plenty of chances for seeing how they proceeded in making them. The +lines were in both cases stretched between a white rose-bush that +climbed up one side of the window, and a purple clematis that occupied +and draped the opposite mullion. But Lucy and Eliza didn't live in the +webs--those were only their snares or traps for prey; each of them had +in addition a private home or apartment of her own under shelter of a +rose-leaf at some distance from the treacherous geometrical structure. +The house itself consisted merely of a silken cell, built out from the +rose-leaf, and connected with the snare by a single stout cord of very +solid construction. On this cord the spider kept one foot--I had almost +said one hand--constantly fixed. She poised it lightly by her claws, +and whenever an insect got entangled in the web, a subtle electric +message, so to speak, seemed to run along the line to the ever-watchful +carnivore. In one short second Lucy or Eliza, as the case might be, had +darted out upon her quarry, and was tackling it might main, according +to the particular way its size and strength rendered then and there +advisable. The method of procedure, which I shall describe more fully +by-and-by, differed considerably from case to case, as these very large +and strong spiders have sometimes to deal with mere tiny midges, and +sometimes with extremely big and dangerous creatures, like bumble-bees, +wasps, and even hornets. + +In building their webs, as in many other small points, Lucy and Eliza +showed from the first no inconsiderable personal differences. Lucy +began hers by spinning a long line from her spinnerets, and letting the +wind carry it wherever it would; while Eliza, more architectural in +character, preferred to take her lines personally from point to point, +and see herself to their proper fastening. In either case, however, the +first thing done was to stretch some eight or ten stout threads from +place to place on the outside of the future web, to act as _points +d'appuy_ for the remainder of the structure. To these outer threads, +which the spiders strengthened so as to bear a considerable strain by +doubling and trebling them, other thinner single threads were then +carried radially at irregular distances, like the spokes of a wheel, +from a point in the centre, where they were all made fast and connected +together. As soon as this radiating framework or scaffolding was +finished, like the woof on a loom, the industrious craftswoman started +at the middle, and began the task of putting in the cross-pieces or +weft which were to complete and bind together the circular pattern. +These she wove round and round in a continuous spiral, setting out at +the centre, and keeping on in ever-widening circlets, till she arrived +at last at the exterior or foundation threads. How she fastened these +cross-pieces to the ray-lines I could never quite make out, though I +often followed the work closely from inside through the pane of glass +with a platyscopic lens; for, strange to say, the spiders were not in +the least disturbed by being watched at their work, and never took the +slightest notice of anything that went on at the other side of the +window. My impression is, however, that she gummed them together, +letting them harden into one as they dried; for the thread itself is +always semi-liquid when first exuded. + +The cross-pieces, we observed from the very beginning, were invariably +covered by little sparkling drops of something wet and beadlike, which +at first in our ignorance we took for dew; for until I began +systematically observing Lucy and Eliza, I will frankly confess I had +never paid any particular attention to the spider-kind with the +solitary exception of my old winter friends, the trap-door spiders of +the Mediterranean shores. But, after a little experience, we soon found +out that these pearly drops on the web were not dew at all, but a +sticky substance, akin, to that of the web, secreted by the animals +themselves from their own bodies. We also quickly discovered, coming to +the observation as we did with minds unbiased by previous knowledge, +that the viscid liquid in question was of the utmost importance to the +spiders in securing their prey, and that unfortunate insects were not +merely entangled but likewise gummed down or glued by it, like birds in +bird-lime or flies in treacle. So necessary is the sticky stuff, +indeed, to the success of the trap, that Lucy and Eliza used to renew +the entire set of cross-pieces in the web every morning, and thus +ensure from day to day a perfectly fresh supply of viscid fluid; but, +so far as I could see, they only renewed the rays and the +foundation-threads under stress of necessity, when the snare had been +so greatly injured by large insects struggling in it, or by the wind or +the gardener, as to render repairs absolutely unavoidable. The whole +structure, when complete, is so beautiful and wonderful a sight, with +its geometrical regularity and its beaded drops, that if it were +produced by a rare creature from Madagascar or the Cape, in the +insect-house at the Zoo, all the world, I'm convinced, would rush to +look at it as a nine-days' wonder. But since it's only the trap of the +common English garden spider, why, we all pass it by without deigning +even to glance at it. + +At night my eight-legged friends slept always in their own homes or +nests under shelter of the rose-leaves. But during the day they +alternated between the nest and the centre of the web, which last +seemed to serve them as a convenient station where they waited for +their prey, standing head downward with legs wide spread on the rays, +on the look-out for incidents. Whether at the centre or in the nest, +however, they kept their feet constantly on the watch for any +disturbance on the webs; and the instant any unhappy little fly got +entangled in their meshes, the ever-watchful spider was out like a +flash of lightning, and down at once in full force upon that incautious +intruder. I was convinced after many observations that it is by touch +alone the spider recognizes the presence of prey in its web, and that +it hardly derives any indications worth speaking of from its numerous +little eyes, at least as regards the arrival of booty. If a very big +insect has got into the web, then a relatively large volume of +disturbance is propagated along the telegraphic wire that runs from the +snare to the house, or from the circumference to the centre; if a small +one, then a slight disturbance; and the spider rushes out accordingly, +either with an air of caution or of ferocious triumph. + +Supposing the booty in hand was a tiny fly, then Lucy or Eliza would +jump upon it at once with that strange access of apparently personal +animosity with seems in some mysterious way a characteristic of all +hunting carnivorous animals. She would then carelessly wind a thread or +two about it, in a perfunctory way, bury her jaws in its body, and in +less than half a minute suck out its juices to the last drop, leaving +the empty shell unhurt, like a dry skeleton or the slough of a +dragon-fly larva. But when wasps or other large and dangerous insects +got entangled in the webs, the hunters proceeded with far greater +caution. Lucy, indeed, who was a decided coward, would stand and look +anxiously at the doubtful intruder for several seconds, feeling the web +with her claws, and running up and down in the most undecided manner, +as if in doubt whether or not to tackle the uncertain customer. But +Eliza, whose spirits always rose like Nelson's before the face of +danger, and whose motto seemed to be '_De l'audace, de l'audace, et +toujours de l'audace_,' would rush at the huge foe in a perfect +transport of wild fury, and go to work at once to enclose him in her +toils of triple silken cables. I always fancied, indeed, that Eliza was +in a thoroughly housewifely tantrum at seeing her nice new web so +ruthlessly torn and tattered by the unwelcome visitor, and that she +said to herself in her own language: 'Oh well, then, if you _will_ have +it, you _shall_ have it; so here goes for you.' And go for him she did, +with most unladylike ferocity. Indeed, Eliza's best friend, I must fain +admit, could never have said of her that she was a perfect lady. + +The chawing-up of that wasp was a sight to behold. I have no great +sympathy with wasps--they have done me so many bad turns in my time +that I don't pretend to regard them as deserving of exceptional +pity--but I must say Eliza's way of going at them was unduly barbaric. +She treated them for all the world as if they were entirely devoid of a +nervous system. I wouldn't treat a _Saturday Reviewer_ myself as that +spider treated the wasps when once she was sure of them. She went at +them with a sort of angry, half-contemptuous dash, kept cautiously out +of the way of the protruded sting, began in most business-like fashion +at the head, and rolling the wasp round and round with her legs and +feelers, swathed him rapidly and effectually, with incredible speed, in +a dense network of web poured forth from her spinnerets. In less than +half a minute the astonished wasp, accustomed rather to act on the +offensive than the defensive, found himself helplessly enclosed in a +perfect coil of tangled silk, which confined him from head to sting +without the possibility of movement in any direction. The whole time +this had been going on the victim, struggling and writhing, had been +pushing out its sting and doing the very best it knew to deal the wily +Eliza a poisoned death-blow. But Eliza, taught by ancestral experience, +kept carefully out of the way; and the wasp felt itself finally twirled +round and round in those powerful hands, and tied about as to its wings +by a thousand-fold cable. Sometimes, after the wasp was secured, Eliza +even took the trouble to saw off the wings so as to prevent further +struggling and consequent damage to the precious web; but more often +she merely proceeded to eat it alive without further formality, still +avoiding its sting as long as the creature had a kick left in it, but +otherwise entirely ignoring its character as a sentient being in the +most inhuman fashion. And all the time, till the last drop of his blood +was sucked out, the wasp would continue viciously to stick out his +deadly sting, which the spider would still avoid with hereditary +cunning. It was a horrid sight--a duel _à outrance_ between two equally +hateful and poisonous opponents; a living commentary on the appalling +but o'er-true words of the poet, that 'Nature is one with rapine, a +harm no preacher can heal.' Though these were the occasions when one +sometimes felt as if the cup of Eliza's iniquities was really full, and +one must pass sentence at last, without respite or reprieve, upon that +life-long murderess. + +One insect there was, however, before which even Eliza herself, +hardened wretch as she seemed, used to cower and shiver; and that was +the great black bumble-bee, the largest and most powerful of the +British bee-kind. When one of these dangerous monsters, a burly, +buzzing bourgeois, got entangled in her web, Eliza, shaking in her +shoes (I allow her those shoes by poetical licence) would retire in +high dudgeon to her inmost bower, and there would sit and sulk, in +visible bad temper, till the clumsy big thing, after many futile +efforts, had torn its way by main force out of the coils that +surrounded it. Then, the moment the telegraphic communication told her +the lines in the web were once more free, Eliza would sally forth again +with a smiling face--oh yes, I assure you, we could tell by her look +when she was smiling--and would repair afresh with cheerful alacrity +the damage done to her snare by the unwelcome visitor. Hummingbird +hawk-moths, on the other hand, though so big and quick, she would kill +immediately. As for Lucy, craven soul, she had so little sense of +proper pride and arachnid honour, that she shrank even from the wasps +which Eliza so bravely and unhesitatingly tackled; and more than once +we caught her in the very act of cutting them out entire, with the +whole piece of web in which they were immeshed, and letting them drop +on to the ground beneath, merely as a short way of getting rid of them +from her premises. I always rather despised Lucy. She hadn't even the +one redeeming virtue of most carnivorous or predatory races--an +insensate and almost automatic courage. + +I need hardly say, however, that the spider does not kill her prey by a +mere fair-and-square bite alone. She has recourse to the art of the +Palmers and Brinvilliers. All spiders, as far as known, are provided +with poison-fangs in the jaws, which sometimes, as in the tarantula and +many other large tropical kinds, well known to me in Jamaica and +elsewhere, are sufficiently powerful to produce serious effects upon +man himself; while even much smaller spiders, like Eliza and Lucy, have +poison enough in their falces, as the jawlike organs are called, to +kill a good big insect, such as a wasp or a bumble-bee. These +channelled poison-glands, combined with their savage tigerlike claws, +make the spiders as a group extremely formidable and dominant +creatures, the analogues in their own smaller invertebrate world of the +serpents and wolves in the vertebrate creation. + +Lucy and Eliza's family relations, I am sorry to say, were not, we +found, of a kind to endear them to a critical public already +sufficiently scandalized by their general mode of behaviour to their +inoffensive neighbours. As mothers, indeed, gossip itself had not a +word of blame to whisper against them; but as wives, their conduct was +distinctly open to the severest animadversion. The males of the garden +spider, as in many other instances, are decidedly smaller than their +big round mates; so much so is this the case, indeed, in certain +species that they seem almost like parasites of the immensely larger +sack-bodied females. Now, just as the worker bees kill off the drones +as soon as the queen-bee has been duly fertilized, regarding them as of +no further importance or value to the hive, so do the lady-spiders not +only kill but eat their husbands as soon as they find they have no +further use for them. Nay, if a female spider doesn't care for the +looks of a suitor who is pressing himself too much upon her fond +attention, her way of expressing her disapprobation of his appearance +and manners is to make a murderous spring at him, and, if possible, +devour him. Under these painful circumstances the process of courtship +is necessarily to some extent a difficult and delicate one, fraught +with no small danger to the adventurous swain who has the boldness to +commend himself by personal approach to these very fickle and irascible +fair ones. It was most curious and exciting, accordingly, to watch the +details of the strange courtship, which we could only observe in the +case of the cruel Eliza, the rather gentler Lucy having been already +mated, apparently, before she took up her quarters in our climbing +white rose-bush. One day, however, a timid-looking male spider, with +inquiry and doubt in every movement of his tarsi, strolled tentatively +up on the neat round web where Eliza was hanging, head downward as +usual, all her feet on the thread, on the look-out for house-flies. We +knew he was a male at once by his longer and thinner body, and by his +natural modesty. He walked gingerly on all eights, like an arachnid +Agag, in the direction of the object of his ardent affections, with a +most comic uncertainty in every step he took towards her. His claws +felt the threads as he moved with anxious care; and it was clear he was +ready at a moment's notice to jump away and flee for his life with +headlong speed to his native obscurity if Eliza showed the slightest +disposition, by gesture or movement, to turn and rend him. Now and +again, as he approached, Eliza, half coquettish, moved her feet a short +step, and seemed to debate within her own mind in which spirit she +should meet his flattering advances--whether to accept him or to eat +him. At each such hesitation, the unhappy male, fearing the worst, and +sore afraid, would turn on his heel and fly for dear life as fast as +eight trembling legs would carry him. Then, after a minute or two, he +would evidently come to the conclusion that he had wronged his +lady-love, and that her movement was one of true, true love rather than +of carnivorous and cannibalistic appetite. At last, as I judged, his +constancy was rewarded, though his ominous disappearance very shortly +afterwards made me fear for the worst as to his final adventures. + +In the end, Eliza laid a large number of eggs in a silken cocoon, in +shape a balloon, and secreted, like the web, by her invaluable +spinnerets. Indeed, the real reason--I won't say excuse--for the +rapacity and Gargantuan appetite of the spider lies, no doubt, in the +immense amount of material she has to supply for her daily-renewed +webs, her home, and her cocoon, all which have actually to be spun out +of the assimilated food-stuffs in her own body; to say nothing of the +additional necessity imposed upon her by nature for laying a trifle of +six or seven hundred eggs in a single summer. And, to tell the truth, +Lucy and Eliza seemed to us to be always eating. No matter at what hour +one looked in upon them, they were pretty constantly engaged in +devouring some inoffensive fly, or weaving hateful labyrinths of hasty +cord round some fiercely-struggling wasp or some unhappy beetle. + +We weren't fortunate enough, I regret to say, to see Eliza's eggs hatch +out from the cocoon; but in other instances, especially in Southern +Europe, I have noticed the little heap of well-covered ova, glued +together into a mass, and attached to a branch or twig by stout silken +cables. If you open the cocoon when the young spiders are just hatched, +they begin to run about in the most lively fashion, and look like a +living and moving congeries of little balls or seedlets. The common +garden spider lays some seven hundred or more such eggs at a sitting, +and out of those seven hundred only two on an average reach maturity +and once more propagate their kind. For if only four lived and throve, +then clearly, in the next generation, there would be twice as many +spiders as in this; and in the generation after that again, four times +as many; and then eight times; and so on _ad infinitum_, until the +whole world was just one living and seething mass of common garden +spiders. + +What keeps them down, then, in the end to their average number? What +prevents the development of the whole seven hundred? The simple answer +is, continuous starvation. As usual, nature works with cruel +lavishness. There are just as many spiders at any given minute as there +are insects enough in the world or in their area to feed upon. Every +spider lays hundreds of eggs, so as to make up for the average infant +mortality by starvation, or by the attacks of ichneumon flies, or by +being eaten themselves in the young stage, or by other casualties. And +so with all other species. Each produces as many young on the average +as will allow for the ordinary infant mortality of their kind, and +leave enough over just to replace the parents in the next generation. +And that's one of the reasons why it's no use punishing Lucy and Eliza +for their misdeeds in this world. Kill them off if you will, and before +next week a dozen more like them will dispute with one another the +vacant place you have thus created in the balanced economy of that +microcosm the garden. + +Our observations upon Lucy and Eliza, however, had the effect of making +us take an increased interest thenceforth in spiders in general, which +till that time we had treated with scant courtesy, and set us about +learning something as to the extraordinary variety of life and habit to +be found within the range of this single group of arthropods, at first +sight so extremely alike in their shapes, their appearance, their +morals, and their manners. It's perfectly astonishing, though, when one +comes to look into it in detail, how exceedingly diverse spiders are in +their mode of life, their structure, and the variety of uses to which +they put their one extremely distinctive structural organ, the +spinnerets. I will only say here that some spiders use these peculiar +glands to form light webs by whose aid, though wingless, they float +balloon-wise through the air; that others employ them to line the sides +of their underground tunnels, and to make the basis of their +marvellously ingenious earthen trap-doors; that yet others have learnt +how to adapt these same organs to a subaquatic existence, and to fill +cocoons with air, like miniature diving bells; while others, again, +have taught themselves to construct webs thick enough to catch and hold +even creatures so superior to themselves in the scale of being as +humming-birds and sunbirds. This extraordinary variety in the +utilization of a single organ teaches once more the same lesson which +is impressed upon us elsewhere by so many other forms of organic +evolution: whatever enables an animal or plant to gain an advantage +over others in the struggle for life, no matter in what way, is sure to +survive, and to be turned in time to every conceivable use of which its +structure is capable, in the infinite whirligig of ever-varying nature. + + + + + MUD. + +Even a prejudiced observer will readily admit that the most valuable +mineral on earth is mud. Diamonds and rubies are just nowhere by +comparison. I don't mean weight for weight, of course--mud is 'cheap as +dirt,' to buy in small quantities--but aggregate for aggregate. Quite +literally, and without hocus-pocus of any sort, the money valuation of +the mud in the world must outnumber many thousand times the money +valuation of all the other minerals put together. Only we reckon it +usually not by the ton, but by the acre, though the acre is worth most +where the mud lies deepest. Nay, more, the world's wealth is wholly +based on mud. Corn, not gold, is the true standard of value. Without +mud there would be no human life, no productions of any kind: for food +stuffs of every description are raised on mud; and where no mud exists, +or can be made to exist, there, we say, there is desert or sand-waste. +Land, without mud, has no economic value. To put it briefly, the only +parts of the world that count much for human habitation are the mud +deposits of the great rivers, and notably of the Nile, the Euphrates, +the Ganges, the Indus, the Irrawaddy, the Hoang Ho, the Yang-tse-Kiang; +of the Po, the Rhone, the Danube, the Rhine, the Volga, the Dnieper; of +the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Orinoco, the +Amazons, the La Plata. A corn-field is just a big mass of mud; and the +deeper and purer and freer from stones or other impurities it is the +better. + +But England, you say, is not a great river-mud field; yet it supports +the densest population in the world. True; but England is an +exceptional product of modern civilization. She can't feed herself: she +is fed from Odessa, Alexandria, Bombay, New York, Montreal, Buenos +Ayres--in other words, from the mud fields of the Russian, the +Egyptian, the Indian, the American, the Canadian, the Argentine rivers. +Orontes, said Juvenal, has flowed into Tiber; Nile, we may say +nowadays, with equal truth, has flowed into Thames. + +There is nothing to make one realize the importance of mud, indeed, +like a journey up Nile when the inundation is just over. You lounge on +the deck of your dahabieh, and drink in geography almost without +knowing it. The voyage forms a perfect introduction to the study of +mudology, and suggests to the observant mind (meaning you and me) the +real nature of mud as nothing else on earth that I know of can suggest +it. For in Egypt you get your phenomenon isolated, as it were, from all +disturbing elements. You have no rainfall to bother you, no local +streams, no complex denudation: the Nile does all, and the Nile does +everything. On either hand stretches away the bare desert, rising up in +grey rocky hills. Down the midst runs the one long line of alluvial +soil--in other words, Nile mud--which alone allows cultivation and life +in that rainless district. The country bases itself absolutely on mud. +The crops are raised on it; the houses and villages are built of it; +the land is manured with it; the very air is full of it. The crude +brick buildings that dissolve in dust are Nile mud solidified; the red +pottery of Assiout is Nile mud baked hard; the village mosques and +minarets are Nile mud whitewashed. I have even seen a ship's bulwarks +neatly repaired with mud. It pervades the whole land, when wet, as mud +undisguised; when dry, as dust-storm. + +Egypt, says Herodotus, is a gift of the Nile. A truer or more pregnant +word was never spoken. Of course it is just equally true, in a way, +that Bengal is a gift of the Ganges, and that Louisiana and Arkansas +are gifts of the Mississippi; but with this difference, that in the +case of the Nile the dependence is far more obvious, far freer from +disturbing or distracting details. For that reason, and also because +the Nile is so much more familiar to most English-speaking folk than +the American rivers, I choose Egypt first as my type of a regular +mud-land. But in order to understand it fully you mustn't stop all your +time in Cairo and the Delta; you mustn't view it only from the terrace +of Shepheard's Hotel or the rocky platform of the Great Pyramid at +Ghizeh: you must push up country early, under Mr. Cook's care, to Luxor +and the First Cataract. It is up country that Egypt unrolls itself +visibly before your eyes in the very process of making: it is there +that the full importance of good, rich black mud first forces itself +upon you by undeniable evidence. + +For remember that, from a point above Berber to the sea, the dwindling +Nile never receives a single tributary, a single drop of fresh water. +For more than fifteen hundred miles the ever-lessening river rolls on +between bare desert hills and spreads fertility over the deep valley in +their midst--just as far as its own mud sheet can cover the barren +rocky bottom, and no farther. For the most part the line of demarcation +between the grey bare desert and the cultivable plain is as clear and +as well-defined as the margin of sea and land: you can stand with one +foot on the barren rock and one on the green soil of the tilled and +irrigated mud-land. For the water rises up to a certain level, and to +that level accordingly it distributes both mud and moisture: above it +comes the arid rock, as destitute of life, as dead and bare and lonely +as the centre of Sahara. In and out, in waving line, up to the base of +the hills, cultivation and greenery follow, with absolute accuracy, the +line of highest flood-level; beyond it the hot rock stretches dreary +and desolate. Here and there islands of sandstone stand out above the +green sea of doura or cotton; here and there a bay of fertility runs +away up some lateral valley, following the course of the mud; but one +inch above the inundation-mark vegetation and life stop short all at +once with absolute abruptness. In Egypt, then, more than anywhere else, +one sees with one's own eyes that mud and moisture are the very +conditions of mundane fertility. + +Beyond Cairo, as one descends seaward, the mud begins to open out +fan-wise and form a delta. The narrow mountain ranges no longer hem it +in. It has room to expand and spread itself freely over the surrounding +country, won by degrees from the Mediterranean. At the mouths the mud +pours out into the sea and forms fresh deposits constantly on the +bottom, which are gradually silting up still newer lands to seaward. +Slow as is the progress of this land-forming action, there can be no +doubt that the Nile has the intention of filling up by degrees the +whole eastern Mediterranean, and that in process of time--say in no +more than a few million years or so, a mere bagatelle to the +geologist--with the aid of the Po and some other lesser streams, it +will transform the entire basin of the inland sea into a level and +cultivable plain, like Bengal or Mesopotamia, themselves (as we shall +see) the final result of just such silting action. + +It is so very important, for those who wish to see things "as clear as +mud," to understand this prime principle of the formation of mud-lands, +that I shall make no apology for insisting on it further in some little +detail; for when one comes to look the matter plainly in the face, one +can see in a minute that almost all the big things in human history +have been entirely dependent upon the mud of the great rivers. Thebes +and Memphis, Rameses and Amenhotep, based their civilisation absolutely +upon the mud of Nile. The bricks of Babylon were moulded of Euphrates +mud; the greatness of Nineveh reposed on the silt of the Tigris. Upper +India is the Indus; Agra and Delhi are Ganges and Jumna mud; China is +the Hoang Ho and the Yang-tse-Kiang; Burmah is the paddy field of the +Irrawaddy delta. And so many great plains in either hemisphere consist +really of nothing else but mud-banks of almost incredible extent, +filling up prehistoric Baltics and Mediterraneans, that a glance at the +probable course of future evolution in this respect may help us to +understand and to realize more fully the gigantic scale of some past +accumulations. + +As a preliminary canter I shall trot out first the valley of the Po, +the existing mud flat best known by personal experience to the feet and +eyes of the tweed-clad English tourist. Everybody who has looked down +upon the wide Lombard plain from the pinnacled roof of Milan Cathedral, +or who has passed by rail through that monotonous level of poplars and +vines between Verona and Venice, knows well what a mud flat due to +inundation and gradual silting up of a valley looks like. What I want +to do now is to inquire into its origin, and to follow up in fancy the +same process, still in action, till it has filled the Adriatic from end +to end with one great cultivable lowland. + +Once upon a time (I like to be at least as precise as a fairy tale in +the matter of dates) there was no Lombardy. And that time was not, +geologically speaking, so very remote; for the whole valley of the Po, +from Turin to the sea, consists entirely of alluvial deposits--or, in +other words, of Alpine mud--which has all accumulated where it now lies +at a fairly recent period. We know it is recent, because no part of +Italy has ever been submerged since it began to gather there. To put it +more definitely, the entire mass has almost certainly been laid down +since the first appearance of man on our earth: the earliest human +beings who reached the Alps or the Apennines--black savages clad in +skins of extinct wild beasts--must have looked down from their slopes, +with shaded eyes, not on a level plain such as we see to-day, but on a +great arm of the sea which stretched like a gulf far up towards the +base of the hills about Turin and Rivoli. Of this ancient sea the +Adriatic forms the still unsilted portion. In other words, the great +gulf which now stops short at Trieste and Venice once washed the foot +of the Alps and the Apennines to the Superga at Turin, covering the +sites of Padua, Ferrara, Bologna, Ravenna, Mantua, Cremona, Modena, +Parma, Piacenza, Pavia, Milan, and Novara. The industrious reader who +gets out his Baedeker and looks up the shaded map of North Italy which +forms its frontispiece will be rewarded for his pains by a better +comprehension of the district thus demarcated. The idle must be content +to take my word for what follows. I pledge them my honour that I'll do +my best not to deceive their trustful innocence. + +It may sound at first hearing a strange thing to say so, but the whole +of that vast gulf, from Turin to Venice, has been entirely filled up +within the human period by the mud sheet brought down by mountain +torrents from the Alps and the Apennines. + +A parallel elsewhere will make this easier of belief. You have looked +down, no doubt, from the garden of the hotel at Glion upon the lake of +Geneva and the valley of the Rhone about Villeneuve and Aigle. If so, +you can understand from personal knowledge the first great stage in the +mud-filling process; for you must have observed for yourself from that +commanding height that the lake once extended a great deal farther up +country towards Bex and St. Maurice than it does at present. You can +still trace at once on either side the old mountainous banks, +descending into the plain as abruptly and unmistakably as they still +descend to the water's edge at Montreux and Vevey. But the silt of the +Rhone, brought down in great sheets of glacier mud (about which more +anon) from the Furca and the Jungfrau and the Monte Rosa chain, has +completely filled in the upper nine miles of the old lake basin with a +level mass of fertile alluvium. There is no doubt about the fact: you +can see it for yourself with half an eye from that specular mount (to +give the Devil his due, I quote Milton's Satan): the mud lies even from +bank to bank, raised only a few inches above the level of the lake, and +as lacustrine in effect as the veriest geologist on earth could wish +it. Indeed, the process of filling up still continues unabated at the +present day where the mud-laden Rhone enters the lake at Bouveret, to +leave it again, clear and blue and beautiful, under the bridge at +Geneva. The little delta which the river forms at its mouth shows the +fresh mud in sheets gathering thick upon the bottom. Every day this new +mud-bank pushes out farther and farther into the water, so that in +process of time the whole basin will be filled in, and a level plain, +like that which now spreads from Bex and Aigle to Villeneuve, will +occupy the entire bed from Montreux to Geneva. + +Turn mentally to the upper feeders of the Po itself, and you find the +same causes equally in action. You have stopped at Pallanza--Garoni's +is so comfortable. Well, then, you know how every Alpine stream, as it +flows, full-gorged, into the Italian lakes, is busily engaged in +filling them up as fast as ever it can with turbid mud from the +uplands. The basins of Maggiore, Como, Lugano, and Garda are by origin +deep hollows scooped out long since during the Great Ice Age by the +pressure of huge glaciers that then spread far down into what is now +the poplar-clad plain of Lombardy. But ever since the ice cleared away, +and the torrents began to rush headlong down the deep gorges of the Val +Leventina and the Val Maggia, the mud has been hard at work, doing its +level best to fill those great ice-worn bowls up again. Near the mouth +of each main stream it has already succeeded in spreading a fan-shaped +delta. I will not insult you by asking you at the present time of day +whether you have been over the St. Gothard. In this age of _trains de +luxe_ I know to my cost everybody has been everywhere. No chance of +pretending to superior knowledge about Japan or Honolulu; the tourist +knows them. Very well, then; you must remember as you go past +Bellinzona--revolutionary little Bellinzona with its three castled +crags--you look down upon a vast mud flat by the mouth of the Ticino. +Part of this mud flat is already solid land, but part is mere marsh or +shifting quicksand. That is the first stage in the abolition of the +lakes: the mud is annihilating them. + +Maggiore, indeed, least fortunate of the three main sheets, is being +attacked by the insidious foe at three points simultaneously. At the +upper end, the Ticino, that furious radical river, has filled in a +large arm, which once spread far away up the valley towards Bellinzona. +A little lower down, the Maggia near Locarno carries in a fresh +contribution of mud, which forms another fan-shaped delta, and +stretches its ugly mass half across the lake, compelling the steamers +to make a considerable detour eastward. This delta is rapidly extending +into the open water, and will in time fill in the whole remaining space +from bank to bank, cutting off the upper end of the lake about Locarno +from the main basin by a partition of lowland. This upper end will then +form a separate minor lake, and the Ticino will flow out of it across +the intervening mud flat into the new and smaller Maggiore of our +great-great-grandchildren. If you doubt it, look what the torrent of +the Toce, the third assailing battalion of the persistent mud force, +has already done in the neighbourhood of Pallanza. It has entirely cut +off the upper end of the bay, that turns westward towards the Simplon, +by a partition of mud; and this isolated upper bit forms now in our own +day a separate lake, the Lago di Mergozzo, divided from the main sheet +by an uninteresting mud bank. In process of time, no doubt, the whole +of Maggiore will be similarly filled in by the advancing mud sheet, and +will become a level alluvial plain, surrounded by mountains, and +greatly admired by the astute Piedmontese cultivator. + +What is going on in Maggiore is going on equally in all the other +sub-Alpine lakes of the Po valley. They are being gradually filled in, +every one of them, by the aggressive mud sheet. The upper end of +Lugano, for example, has already been cut off, as the Lago del Piano, +from the main body; and the _piano_ itself, from which the little +isolated tarn takes its name, is the alluvial mud fiat of a lateral +torrent--the mud flat, in fact, which the railway from Porlezza +traverses for twenty minutes before it begins its steep and picturesque +climb by successive zigzags over the mountains to Menaggio. Similarly +the influx of the Adda at the upper end of Como has cut off the Lago di +Mezzola from the main lake, and has formed the alluvial level that +stretches so drearily all around Colico. Slowly the mud fiend +encroaches everywhere on the lakes; and if you look for him when you +go, there you can see him actually at work every spring under your very +eyes, piling up fresh banks and deltas with alarming industry, and +preparing (in a few hundred thousand years) to ruin the tourist trade +of Cadenabbia and Bellagio. + +If we turn from the lakes themselves to the Lombard plain at large, +which is an immensely older and larger basin, we see traces of the same +action on a vastly greater scale. A glance at the map will show the +intelligent and ever courteous reader that the 'wandering Po'--I drop +into poetry after Goldsmith--flows much nearer the foot of the +Apennines than of the Alps in the course of its divagations, and seems +purposely to bend away from the greater range of mountains. Why is +this, since everything in nature must needs have a reason? Well, it is +because, when the mud first began to accumulate in the old Lombard bay +of the Adriatic, there was no Po at all, whether wandering or +otherwise: the big river has slowly grown up in time by the union of +the lateral torrents that pour down from either side, as the growth of +the mud flat brought them gradually together. Careful study of a good +map will show how this has happened, especially if it has the plains +and mountains distinctively tinted after the excellent German fashion. +The Ticino, the Adda, the Mincio, if you look at them close, reveal +themselves as tributaries of the Po, which once flowed separately into +the Lombard bay; the Adige, the Piave, the Tagliamento farther along +the coast, reveal themselves equally as tributaries of the future Po, +when once the great river shall have filled up with its mud the space +between Trieste and Venice, though for the moment they empty themselves +and their store of detritus into the open Adriatic. + +Fix your eyes for a moment on Venetia proper, and you will see how this +has all happened and is still happening. Each mountain torrent that +leaps from the Tyrolese Alps bring down in its lap a rich mass of mud, +which has gradually spread over a strip of sea some forty or fifty +miles wide, from the base of the mountains to the modern coast-line of +the province. Near the sea--or, in other words, at the temporary +outlet--it forms banks and lagoons, of which those about Venice are the +best known to tourists, though the least characteristic. For miles and +miles between Venice and Trieste the shifting north shore of the +Adriatic consists of nothing but such accumulating mud banks. Year +after year they push farther seaward, and year after year fresh islets +and shoals grow out into the waves beyond the temporary deltas. In +time, therefore, the gathering mud banks of these Alpine torrents must +join the greater mud bank that runs rapidly seaward at the delta of the +Po. As soon as they do so the rivers must rush together, and what was +once an independent stream, emptying itself into the Adriatic, must +become a tributary of the Po, helping to swell the waters of that great +united river. The Adige has now just reached this state: its delta is +continuous with the delta of the Po, and their branches interosculate. +The Mincio and the Adda reached it ages since: the Piave and the +Livenia will not reach it for ages. In Roman days Hatria was still on +the sea: it is now some fifteen miles inland. + +From all this you can gather why the existing Po flows far from the +Alps and nearer the base of the Apennines. The Alpine streams in far +distant days brought down relatively large floods of glacial mud; +formed relatively large deltas in the old Lombard bay; filled up with +relative rapidity their larger half of the basin. The Apennines, less +lofty, and free from glaciers, sent down shorter and smaller torrents, +laden with far less mud, and capable therefore of doing but little +alluvial work for the filling in of the future Lombardy. So the river +was pushed southward by the Alpine deposits of the northern streams, +leaving the great plains of Cisalpine Gaul spread away to the north of +it. + +And this land-making action is ceaseless and continuous. About Venice, +Chioggia, Maestra, Comacchio, the delta of the Po is still spreading +seaward. In the course of ages--if nothing unforeseen occurs meanwhile +to prevent it--the Alpine mud will have filled in the entire Adriatic; +and the Ionian Isles will spring like isolated mountain ridges from the +Adriatic plain, as the Euganean hills--those 'mountains Euganean' where +Shelley 'stood listening to the pæan with which the legioned rocks did +hail the sun's uprise majestical'--spring in our own time from the dead +level of Lombardy. Once they in turn were the Euganean islands, and +even now to the trained eye of the historical observer they stand up +island-like from the vast green plain that spreads flat around them. + +Perhaps it seems to you a rather large order to be asked to believe +that Lombardy and Venetia are nothing more than an outspread sheet of +deep Alpine mud. Well, there is nothing so good for incredulity, don't +you know, as capping the climax. If a man will not swallow an inch of +fact, the best remedy is to make him gulp down an ell of it. And, +indeed, the Lombard plain is but an insignificant mud flat compared +with the vast alluvial plains of Asiatic and American rivers. The +alluvium of the Euphrates, of the Mississippi, of the Hoang Ho, of the +Amazons would take in many Lombardies and half-a-dozen Venetias without +noticing the addition. But I will insist upon only one example--the +rivers of India, which have formed the gigantic deep mud flat of the +Ganges and the Jumna, one of the very biggest on earth, and that +because the Himalayas are the highest and newest mountain chain exposed +to denudation. For, as we saw foreshadowed in the case of the Alps and +Apennines, the bigger the mountains on which we can draw the greater +the resulting mass of alluvium. The Rocky Mountains give rise to the +Missouri (which is the real Mississippi); the Andes give rise to +Amazons and the La Plata; the Himalayas give rise to the Ganges and the +Indus. Great mountain, great river, great resulting mud sheet. + +At a very remote period, so long ago that we cannot reduce it to any +common measure with our modern chronology, the southern table-land of +India--the Deccan, as we call it--formed a great island like Australia, +separated from the continent of Asia by a broad arm of the sea which +occupied what is now the great plain of Bengal, the North-West, and the +Punjaub. This ancient sea washed the foot of the Himalayas, and spread +south thence for 600 miles to the base of the Vindhyas. But the +Himalayas are high and clad with gigantic glaciers. Much ice grinds +much mud on those snow-capped summits. The rivers that flowed from the +Roof of the World carried down vast sheets of alluvium, which formed +fans at their mouths, like the cones still deposited on a far smaller +scale in the Lake of Geneva by little lateral torrents. Gradually the +silt thus brought down accumulated on either side, till the rivers ran +together into two great systems--one westward--the Indus, with its four +great tributaries, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravee, Sutlej; one eastward, the +Ganges, reinforced lower down by the sister streams of the Jumna and +the Brahmapootra. The colossal accumulation of silt thus produced +filled up at last all the great arm of the sea between the two mountain +chains, and joined the Deccan by slow degrees to the continent of Asia. +It is still engaged in filling up the Bay of Bengal on one side by the +detritus of the Ganges, and the Arabian Sea on the other by the +sand-banks of the Indus. + +In the same way, no doubt, the silt of the Thames, the Humber, the +Rhine, and the Meuse tend slowly (bar accidents) to fill up the North +Sea, and anticipate Sir Edward Watkin by throwing a land bridge across +the English Channel. If ever that should happen, then history will have +repeated itself, for it is just so that the Deccan was joined to the +mainland of Asia. + +One question more. Whence comes the mud? The answer is, Mainly from the +detritus of the mountains. There it has two origins. Part of it is +glacial, part of it is leaf-mould. In order to feel we have really got +to the very bottom of the mud problem--and we are nothing if not +thorough--we must examine in brief these two separate origins. + +The glacier mud is of a very simple nature. It is disintegrated rock, +worn small by the enormous millstone of ice that rolls slowly over the +bed, and deposited in part as 'terminal moraine' near the summer +melting-point. It is the quantity of mud thus produced, and borne down +by mountain torrents, that makes the alluvial plains collect so quickly +at their base. The mud flats of the world are in large part the wear +and tear of the eternal hills under the planing action of the eternal +glaciers. + +But let us be just to our friends. A large part is also due to the +industrious earth-worm, whose place in nature Darwin first taught us to +estimate at its proper worth. For there is much detritus and much +first-rate soil even on hills not covered by glaciers. Some of this +takes its origin, it is true, from disintegration by wind or rain, but +much more is caused by the earth-worm in person. That friend of +humanity, so little recognized in his true light, has a habit of +drawing down leaves into his subterranean nest, and there eating them +up, so as to convert their remains into vegetable mould in the form of +worm-casts. This mould, the most precious of soils, gets dissolved +again by the rain, and carried off in solution by the streams to the +sea or the lowlands, where it helps to form the future cultivable area. +At the same time the earthworms secrete an acid, which acts upon the +bare surface of rock beneath, and helps to disintegrate it in +preparation for plant life in unfavourable places. It is probable that +we owe almost more on the whole to these unknown but conscientious and +industrious annelids than even to those 'mills of God' the glaciers, of +which the American poet justly observes that though they grind slowly, +yet they grind exceedingly small. + +In the last resort, then, it is mainly on mud that the life of humanity +in all countries bases itself. Every great plain is the alluvial +deposit of a great river, ultimately derived from a great mountain +chain. The substance consists as a rule of the débris of torrents, +which is often infertile, owing to its stoniness and its purely mineral +character; but wherever it has lain long enough to be covered by +earth-worms with a deep black layer of vegetable mould, there the +resulting soil shows the surprising fruitfulness one gets (for example) +in Lombardy, where twelve crops a year are sometimes taken from the +meadows. Everywhere and always the amount and depth of the mud is the +measure of possible fertility; and even where, as in the Great American +Desert, want of water converts alluvial plains into arid stretches of +sand-waste, the wilderness can be made to blossom like the rose in a +very few years by artificial irrigation. The diversion of the Arkansas +River has spread plenty over a vast sage scrub; the finest crops in the +world are now raised over a tract of country which was once the terror +of the traveller across the wild west of America. + + + + + THE GREENWOOD TREE. + +It is a common, not to say a vulgar error, to believe that trees and +plants grow out of the ground. And of course, having thus begun by +calling it bad names, I will not for a moment insult the intelligence +of my readers by supposing them to share so foolish a delusion. I beg +to state from the outset that I write this article entirely for the +benefit of Other People. You and I, O proverbially Candid and +Intelligent One, it need hardly be said, are better informed. But Other +People fall into such ridiculous blunders that it is just as well to +put them on their guard beforehand against the insidious advance of +false opinions. I have known otherwise good and estimable men, indeed, +who for lack of sound early teaching on this point went to their graves +with a confirmed belief in the terrestrial origin of all earthly +vegetation. They were probably victims of what the Church in its +succinct way describes and denounces as Invincible Ignorance. + +Now, the reason why these deluded creatures supposed trees to grow out +of the ground, instead of out of the air, is probably only because they +saw their roots there. + +Of course, when people see a wallflower rooted in the clefts of some +old church tower, they don't jump at once to the inane conclusion that +it is made of rock--that it derives its nourishment direct from the +solid limestone; nor when they observe a barnacle hanging by its sucker +to a ship's hull, do they imagine it to draw up its food incontinently +from the copper bottom. But when they see that familiar pride of our +country, a British oak, with its great underground buttresses spreading +abroad through the soil in every direction, they infer at once that the +buttresses are there, not--as is really the case--to support it and +uphold it, but to drink in nutriment from the earth beneath, which is +just about as capable of producing oak-wood as the copper plate on the +ship's hull is capable of producing the flesh of a barnacle. Sundry +familiar facts about manuring and watering, to which I will return +later on, give a certain colour of reasonableness, it is true, to this +mistaken inference. But how mistaken it really is for all that, a +single and very familiar little experiment will easily show one. + +Cut down that British oak with your Gladstonian axe; lop him of his +branches; divide him into logs; pile him up into a pyramid; put a match +to his base; in short, make a bonfire of him; and what becomes of +robust majesty? He is reduced to ashes, you say. Ah, yes, but what +proportion of him? Conduct your experiment carefully on a small scale; +dry your wood well, and weigh it before burning; weigh your ash +afterwards, and what will you find? Why, that the solid matter which +remains after the burning is a mere infinitesimal fraction of the total +weight: the greater part has gone off into the air, from whence it +came, as carbonic acid. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes; but air to air, +too, is the rule of nature. + +It may sound startling--to Other People, I mean--but the simple truth +remains, that trees and plants grow out of the atmosphere, not out of +the ground. They are, in fact, solidified air; or to be more strictly +correct, solidified gas--carbonic acid. + +Take an ordinary soda-water syphon, with or without a wine-glassful of +brandy, and empty it till only a few drops remain in the bottom. Then +the bottle is full of gas; and that gas, which will rush out with a +spurt when you press the knob, is the stuff that plants eat--the raw +material of life, both animal and vegetable. The tree grows and lives +by taking in the carbonic acid from the air, and solidifying its +carbon; the animal grows and lives by taking the solidified carbon from +the plant, and converting it once more into carbonic acid. That, in its +ideally simple form, is the Iliad in a nutshell, the core and kernel of +biology. The whole cycle of life is one eternal see-saw. First the +plant collects its carbon compounds from the air in the oxidized state; +it deoxidizes and rebuilds them: and then the animal proceeds to burn +them up by slow combustion within his own body, and to turn them loose +upon the air, once more oxidized. After which the plant starts again on +the same round as before, and the animal also recommences _da capo_. +And so on _ad infinitum_. + +But the point which I want particularly to emphasize here is just this: +that trees and plants don't grow out of the ground at all, as most +people do vainly talk, but directly out of the air; and that when they +die or get consumed, they return once more to the atmosphere from which +they were taken. Trees undeniably eat carbon. + +Of course, therefore, all the ordinary unscientific conceptions of how +plants feed are absolutely erroneous. Vegetable physiology, indeed, got +beyond these conceptions a good hundred years ago. But it usually takes +a hundred years for the world at large to make up its leeway. Trees +don't suck up their nutriment by the roots, they don't derive their +food from the soil, they don't need to be fed, like babies through a +tube, with terrestrial solids. The solitary instance of an orchid hung +up by a string in a conservatory on a piece of bark, ought to be +sufficient at once to dispel for ever this strange illusion--if people +ever thought; but of course they don't think--I mean Other People. The +true mouths and stomachs of plants are not to be found in the roots, +but in the green leaves; their true food is not sucked up from the +soil, but is inhaled through tiny channels from the air; the mass of +their material is carbon, as we can all see visibly to the naked eye +when a log of wood is reduced to charcoal: and that carbon the leaves +themselves drink in, by a thousand small green mouths, from the +atmosphere around them. + +But how about the juice, the sap, the qualities of the soil, the manure +required? is the incredulous cry of Other People. What is the use of +the roots, and especially of the rootlets, if they are not the mouths +and supply-tubes of the plants? Well, I plainly perceive I can get 'no +forrarder,' like the farmer with his claret, till I've answered that +question, provisionally at least; so I will say here at once, without +further ado--the plant requires drink as well as food, and the roots +are the mouths that supply it with water. They also suck up a few other +things as well, which are necessary indeed, but far from forming the +bulk of the nutriment. Many plants, however, don't need any roots at +all, while none can get on without leaves as mouths and stomachs. That +is to say, no true plantlike plants, for some parasitic plants are +practically, to all intents and purposes, animals. To put it briefly, +every plant has one set of aerial mouths to suck in carbon, and many +plants have another set of subterranean mouths as well, to suck up +water and mineral constituents. + +Have you ever grown mustard and cress in the window on a piece of +flannel? If so, that's a capital practical example of the comparative +unimportance of soil, except as a means of supplying moisture. You put +your flannel in a soup-plate by the dining-room window; you keep it +well wet, and you lay the seeds of the cress on top of it. The young +plants, being supplied with water by their roots, and with carbon by +the air around, have all the little they need below, and grow and +thrive in these conditions wonderfully. But if you were to cover them +up with an air-tight glass case, so as to exclude fresh air, they'd +shrivel up at once for want of carbon, which is their solid food, as +water is their liquid. + +The way the plant really eats is little known to gardeners, but very +interesting. All over the lower surface of the green leaf lie scattered +dozens of tiny mouths or apertures, each of them guarded by two small +pursed-up lips which have a ridiculously human appearance when seen +through a simple microscope. When the conditions of air and moisture +are favourable, these lips open visible to admit gases; and then the +tiny mouths suck in carbonic acid in abundance from the air around +then. A series of pipes conveys the gaseous food thus supplied to the +upper surface of the leaf, where the sunlight falls full upon it. Now, +the cells of the leaf contain a peculiar green digestive material, +which I regret to say has no simpler or more cheerful name than +chlorophyll; and where the sunlight plays upon this mysterious +chlorophyll, it severs the oxygen from the carbon in the carbonic acid, +turns the free gas loose upon the atmosphere once more through the tiny +mouths, and retains the severed carbon intact in its own tissues. That +is the whole process of feeding in plants: they eat carbonic acid, +digest it in their leaves, get rid of the oxygen with which it was +formerly combined, and keep the carbon stored up for their own +purposes. + +Life as a whole depends entirely upon this property of chlorophyll; for +every atom of organic matter in your body or mine was originally so +manufactured by sunlight in the leaves of some plant from which, +directly or indirectly, we derive it. + +To be sure, in order to make up the various substances which compose +their tissues--to build up their wood, their leaves, their fruits, +their blossoms--plants require hydrogen, nitrogen, and even small +quantities of oxygen as well; but these various materials are +sufficiently supplied in the water which is taken up by the roots, and +they really contribute very little indeed to the bulk of the tree, +which consists for the most part of almost pure carbon. If you were to +take a thoroughly dry piece of wood, and then drive off from it by heat +these extraneous matters, you would find that the remainder, the pure +charcoal, formed the bulk of the weight, the rest being for the most +part very light and gaseous. Briefly put, plants are mostly carbon and +water, and the carbon which forms their solid part is extracted direct +from the air around them. + +How does it come about then that a careless world in general, and more +especially the happy-go-lucky race of gardeners and farmers in +particular, who have to deal so much with plants in their practical +aspect, always attach so great importance to root, soil, manure, +minerals, and so little to the real gaseous food stuff of which their +crops are, in fact, composed? Why does Hodge, who is so strong on grain +and guano, know absolutely nothing about carbonic acid? That seems at +first sight a difficult question to meet. But I think we can meet it +with a simple analogy. + +Oxygen is an absolute necessary of human life. Even food itself is +hardly so important an element in our daily existence; for Succi, Dr. +Tanner, the prophet Elijah, and other adventurous souls too numerous to +mention, have abundantly shown us that a man can do without food +altogether for forty days at a stretch, while he can't do without +oxygen for a single minute. Cut off his supply of that life-supporting +gas, choke him, or suffocate him, or place him in an atmosphere of pure +carbonic acid, or hold his head in a bucket of water, and he dies at +once. Yet, except in mines or submarine tunnels, nobody ever takes into +account practically this most important factor in human and animal +life. We toil for bread, but we ignore the supply of oxygen. And why? +Simply because oxygen is universally diffused everywhere. It costs +nothing. Only in the Black Hole of Calcutta or in a broken tunnel shaft +do men ever begin to find themselves practically short of that +life-sustaining gas, and then they know the want of it far sooner and +far more sharply than they know the want of food on a shipwreck raft, +or the want of water in the thirsty desert. Yet antiquity never even +heard of oxygen. A prime necessary of life passed unnoticed for ages in +human history, only because there was abundance of it to be had +everywhere. + +Now it isn't quite the same, I admit, with the carbonaceous food of +plants. Carbonic acid isn't quite so universally distributed as oxygen, +nor can every plant always get as much as it wants of it. I shall show +by-and-by that a real struggle for food takes place between plants, +exactly as it takes place between animals; and that certain plants, +like Oliver Twist in the workhouse, never practically get enough to +eat. Still, carbonic acid is present in very large quantities in the +air in most situations, and is freely brought by the wind to all the +open spaces which alone man uses for his crops and his gardening. The +most important element in the food of plants is thus in effect almost +everywhere available, especially from the point of view of the mere +practical everyday human agriculturist. The wind that bloweth where it +listeth brings fresh supplies of carbon on its wings with every breeze +to the mouths and throats of the greedy and eager plants that long to +absorb it. + +It is quite otherwise, however, with the soil and its constituents. +Land, we all know--or if we don't, it isn't the fault of Mr. George and +Mr. A.R. Wallace--land is 'naturally limited in quantity.' Every plant +therefore struggles for a foothold in the soil far more fiercely and +far more tenaciously than it struggles for its share in the free air of +heaven. Your plant is a land-grabber of Rob Roy proclivities; it +believes in a fair fight and no favour. A sufficient supply of food it +almost takes for granted, if only it can once gain a sufficient +ground-space. But other plants are competing with it, tooth and nail +(if plants may be permitted by courtesy those metaphorical adjuncts), +for their share of the soil, like crofters or socialists; every spare +inch of earth is permeated and pervaded with matted fibres; and each is +striving to withdraw from each the small modicum of moisture, mineral +matter, and manure for which all alike are eagerly battling. + +Now, what the plant wants from the soil is three things. First and +foremost it wants support; like all the rest of us it must have its +_pou sto_, its _pied-à-terre_, its _locus standi_. It can't hang aloft, +like Mahomet's coffin, miraculously suspended on an aerial perch +between earth and heaven. Secondly, it wants water, and this it can +take in, as a rule, only or mainly by means of the rootlets, though +there are some peculiar plants which grow (not parasitically) on the +branches of trees, and absorb all the moisture they need by pores on +their surface. And thirdly, it wants small quantities of nitrogenous +matter--in the simpler language of everyday life called manure--as well +as of mineral matter--in the simpler language of everyday life called +ashes. It is mainly the first of these three, support, that the farmer +thinks of when he calculates crops and acreage; for the second, he +depends upon rainfall or irrigation; but the third, manure, he can +supply artificially; and as manure makes a great deal of incidental +difference to some of his crops, especially corn--which requires +abundant phosphates--he is apt to over-estimate vastly its importance +from a theoretical point of view. + +Besides, look at it in another light. Over large areas together, the +conditions of air, climate, and rainfall are practically identical. But +soil differs greatly from place to place. Here it's black; there it's +yellow; here it's rich loam; there it's boggy mould or sandy gravel. +And some soils are better adapted to growing certain plants than +others. Rich lowlands and oolites suit the cereals; red marl produces +wonderful grazing grass; bare uplands are best for gorse and heather. +Hence everything favours for the practical man the mistaken idea that +plants and trees grow mainly out of the soil. His own eyes tell him so; +he sees them growing, he sees the visible result undeniable before his +face; while the real act of feeding off the carbon in the air is wholly +unknown to him, being realizable only by the aid of the microscope, +aided by the most delicate and difficult chemical analysis. + +Nevertheless French chemists have amply proved by actual experiment +that plants can grow and produce excellent results without any aid from +the soil at all. You have only to suspend the seeds freely in the air +by a string, and supply the rootlets of the sprouting seedlings with a +little water, containing in solution small quantities of manure-stuffs, +and the plants will grow as well as on their native heath, or even +better. Indeed, nature has tried the same experiment on a larger scale +in many cases, as with the cliff-side plants that root themselves in +the naked clefts of granite rocks; the tropical orchids that fasten +lightly on the bark of huge forest trees; and the mosses that spread +even over the bare face of hard brick walls, with scarcely a chink or +cranny in which to fasten their minute rootlets. The insect-eating +plants are also interesting examples in their way of the curious means +which nature takes for keeping up the manure supply under trying +circumstances. These uncanny things are all denizens of loose, peaty +soil, where they can root themselves sufficiently for purposes of +foothold and drink, but where the water rapidly washes away all animal +matter. Under such conditions the cunning sundews and the ruthless +pitcher-plants set deceptive honey traps for unsuspecting insects, +which they catch and kill, absorbing and using up the protoplasmic +contents of their bodies, by way of manure, to supply their quota of +nitrogenous material. + +It is the literal fact, then, that plants really eat and live off +carbon, just as truly as sheep eat grass or lions eat antelopes; and +that the green leaves are the mouths and stomachs with which they eat +and digest it. From this it naturally results that the growth and +spread of the leaves must largely depend upon the supply of carbon, as +the growth and fatness of sheep depends upon the supply of pasturage. +Under most circumstances, to be sure, there is carbon enough and to +spare lying about loose for every one of them; but conditions do now +and again occur where we can clearly see the importance of the carbon +supply. Water, for example, contains practically much less carbonic +acid than atmospheric air, especially when the water is stagnant, and +therefore not supplied fresh to the plant from moment to moment. As a +consequence, almost all water-plants have submerged leaves very narrow +and waving, while floating plants, like the water-lilies, have them +large and round, owing to the absence of competition from other kinds +about, which enables them to spread freely in every direction from the +central stalk. Moreover, these leaves, lolling on the water as they do, +have their mouths on the upper instead of the under surface. But the +most remarkable fact of all is that many water plants have two entirely +different types of leaves, one submerged and hair-like, the other +floating and broad or circular. Our own English water-crowfoot, for +example, has the leaves that spring from its stem, below the surface, +divided into endless long waving filaments, which look about in the +water for the stray particles of carbon; but the moment it reaches the +top of its native pond the foliage expands at once into broad lily-like +lobes, that recline on the water like oriental beauties, and absorb +carbon from the air to their heart's content, The one type may be +likened to gills, that similarly catch the dissolved oxygen diffused in +water; the other type may be likened to lungs, that drink in the free +and open air of heaven. + +Equally important to the plant, however, with the supply of carbonic +acid, is the supply of sunshine by whose aid to digest it. The carbon +alone is no good to the tree if it can't get something which will +separate it from the oxygen, locked in close embrace with it. That +thing is sunshine. There is nothing, therefore, for which herbs, trees, +and shrubs compete more eagerly than for their fair share of solar +energy. In their anxiety for this they jostle one another down most +mercilessly, in the native condition, grasses struggling up with their +hollow stems above the prone low herbs, shrubs overtopping the grasses +in turn, and trees once more killing out the overshadowed undershrubs. +One must remember that wherever nature has free play, instead of being +controlled by the hand of man, dense forest covers every acre of ground +where the soil is deep enough; gorse, whins, and heather, or their +equivalents grow wherever the forest fails; and herbs can only hold +their own in the rare intervals where these domineering lords of the +vegetable creation can find no foothold. Meadows or prairies occur +nowhere in nature, except in places where the liability to destructive +fires over wide areas together crushes out forest trees, or else where +goats, bison, deer, and other large herbivores browse them ceaselessly +down in the stage of seedlings. Competition for sunlight is thus even +keener perhaps than competition for foodstuffs. Alike on trees, shrubs, +and herbs, accordingly the arrangement of the leaves is always exactly +calculated so as to allow the largest possible horizontal surface, and +the greatest exposure of the blade to the open sunshine. In trees this +arrangement can often be very well observed, all the leaves being +placed at the extremities of the branches, and forming a great +dome-shaped or umbrella-shaped mass, every part of which stands an even +chance of catching its fair share of carbonic acid and solar energy. + +The shapes of the leaves themselves are also largely due to the same +cause, every leaf being so designed in form and outline as to interfere +as little as possible with the other leaves on the same stem, as +regards supply both of light and of carbonaceous foodstuffs. It is only +in rare cases, like that of the water-lily, that perfectly round leaves +occur, because the conditions are seldom equal all round, and the +incidence of light and the supply of carbon are seldom unlimited. But +wherever leaves rise free and solitary into the air, without mutual +interference, they are always circular, as may be well seen in the +common nasturtium and the English pennywort. On the other hand, among +dense hedgerows and thickets, where the silent, invisible struggle for +life is fierce indeed, and where sunlight and carbonic acid are +intercepted by a thousand competing mouths and arms, the prevailing +types of leaf are extremely cut up and minutely subdivided into small +lace-like fragments. The plant in such cases can't afford material to +fill up the interstices between the veins and ribs which determine its +underlying architectural structure. Often indeed species which grow +under these hard conditions produce leaves which are, as it were, but +skeleton representatives of their large and well filled-out compeers in +the open meadows. + +It is only by bearing vividly in mind this ceaseless and noiseless +struggle between plants for their gaseous food and the sunshine which +enables them to digest it that we can ever fully understand the varying +forms and habits of the vegetable kingdom. To most people, no doubt, it +sounds like pure metaphor to talk of an internecine struggle between +rooted beings which cannot budge one inch from their places, nor fight +with horns, hoofs, or teeth, nor devour one another bodily, nor tread +one another down with ruthless footsteps. But that is only because we +habitually forget that competition is just as really a struggle for +life as open warfare. The men who try against one another for a +clerkship in the City, or a post in a gang of builder's workmen, are +just as surely taking away bread and butter out of their fellows' +mouths for their own advantage, as if they fought for it openly with +fists or six-shooters. The white man who encloses the hunting grounds +of the Indian, and plants them with corn, is just as surely dooming +that Indian to death as if he scalped or tomahawked him. And so too +with the unconscious warfare of plants. The daisy or the plantain that +spreads its rosette of leaves flat against the ground is just as truly +monopolizing a definite space of land as the noble owner of a Highland +deer forest. No blade of grass can spring beneath the shadow of those +tightly pressed little mats of foliage; no fragment of carbon, no ray +of sunshine can ever penetrate below that close fence of living +greenstuff. + +Plants, in fact, compete with one another all round for everything they +stand in need of. They compete for their food--carbonic acid. They +compete for their energy--their fair share of sunlight. They compete +for water, and their foothold in the soil. They compete for the favours +of the insects that fertilize their flowers. They compete for the good +services of the birds or mammals that disseminate their seeds in proper +spots for germination. And how real this competition is we can see in a +moment, if we think of the difficulties of human cultivation. There, +weeds are always battling manfully with our crops or our flowers for +mastery over the field or garden. We are obliged to root up with +ceaseless toil these intrusive competitors, if we wish to enjoy the +kindly fruits of the earth in due season. When we leave a garden to +itself for a few short years, we realize at once what effect the +competition of hardy natives has upon our carefully tended and unstable +exotics. In a very brief time the dahlias and phloxes and lilies have +all disappeared, and in their place the coarse-growing docks and +nettles and thistles have raised their heads aloft to monopolize air +and space and sunshine. + +Exactly the same struggle is always taking place in the fields and +woods and moors around us, and especially in the spots made over to +pure nature. There, the greenwood tree raises its huge umbrella of +foliage to the skies, and allows hardly a ray of sunlight to struggle +through to the low woodland vegetation of orchid or wintergreen +underneath. Where the soil is not deep enough for trees to root +securely, bushes and heathers overgrow the ground, and compete with +their bell-shaped blossoms for the coveted favour of bees and +butterflies. And in open glades, where for some reason or other the +forest fails, tall grasses and other aspiring herbs run up apace +towards the free air of heaven. Elsewhere, creepers struggle up to the +sun over the stems and branches of stronger bushes or trees, which they +often choke and starve by monopolizing at last all the available carbon +and sunlight. And so throughout; the struggle for life goes on just as +ceaselessly and truly among these unconscious combatants as among the +lions and tigers of the tropical jungle, or among the human serfs of +the overstocked market. + +An ounce of example, they say, is worth a pound of precept. So a single +concrete case of a fierce vegetable campaign now actually in progress +over all Northern Europe may help to make my meaning a trifle clearer. +Till very lately the forests of the north were largely composed in +places of the light and airy silver birches. But with the gradual +amelioration of the climate of our continent, which has been going on +for several centuries, the beech, a more southern type of tree, has +begun to spread slowly though surely northward. Now, beeches are greedy +trees, of very dense and compact foliage; nothing else can grow beneath +their thick shade, where once they have gained a foothold; and the +seedlings of the silver birch stand no chance at all in the struggle +for life against the serried leaves of their formidable rivals. The +beech literally eats them out of house and home; and the consequence is +that the thick and ruthless southern tree is at this very moment +gradually superseding over vast tracts of country its more graceful and +beautiful, but far less voracious competitor. + + + + + FISH AS FATHERS. + +Comparatively little is known as yet, even in this age of publicity, +about the domestic arrangements and private life of fishes. Not that +the creatures themselves shun the wiles of the interviewer, or are at +all shy and retiring, as a matter of delicacy, about their family +affairs; on the contrary, they display a striking lack of reticence in +their native element, and are so far from pushing parental affection to +a quixotic extreme that many of them, like the common rabbit +immortalised by Mr. Squeers, 'frequently devour their own offspring.' +But nature herself opposes certain obvious obstacles to the pursuit of +knowledge in the great deep, which render it difficult for the ardent +naturalist, however much he may be so disposed, to carry on his +observations with the same facility as in the case of birds and +quadrupeds. You can't drop in upon most fish, casually, in their own +homes; and when you confine them in aquariums, where your opportunities +of watching them through a sheet of plate-glass are considerably +greater, most of the captives get huffy under the narrow restrictions +of their prison life, and obstinately refuse to rear a brood of +hereditary helots for the mere gratification of your scientific +curiosity. + +Still, by hook and by crook (especially the former), by observation +here and experiment there, naturalists in the end have managed to piece +together a considerable mass of curious and interesting information of +an out-of-the-way sort about the domestic habits and manners of sundry +piscine races. And, indeed, the morals of fish are far more varied and +divergent than the uniform nature of the world they inhabit might lead +an _à priori_ philosopher to imagine. To the eye of the mere casual +observer every fish would seem at first sight to be a mere fish, and to +differ but little in sentiments and ethical culture from all the rest +of his remote cousins. But when one comes to look closer at their +character and antecedents, it becomes evident at once that there is a +deal of unsuspected originality and caprice about sharks and flat-fish. +Instead of conforming throughout to a single plan, as the young, the +gay, the giddy, and the thoughtless are too prone to conclude, fish are +in reality as various and variable in their mode of life as any other +great group in the animal kingdom. Monogamy and polygamy, socialism and +individualism, the patriarchal and matriarchal types of government, the +oviparous and viviparous methods of reproduction, perhaps even the +dissidence of dissent and esoteric Buddhism, all alike are well +represented in one family or another of this extremely eclectic and +philosophically unprejudiced class of animals. + +If you want a perfect model of domestic virtue, for example, where can +you find it in higher perfection than in that exemplary and devoted +father, the common great pipe-fish of the North Atlantic and the +British Seas? This high-principled lophobranch is so careful of its +callow and helpless young that it carries about the unhatched eggs with +him under his own tail, in what scientific ichthyologists pleasantly +describe as a subcaudal pouch or cutaneous receptacle. There they hatch +out in perfect security, free from the dangers that beset the spawn and +fry of so many other less tender-hearted kinds; and as soon as the +little pipe-fish are big enough to look after themselves the sac +divides spontaneously down the middle, and allows them to escape, to +shift for themselves in the broad Atlantic. Even so, however, the +juniors take care always to keep tolerably near that friendly shelter, +and creep back into it again on any threat of danger, exactly as +baby-kangaroos do into their mother's marsupium. The father-fish, in +fact, has gone to the trouble and expense of developing out of his own +tissues a membranous bag, on purpose to hold the eggs and young during +the first stages of their embryonic evolution. This bag is formed by +two folds of the skin, one of which grows out from each side of the +body, the free margins being firmly glued together in the middle by a +natural exudation, while the eggs are undergoing incubation, but +opening once more in the middle to let the little fish out as soon as +the process of hatching is fairly finished. + +So curious a provision for the safety of the young in the pipe-fish may +be compared to some extent, as I hinted above, with the pouch in which +kangaroos and other marsupial animals carry their cubs after birth, +till they have attained an age of complete independence. But the +strangest part of it all is the fact that while in the kangaroo it is +the mother who owns the pouch and takes care of the young, in the +pipe-fish it is the father, on the contrary, who thus specially +provides for the safety of his defenceless offspring. And what is odder +still, this topsy-turvy arrangement (as it seems to us) is the common +rule throughout the class of fishes. For the most part it must be +candidly admitted by their warmest admirer, fish make very bad parents +indeed. They lay their eggs anywhere on a suitable spot, and as soon as +they have once deposited them, like the ostrich in Job, they go on +their way rejoicing, and never bestow another passing thought upon +their deserted progeny. But if ever a fish _does_ take any pains in the +education and social upbringing of its young, you're pretty sure to +find on enquiry it's the father--not as one would naturally expect, the +mother--who devotes his time and attention to the congenial task of +hatching or feeding them. It is he who builds the nest, and sits upon +the eggs, and nurses the young, and imparts moral instruction (with a +snap of his jaw or a swish of his tail) to the bold, the truant, the +cheeky, or the imprudent; while his unnatural spouse, well satisfied +with her own part in having merely brought the helpless eggs into this +world of sorrow, goes off on her own account in the giddy whirl of +society, forgetful of the sacred claims of her wriggling offspring upon +a mother's heart. + +In the pipe-fish family, too, the ardent evolutionist can trace a whole +series of instructive and illustrative gradations in the development of +this instinct and the corresponding pouch-like structure among the male +fish. With the least highly-evolved types, like the long-nosed +pipe-fish of the English Channel, and many allied forms from European +seas, there is no pouch at all, but the father of the family carries +the eggs about with him, glued firmly on to the service of his abdomen +by a natural mucus. In a somewhat more advanced tropical kind, the +ridges of the abdomen are slightly dilated, so as to form an open +groove, which loosely holds the eggs, though its edges do not meet in +the middle as in the great pipe-fish. Then come yet other more +progressive forms, like the great pipe-fish himself, where the folds +meet so as to produce a complete sac, which opens at maturity, to let +out its little inmates. And finally, in the common Mediterranean +sea-horses, which you can pick up by dozens on the Lido at Venice, and +a specimen of which exists in the dried form in every domestic museum, +the pouch is permanently closed by coalescence of the edges, leaving a +narrow opening in front, through which the small hippocampi creep out +one by one as soon as they consider themselves capable of buffeting the +waves of the Adriatic. + +Fish that take much care of their offspring naturally don't need to +produce eggs in the same reckless abundance as those dissipated kinds +that leave their spawn exposed on the bare sandy bottom, at the mercy +of every comer who chooses to take a bite at it. They can afford to lay +a smaller number, and to make each individual egg much larger and +richer in proportion than their rivals. This plan, of course, enables +the young to begin life far better provided with muscles and fins than +the tiny little fry which come out of the eggs of the improvident +species. For example, the cod-fish lays nine million odd eggs; but +anybody who has ever eaten fried cod's-roe must needs have noticed that +each individual ovum was so very small as to be almost indistinguishable +to the naked eye. Thousands of these infinitesimal specks are devoured +before they hatch out by predaceous fish; thousands more of the young +fry are swallowed alive during their helpless infancy by the enemies of +their species. Imagine the very fractional amount of parental affection +which each of the nine million must needs put up with! On the other +hand, there is a paternally-minded group of cat-fish known as the genus +_Arius_, of Ceylon, Australia, and other tropical parts, the males of +which carry about the ova loose in their mouths, or rather in an +enlargement of the pharynx, somewhat resembling the pelican's pouch; +and the spouses of these very devoted sires lay accordingly only very +few ova, all told, but each almost as big as a hedge-sparrow's egg--a +wonderful contrast to the tiny mites of the cod-fish. To put it +briefly, the greater the amount of protection afforded the eggs, the +smaller the number and the larger the size. And conversely, the larger +the size of the egg to start with, the better fitted to begin the +battle of life is the young fish when first turned out on a cold world +upon his own resources. + +This is a general law, indeed, that runs through all nature, from +London slums to the deep sea. Wasteful species produce many young, and +take but little care of them when once produced. Economical species +produce very few young, but start each individual well-equipped for its +place in life and look after them closely till they can take care of +themselves in the struggle for existence. And on the average, however +many or however few the offspring to start with, just enough attain +maturity in the long run to replace their parents in the next +generation. Were it otherwise, the sea would soon become one solid mass +of herring, cod, and mackerel. + +These cat-fish, however, are not the only good fathers that carry their +young (like woodcock) in their own mouths. A freshwater species of the +Sea of Galilee, _Chromis Andreæ_ by name (dedicated by science to the +memory of that fisherman apostle, St. Andrew, who must often have +netted them), has the same habit of hatching out its young in its own +gullet: and here again it is the male fish upon whom this apparently +maternal duty devolves, just as it is the male cassowary that sits upon +the eggs of his unnatural mate, and the male emu that tends the nest, +while the hen bird looks on superciliously and contents herself with +exercising a general friendly supervision of the nursery department. I +may add parenthetically that in most fish families the eggs are +fertilised after they have been laid, instead of before, which no doubt +accounts for the seeming anomaly. + +Still, good mothers too may be found among fish, though far from +frequently. One of the Guiana catfishes, known as Aspredo, very much +resembles her countrywoman the Surinam toad in her nursery +arrangements. Of course you know the Surinam toad--whom not to know +argues yourself unknown--that curious creature that carries her eggs in +little pits on her back, where the young hatch out and pass through +their tadpole stage in a slimy fluid, emerging at last from the cells +of this living honeycomb only when they have attained the full +amphibian honours of four-legged maturity. Well, Aspredo among cat-fish +manages her brood in much the same fashion; only she carries her eggs +beneath her body instead of on her back like her amphibious rival. When +spawning time approaches, and Aspredo's fancy lightly turns to thoughts +of love, the lower side of her trunk begins to assume, by anticipation, +a soft and spongy texture, honeycombed with pits, between which are +arranged little spiky protuberances. After laying her eggs, the mother +lies flat upon them on the river bottom, and presses them into the +spongy skin, where they remain safely attached until they hatch out and +begin to manage for themselves in life. It is curious that the only two +creatures on earth which have hit out independently this original mode +of providing for their offspring should both be citizens of Guiana, +where the rivers and marshes must probably harbour some special danger +to be thus avoided, not found in equal intensity in other fresh waters. + +A prettily marked fish of the Indian Ocean, allied, though not very +closely, to the pipe fishes, has also the distinction of handing over +the young to the care of the mother instead of the father. Its name is +Solenostoma (I regret that no more popular title exists), and it has a +pouch, formed in this case by a pair of long broad fins, within which +the eggs are attached by interlacing threads that push out from the +body. Probably in this instance nutriment is actually provided through +these threads for the use of the embryo, in which case we must regard +the mechanism as very closely analogous indeed to that which obtains +among mammals. + +Some few fish, indeed, are truly viviparous; among them certain +blennies and carps, in which the eggs hatch out entirely within the +body of the mother. One of the most interesting of these divergent +types is the common Californian and Mexican silver-fish, an inhabitant +of the bays and inlets of sub-tropical America. Its chief peculiarity +and title to fame lies in the extreme bigness of its young at birth. +The full-grown fish runs to about ten inches in length, fisherman's +scale, while the fry measure as much as three inches apiece; so that +they lie, as Professor Seeley somewhat forcibly expresses it, 'packed +in the body of the parent as close as herrings in a barrel.' This +strange habit of retaining the eggs till after they have hatched out is +not peculiar to fish among egg-laying animals, for the common little +brown English lizard is similarly viviparous, though most of its +relatives elsewhere deposit their eggs to be hatched by the heat of the +sun in earth or sandbanks. + +Mr. Hannibal Chollop, if I recollect aright, once shot an imprudent +stranger for remarking in print that the ancient Athenians, that +inferior race, had got ahead in their time of the modern Loco-foco +ticket. But several kinds of fish have undoubtedly got ahead in this +respect of the common reptilian ticket; for instead of leaving about +their eggs anywhere on the loose to take care of themselves, they build +a regular nest, like birds, and sit upon their eggs till the fry emerge +from them. All the sticklebacks, for instance, are confirmed +nest-builders: but here once more it is the male, not the female, who +weaves the materials together and takes care of the eggs during their +period of incubation. The receptacle itself is made of fibres of +water-weeds or stalks of grass, and is open at both ends to let a +current pass through. As soon as the lordly little polygamist has built +it, he coaxes and allures his chosen mates into the entrance, one by +one, to lay their eggs; and then when the nest is full, he mounts guard +over them bravely, fanning them with his fins, and so keeping up a +continual supply of oxygen which is necessary for the proper +development of the embryo within. It takes a month's sitting before the +young hatch out, and even after they appear, this excellent father +(little Turk though he be, and savage warrior for the stocking of his +harem) goes out attended by all his brood whenever he sallies forth for +a morning constitutional in search of caddis-worms, which shows that +there may be more good than we imagine, after all, in the domestic +institutions even of people who don't agree with us. + +The bullheads or miller's thumbs, those quaint big-headed beasts which +divide with the sticklebacks the polite attentions of ingenious British +youth, are also nest-builders, and the male fish are said to anxiously +watch and protect their offspring during their undisciplined nonage. +Equally domestic are the habits of those queer shapeless creatures, the +marine lump-suckers, which fasten themselves on to rocks, like limpets, +by their strange sucking disks, and defy all the efforts of enemy or +fishermen to dislodge them by main force from their well-chosen +position. The pretty little tropical walking-fish of the filuroid +tribe--those fish out of water--carry the nest-making instinct a point +further, for they go ashore boldly at the beginning of the rainy season +in their native woods, and scoop out a hole in the beach as a place of +safety, in which they make regular nests of leaves and other +terrestrial materials to hold their eggs. Then father and mother take +turns-about at looking after the hatching, and defend the spawn with +great zeal and courage against all intruders. + +I regret to say, however, there are other unprincipled fish which +display their affection and care for their young in far more +questionable and unpleasant manners. For instance, there is that +uncanny creature that inserts its parasitic fry as a tiny egg inside +the unsuspecting shells of mussels and cockles. Our fishermen are only +too well acquainted, again, with one unpleasant marine lamprey, the hag +or borer, so called because it lives parasitically upon other fishes, +whose bodies it enters, and then slowly eats them up from within +outward, till nothing at all is left of them but skin, scales, and +skeleton. They are repulsive eel-shaped creatures, blind, soft, and +slimy; their mouth consists of a hideous rasping sucker; and they pour +out from the glands on their sides a copious mucus, which makes them as +disagreeable to handle as they are unsightly to look at. Mackerel and +cod are the hag's principal victims; but often the fisherman draws up a +hag-eaten haddock on the end of his line, of which not a wrack remains +but the hollow shell or bare outer simulacrum. As many as twenty of +these disgusting parasites have sometimes been found within the body of +a single cod-fish. + +Yet see how carefully nature provides nevertheless for the due +reproduction of even her most loathsome and revolting creations. The +hag not only lays a small number of comparatively large and well-stored +eggs, but also arranges for their success in life by supplying each +with a bundle of threads at either end, every such thread terminating +at last in a triple hook, like those with which we are so familiar in +the case of adhesive fruits and seeds, like burrs or cleavers. By means +of these barbed processes, the eggs attach themselves to living fishes; +and the young borer, as soon as he emerges from his horny covering, +makes his way at once into the body of his unconscious host, whom he +proceeds by slow degrees to devour alive with relentless industry, from +the intestines outward. This beautiful provision of nature enables the +infant hag to start in life at once in very snug quarters upon a +ready-made fish preserve. I understand, however, that cod-fish +philosophers, actuated by purely personal and selfish conceptions of +utility, refuse to admit the beauty or beneficence of this most +satisfactory arrangement for the borer species. + +Probably the best known of all fishes' eggs, however (with the solitary +exception of the sturgeon's, commonly observed between brown bread and +butter, under the name of caviare), are the queer leathery purse-shaped +ova of the sharks, rays, skates, and dog-fishes. Everybody has picked +them up on the seashore, where children know them as devil's purses and +devil's wheelbarrows. Most of these queer eggs are oblong and +quadrangular, with the four corners produced into a sort of handles or +streamers, often ending in long tendrils, and useful for attaching them +to corallines or seaweeds on the bed of the ocean. But it is worth +noticing that in colour the egg-cases closely resemble the common wrack +to which they are oftenest fastened; and as they wave up and down in +the water with the dark mass around them, they must be almost +indistinguishable from the wrack itself by the keenest-sighted of their +enemies. This protective resemblance, coupled with the toughness and +slipperiness of their leathery envelope or egg-shell, renders them +almost perfectly secure from all evil-minded intruders. As a +consequence, the dog-fish lay but very few eggs each season, and those +few, large and well provided with nutriment for their spotted +offspring. It is these purses, and those of the thornback and the +edible skate, that we oftenest pick up on the English coast. The larger +oceanic sharks are mostly viviparous. + +In some few cases, indeed, among the shark and ray family, the +mechanism for protection goes a step or two further than in these +simple kinds. That well-known frequenter of Australian harbours, the +Port Jackson shark, lays a pear-shaped egg, with a sort of spiral +staircase of leathery ridges winding round it outside, Chinese pagoda +wise, so that even if you bite it (I speak in the person of a +predaceous fish) it eludes your teeth, and goes dodging off +screw-fashion into the water beyond. There's no getting at this evasive +body anywhere; when you think you have it, it wriggles away sideways, +and refuses to give any hold for jaws or palate. In fact, a more +slippery or guileful egg was never yet devised by nature's unconscious +ingenuity. Then, again, the Antarctic chimæra (so called from its very +unprepossessing personal appearance) relies rather upon pure deception +than upon mechanical means for the security of its eggs. The shell or +case in this instance is prolonged at the edge into a kind of broad +wing on either side, so that it exactly resembles one of the large flat +leaves of the Antarctic fucus in whose midst it lurks. It forms the +high-water mark, I fancy, of protective resemblance amongst eggs, for +not only is the margin leaf-like in shape, but it is even gracefully +waved and fringed with floating hairs, as is the fashion with the +expanded fronds of so many among the gigantic far-southern sea-weeds. + +A most curious and interesting set of phenomena are those which often +occur when a group of fishes, once marine, take by practice to +inhabiting freshwater rivers; or, _vice-versâ,_ when a freshwater kind, +moved by an aspiration for more expansive surroundings, takes up its +residence in the sea as a naturalised marine. Whenever such a change of +address happens, it usually follows that the young fry cannot stand the +conditions of the new home to which their ancestors were +unaccustomed--we all know the ingrained conservatism of children--and +so the parents are obliged once a year to undertake a pilgrimage to +their original dwelling-place for the breeding season. + +Extreme cases of terrestrial animals, once aquatic in habits, throw a +flood of lurid light (as the newspapers say) upon the reason why this +should be so. For example, frogs and toads develop from tadpoles, which +in all essentials are true gill-breathing fish. It is, therefore, +obvious that they cannot lay their eggs on dry land, where the tadpoles +would be unable to find anything to breathe; so that even the driest +and most tree-haunting toads must needs repair to the water once a year +to deposit their spawn in its native surroundings. Once more, crabs +pass their earlier larval stages as free-swimming crustaceans, somewhat +shrimp-like in appearance, and as agile as fleas: it is only by gradual +metamorphosis that they acquire their legs and claws and heavy +pedestrian habits. Now there are certain kinds of crab, like the West +Indian land-crabs (those dainty morsels whose image every epicure who +has visited the Antilles still enshrines with regret in a warm corner +of his heart), which have taken in adult life to walking bodily on +shore, and visiting the summits of the highest mountains, like the fish +of Deucalion's deluge in Horace. But once a year, as the land-crabs +bask in the sun on St. Catherine's Peak or the Fern Walk, a strange +instinctive longing comes over them automatically to return for a while +to their native element; and, obedient to that inner monitor of their +race, down they march in thousands, _velut agmine facto_, to lay their +eggs at their leisure in Port Royal harbour. On the way, the negroes +catch them, all full of rich coral, waiting to be spawned; and Chloe or +Dinah, serves them up hot, with breadcrumbs, in their own red shells, +neatly nestling between the folds of a nice white napkin. The rest run +away, and deposit their eggs in the sea, where the young hatch out, and +pass their larval stage once more as free and active little swimming +crustaceans. + +Well, crabs, I need hardly explain in this age of enlightenment, are +not fish; but their actions help to throw a side-light on the migratory +instinct in salmon, eels, and so many other true fish which have +changed with time their aboriginal habits. The salmon himself, for +instance, is by descent a trout, and in the parr stage he is even now +almost indistinguishable from many kinds of river-trout that never +migrate seaward at all. But at some remote period, the ancestors of the +true salmon took to going down to the great deep in search of food, and +being large and active fish, found much more to eat in the salt water +than ever they had discovered in their native streams. So they settled +permanently in their new home, as far as their own lives went at least; +though they found the tender young could not stand the brine that did +no harm to the tougher constitutions of the elders. No doubt the change +was made gradually, a bit at a time, through the brackish water, the +species getting further and further seaward down bays and estuaries +with successive generations, but always returning to spawn in its +native river, as all well-behaved salmon do to the present moment. At +last, the habit hardened into an organic instinct, and nowadays the +young salmon hatch out like their fathers as parr in fresh water, then +go to the sea in the grilse stage and grow enormously, and finally +return as full-grown salmon to spawn and breed in their particular +birthplace. + +Exactly the opposite fate has happened to the eels. The salmonoids as a +family are freshwater fish, and by far the greater number of +kinds--trout, char, whitefish, grayling, pollan, vendace, gwyniad, and +so forth--are inhabitants of lakes, steams, ponds, and rivers, only a +very small number having taken permanently or temporarily to a marine +residence. But the eels, as a family, are a saltwater group, most of +their allies, like the congers and murænas, being exclusively confined +to the sea, and only a very small number of aberrant types having ever +taken to invading inland waters. If the life-history of the salmon, +however, has given rise to as much controversy as the Mar peerage, the +life-history of the eel is a complete mystery. To begin with, nobody +has ever so much as distinguished between male and female eels; except +microscopically, eels have never been seen in the act of spawning, nor +observed anywhere with mature eggs. The ova themselves are wholly +unknown: the mode of their production is a dead secret. All we know is +this: that eels never reproduce in fresh water; that a certain number +of adults descend the rivers to the sea, irregularly, during the winter +months; and that some of these must presumably spawn with the utmost +circumspection in brackish water or in the deep sea, for in the course +of the summer myriads of young eels, commonly called grigs, and +proverbial for their merriment, ascend the rivers in enormous bodies, +and enter every smaller or larger tributary. + +If we know little about the paternity and maternity of eels, we know a +great deal about their childhood and youth, or, to speak more eelishly, +their grigginess and elverhood. The young grigs, when they do make +their appearance, leave us in no doubt at all about their presence or +their reality. They wriggle up weirs, walls, and floodgates; they force +there way bodily through chinks and apertures; they find out every +drain, pipe, or conduit in a given plane rectilinear figure; and when +all other spots have been fully occupied, they take to dry land, like +veritable snakes, and cut straight across country for the nearest lake, +pond, or ornamental waters. + +These swarms or migrations are known to farmers as eel-fairs; but the +word ought more properly to be written eel-fares, as the eels then fare +or travel up the streams to their permanent quarters. A great many +eels, however, never migrate seaward at all, and never seem to attain +to years of sexual maturity. They merely bury themselves under stones +in winter, and live and die as celibates in their inland retreats. So +very terrestrial do they become, indeed, that eels have been taken with +rats or field-mice undigested in their stomachs. + +The sturgeon is another more or less migratory fish, originally (like +the salmon) of freshwater habits, but now partially marine, which +ascends its parent stream for spawning during the summer season. +Incredible quantities are caught for caviare in the great Russian +rivers. At one point on the Volga, a hundred thousand people collect in +spring for the fishery, and work by relays, day and night continuously, +as long as the sturgeons are going up stream. On some of the +tributaries, when fishing is intermitted for a single day, the +sturgeons have been known to completely fill a river 360 feet wide, so +that the backs of the uppermost fish were pushed out of the water. (I +take this statement, not from the 'Arabian Nights,' as the scoffer +might imagine, but from that most respectable authority, Professor +Seeley.) Still, in spite of the enormous quantity killed, there is no +danger of any falling off in the supply for the future, for every fish +lays from two to three million eggs, each of which, as caviare eaters +well know, is quite big enough to be distinctly seen with the naked eye +in the finished product. The best caviare is simply bottled exactly as +found, with the addition merely of a little salt. No man of taste can +pretend to like the nasty sun-dried sort, in which the individual eggs +are reduced to a kind of black pulp, and pressed hard with the feet +into doubtful barrels. + +In conclusion, let me add one word of warning as to certain popular +errors about the young fry of sundry well-known species. Nothing is +more common than to hear it asserted that sprats are only immature +herring. This is a complete mistake. Believe it not. Sprats are a very +distinct species of the herring genus, and they never grow much bigger +than when they appear, _brochés_, at table. The largest adult sprat +measures only six inches, while full-grown herring may attain as much +as fifteen. Moreover, herring have teeth on the palate, always wanting +in sprats, by which means the species may be readily distinguished at +all ages. When in doubt, therefore, do not play trumps, but examine the +palate. On the other hand, whitebait, long supposed to be a distinct +species, has now been proved by Dr. Günther, the greatest of +ichthyologists, to consist chiefly of the fry or young of herring. To +complete our discomfiture, the same eminent authority has also shown +that the pilchard and the sardine, which we thought so unlike, are one +and the same fish, called by different names according as he is caught +off the Cornish coast or in Breton, Portuguese, or Mediterranean +waters. Such aliases are by no means uncommon among his class. To say +the plain truth, fish are the most variable and ill-defined of animals; +they differ so much in different habitats, so many hybrids occur +between them, and varieties merge so readily by imperceptible stages +into one another, that only an expert can decide in doubtful cases--and +every expert carefully reverses the last man's opinion. Let us at least +be thankful that whitebait by any other name would eat as nice; that +science has not a single whisper to breathe against their connection +with lemon; and that whether they are really the young of _Clupea +harengus_ or not, the supply at Billingsgate shows no symptom of +falling short of the demand. + + + + + AN ENGLISH SHIRE. + +For the reasons which have determined the existence of Sussex as a +county of England, and which have given it the exact boundaries that it +now possesses, we must go back to the remote geological history of the +secondary ages. Its limits and its very existence as a separate shire +were predetermined for it by the shape and consistence of the mud or +sand which gathered at the bottom of the great Wealden lake, or filled +up the hollows of the old inland cretaceous sea. Paradoxical as it +sounds to say so, the Celtic kingdom of the Regni, the South Saxon +principality of Ælle the Bretwalda, the modern English county of +Sussex, have all had their destinies moulded by the geological +conformation of the rock upon which they repose. Where human annals see +only the handicraft and interaction of human beings--Euskarian and +Aryan, Celt and Roman, Englishman and Norman--a closer scrutiny of +history may perhaps see the working of still deeper elements--chalk and +clay, volcanic upheaval and glacial denudation, barren upland and +forest-clad plain. The value and importance of these underlying facts +in the comprehension of history has, I believe, been very generally +overlooked; and I propose accordingly here to take the single county of +Sussex in detail, in order to show that when the geological and +geographical factors of the problem are given, all the rest follows as +a matter of course. By such detailed treatment alone can one hope to +establish the truth of the general principle that human history is at +bottom a result of geographical conditions, acting upon the +fundamentally identical constitution of man. + +In a certain sense, it is quite clear that human life depends mainly +upon soil and conformation, to an extent that nobody denies. You cannot +have a dense population in Sahara; and you can hardly fail to have one +in the fruitful valley of the Nile. The growth of towns in one district +rather than another must be governed largely by the existence of rivers +or harbours, of coal or metals, of agricultural lowlands or defensible +heights. Glasgow could not spring up in inland Leicestershire, nor +Manchester in coalless Norfolk. Insular England must naturally be the +greatest shipping country in Europe; while no large foreign trade is +possible in any Bohemia except Shakespeare's. So much everybody admits. +But it seems to me that these underlying causes have coloured the +entire local history of every district to an extent which few people +adequately recognise, and that until such recognition becomes more +general, our views of history must necessarily be very narrow. We must +see not only that something depends upon geographical configuration, +not even merely that a great deal depends upon it, but that everything +depends upon it. We must unlearn our purely human history, and learn a +history of interaction between nature and man instead. + +From the great central boss of the chalk system in Salisbury Plain, two +long cretaceous horns or projections run out to eastward towards the +Channel and the German Sea. These two horns, separated by the deep +valley of the Weald, are known as the North and South Downs +respectively. The first great spur or ridge passes through the heart of +Surrey, and then forms the backbone of Kent, expanding into a fan at +its eastward extremity, where it topples over abruptly into the sea in +the sheer bluffs which sweep round in a huge arc from the North +Foreland in the Isle of Thanet, to Shakespeare's Cliff at Dover. The +second or southernmost range, that of the South Downs, parts company +from the main boss in Hampshire, and runs eastward in a narrower but +bolder line, till the Channel cuts short its progress in the water-worn +precipice of Beachy Head. Between these two ranges of Downs lies the +low forest region of the Weald, and between the South Downs and the sea +stretches a long but very narrow strip of lowland, beginning at +Chichester, and ending where the chalk cliffs first meet the shore +beside the new Aquarium and Chain Pier at Brighton. Thus the whole of +Sussex consists of three well-marked parallel belts: the low coast-line +on the south-west, the high chalk Downs in the centre, and the Weald +district on the north and north-west. As these three belts determine +the whole history and very existence of Sussex as an English shire, I +shall make no apology for treating their origin here in some rapid +detail. + +The oldest geological formation with which we have to deal in Sussex +(to any considerable extent) is the Wealden: so that our inquiry need +not go any farther back in the history of the world than the later +secondary ages. Before that time, and for long æons afterward, the +portion of the earth's crust which now forms Sussex had probably never +emerged from the ocean. Britain was then wholly represented by the +primary regions of Wales, Scotland, and Cornwall, forming a small +archipelago or group of rocky islands separated at some distance by a +wide passage from the nucleus of the young European continent. But by +the Wealden period, the English Channel and the Eastern half of England +had been considerably elevated above the level of the sea. Great rivers +and lakes existed in this new continental region, much like those which +now exist in Sweden, Northern Russia, and Canada; and the deposits of +sand or mud formed at their bottoms or in their estuaries compose the +chief part of the Wealden formation in England. Without going fully +into this question (somewhat complicated by frequent changes of level), +it will suffice for our present purpose to say that the Wealden +consists, in the main, of two great divisions, which form, so to speak, +the floor, or lowest story, of the Sussex formations. The first or +bottom division is chiefly composed of a rather soft and friable +sandstone, which runs through the whole Forest Ridges, and crops out in +the grey cliffs of Hastings and Fairlight. The second or upper division +is chiefly composed of a thick greasy clay, which forms the soil in the +greater part of the Weald, and glides unobtrusively under the sea in +the flat shore on either side of Hastings, giving rise to the lowlands +of Pevensey Bay and the Romney Marshes. Why the sandstone, which is +really the bottom layer, should appear higher than the clay in these +places, we shall see a little later. + +After the deposition of the gritty or muddy Wealden beds in the lake +and _embouchure_ of the old continental river, there came a second +period of considerable depression, during which the whole of +south-eastern England was once more covered by a shallow sea. This sea +ran, like an early northern Mediterranean, right across the face of +Central Europe; and on its bottom was deposited the soft ooze of +globigerina shells and siliceous sponge skeletons which has now +hardened into chalk and flint. A great cretaceous sheet thus overlay +the Wealden beds and the whole face of Sussex to a depth of at least +600 feet; and if it had not been afterwards worn off in places, as the +nursery rhyme says of old Pillicock, it would be there still. I need +hardly say that the chalk is yet _en évidence_ along the whole range of +South Downs, and forms the tall white cliffs between Brighton and +Beachy Head. + +Finally, during the Tertiary period, another layer of London clay and +other soft deposits was spread over the top of the chalk, certainly on +the strip between the South Downs and the sea, and probably over the +whole district between the Channel and the Thames valley: though in +this case, later denudation has proceeded so far that very few traces +of the Tertiary formations are preserved anywhere except in the greater +hollows. + +Such being the original disposition of the strata which compose Sussex, +we have next to ask, What are the causes which have produced its +existing configuration? If the whole mass had merely been uplifted +straight out of the sea, we ought now to find the whole country a flat +and level table-land, covered over its entire surface with a uniform +coat of Tertiary deposits. On digging or boring below these, we ought +to come upon the chalk, and below the chalk again, with its cretaceous +congeners the greensand or the gault, we ought to meet the Weald clay +and the Hastings sand. Wherever a seaward cliff exhibited a section for +our observation, we ought to find these same strata all exposed in +regular order--the sandstone at the bottom, the clay above it, the +broad belt of chalk halfway up, and the Tertiary muds and rubbles at +the top. But in the county as we actually find it, we get a very +different state of things. Here, the surface at sea-level is composed +of London clay; there, a great mound of chalk rises into a swelling +down; and yonder, once more, a steep escarpment leads us down into a +broad lowland of the Weald. The causes which have led to this +arrangement of surface and conformation must now be considered with +necessary brevity. + +The North and South Downs, with all the country between them, form part +of a great fold or outward bulge of the strata above enumerated, having +its centre about the middle line of the Forest Ridge. Imagine these +strata bent or pushed upward by an internal upheaving force acting +along that line, and you will get a rough picture of the original +circumstances which have led to the existing arrangement of the county. +You would then have, instead of a flat table-land, as supposed above, a +great curved mountain slope, with its centre on top of the Forest +Ridge. This gentle slope would rise from the sea between Chichester and +a point south of Beachy, would swell slowly upward till it reached a +height of two or three thousand feet at the Surrey border, and would +fall again gradually towards the Thames valley at London. On the +southern side of the Downs this is pretty much what we now get, the +Tertiary strata being preserved in the district near Chichester; though +farther east, around Newhaven and Beachy Head, the sea has encroached +upon the chalk so as to cut out the great white cliffs which bound the +view everywhere along the shore from Brighton to Eastbourne. In the +central portion of the boss, however, almost all the highest elevated +part has been denuded by ice or water action. Between the North and +South Downs, where we ought to find the mountain ridge, we find instead +the valley of the Weald. Here the chalk has been quite worn away, +giving rise to the steep escarpment on the northern side of the South +Downs, seen from the Devil's Dyke, so that at the foot of the sudden +descent we get the Weald clay exposed; while in the very centre of the +upheaved tract the clay itself has been cut through, and the Hastings +sand appears upon the surface. Moreover, the sand, being upraised by +the central force, stands higher than the clay on either side, which +forms the trough of the Weald; and thus the forest ridge, which abuts +upon the sea in the cliffs of Hastings Castle, seems to lie above the +clay, under which, however, it really glides on either side. I need +hardly add that this rough diagrammatic description is only meant as a +general indication of the facts, and that it considerably simplifies +the real geological changes probably involved in the sculpture of +Sussex. Nevertheless, I believe it pretty accurately represents the +main formative points in the ante-human history of the county. + +So much by way of preface or introduction. These facts of structure +form the data for the reconstruction of the Sussex annals during the +human period. Upon them as framework all the subsequent development of +the county hangs. And first let us observe how, before the advent of +man upon the scene, the shire was already strictly demarcated by its +natural boundaries. Along the coast, between Chichester Harbour and +Brighton, stretched a long, narrow, level strip of clay and alluvium, +suitable for the dwelling-place of an agricultural people. Back of this +coastwise belt lay the bare rounded range of the South Downs--good +grazing land for sheep, but naturally incapable of cultivation. Two +rivers, however, flowed in deep valleys through the Downs, and their +basins, with the outlying combes and glens, were also the predestined +seats of agricultural communities. The one was the Ouse, passing +through the fertile country around Lewes, and falling at last into the +English Channel at Seaford, not as now at Newhaven; the other was the +Cuckmere river, which has cut itself a deep glen in the chalk hills +just beneath the high cliffs of Beachy Head. Beyond the Downs again, to +the north, the country descended abruptly to the deep trough of the +Weald, whose cold and sticky clays or porous sandstones are never of +any use for purposes of tillage. Hence, as its very name tells us, the +Weald has always been a wild and wood-clad region. The Romans knew it +as the Silva Anderida, or forest of Pevensey; the early English as the +Andredesweald. Both names are derived from a Celtic root signifying +'The Uninhabited.' Even in our own day, a large part of this tract is +covered by the woodlands of Tolgate Forest, St. Leonard's Forest, and +Ashdown Forest; while the remainder is only very scantily laid down in +pasture-land or hop-fields, with a considerable sprinkling of copses, +woods, commons, and parks. From its very nature, indeed, the Weald can +never be anything else, in its greater portion, than a wild, +uncultivated, and wooded region. + +Let us note, too, how the really habitable strip of Sussex, from the +point of view of an early people, was quite naturally cut off from all +other parts of England by obvious limits. This habitable strip +consists, of course, of the coastwise belt from Brighton to the +Hampshire border (which belt I shall henceforward take the liberty of +designating as Sussex Proper), together with the seaward valleys and +combes of the South Downs. To the west, the great tidal flats and +swamps about Hayling Island cut off Sussex from Hampshire; and before +drainage and reclamation had done their work, these marshy districts +must have formed a most impassable frontier. From this point, the great +woodland region of the Weald, thickly covered with primæval forest, and +tenanted by wolves, bears, wild boars, and red deer, swept round in a +long curve from the swamps at Bosham and Havant to the corresponding +swamps of the opposite end at Pevensey and Hurstmonceux. The belt of +savage wooded country, thick with the lairs of wild beasts, which thus +ringed round the greater part of the county, shut off the coastwise +strip at once from all possibility of communication with the rest of +England. So Sussex Proper and the combes of the Downs were naturally +predestined to form a single Celtic kingdom, a single Saxon +principality, and a single English shire. + +It will be observed that this description leaves wholly out of +consideration the strip of country about Hastings, Rye, and Winchelsea. +It does so intentionally. That strip of country does not belong to +Sussex in the same intimate and strictly necessary manner as the rest +of the county. It probably once formed the seat of a small independent +community by itself; and though there were good and obvious reasons why +it should become finally united to Sussex rather than to Kent, it may +be regarded as to some extent a debateable island between them. For an +island it practically was in early times. At Pevensey Bay the Weald ran +down into the sea by a series of swamps and bogs still artificially +drained by dykes and sluices. On the other side, the Romney marshes +formed a similar though wider stretch of tidal flats, reclaimed and +drained at a far later period, partly through the agency of the long +shingle bank thrown up round the low modern spit of Dungeness. Between +them, the Hastings cliffs rose high above marsh and sea. In their rear, +the Weald forest covered the ridge; so that the Hastings district +(still a separate rape or division of the county) formed a sort of +smaller Sussex, divided, like the larger one, from all the rest of +England by a semicircular belt of marsh, forest, and marsh once more. +These are the main elements out of which the history of the county is +made up. + +How far such conditions may have acted upon the very earliest human +inhabitants of Sussex--the palæolithic savages of the drift--before the +last Glacial epoch, it is impossible to say, because we know that many +of them did not then exist, and that the present configuration of the +county is largely due to subsequent agencies. Britain was then united +to the continent by a broad belt of land, filling up the bed of the +English Channel, and it possessed a climate wholly different from that +of the present day; while the position of the drift and the river +gravels shows that the sculpture of the surface was then in many +respects unlike the existing distribution of hill and valley. We must +confine ourselves, therefore, to the later or recent period (subsequent +to the last glaciation of Britain), during which man has employed +implements of polished stone, of bronze, and of iron. + +The Euskarian neolithic population of Britain--a dark white race, like +the modern Basques--had settlements in Sussex, at least in the coast +district between the Downs and the sea. Here they could obtain in +abundance the flints for the manufacture of their polished stone +hatchets; while on the alluvial lowlands of Selsea and Shoreham they +could grow those cereals upon which they largely depended for their +daily bread. Neolithic monuments, indeed, are common along the range of +the South Downs, as they are also on the main mass of the chalk in +Salisbury Plain; and at Cissbury Hill, near Worthing, we have remains +of one of the largest neolithic camp refuges in Britain. The evidence +of tumuli and weapons goes to show that the Euskarian people of Sussex +occupied the coast belt and the combes of the Downs from the Chichester +marshland to Pevensey, but that they did not spread at all into the +Weald. In fact, it is most probable that at this early period Sussex +was divided into several little tribes or chieftainships, each of which +had its own clearing in the lowland cut laboriously out of the forest +by the aid of its stone axes; while in the centre stood the compact +village of wooden huts, surrounded by a stockade, and girt without by +the small cultivated plots of the villagers. On the Downs above rose +the camp or refuge of the tribe--an earthwork rudely constructed in +accordance with the natural lines of the hills--to which the whole body +of people, with their women, children, and cattle, retreated in case of +hostile invasion from the villagers on either side. It is not likely +that any foreigners from beyond the great forest belt of the Weald +would ever come on the war-trail across that dangerous and trackless +wilderness; and it is probable, therefore, that the camps or refuges +were constructed as places of retreat for the tribes against their +immediate neighbours, rather than against alien intruders from without. +Hence we may reasonably conclude--as indeed is natural at such an early +stage of civilisation--that the whole district was not yet consolidated +under a single rule, but that each village still remained independent, +and liable to be engaged in hostilities with all others. Even if +extended chieftainships over several villages had already been set up, +as is perhaps implied by the great tumuli of chiefs and the size of the +camps in some parts of Britain, we must suppose them to have been +confined for the most part to a single river valley. If so, there may +have been petty Euskarian principalities, rude supremacies or +chieftainships like those of South Africa, in the Chichester lowlands, +in the dale of Arun, in the valleys of the Adur, the Ouse, and the +Cuckmere River, and perhaps, too, in the insulated Hastings region, +between the Pevensey levels and the Romney marsh. These principalities +would then roughly coincide with the modern rapes of Chichester, +Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey, and Hastings. Each would possess its +own group of villages, and tilled lowland, its own boundary of forest, +and its own camp of refuge on the hill-tops. Cissbury almost +undoubtedly formed such a camp for the fertile valley of the Adur and +the coast strip from Worthing to Brighton. On its summit has been +discovered an actual manufactory of stone implements from the copious +material supplied by the flint veins in the chalk of which it is +composed. + +Such a society, left to itself in Sussex, could never have got much +further than this. It could not discover or use metals, when it had no +metal in its soil except the small quantity of iron to be found in the +then inaccessible Weald. It had no copper and no tin, and therefore it +could not manufacture bronze. But the geographical position of England +generally, within sight of the European continent, made it certain that +if ever anywhere else bronze should come to be used, the +bronze-weaponed people must ultimately cross over and subjugate the +stone-weaponed aborigines of the island. Moreover, bronze was certain +to be first hit upon in those countries where tin and copper were most +easily workable--that is to say, in Asia. From Asia, the secret of its +manufacture spread to the outlying peninsula of Europe, where it was +quickly adopted by the Aryan Celts, who had already invaded the +outlying continent, armed only with weapons of stone. As soon as they +had learnt the use of bronze, certain great changes and improvements +followed naturally--amongst others, an immense advance in the art of +boat-building. The Celts of the bronze age soon constructed vessels +which enabled them to cross the narrow seas and invade Britain. Their +superior weapons gave them at once an enormous advantage over the +Euskarian natives, armed only with their polished flint hatchets, and +before long they overran the whole island, save only the recesses of +Wales and the north of Scotland. From that moment, the bronze age of +Britain set in--say some 1,000 or 1,500 years before the Christian era. + +The Celts, however, did not exterminate the whole Euskarian people; +they were too few in number and too far advanced in civilisation for +such a course. They knew it was better to make them slaves than to +destroy them: for the Celts had just reached, but had not yet got +beyond, the slave-making stage of culture. To this day, people of mixed +Euskarian parentage, and marked by the long skull, dark complexion, and +black eyes of the Euskarian type, form a large proportion of the +English peasantry; and they are found even in Sussex, which +subsequently suffered more than most other parts of Britain from the +destructive deluge of Teutonic barbarism in the fifth century. But +though the Celts did not exterminate the Euskarians, they completely +Celticised them, just as the Teuton is now Teutonising the old +population of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In South Wales and +elsewhere, indeed, the aborigines retained their own language and +institutions, as Silures and so forth; but in the conquered districts +of southern and eastern Britain they learned the tongue of their +masters, and came to be counted as Celtic serfs. Thus, at the time when +Britain comes forth into the full historic glare of Roman civilisation, +we find the country inhabited by a Celtic aristocracy of Aryan +type--round-headed, fair-haired, and blue-eyed; together-with a _plebs_ +of Celticised Euskarian or half-caste serfs, retaining, as they still +retain, the long skulls and dark complexions of their aboriginal +ancestors. This was the ethnical composition of the Sussex population +at the date of the first Roman invasions. + +Under the bronze-weaponed Celts, a very different type of civilisation +became possible. In the first place a more extended chieftainship +resulted from the improved weapons and consequent military power; and +all Britain (at least, towards the close of the Celtic domination) +became amalgamated into considerable kingdoms, some of which seem to +have spread over several modern shires. Sussex, however, enclosed by +its barrier of forest, would naturally remain a single little +principality of itself, held, at least in later times, by a tribe known +to the Romans as Regni. Traces of Celtic occupation are mainly confined +to the Downs and the seaward slope of Sussex Proper; in the broad +expanse of the Weald, they are few and far between. The Celts occupied +the fertile valleys and alluvial slopes, cut down the woods by the +river sides and on the plains, and built their larger and more regular +camps of refuge upon the Downs, for protection against the kindred +Cantii beyond the Weald, or the more distantly-related Belgæ across the +Hayling tidal flats. Of these hill-forts, Hollingbury Castle, near +Brighton, may be taken as a typical example. Bronze weapons and other +implements of the bronze age are found in great numbers about Lewes in +particular (where the isolated height, now crowned by the Norman +Castle, must always have commanded the fertile river vale of the Ouse), +as well as at Chichester, Bognor, and elsewhere. But the great forest, +inhabited by savage beasts and still more terrible fiends, proved a +barrier to their northward extension. Even if they had cleared the +land, they could not have cultivated it with their existing methods; +and so it is only in a few spots near the upper river valleys that we +find any traces of outlying Celtic hamlets in the wilderness of the +Weald. Some kind of trade, however, must have existed between the Regni +and the other tribes of Britain, in order to supply them with the +bronze, whose component elements Sussex does not possess. Woolsonbury, +Westburton Hill, Clayton Hill, Wilmington, Hangleton Down, Plumpton +Plain, and many other places along the coast have yielded large numbers +of bronze implements; while the occurrence of the raw metal in lumps, +together with the finished weapons, at Worthing and Beachy Head, as +well the discovery of a mould for a socketed celt at Wilmington, shows +that the actual foundry work was performed in Sussex itself. A +beautiful torque from Hollingbury Castle attests the workmanship of the +Sussex founders. No doubt the tin was imported from Cornwall, while the +copper was probably brought over from the continent. Glass beads, +doubtless of Southern (perhaps Egyptian) manufacture, have also been +found in Sussex, with implements of the bronze age. + +In the polished stone age, the county had been self-supporting, because +of its possession of flint. In the bronze age it was dependent upon +other places, through its non-possession of copper or tin. During the +former period it may have exported weapons from Cissbury; during the +latter, it must have imported the material of weapons from Cornwall and +Gaul. + +Before the Romans came, the Celts of Britain had learned the use of +iron. Whether they ever worked the iron of the Weald, however, is +uncertain. But as the ores lie near the surface, as wood (to be made +into charcoal) for the smelting was abundant, and as these two facts +caused the Weald iron to be extensively employed in later times, it is +probable that small clearings would be made in the most accessible +spots, and that rude ironworks would be established. + +The same geographical causes which made Britain part of the Roman world +naturally affected Sussex, as one of its component portions. Even under +the Empire, however, the county remained singularly separate. The +Romans built two strong fortresses at Anderida and Regnum, Pevensey and +Chichester, to guard the two Gwents or lowland plains, where the shore +shelves slowly to seaward; and they ran one of their great roads across +the coastwise tract, from Dover to the Portus Magnus (now Porchester), +near Portsmouth; but they left Sussex otherwise very much to its own +devices. We know that the Regni were still permitted to keep their +native chief, who probably exercised over his tribesmen somewhat the +same subordinate authority which a Rájput raja now exercises under the +British government. Here, again, we see the natural result of the +isolation of Sussex. The Romans ruled directly in the open plains of +the Yorkshire Ouse and the Thames, as we ourselves rule in the Bengal +Delta, the Doáb, and the Punjáb; but they left a measure of +independence to the native princes of south Wales, of Sussex, and of +Cornwall, as we ourselves do to the native rulers in the deserts of +Rájputana, the inaccessible mountains of Nipal, and the aboriginal hill +districts of Central India. + +When the Roman power began to decay, the outlying possessions were the +first to be given up. The Romans had enslaved and demoralised the +provincial population; and when they were gone, the great farms tilled +by slave labour under the direction of Roman mortgagee-proprietors lay +open to the attacks of fresh and warlike barbarians from beyond the +sea. How early the fertile east coasts of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and +East Anglia may have fallen a prey to the Teutonic pirates we cannot +say. The wretched legends, indeed, retailed to us by Gildas, Bæda, and +the English Chronicle, would have us believe that they were colonised +at a later period; but as they lay directly in the path of the +marauders from Sleswick, as they were certainly Teutonised very +thoroughly, and as no real records survive, we may well take it for +granted that the long-boats of the English, sailing down with the +prevalent north-east winds from the wicks of Denmark, came first to +shore on these fertile coasts. After they had been conquered and +colonised, the Saxon and Jutish freebooters began to look for +settlements, on their part, farther south. One horde, led, as the +legend veraciously assures us, by Hengest and Horsa, landed in Thanet; +another, composed entirely of Saxons, and under the command of a +certain dubious Ælle, came to shore on the spit of Selsea. It was from +this last body that the county took its newer name of Suth-Seaxe, Suth +Sexe, or Sussex. Let us first frankly narrate the legend, and then see +how far it may fairly be rationalised. + +In 477, says the English Chronicle--written down, it must be +remembered, from traditional sources, four centuries later, at the +court of Alfred the West Saxon--in 477, Ælle and his three sons, Cymen, +Wlencing, and Cissa, came to Britain in three ships, and landed at the +stow that is cleped Cymenes-ora. There that ilk day they slew many +Welshmen, and the rest they drave into the wood hight Andredes-leah. In +485, Ælle, fighting the Welsh near Mearcredes Burn, slew many, and the +rest he put to flight. In 491, Ælle, with his son Cissa, beset +Andredes-ceaster, and slew all that therein were, nor was there after +one Welshman left. Such is the whole story, as told in the bald and +simple entries of the West Saxon annalist, A more dubious tradition +further states that Ælle was also Bretwalda, or overlord, of all the +Teutonic tribes in Britain. + +And now let us see what we can make of this wholly unhistorical and +legendary tale. Whether there ever was a South Saxon king named Ælle we +cannot say; but that the earliest English pirate fleet on this coast +should have landed near Selsea is likely enough. The marauders would +not land near the Romney marshes or the Pevensey flats, where the great +fortresses of Lymne and Anderida would block their passage; and they +could not beach their keels easily anywhere along the cliff-girt coast +between Beachy Head and Brighton; so they would naturally sail along +past the marshland and the chalk cliffs till they reached the open +champaign shore near Chichester. Cymenes-ora, where they are said to +have landed, is now Keynor on the Bill of Selsea; and Selsea itself, as +its name (correctly Selsey) clearly shows us, was then an island in the +tidal flats. This was just the sort of place which the English pirates +loved, for all tradition represents their first settlements as effected +on isolated spots like Thanet, Hurst Castle, Holderness, and +Bamborough. Thence they would march upon Regnum, the square Roman town +at the harbour head, and reduce it by storm, garrisoned as it doubtless +was by a handful of semi-Romanised Welshmen or Britons. The town took +the English name of Cissanceaster, or Chichester. Moreover, all around +the Chichester district, we still find a group of English clan +villages, with the characteristic patronymic termination _ing_. Such +are East and West Wittering, Donnington, Funtington, Didling, and +others. It is _vraisemblable_ enough that the little strip of very low +coast between Hayling Island and the Arun may have been the first +original South Saxon colony. Nor is it by any means impossible that the +names of Keynor and Chichester Cymenes-ora and Cissanceaster--may still +enshrine the memory of two among the old South Saxon freebooters. + +The tradition of a battle at Mearcredes Burn, when the Welsh were again +defeated, may refer to an advance by which, a few years later, the +South Saxon pirates pushed eastward along the coast, and occupied the +strip of shore as far as Brighton, together with the fertile valley of +the Lewes Ouse. In the first-named district we find a large group of +English Clan villages, including Patching, Poling, Angmering, Goring, +Worthing, Tarring, Washington, Lullington, Blatchingden, Ovingdean, +Rottingdean, and many others. Amongst them is one which has clearly +given rise to the name of Ælle's third son, and that is Lancing. +Unfortunately for the legend, we must decide that this was really the +settlement of an English clan of Lancingas, as Washington was the _tun_ +or enclosure of the Weasingas, and Beddingham was the _ham_ or home of +the Beddingas. Around Lewes, in like manner, we find Tarring, Malling, +Piddinghoe, Bletchington, and others; while in the valley just to the +east we have ten or eleven such names as Lullington, Wilmington, +Folkington, and Littlington. These districts, I imagine, represent the +second advance of the English conquerors. + +Finally, fourteen years after the first landing, the South Saxons +crossed the Downs and attacked Anderida. The Roman walls of the great +fortress were thick and strong, as their remains, built over by the +Norman Castle, still show; but they were defended by half-trained +Welsh, who could not withstand the English onset. With the fall of +Anderida, the native power was broken for ever, 'nor was there after +one Welshman left.' The English tribe of the Hastingas settled at +Hastings; and the South Saxons were now supreme from marsh to marsh. + +But did they really exterminate the native Celt-Euskarian population? I +venture to say, no. Some no doubt, especially the men, they slew; but +the women and children, as even Mr. Freeman admits, were probably +spared in large numbers. Even of the men, many doubtless became slaves +to the Saxon lords; while others maintained themselves in isolated +bands in the Weald. To this day the Euskarian type of humanity is not +uncommon among the Sussex peasantry, and all the rivers still bear the +Celtic names of Arun, Adur, Ouse, and Calder. That there was 'no +Welshmen left' is only another way of saying that the armed Welsh +resistance ceased. The Romanised Britons became English churls and +serfs--nay, the very name for a serf in ordinary conversation was Weala +or Welshman. The population received a new element--the English +Saxons--but it was not completely changed. The Weorthingas and Goringas +simply became masters of the lands formerly held by Roman owners; and +the cabins of their British serfs still clustered around the wooden +hall of the English lords. + +Nevertheless, Sussex is one of the most thoroughly Teutonised counties +in England. The proportion of Saxon blood is very marked: light hair +and blue eyes, together with the broad and short English skull, are +common even among the peasantry. The number of English Clan names +noticed by Mr. Kemble in the towns and villages of Sussex is 68 as +against 60 in almost equally Teutonic Kent, 48 in Essex, 21 in largely +Celtic Dorset, 6 in Cumberland, 2 in Cornwall, and none in Monmouth. +The size and number of the hundreds into which the county is divided +tells us much the same tale. Each hundred was originally a group of one +hundred free English families, settled on the soil, and holding in +check the native subject population of Anglicised Celt-Euskarian +churls. Now, in Sussex we get 61 hundreds, and in Kent 61, as against +13 in Surrey beyond the Weald (where the clan names also sink to 18), +and 8 in Hertfordshire. Or, to put it another way, which I borrow from +Mr. Isaac Taylor, in Sussex there is one hundred to every 23 square +miles; in Kent to every 24; in Dorset to every 30; in Surrey to every +58; in Herts to every 79; in Gloucester to every 97; in Derby to every +162; in Warwick to every 179; and in Lancashire to every 302. In other +words, while in Kent, Sussex, and the east the free English inhabitants +clustered thickly on the soil, with a relatively small servile +population, in Mercia and the west the English population was much more +sparsely scattered, with a relatively great servile population. So, as +late as the time of Domesday, in Kent and Sussex the slaves mentioned +in the great survey (only a small part, probably, of the total) +numbered only 10 per cent. of the population, while in Devon and +Cornwall they numbered 20 per cent., and in Gloucestershire 33 per +cent. + +These results are all inevitable. It is obvious that the first attacks +must necessarily be made upon the east and south coasts, and that the +inland districts and the west must only slowly be conquered afterward. +Especially was it easy to found Teutonic kingdoms in the four isolated +regions of Lincolnshire, East Anglia, Kent, and Sussex, each of which +was cut off from the rest of England in early times by impassable fens, +marshes, forests, or rivers. It was easy here to kill off the Welsh +fighting population, to drive the remnants into the Fen Country or the +Weald, to enslave the captives, the women, and the children, and to +secure the Teutonic colony by a mark or border of woodland, swamp, or +hill. On the other hand, Wessex, Northumbria, and Mercia, with a vague +and ill-defined internal border, had harder work to fight their way in +against a united Welsh resistance; and it was only very slowly that +they pushed across the central watershed, to dismember the unconquered +remnant of the Britons at last into the three isolated bodies of +Damnonia (Cornwall and Devon), Wales Proper, and Strathclyde. This is +probably why the earliest settlements were made in these isolated coast +regions, and why the inward progress of the other colonies was so +relatively slow. + +The South Saxons, then, at first occupied the three fertile bits of the +county--the coast belt of Sussex Proper, the Valley of the Ouse, and +the isolated Hastings district--because these were the best adapted for +their strictly agricultural life. In spite of the legend of Ælle, I do +not suppose that they were all united from the first under a single +principality. It seems far more probable that each little clan +settlement was at first wholly independent; that afterwards three +little chieftainships grew up in the three fertile strips--typified, +perhaps, by the story of Ælle's three sons--and that the whole finally +coalesced into a single kingdom of the South Saxons, which is the state +in which we find the county in Bæda's time. As ever, its boundaries +were marked out for it by nature, for the Weald remained as yet an +almost unbroken forest; and the names of Selsea, Pevensey, Winchelsea, +Romney, and many others, show by their common insular termination +(found in all isles round the British coast, as in Sheppey, Walney, +Bardsea, Anglesea, Fursey, Wallasey, and so forth) that the marshland +was still wholly undrained, and that a few islands alone stood here and +there as masses of dry land out of their desolate and watery expanse. +The Hastings district, too, fell more naturally to Sussex than to Kent, +because the marshes dividing it from the former were far less +formidable than those which severed it from the latter. Most probably +the South Saxons intentionally aided nature in cutting off their +territory from all other parts of Britain; for every English kingdom +loved to surround itself with a distinct mark or border of waste, as a +defence against invasion from outside. The Romans had brought Sussex +within the great network of their road system; but the South Saxons no +doubt took special pains to cut off those parts of the roads which led +across their own frontier. At any rate, it is quite clear that Sussex +did not largely participate in the general life of the new England, and +that intercourse with the rest of the world was extremely limited. + +The South Saxon kings probably lived for the most part at Chichester, +though no doubt they had _hams_, after the royal Teutonic fashion +generally, in many other parts of their territory; and they moved about +from one to the other, with their suite of thegns, eating up in each +what food was provided by their serfs for their use, and then moving on +to the next. The isolation of Sussex is strikingly shown by its long +adherence to the primitive paganism. Missionaries from Rome, under the +guidance of Augustine, converted Kent as early as 597. For Kent was the +nearest kingdom to the continent; it contained the chief port of entry +for continental travellers, Richborough--the Dover of those days--and +its king, accustomed to continental connections, had married a +Christian Frankish princess from Paris. Hence Kent was naturally the +first Teutonic principality to receive the faith. Next came +Northumbria, Lindsey, East Anglia, Wessex, and even inland Mercia. But +Sussex still held out for Thor and Woden as late as 679, three-quarters +of a century after the conversion of Kent, and twenty years after +Mercia itself had given way to the new faith. Even when Sussex was +finally converted, the manner in which the change took place was +characteristic. It was not by missionaries from beyond the Weald in +Kent or Surrey, nor from beyond the marsh in Wessex. An Irish monk, +Bæda tells us, coming ashore on the open coast near Chichester, +established a small monastery at Bosham--even then, no doubt, a royal +_ham_, as we know it was under Harold--'a place,' says the old +historian significantly, 'girt round by sea and forest.' (It lies just +on the mark between Wessex and the South Saxons.) Æthelwealh, the +king--a curious name, for it means 'noble Welshman' (perhaps he was of +mixed blood)--had already been baptized in Mercia, and his wife was the +daughter of a Christian ealdorman of the Worcester-men; but the rest of +the principality was heathen. The Irish monk effected nothing; but +shortly after Wilfrith, the fiery Bishop of York, on one of his usual +flying visits to Rome, got shipwrecked off Selsea. With his accustomed +vigour, he went ashore, and began a crusade in the heathen land. He was +able at once to baptize the 'leaders and soldiers'--that is to say, the +free military English population; while his attendant priests--Eappa, +Padda, Burghelm, and Oiddi (it is pleasant to preserve these little +personal touches)--proceeded to baptize the 'plebs'--that is to say, +the servile Anglicised Celt-Euskarian substratum--up and down the +country villages. + +It was to Wilfrith, too, that Sussex owed her first cathedral. +Æthelwealh made him a present of Selsea, 'a place surrounded by the sea +on every side save one, where an isthmus about as broad as a +stone's-throw connects it with the mainland,' and there the ardent +bishop founded a regular monastery, in which he himself remained for +five years. On the soil were 250 serfs, whom Wilfrith at once set free. +After the death of Aldhelm, the West Saxon bishop, in 709, Sussex was +made a separate bishopric, with its seat at Selsea; and it was not till +after the Norman Conquest that the cathedral was removed to Chichester. +It may be noted that all these arrangements were in strict accordance +with early English custom. The kings generally gave their bishops a +seat near their own chief town, as Cuthbert had his see at Lindisfarne, +close to the royal Northumbrian capital of Bamborough; so that the +proximity of Selsea to Chichester made it the most natural place for a +bishopstool; and, again, it was usual to make over spots in the fens or +marshes to the monks, who, by draining and cultivating them, performed +a useful secular work. No traces now remain of old Selsea Cathedral, +its site having long been swallowed up by incursions of the sea. Bæda +has the ordinary number of miracles to record in connection with the +monastery. + +As time went on, however, the isolation of Sussex became less complete. +Æthelwealh had got himself into complications with Wessex by accepting +the sovereignty of the Isle of Wight and the Meonwaras about +Southhampton from the hands of a Mercian conqueror. Perhaps Æthelwealh +then repaired the old Roman roads which led from his own _ham_ at +Chichester to Portsmouth in Wessex, and broke down the mark, so as to +connect his old and his new dominions with one another. At any rate, +shortly after, Cædwalla, the West Saxon, an ætheling at large on the +look-out for a kingdom, attacked him suddenly with his host of thegns +from this unexpected quarter, killed the King himself, and harried the +South Saxons from marsh to marsh. Two South Saxons thegns expelled him +for a time, and made themselves masters of the country. But afterwards, +Cædwalla, becoming King of the West Saxons, recovered Sussex once more, +and handed it on to his successor, Ini. Hence the South Saxons had no +bishopric of their own during this period, but were included in the see +of the West Saxons at Winchester. + +During the hundred years of the Mercian Supremacy, coincident, roughly +speaking, with the eighth century, we hear little of Sussex; but it +seems to have shaken off the yoke of Wessex, and to have been in +subjection to the great Mercian over-lords alone. It had its own +under-kings and its own bishops. Early in the ninth century, however, +when Ecgberht the West Saxon succeeding in throwing off the Mercian +yoke, the other Saxon States of South Britain willingly joined him +against the Anglian oppressors. 'The men of Kent and Surrey, Sussex and +Essex, gladly submitted to King Ecgberht.' When the royal house of the +South Saxons died out, Sussex still retained a sort of separate +existence within the West Saxon State, as Wales does in the England of +our own day. Æthelwulf made his son under-king of Kent, Essex, Surrey, +and Sussex; and so, during the troublous times of the Danish invasion, +when all southern England became one in its resistance to the heathen, +those old principalities gradually sank into the position of provinces +or shires. + +From the period of union with the general West Saxon Kingdom (which +grew slowly into the Kingdom of England under Eadgar and Cnut), the +markland of the Weald seems to have been gradually encroached upon from +the south. Most of the names in that district are distinctly +'Anglo-Saxon' in type; by which I mean that they were imposed before +the Norman Conquest, and belong to the stage of the language then in +use. Even during the Roman period, settlements for iron-mining existed +in the Weald, and these clearings would of course be occupied by the +English colonists at a comparatively early time. Just at the foot of +the Downs, too, on the north side, we find a few clan settlements on +the edge of the Weald, which must date from the first period of English +colonisation. Such are Poynings, Didling, Ditchling, Chillington, and +Chiltington. Farther in, however, the clan names grow rarer; and where +we find them they are not _hams_ or _tuns_, regular communities of +Saxon settlers, but they show, by their forestine terminations of +_hurst_, _ley_, _den_, and _field_, that they were mere outlying +shelters of hunters or swineherds in the trackless forest. Such are +Billinghurst, Warminghurst, Itchingfield, and Ardingley. On the +Cuckmere river, the villages in the combes bear names like Jevington +and Lullington; but in the upper valley of the little stream, where it +flows through the Weald, we find instead Chiddingley and Hellingley. +Most of the Weald villages, however, bear still more woodland +titles--Midhurst, Farnhurst, Nuthurst, Maplehurst, and Lamberhurst; +Cuckfield, Mayfield, Rotherfield, Hartfield, Heathfield, and +Wivelsfield; Crawley, Cowfold, Loxwood, Linchmere, and Marden. _Hams_ +and _tuns_, the sure signs of early English colonisation, are almost +wholly lacking; in their place we get abundance of such names as +Coneyhurst Common, Water Down Forest, Hayward's Heath, Milland Marsh, +and Bell's Oak Green. To this day even, the greater part of the Weald +is down in park, copse, heath, forest, common, or marshland. Throughout +the whole expanse of the woodland region in Sussex, with the outlying +portions in Kent, Surrey, and Hants, Mr. Isaac Taylor has collected no +fewer than 299 local names with the significant forest terminations in +_hurst_, _den_, _ley_, _holt_, and _field_. These facts show that, +during the later 'Anglo-Saxon' period, the Weald was being slowly +colonised in a few favourable spots. Its use as a mark was now gone, +and it might be safely employed for the peaceful purposes of the archer +and the swineherd. Names referring to pasture and the wild beasts are +therefore common. + +To the same time must doubtless be assigned the exact delimitation of +the Sussex frontiers. During the early periods, the Kentings, the +Suthrige, and the West Saxons would all extend on their side as far as +the Weald, which would be treated as a sort of neutral zone. But when +the Woodland itself began to be occupied, a demarcation would naturally +be made between the neighbouring provinces. The boundary follows the +most obvious course. It starts on the east from the old mouth of the +Rother (now diverted to Rye New Harbour), known as the Kent Ditch, in +what was then the central and most impassable part of the marshland. It +runs along the Rother to its bifurcation, and then makes for the +heaven-water-parting or dividing back of the Forest Ridge, beside two +or three lesser streams. Then it passes along the crest of the ridge +from Tunbridge Wells, past East Grinstead and Crawley, till it strikes +the Hampshire border. There it follows the line between the two +watersheds to the sea, which it reaches at Emsworth. There is, however, +one long insulated spur of Hampshire running down from Haslemere to +Graffham (in apparent defiance of geographical features), whose origin +and meaning I do not understand. + +With the Norman Conquest, the history of Sussex, and of England +generally, for the most part ceases abruptly; all the rest is mere +personal gossip about Prince Edward and the battle of Lewes, or about +George IV. and the Brighton Pavilion. Not, of course, that there is not +real national history here as elsewhere; but it is hard to disentangle +from the puerile personalities of historians generally. Nevertheless, +some brief attempt to reconstruct the main facts in the subsequent +history of Sussex must still be undertaken. The part which Sussex bore +passively in the actual Conquest is itself typical of the new +relations. England was getting drawn into the general run of European +civilisation, and the old isolation of Sussex was beginning to be +broken down. Lying so near the Continent, Sussex was naturally the +landing-place for an army coming from Normandy or Ponthieu. William's +fleet came ashore on the low coast at Pevensey. Naturally he turned +towards Hastings, whence a road now led through the Weald to London. On +the tall cliffs he threw up an earthwork, and then marched towards the +great town. Harold's army met him on the heights of Senlac, part of the +solitary ridge between the marshes, by which alone London could be +reached. Harold fell on the spot now marked by the ruined high altar of +Battle Abbey--a national monument at present in the keeping of an +English duke. Once the native army was routed, William marched on +resistlessly to London, and Sussex and England were at his feet. + +The new feudal organisation of the county is doubtless shadowed forth +in the existing rapes. Of these there are six, called respectively +after Chichester, Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey, and Hastings. It +will be noticed at once that these were the seats of the new bishopric +and of the five great early castles. In one form or another, more or +less modernised, Arundel Castle, Bramber Castle, Lewes Castle, Pevensey +Castle, and Hastings Castle all survive to our own day. In accordance +with their ordinary policy of removing cathedrals from villages to +chief towns, and so concentrating the civil and ecclesiastical +government, the Normans brought the bishopstool from Selsea to +Chichester. The six rapes are fairly coincident--Chichester with the +marsh district; Arundel with the dale of Arun; Bramber with the dale of +Adur; Lewes with the western dale of Ouse; Pevensey with the eastern +dale of Ouse; and Hastings with the insulated region between the +marshes. In other words, Sussex seems to have been cut up into six +natural divisions along the sea-shore; while to each division was +assigned all the Weald back of its own shore strip as far as the +border. Thus the rapes consist of six long longitudinal belts, each +with a short sea front and a long stretch back into the Weald. + +Increased intercourse with the Continent brought the Cinque Ports into +importance; and, as premier Cinque Port, Hastings grew to be one of the +chief towns in Sussex. The constant French wars made them prominent in +mediæval history. As trade grew up, other commercial harbours gave rise +to considerable mercantile towns. Rye and Winchelsea, at the mouth of +the Rother, were great ports of entry from France as late as the days +of Elizabeth. Seaford, at the mouth of the Ouse, was also an important +harbour till 1570, when a terrible storm changed the course of the +stream to the town called from that fact Newhaven. Lewes was likewise a +port, as the estuary of the Ouse was navigable from the mouth up to the +town. Brighthelmstone was still a village; but old Shoreham on the Adur +was a considerable place. Arundel Haven and Chichester Harbour recalls +the old mercantile importance of their respective neighbourhoods. The +only other places of any note in mediæval Sussex were Steyning, under +the walls of Bramber Castle; Hurstmonceux, which the Conqueror bestowed +upon the lord of Eu; Battle, where he planted his great expiatory +abbey; and Hurst Pierpont, which also dates from William's own time. +The sole important part of the county was still the strip along the +coast between the Weald and the sea. + +During the Plantagenet period, England became a wool-exporting country, +like Australia at the present day; and therefore the wool-growing parts +of the island rose quickly into great importance. Sussex, with its +large expanse of chalk downs, naturally formed one of the best +wool-producing tracts; and in the reign of Edward III., Chichester was +made one of the 'staples' to which the wool trade was confined by +statute. Sussex Proper and the Lewes valley were now among the most +thickly populated regions of England. + +The Weald, too, was beginning to have its turn. English iron was +getting to be in request for the cannon, armour, and arms required in +the French wars; and nowhere was iron more easily procured, side by +side with the fuel for smelting it, than in the Sussex Weald. From the +days of the Edwards to the early part of the eighteenth century, the +woods of the Weald were cut down in quantities for the iron works. +During this time, several small towns began to spring up in the old +forest region, of which the chief are Midhurst, Petworth, Billinghurst, +Horsham, Cuckfield, and East Grinstead. Many of the deserted +smelting-places may still be seen, with their invariable accompaniment +of a pond or dam. The wood supply began to fail as early as Elizabeth's +reign, but iron was still smelted in 1760. From that time onward, the +competition of Sheffield and Birmingham--where iron was prepared by the +'new method' with coal--blew out the Sussex furnaces, and the Weald +relapsed once more into a wild heather-clad and wood-covered region, +now thickly interspersed with parks and country seats, of which +Petworth, Cowdry, and Ashburnham are the best known. + +Modern times, of course, have brought their changes. With the northward +revolution caused by steam and coal, Sussex, like the rest of southern +England, has fallen back to a purely agricultural life. The sea has +blocked up the harbours of Rye, Winchelsea, Seaford, and Lewes. Man's +hand has drained the marshes of the Rother, of Pevensey, and of Selsea +Bill; and railways have broken down the isolation of Sussex from the +remainder of the country. Still, as of old, the natural configuration +continues to produce its necessary effects. Even now there are no towns +of any size in the Weald: few, save Lewes, Arundel, and Chichester, +anywhere but on the coast. The Downs are given up to sheep-farming; the +Weald to game and pleasure-grounds; the shore to holiday-making. The +proximity to London is now the chief cause of Sussex prosperity. In the +old coaching days, Brighton was a foregone conclusion. Sixty miles by +road from town, it was the nearest accessible spot by the seaside. As +soon as people began to think of annual holidays, Brighton must +necessarily attract them. Hence George IV. and the Pavilion. The +railroad has done more. It has made Brighton into a suburb, and raised +its population to over 100,000. At the same time, the South Coast line +has begotten watering-places at Worthing, Bognor, and Littlehampton. In +the other direction, it has created Eastbourne. Those who do not love +chalk (as the Georges did), choose rather the more broken and wooded +country round Hastings and St. Leonards, where the Weald sandstone runs +down to the sea. The difference between the rounded Downs and +saucer-shaped combes of the chalk, and the deep glens traversing the +soft friable strata of the Wealden, is well seen in passing from Beachy +Head to Ecclesbourne and Fairlight. Shoreham is kept half alive by the +Brighton coal trade: Newhaven struggles on as a port for Dieppe. But as +a whole, the county is now one vast seaside resort from end to end, so +that to-day the flat coasts at Selsea, Pevensey, and Rye, are alone +left out in the cold. The iron trade and the wool trade have long since +gone north to the coal districts. Brighton and Hastings sum up in +themselves all that is vital in the Sussex of 1881. + + + + + THE BRONZE AXE. + +There is always a certain fascination in beginning a subject at the +wrong end and working backward: it has the charm which inevitably +attaches to all evil practices; you know you oughtn't, and so you can't +resist the temptation to outrage the proprieties and do it. I can't +myself resist the temptation of beginning this article where it ought +to break off--with Chinese money, which is not the origin, but the +final outcome and sole remaining modern representative of that antique +and almost prehistoric implement, the Bronze Age hatchet. + +Improbable and grotesque as this affiliation sounds at first hearing, +it is, nevertheless, about as certain as any other fact in +anthropological science--which isn't, perhaps, saying a great deal. The +familiar little brass cash, with the square hole for stringing them +together on a thread in the centre, well known to the frequenter of +minor provincial museums, are, strange to say, the lineal descendants, +in unbroken order, of the bronze axe of remote Celestial ancestors. +From the regular hatchet to the modern coin one can trace a distinct, +if somewhat broken, succession, so that it is impossible to say where +the one leaves off and the other begins--where the implement merges +into the medium of exchange, and settles down finally into the root of +all evil. + +Here is how this curious pedigree first worked itself out. In early +times, before coin was invented, barter was usually conducted between +producer and consumer with metal implements, as it still is in Central +Africa at the present day with Venetian glass beads and rolls of red +calico. Payments were all made in kind, and bronze was the commonest +form of specie. A gentleman desirous of effecting purchases in foreign +parts went about the world with a number of bronze axes in his pocket +(or its substitute), which he exchanged for other goods with the native +traffickers in the country where he did his primitive business. At +first, the early Chinese in that unsophisticated age were content to +use real hatchets for this commercial purpose; but, after a time, with +the profound mercantile instinct of their race, it occurred to some of +them that when a man wanted half a hatchet's worth of goods he might as +well pay for them with half a hatchet. Still, as it would be a pity to +spoil a good working implement by cutting it in two, the worthy Ah Sin +ingeniously compromised the matter by making thin hatchets, of the +usual size and shape, but far too slender for practical usage. By so +doing he invented coin: and, what is more, he invented it far earlier +than the rival claimants to that proud distinction, the Lydians, whose +electrum staters were first struck in the seventh century, B.C. But, +according to Professor Terrien de la Couperie, some of the fancy +Chinese hatchets which we still retain date back as far as the year +1000 (a good round number), and are so thin that they could only have +been intended to possess exchange value. And when a distinguished +Sinologist gives us a date for anything Chinese, it behoves the rest of +the unlearned world to open its mouth and shut its eyes, and thankfully +receive whatever the distinguished Sinologist may send it. + +In the seventh century, then, these mercantile axes, made in the +strictest sense to sell and not to use, were stamped with an official +stamp to mark their amount, and became thereby converted into true +coins--that was the root of the 'root of all evil.' Thence the +declension to the 'cash' is easy; the form grew gradually more and more +regular, while the square hole in the centre, once used for the handle, +was retained by conservatism and practical sense as a convenient means +of stringing them together. + +So this was the end of the old bronze hatchet, perhaps the most +wonderful civilizing agent ever invented by human ingenuity. Let us +hark back now, and from the opposite side see what was its first +beginning. + +'But why,' you ask, 'the most wonderful civilizing agency? What did the +bronze axe ever do for humanity?' Well, nearly everything. I believe I +have really not said too much. We are apt to talk big nowadays about +the steam-engine, and that marvellous electricity which is always going +to do wonders for us all--to-morrow; but I don't know whether either +ever produced so great a revolution in human life, or so completely +metamorphosed human existence, as that simple and commonplace bronze +hatchet. + +For, consider that before the days of bronze man knew no weapon or +implement of any sort save the stone axe, or tomahawk, and the +flint-tipped arrow. Consider, that the highest stage of human culture +he had then reached was hardly higher than that of the scalp-hunting +Red Indian or the seal-spearing Esquimaux. Consider, that in his Stone +Age agriculture and grains were almost unknown--the forest uncleared, +the soil untilled, and hunting and fishing the sole or principal human +activities. It was the bronze axe that first enabled man to make +clearings in the woodland on the large scale, and to sow on those +clearings in good big fields the wheat and barley which determined the +first great upward step in the drama of civilization. All these things +depend in ultimate analysis upon that pioneer of culture, the bronze +hatchet. + +And how did the first Watt or Edison of metallurgy come to make that +earliest bronze implement? Well, it seems probable that between the +Stone Age and the Bronze Age there intervened everywhere, or nearly +everywhere, a very short and transient age of copper. And the reason +for thus thinking is threefold. In the first place, bronze is an alloy +of tin and copper: and it seems natural to suppose that men would use +the simple metals in isolation to begin with, before they discovered +that they could harden and temper them by mixing the two together. In +the second place, copper occurs in the pure or native state (without +the trouble of smelting) in several countries, and was therefore a very +natural metal for early man to cast his inquiring glance upon. And in +the third place, weapons of unmixed copper, apparently of very antique +types, have been found in various parts of the world, both in Asia and +America. According to Mr. John Evans, the most learned historian of the +Bronze Age, the greatest copper 'find' of the eastern hemisphere was +that at Gungeria, in Central India; and the copper implements there +found consisted entirely of flat celts of a very early and almost +primitive pattern. + +The copper weapons of America, however, have greater illustrative and +ethnological interest, because the noble red man, at the period when +Columbus first discovered him, and when he first discovered Columbus, +was still in the Stone Age of his very imperfect culture, or, to speak +more correctly, of extreme barbarism. The fact is, the Indians of Lake +Superior were only just beginning to employ copper, and were on the eve +of independently inaugurating a Bronze Age of their own, when the +intrusive white man came and spoiled the fun by the incontinent +introduction of iron, firearms, missionaries, whisky, and all the other +resources of civilization. On the shores of Lake Superior native copper +exists in abundance; and the intelligent Red Indian, finding this +handsome red stone in the cliffs by his side, was pretty sure to try +his hand at chipping a tomahawk out of the rare material. But, as soon +as he did so, Mr. Evans suggests, he would find to his surprise that it +yielded to his blows; in short, that he had got that singular +phenomenon, a malleable stone, to deal with. Hammering away at his new +invention, he must shortly have hammered it into a shapely axe. The new +process took his practical fancy at once: vistas of an untold wealth of +scalps floated gaily before his fevered brain; and he proceeded to +hammer himself various weapons and implements without delay. Amongst +others, he produced for himself very neat spear-heads, with sockets +adapted for the reception of a shaft, made by hammering out the base +flat, and then turning over the edges so as to enclose the wood between +them, like a modern hoe-handle. In Wisconsin alone more than a hundred +of such copper axes, spear-heads, and knives have been unearthed by +antiquaries and duly recorded. + +All these weapons, however, are simply hammered, not cast or melted. +The Red Indian hadn't yet reached the stage of making a mould when De +Champlain and his _voyageurs_ came down upon Canada and interrupted +this interesting experiment in industrial development by springing the +seventeenth century upon the unsophisticated red man at one fell blow, +with all its inherited wealth of European science. Nevertheless, the +Indians must have known that fire melted copper; for the heat of the +altars was great enough, say Squier and Davis, to fuse the implements +and ornaments laid upon them in sacrificial rites; and so the fact of +its fusibility could hardly have escaped them. A people who had +advanced so far on the road towards the invention of casting could +hardly have been prevented from taking the final step, save by the +sudden intervention of some social cataclysm like the European invasion +of Eastern America. And how awful a calamity that was for the Indians +themselves we at this day can hardly even realize. + +In some similar way, no doubt, the Asiatic people who first invented +bronze must have learned the fact of the fusibility of metals, and have +applied it in time, at first, perhaps, by accident, to the manufacture +of that hard alloy. I say Asiatic, because there seems good reason to +believe that Asia was the original home of the nascent bronze industry. +For a Bronze Age almost necessarily implies a brief preceding age of +copper; and there is no proof of pure copper implements ever having +been largely used in Europe, while there is ample proof of their having +been used to a very considerable extent in Asia. Hence we may +reasonably infer that the art of bronze-making was developed in Asia by +a copper-using people, and that when metallurgy was first introduced +into Europe the method of mixing the copper with tin had already been +perfected. The abundance of tin in the south-eastern islands of Asia +renders this view probable; while in Europe there are no tin mines +worth mentioning, except in the remotest part of a remote outlying +island--to wit, in Cornwall. + +Be this as it may, the earliest and simplest forms of bronze axe with +which we are acquainted are profoundly interesting, as casting a flood +of light upon the general process of human evolution all the world +over. Every new human invention is always at first directly modelled +upon the other similar products which have preceded it. There is no +really new thing under the sun. For example, the earliest English +railway carriages were built on the model of the old stage-coach, only +that three stage-coaches, as it were, were telescoped together, side by +side--the very first bore the significant motto, _Tria juncta in +uno_--and it was this preconception of the English coachbuilder that +has hampered us ever since with our hateful 'compartments,' instead of +the commodious and comfortable open American saloon carriages. So, too, +the earliest firearms were modelled on the stock of the old cross-bow, +and the earliest earthenware pots and pans were shaped like the still +more primitive gourds and calabashes. It need not surprise us, +therefore, to find that the earliest metal axes of which we have any +knowledge were directly moulded on the original shape of the stone +tomahawk. + +Such a copper hatchet, cast in a mould formed by a polished neolithic +stone celt, was found in an early Etruscan tomb, and is still preserved +in the Museum at Berlin. See how natural this process would be. For, in +the first place, the primitive workman, knowing already only one form +of axe, the stone tomahawk, would naturally reproduce it in the new +material, without thinking what improvements in shape and design the +malleability and fusibility of the metal would render possible or easy. +But, more than that, the idea of coating the polished stone axe with +plastic clay, and thereby making a mould for the molten metal, would be +so very simple that even the neolithic savage, already accustomed to +the manufacture of coarse pottery upon natural shapes, could hardly +fail to think of it. As a matter of fact, he did think of it: for celts +of bronze or copper, cast in moulds made from stone hatchets, have been +found in Cyprus by General di Cesnola, on the site of Troy by Dr. +Schliemann, and in many other assorted localities by less distinguished +but equally trustworthy archæologists. + +To the neolithic hunter, herdsman, and villager this progress from the +stone to the metal axe probably seemed at first a mere substitution of +an easier for a more difficult material. He little knew whither his +discovery tended. It was pure human laziness that urged the change. How +nice to save yourself all that long trouble of chipping and polishing, +with ceaseless toil, in favour of a stone which you could melt at one +go and pour while hot into a ready-made mould! It must have looked, by +comparison, like weapon-making by magic; for properly to cut and polish +a stone axe is the work of weeks and weeks of elbow-grease. Yet here, +in a moment, a better hatchet could be turned out all finished! But the +implied effects lay deeper far than the neolithic hunter could ever +have imagined. The bronze axe was the beginning of civilization; it +brought the steam-engine, the telephone, woman's rights, and the county +councillor directly in its train. With the eye of faith, had he only +possessed that useful optical organ, the Stone Age artizan might +doubtless have beheld Pears' soap and the deceased wife's sister +looming dimly in the remote future. Till that moment human life had +been almost stationary: thenceforth, it proceeded by leaps and bounds, +like a kangaroo society, on its upward path towards triumphant +democracy and the penny post. The nineteenth century and all its wiles +hung by a thread upon the success of his melting pot. + +Indeed, the whole history of human civilization has been one of a +constantly accelerated progress. The Older Stone Age, when men knew +only how to chip flint implements, but hadn't yet invented the art of +grinding and polishing them, was one of immense and incalculable +duration, to be reckoned perhaps by tens of thousands of years--some +bold chronologists would even suggest by hundreds of thousands. +Improvement there was, to be sure, during all that long epoch of slow +development; but it was improvement at a snail's pace. The very rude +chipped axes of the naked drift age give way after thousands and +thousands of years to the shapelier chipped lances, javelins, and +arrowheads of the skin-clad cavemen. M. Gabriel de Mortillet, indeed, +most indefatigable of theorists, has even pointed out four stages of +culture, marked by four different types of weapons, into which he +subdivides the Older Stone Age. Yet vast epochs elapsed before some +prehistoric Stephenson or dusky Morse first, half by accident, smote +out the idea of grinding his tomahawk smooth to a sharp cutting edge, +instead of merely chipping it sharp, and so initiated the Neolithic +Period. This Neolithic Period itself, again, was immensely long as +compared with the Bronze Age which followed, though short by comparison +with the Palæolithic epoch which preceded it. Then the Bronze Age saw +enormous changes come faster and faster, till the use of iron still +further accelerated the rate of progress. For each new improvement +becomes, in turn, the parent of yet newer triumphs, so that at last, as +in the present day, a single century sees vaster changes in the world +of man than whole ages before it have done in far longer intervals. + +But the invention of bronze, or, in other words, the introduction of +hard metal, was really perhaps the very greatest epoch of all, the most +distinct turning-point in the whole history of humanity. True, some +beginnings of civilisation were already found in the Newer Stone Age. +Man did not then live by slaughter alone. Hand-made pottery and rude +tissues of flax are found in neolithic lake dwellings in Switzerland. +Agriculture was already practised in a feeble way on small open +clearings, cautiously cleaved with fire or hewn with the tomahawk in +the native forests. The cow, the sheep, and the goat were more or less +domesticated, though the horse was yet riderless; and the pastoral had +therefore, to some extent, superseded the pure hunting stage. But what +inroad could the stone hatchet make unaided upon the virgin forests of +those remote days? The neolithic clearing must have been a mere stray +oasis in a desert of woodland, like the villages of the New Guinea +savages at the present day, lying few and far between among vast +stretches of primæval forest. + +With the advent of bronze, everything was different; and the difference +showed itself with extraordinary rapidity. One may compare the +revolution effected by bronze in the early world, indeed, with the +revolution effected by railways in our own time; only the neolithic +world had been so very simple a one that the change was perhaps even +more marvellous in its suddenness and its comprehensiveness. Metal +itself implied metal-working; and metal-working brought about, not only +the arts of smelting and casting, but also endless incidental arts of +design and decoration. The bronze hatchets, for example, to take our +typical implement, begin by being mere copies of the stone originals; +but, as time goes on, they acquire rapidly innumerable improvements. +First, metal is economized in the upper part which fits into the +handle, while the lower or cutting edge is widened out sideways, so as +to form an elegant and gracefully curved outline for the whole +implement. Next come the flanged axes, with projecting ledges on either +side; and then the palstaves with loops and ribs, each marking some new +improvement in the character of the weapon, which the inventor would no +doubt have patented but for the unfortunate fact that patents were as +yet wholly unknown to Bronze Age humanity. Later still come the +socketed hatchets of many patterns, with endless ingenious little +devices for securing some small advantage to the special manufacturer. +I can fancy the Bronze Age smith showing them off with pride to his +interested customers: 'These are our own patterns--the newest thing out +in bronze axes; observe the advantage you gain from the ribs and +pellets, and the peculiar character which the octagonal socket gives to +the hafting!' Indeed, in this single department of bronze celts alone, +Mr. Evans in his great monumental work figures over a hundred and +eighty distinct specimens (out of thousands known), each one presenting +some well-marked advance in type upon its predecessor. There is almost +a Yankee ingenuity of design in many of the dodges thus registered for +our inspection. + +Many of the celts, I may add, are most beautifully decorated with +geometrical patterns, some of which belong to a very high order of +ornamental art. This is still more the case with the daggers, swords, +and defensive armour, often intended for the use of great chieftains, +and executed with an amount of taste and feeling long since dead among +the degenerate workmen of our iron age. + +But the indirect effects of the introduction of metal working were far +more interesting and important in their way than the direct effects. +With bronze began the great age of agriculture, of commerce, and of +navigation. + +Of agriculture first, because the bronze hatchet enabled men to make +such openings in the forest as neolithic man had never ever dreamed of. +For the first time in the history of our race, whole tracts of country +at once began to be cleared and cultivated. Stone Age tillage was the +tillage of tiny plots in the forest's depths; Bronze Age tillage was +the tillage of fields and wide open spaces in the champaign country. +The Stone Age knew no specials implements of agriculture as such; its +tomahawk was indiscriminately applied to all purposes alike of war or +gardening. You scalped your enemy with it, or you cut up your dinner, +or you dug your field, or you planted your seed-corn, according as +taste or circumstances directed. But while the Bronze Age men had axes +to hew down the wood, they had also sickles and reaping-hooks to cut +their crops, and a sort of hoe or scraper to till the soil with. +Specialisation reached a very high pitch. All the remains of the Bronze +Age show us an agricultural people by no means idyllic in their habits +to be sure, and not all disposed to join the Peace Preservation +Society, but cultivating large stretches of wheat or barley, grinding +their meal in regular mills, and possessed of implements of +considerable diversity, some of which I shall proceed to notice later. + +The evidences of commerce and of navigation are equally obvious. Bronze +itself consists of tin and copper: and there are only two parts of the +world from which tin in any large quantities can be procured--namely, +Cornwall and the Malay Archipelago. The very existence of bronze, +therefore, necessarily implies the existence of a sea-going trade in +tin, for which some corresponding benefits must of course have been +offered by the early purchaser. As a matter of fact, we know with some +probability that it was Cornish tin which first tempted the Phoenicians +out of the inland sea, past the Pillars of Hercules, to brave the +terrors of the open Atlantic. Long before the days of such advanced +navigation, however, the Cornish tin was transported by land across the +whole breadth of Southern Britain and shipped for the Continent from +the Isle of Thanet. A very old trackway runs along the crest of the +Downs from the West Country to Kent, known now as the Pilgrim's Way, +because it was followed in far later times by mediæval wayfarers from +Somerset and Dorset to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. +But Mr. Charles Elton has shown conclusively that the Pilgrim's Way is +many centuries more ancient than the martyr of King Henry's epoch, and +that it was used in the Bronze Age for the transport of tin from the +mines in Cornwall to the port of Sandwich. To this day antique ingots +of the valuable metal are often dug up in hoards or finds along the +line of the ancient track. They were evidently buried there in fear and +trembling, long ages since, in what Indian _voyageurs_ still call a +_cache_, by caravans hurriedly surprised by the enemy; and owing to the +unfortunate accident of the possessors all getting killed off in the +ensuing fray, the ingots have been left undisturbed for centuries for +the benefit of antiquaries at the present time. 'It's an ill wind that +blows nobody good.' Probably the inhabitants of Herculaneum and Pompeii +had very little notion what valuable relics their bodies and houses +would prove in the end for curious posterity. + +The converse evidence of a return trade in other goods is no less +striking. Not only are articles in amber found in Bronze Age tombs all +over Europe (though the gum itself belongs to the Baltic and the North +Sea alone), but also gold objects of southern workmanship occur in +British barrows; while sometimes even ivory from Africa is noticed in +the inlaid handles of some Welsh or Brigantian chieftain's sword. Glass +beads were likewise imported into Britain, as were also ornaments of +Egyptian porcelain. In fact, the Bronze Age clearly marks for us the +period when trade routes extended in every direction from the +Mediterranean, north and south, and when the world began to be +commercially solidified by a primitive theory of foreign exchange. It +is a little odd that the basis of all this traffic was tin, and that we +still use the name of that same metal as a brief equivalent for coin in +general: but persons of serious economical or philological intelligence +are particularly requested not to enter into grave correspondence with +the author of this paper on any possible levity which they may detect +lurking in this innocent remark. + +Some small idea of the rapid advance in civilization which marked the +Bronze Age may perhaps be formed from a brief enumeration of the +principal classes of remains which have come down to us intact from +that first epoch of metal. Besides all the various celts, hatchets, and +adzes, whose name is legion, and whose patterns are manifold, many +other tools or implements occur abundantly in the barrows or _caches_. +Chisels, either plain, tanged, with lugs, or socketed; gouges, hammers, +anvils, and tongs; punches, awls, drills, and prickers; tweezers, +needles, fish-hooks, and weights; all these are found by dozens in +endless variety of design. Knives are common, and the vanity of Bronze +Age man made him even put up without a murmur with the pangs of shaving +with a bronze razor. Daggers and rapiers naturally abound, many of them +of rare and beautiful workmanship. Halberds turn up less frequently, +but swords are abundant, and are sometimes tastefully decorated with +gold or ivory. Even the scabbards sometimes survive, while the shields, +adorned with concentric rings or with knobs and bosses, would put to +shame the rank and file of cheap modern metal work. Nay, the very +trumpets which sounded the onset often lie buried by the warrior's +side, and the bells which adorned his horse's neck bring back to us +vividly the Homeric pictures of Bronze Age warfare. + +The private life of Bronze Age man and his correlative wife is +illustrated for us by another great group of more strictly personal +relics. There are pins simple and pins of the infantile safety-pin +order: there are brooches which might be worn by modern ladies, and +ear-rings so huge that even modern ladies would in all probability +object to wearing them, unless, indeed, a princess or an actress made +them the fashion. The torques, or necklets, are among the best known +male decorations, and are still famous in Ireland, where Malachi +(whoever he may have been) wore the collar of gold which he tore from +the proud invader. Many of the bracelets are extremely beautiful; but, +strange to say, as if on purpose to spite the common prejudice about +the degeneracy of modern man, they are all so small in girth as to +betoken a race with arms and legs hardly any bigger than the Finns or +Laplanders. Of the clasps, buttons, and buckles I will say nothing +here. I have enumerated enough to suggest to even the most casual +observer the vastness of the revolution which the Bronze Age wrought in +the mode of life and the civilisation of ancient man. + +Bronze found our early ancestor, in fact, a half-developed savage: it +left him a semi-civilized Homeric Greek. It came in upon a world of +skin-clad hunters and fishers: it went out upon a world of Phoenician +navigators, Egyptian architects, Achæan poets, and Roman soldiers. And +all this wide difference was wrought in a period of some eight or ten +centuries at the outside, almost entirely by the advent of the simple +bronze axe. + + + + + THE ISLE OF RUIM. + +Perhaps you have never heard its name before; yet in the earlier ages +of this kingdom of Britain, Ruim Isle, rising dim through the mist of +prehistoric oceans, was once in its own way famous and important. + +Off the old and obliterated south-eastern promontory of our island, +where the land of Kent shelved almost imperceptibly into the Wantsum +Strait, Ruim Island--the Holm of the Headland--stood out with its white +wall of broken cliffs into the German Sea. The greater part of it +consisted of gorse-clad chalk down, the last subsiding spur of that +great upland range which, starting from the central boss of Salisbury +Plain, runs right across the face of Surrey and Kent, and, bifurcating +near Canterbury, falls sheer into the sea at the end of either fork by +Ramsgate or Dover. But in earlier days Ruim Isle was not joined as now +by flats and marshes to the adjacent mainland; the chalk dipped under +the open Wantsum Strait, much as the chalk of Hampshire dips to-day +under the Solent Sea, and reappeared again on the other side in the +Thanet Downs, as it reappears in the Isle of Wight at the ridge of St. +Boniface and the central hills about Newport and Carisbrooke. For now +the murder indeed is out, and you have discovered already that +Ruim--his dim, mysterious Ruim--is only just the commonplace, +vulgarized Isle of Thanet. + +Still, it is not without cause that I have ventured to call it by that +strange and now almost forgotten old-world name. There is reason, we +know, in the roasting of eggs, and, if I have gone out of my way to +introduce the ancient isle to you by its title of Ruim, it is in order +that we might start clear of the odour of tea and shrimps, the +artificial niggers, and cheap excursionists, that the name of Thanet +brings up most prominently at the present day before the travelled mind +of the modern Londoner. I want to carry you back to a time when +Ramsgate was still but a green gap in the long line of chalk cliff, and +Margate but the chine of a little trickling streamlet that tumbled +seaward over the undesecrated sands; when a broad arm of the sea still +cut off Westgate from the Reculver cliffs, and when the tide swept +unopposed four times a day over the submerged sands of Minster Level. +You must think of Thanet as then greatly resembling Wight in +geographical features, and the Wantsum as the equivalent of the Solent +Sea. + +In the very earliest period of our history, before ever the existing +names had been given at all to the towns or villages--nay, when the +towns and villages themselves were not--Ruim was already a noteworthy +island. For there is now very little doubt indeed that Thanet is the +Ictis or 'Channel Island' to which Cornish tin was conveyed across +Britain for shipment to the continent. The great harbour of Britain was +then the Wantsum Sea, known afterwards as the Rutupine Port, and later +still as Sandwich Haven. To that port came Gaulish and Phoenician +vessels, or possibly even at times some belated Phocæan galley from +Massilia. But the trade in tin was one of immense antiquity, long +antedating these almost modern commercial nations: for tin is a +necessary component of bronze, and the bronze age of Europe was +entirely dependent for its supply of that all-important metal upon the +Cornish mines. From a very early date, therefore, we may be sure that +ingots of tin were exported by this route to the continent, and then +transported overland by the Rhone valley to the shores of the +Mediterranean. + +The tin road, to give it its more proper name, followed the crest of +the Hog's Back and the Guildford downs, crossing the various rivers at +spots whose very names still attest the ancient passages--the Wey at +Shalford, the Mole at Burford, the Medway at Aylesford, and the Wantsum +Strait at Wade, in which last I seem to hear the dim echo to this day +of the Roman Vada. Ruim itself, as less liable to attack than an inland +place, formed the depôt for the tin trade, and the ingots were no doubt +shipped near the site of Richborough. We may regard it, in fact, as a +sort of prehistoric Hong-Kong or Zanzibar, a trading island, where +merchants might traffic at ease with the shy and suspicious islanders. + +Ruim at that time must have consisted almost entirely of open down, +sloping upward from the tidal Wantsum, and extending a little farther +out to sea than at the present moment. Pegwell Bay was then a wide +sea-mouth; Sandwich flats did not yet exist; and the Stour itself fell +into the Wantsum Strait at the place which still bears the historic +name of Stourmouth. Round the outer coast only a few houseless gaps +marked the spots where 'long lines of cliff, breaking, had left a +chasm'--the gaps that afterwards bore the familiar names of Ramsgate, +that is to say Ruim's Gate, or 'the Door of Thanet;' Margate, that is +to say, Mere Gate, the gap of the mere (Kentish for a brook), +Broadstairs, Kingsgate, Newgate, and Westgate. The present condition of +Dumpton Gap (minus the telegraph) will give some idea of what these +Gates looked like in their earliest days; only, instead of seeing the +cultivated down, we must imagine it wildly clad with primæval +undergrowth of yew and juniper, like the beautiful tangled district +near Guildford, still known as Fairyland. Thanet is now all +sea-front--it turns its face, freckled with summer resorts, towards the +open German Ocean. Ruim had then no sea-front at all, save the bare and +inaccessible white cliffs; it turned, such as it was, not toward the +sea, but toward the navigable Wantsum. Even until late in the middle +ages Minster was the most important place in the whole island; and +after it ranked Monkton, St. Nicholas, and Birchington--villages, all +of them, on the flat western slope. The growth in importance of the +seaward escarpment dates only from the days when Thanet became +practically a London suburb. + +With the Roman invasion Ruim saw a new epoch begin. A great +organization took hold of Britain. Roads were made and colonies +established. Verulam and Camulodun gave place in part as centres of +life and trade to York and London. Even in the native days, I believe, +the Thames must always have been a great commercial focus, and the Pool +by Tower Hill must always have been what Bede called it many centuries +later, 'a mart of many nations.' But under the Romans London grew into +a considerable city; and as the regular sea highway to the Thames lay +through the Wantsum, in the rear of Thanet, that strip of estuary +became of immense importance. In those days of coasting navigation, +indeed, the habit was to avoid headlands, and take advantage everywhere +of shallow short cuts. Ships from the continent, therefore, avoided the +North Foreland by running through the Wantsum at the back of Thanet; as +they avoided Shellness and Warden Point by running through the Swale, +at the back of Sheppey. + +To protect this main navigable channel, accordingly, the Romans built +the two great guardian fortresses of the coast, Rutupiæ, or +Richborough, at the southern entrance, and Regulbium, or Reculver, at +the northern exit. Under the walls of these powerful strongholds, whose +grim ruins still frown upon the dry channel at their feet, ships were +safe from piracy, while Ruim itself sheltered them from the heavy sea +that now beats with north-east winds upon the Foreland beyond. In fact, +the Wantsum was an early Spithead: it stood to Rutupiæ as the Solent +stands to Portsmouth and Southampton. But Thanet Isle hardly shared at +all in this increased civilisation; on the contrary, Rutupiæ (the +precursor of Sandwich Haven) seems to have diverted all its early +commerce. For Rutupiæ became clearly the naval capital of our island, +the seat of that _vir spectabilis_, the Count of Saxon Shore, and the +rendezvous of the fleets of those British 'usurpers' Maximus and +Carausius. It was also the Dover of its own day, the favourite landing +place for continental travellers; while its famous oysters, the true +natives, now driven by the silting up of their ancient beds to +Whitstable, were as much in repute with Roman epicures as their +descendants are to-day with the young Luculluses of the Gaiety and the +Criterion. + +I have ventured by this time to speak of Ruim as Thanet; and indeed +that was already one of the names by which the island was known to its +own inhabitants. The ordinary history books, to be sure, will tell you +in their glib way that Thanet is 'Saxon' for Ruim; but, when they say +so, believe not the fond thing, vainly imagined. The name is every day +as old as the Roman occupation. Solinus, writing in the third century, +calls it Thanaton, and in the torn British fragment of the Peutinger +Tables--that curious old map of the later empire--it is marked as +Tenet. Indeed, it is a matter of demonstration that every spot which +had a known name in Roman Britain retained that name after the English +conquest. Kent itself is a case in point, and every one of its towns +bears out the law, from Dover and Lymne to Reculver and Richborough, +which last is spelt 'Ratesburg' by Leland, Henry the Eighth's +commissioner. + +In some ways, however, Thanet, under the Romans, must have shared in +the general advance of the country. Solinus says it was 'glad with +corn-fields'--_felix frumentariis campis_--but this could only have +been on the tertiary slope facing Kent, as agriculture had not yet +attempted to scale the flanks of the chalk downs. As lying so near +Rutupiæ, too, villas must certainly have occupied the soil in places, +as we know they did in the Isle of Wight; while the immense number of +Roman coins picked up in the island appears to betoken a somewhat dense +provincial population. + +The advent of the English brings Thanet itself, as distinct from its +ancient port, the Wantsum, into the full glare of legendary history. +According to tradition, it was at Ebb's Fleet, a little side creek near +Minster, that Hengest and Horsa first disembarked in Britain. As a +matter of fact, there is reason to suppose that at a very early time an +English colony did really settle down in peace in Thanet. On Osengal +Hill, not far from Ebb's Fleet, the cemetery of these earliest English +pioneers in England was laid bare by the building of the South Eastern +Railway. The graves are dug very shallow in the chalk, seldom as deep +as four feet; and in them lie the remains of the old heathen pirates, +buried with their arms and personal ornaments, their amber beads and +strings of glass, and the coins that were to pay their way in the other +world. But, what is oddest of all, a few of the graves in this earliest +English cemetery are Roman in character, and in them the interment is +made in the Roman fashion. The inference is almost irresistible that +the first settlement of Thanet by the English was a purely friendly +one, and that Roman and Jute lived on side by side as neighbours and +allies on the Kentish island. + +I don't doubt, myself, that the whole settlement of Kent was equally +friendly, and that the population of the county contains throughout an +almost balanced mixture of Celtic and Teutonic elements. + +However, the century and a half that succeeded the English colonization +of south-eastern Britain were, no doubt, a time of great retrogression +towards barbarism, as everywhere else in Romanised Europe. The villas +that must have covered the gentle slopes towards the Wantsum fell into +decay; the fortresses were destroyed; the roads ran wild; and the sea +and river began slowly to slit up the central part of the great +navigable backwater. A hundred and fifty years after Hengest and Horsa, +if those excellent gentlemen ever really existed, another famous +landing took place in Thanet. Augustine and his companions disembarked +at Ebb's Fleet, and held close by (on the hill behind Prospect House) +their first interview with Æthelberht. But though this epoch-making +event happened to occur in Thanet, it has no special connection with +the history of the island, any further than as a component of England +generally. And indeed, even through the garbled version of Bede, it is +plain enough to see that British Christendom was not yet wholly wiped +out in eastern Britain. The conversion of Kent was essentially a +conversion of the king and nobles to the Roman communion; it brought +back once more the part of Britain most in connection with the +continent into the broad fold of continental Christendom. It is quite +clear, in fact, that Rutupiæ and Durovernum, Richborough and +Canterbury, had never ceased to hold close intercourse with the +opposite shore, whose cliffs still shine so distinctly from the hills +about Ramsgate. For Æthelberht himself was married to a Christian +Frankish princess of the house of the Merwings; and coins of the +Frankish kings and of the Byzantine emperors have been found on the +surface or in contemporary Jutish graves in Kent. + +It is interesting to observe, too, that of the monks whom Gregory chose +to accompany Augustine on his easy mission, one was Lawrence, who +succeeded his leader as second Archbishop of Canterbury, and another +was Peter, the first Abbot of St. Augustine's monastery. Out of +compliment to these pioneer missionaries, or to their Roman house of +St. Andrew's, almost every old church in that part of Kent is dedicated +accordingly, either to St. Augustine, St. Lawrence, St. Peter, St. +Gregory, St. Andrew, or St. Martin (patron of Bertha's first church at +Canterbury). Thus, as we shall see hereafter, St. Lawrence was the +mother church of Ramsgate, and St. Peter's of Broadstairs, while the +entire lathe bears the name of St. Augustine. + +In Thanet, too, the first evidence of the new order of things was the +foundation in the island of that great civilizing agency of mediæval +England, a monastery. The site chosen for its home was still, however, +characteristic of the old point of view of Thanet. It was the place +that yet bears the name of Minster, situated on a little creek of the +Wantsum sea, where some slight remains of an ancient pier may even now +be traced among the silt of the marshes. The island still looked +towards the narrow seas and the port of Rutupiæ, not, as now, towards +the tall cliffs and the German Ocean. Ecgberht, fourth Christian king +of Kent, by the advice of Theodore, the monk of Tarsus who became +Archbishop of Canterbury, made over to the lady whose name is +conveniently Latinised as Dompneva, first abbess, some forty-eight +plough-lands in the Isle of Thanet. This cultivated district, bounded +by the ancient earthwork known (from the name of the second abbess) as +St. Mildred's Lynch, lay almost entirely within the westward-sloping +and mainly tertiary lands; the higher chalk country was as yet +apparently considered unfit for tillage. The existing remains of +Minster Abbey are, of course, of comparatively late Plantagenet date; +but as parts of a great grange, whose still larger granary was burnt +down only in the last century, they serve well to show the importance +of the monastic system as a civilizing agency in the country districts +of England. + +Already in Bede's time the Wantsum was beginning to get silted up, +mainly by the muddy deposits brought down by the Stour. It was then +only three furlongs wide, and could be forded at two points, near Sarr +and at Wade. The seaward mouth was also beginning to be encumbered with +sand, and the first indication we get of this important impending +change is the fact that we now hear less of Richborough, and more of +Sandwich, the new port a little nearer the sea, whose very name of the +Wick or haven on the Sand, in itself sufficiently tells the history of +its origin. As the older port got progressively silted up, the newer +one grew into ever greater importance, exactly as Norwich ousted +Caister, or as Portsmouth has taken the place of Porchester. +Nevertheless, the central channel still remained navigable for the +vessels of that age--they can only have drawn a very few feet of +water--and this made the Wantsum in time the great highway for the +Danish pirates on their way to London, and exposed Thanet exceptionally +to their relentless incursions. + +In fact, the Danes and Northmen were just what they loved to call +themselves, vik-ings or wickings, men of the viks, wicks, bays, or +estuaries. What they loved was a fiord, a strait, a peninsula, an +island. Everywhere round the coast of Britain they seized and fortified +the projecting headlands. But in the neighbourhood of the Thames, the +high road to the great commercial port of London, the mementoes of +their presence are particularly frequent. The whole nomenclature of the +lower Thames navigation, as Canon Isaac Taylor has pointed out, is +Scandinavian to this day. Deptford (the deep fiord), Greenwich (the +green reach), and Woolwich (the hill reach) all bear good Norse names. +So do the Foreness, the Whiteness, Shellness, Sheerness, Shoeburyness, +Foulness, Wrabness, and Orfordness. Walton-on-the-Naze near Harwich in +like manner still recalls the time when a Danish 'wall'--that is to +say, a _vallum_, or earthwork--ran across the isthmus to defend the +Scandinavian peninsula from its English enemies. + +At such a time Sandwich, with its shallow fiord, was sure to afford +good shelter to the northern long ships; and isolated Thanet, +overlooking the navigable strait, was a predestined depôt for the +northern pirates, as four centuries earlier it had been for the +followers of those mythical personifications, Hengest and Horsa. Long +before the unification of England under a single West Saxon +overlordship the Danes used to land in the island every year, to +plunder the crops, and in 851, when Æthelwulf was lord of Wessex at +Winchester, 'heathen men,' says the Winchester Chronicle, with its +usual charming conciseness, 'first sat over winter in Tenet.' From that +time forward the 'heathen men' continually returned to the island, +which they used apparently as a base of operations, with their ships +lying in Sandwich Haven; in fact, Thanet must long have been a sort of +irregular Danish colony. Still, St. Mildred's nuns appear to have lived +on somehow at Minster through the dark time, for in 988 the Danes +landed and burnt the abbey, as they did again under Swegen in 1011, +killing at the same time the abbess and all the inmates. On the whole, +it is probable that life and property in Thanet were far from secure +any time in the ninth, tenth, and early eleventh centuries. + +At least as late as the Norman conquest the Wantsum remained a +navigable channel, and the usual route to London by sea was in at +Sandwich and out at Northmouth. It was thus that King Harold's fleet +sailed on its plundering expedition round the coast of Kent (a small +unexplained incident of the early English type, only to be understood +by the analogies of later Scotch history), and thus too, that many +other expeditions are described in the concise style of our +unsophisticated early historians. But from the eleventh century onward +we hear little of the Wantsum as a navigable channel; it has dwindled +down almost entirely to Sandwich Haven, 'the most famous of English +ports,' says the writer of the life of Emma of Normandy, about 1050. +Sandwich is indeed the oldest of the Cinque Ports, succeeding in this +matter to the honours of Rutupiæ, and all through the middle ages it +remained the great harbour for continental traffic. Edward III. sailed +thence for France or Flanders, and as late as 1446 it is still spoken +of by a foreign ambassador as the resort of ships from all quarters of +Europe. + +Still, the Wantsum was all this while gradually silting up, a grain at +a time, and the Isle of Ruim was slowly becoming joined to the opposite +mainland. When Leland visited it, in Henry VIII.'s reign, the change +was almost complete. 'At Northmouth,' says the royal commissioner, in +his quaint dry way, 'where the estery of the se was, the salt water +swelleth yet up at a Creeke a myle or more toward a place called Sarre, +which was the commune fery when Thanet was fulle iled.' Sandwich Haven +itself began to be difficult of access about 1500 (Henry VII. being +king), and in 1558 (under Mary) a Flemish engineer, 'a cunning and +expert man in waterworks,' was engaged to remedy the blocking of the +channel. By a century later it was quite closed, and the Isle of Thanet +had ceased to exist, except in name, the Stour now flowing seaward by a +long bend through Minster Level, while hardly a relic of the Wantsum +could be traced in the artificial ditches that intersect the flat and +banked-up surface of the St. Nicholas marshes. + +Meanwhile, Thanet had been growing once more into an agricultural +country. Minster, untenable by its nuns, had been made over after the +Danish invasions to the monks of St. Augustine at Canterbury, and it +was they who built the great barn and manor house which were the outer +symbol of its new agricultural importance. Monkton, close by, belonged +to the rival house of Christ Church at Canterbury (the cathedral +monastery), as did also St. Nicholas at Wade, remarkable for its large +and handsome Early English church. All these ecclesiastical lands were +excellently tilled. After the Reformation, however, things changed +greatly. The silting up of the Wantsum and the decay of Sandwich Haven +left Thanet quite out of the world, remote from all the main highroads +of the new England. Ships now went past the North Foreland to London, +and knew it only as a dangerous point, not without a sinister +reputation for wrecking. On the other hand, on the land side, the +island lay off the great highways, surrounded by marsh or +half-reclaimed levels; and it seems rapidly to have sunk into a state +resembling that of the more distant parts of Cornwall. The inhabitants +degenerated into good wreckers and bad tillers. They say an Orkney man +is a farmer who owns a boat, while a Shetlander is a fisherman who owns +a farm. In much the same spirit, Camden speaks of the Elizabethan +Thanet folks as 'a sort of amphibious creatures, equally skilled in +holding helm and plough'; while Lewis, early in the last century, tells +us they made 'two voyages a year to the North Seas, and came home soon +enough for the men to go to the wheat season.' With genial tolerance +the Georgian historian adds, 'It's a thousand pities they are so apt to +pilfer stranded ships.' Piracy, which ran in the Thanet blood, seemed +to their good easy local annalist a regrettable peccadillo. + +In all this, however, we begin to catch the first faintly-resounding +note of modern Thanet. The intelligent reader will no doubt have +observed, with his usual acuteness, that up to date we have heard +practically nothing of Ramsgate, Margate, and Broadstairs, which now +form the real centres of population in the nominal island. Its +relations have all been with Rutupiæ, Sandwich, Canterbury, and the +mainland. But the silting up of the Wantsum turned the new Thanet +seaward, by the chalky cliffs; and the gaps or gates in that natural +sea-wall now began to be of comparative importance as fishing stations +and small havens. Ebb's Fleet was no longer the port of Ruim. The +centre of gravity of the island shifts at this point, accordingly, from +Minster to Ramsgate. The change is well marked by certain interesting +ecclesiastical facts. Neither Ramsgate nor Broadstairs had originally +churches of their own. The first formed part of the parish of St. +Lawrence, which was itself a mere chapelry of Minster till late in the +thirteenth century. The old village lies half a mile inland, and +Ramsgate itself was throughout the middle ages nothing more than a mere +gap and cove where the fishermen of St. Lawrence kept their boats. The +first church in the town proper was not erected till 1791. Similarly, +Broadstairs formed part of the parish of St. Peter's, the village of +which lies back at about the same distance from the sea as St. +Lawrence; and St Peter's, too, was at first a chapelry of Minster. The +cliffs were then nothing; the inward slope was everything. + +Margate seems to have been the first place in the new Thanet to attain +the honour of a place in history. As in two previous cases, the Mere +Gate was at first but a fisherman's station for the village of St. +John's, which gathered about the old church at the south end of the +existing town. But as the Northmouth closed up, and Sandwich Haven +decayed, the Mere Gate naturally became the little local port for corn +grown on the island and wool raised on the newly-reclaimed Minster +Level. A wooden pier existed at Margate long before the reign of Henry +VIII., when Leland found it "sore decayed," and the village was in +repute for fishery and coasting trade. Throughout the Stuart period +Margate was the ordinary place of departure and arrival for Flushing +and the Low Countries. William of Orange frequently sailed hence, and +Maryborough used it for almost all his expeditions. It was about the +middle of the last century, however, that the real prosperity of +Margate first began. Then it was that citizens of credit and renown in +London first hit upon the glorious discovery of the seaside, and that +watering-places tentatively and timidly raised their unobtrusive heads +along the nearer beaches. The journey from London could be made far +more easily by river than that to Brighton by coach; and so Margate, +the nearest spot to town (by water) on the real sea with any +accommodation for visitors, became in point of fact the earliest London +seaside resort. It was, if not the first place, at least one of the +first places in England to offer to its guests the perilous joy of +bathing machines, which were inaugurated here about 1790. + +With the introduction of steamers Margate's fortune was made. Floods of +Cockneydom were let loose upon the nascent lodging-houses. Then came +the London, Chatham and Dover, and South Eastern Railways, and with +them an ever-increasing inundation of good-humoured cheap-trippers. The +Hall-by-the-Sea and other modern improvements and attractions followed. +Like the rest of Thanet, Margate has now become a mere suburb of +London, and what it resembles at the present day a delicate regard for +the feelings of the inhabitants forbids me to enlarge upon. I will +merely add that the recognized modern name of Margate is an +etymological blunder, due to the idea immortalized in the borough +motto, "Porta maris, Portus salutis," that it means Door of the Sea. +The true word is still universally preserved on the lips of the local +fisher-folk, who always religiously call it either Meregate or Mergate. + +Ramsgate, a much more attractive and enjoyable centre, rich in +excursions to points of genuine interest, dates somewhat later. It +first came into note about the beginning of the eighteenth century, +when it did a modest trade with the Levant and the Black Sea, or, as +contemporary English more prettily phrases it, 'with Russia and the +east country.' In 1750 the first pier was built, as a national work, +mainly to serve as a harbour of refuge for ships caught in gales off +the Downs. The engineer was Smeaton, and he succeeded in creating an +artificial harbour of great extent, which has lasted substantially up +to the present time. This new port, rendered safer by the enlargement +in 1788, made Ramsgate at once into an important seafaring town, the +capital of the Kentish herring trade, alive with smacks in the busy +season. The steamers did it less good at first than they did to +Margate; but the completion of the two railways, and the building of +the handsome extensions on the east and west cliffs, turned it at once +into a frequented watering-place. It is the fashion nowadays rather to +laugh at Ramsgate. Marine painters know better. Few harbours are +livelier with red and brown sails; few coasts more enjoyable than the +cliff walk looking across towards the Goodwins, the low shore by +Sandwich, the higher ground about Deal and Dover, and the dim white +line of Cape Blancnez in the distance. + +Broadstairs, close by the lighthouse on the North Foreland (the Cantium +Promontorium of Roman geography), is still newer as a place of public +resort. But as a fishing village it dates back to the middle ages, when +the little chapel of "Our Lady of Bradstow" stood in the gap of the +cliffs, and was much addressed by anxious sailors rounding the +dangerous point after the silting up of the Wantsum. Ships as they +passed lowered their top-sails to do it reverence. Under Henry VIII. a +small wooden pier was thrown out to protect the fishing boats; and +about the same time, as part of the general scheme of coast defence +inaugurated by the king, a gate and portcullis were erected to close +the gap seaward, in case of invasion. The archway and portcullis groove +remain to this day, with an inscription recording their repair in 1795 +by Sir John Henniker. The railway has turned Broadstairs into a minor +rival of Ramsgate and Margate and 'a favourite resort for gentry,' +where 'those who require quietness, either from ill health or a +retiring disposition,' says a local guide-book, may enjoy 'the united +advantages of tranquillity and seclusion.' Hundreds of retiring souls +indeed may be observed on the beach any day during the season, seeking +tranquillity in a game of cards, repairing their health with the +stimulus of donkey exercise, or soothing their souls in secret hour +with music sweet as love, discoursed to them by gentlemen in loose pink +suits and artificially imitated Æthiopian countenances. + +Westgate is the very latest-born of these Thanet gates, a brand-new +watering-place, where every house proclaims the futility of the popular +belief that Queen Anne is dead, and where fashionable physicians send +fashionable patients to cure imaginary diseases by a dose of fresh air. +It has no history, for only a few years since it consisted entirely of +a coastguard station and three or four cottages: but it is interesting +as casting light on the nature of the revolution which has turned +Thanet inside out and hind part before, making the open sea take the +place of the Kentish mainland, and the railway to London that of the +silted Wantsum. + +At the present day Thanet as a whole consists of two parts: the live +sea front, which is one long succession of suburban watering-places; +and the agricultural interior, including the reclaimed estuary, which +ranks among the best-farmed and most productive districts in all +England, Yet till a very recent date the Thanet farmers still retained +the use of the old Kentish plough, the coulter of which is reversed at +the end of every furrow; and many other curious insular customs mark +off the agriculture of the island even now from that which prevails +over the rest of the country. + +I don't know whether I'm wrong, but it often seems to me the very best +way to gain an idea of the real history of England is thus to take a +single district piecemeal, and trace out for one's self the main +features of its gradual evolution. By so doing we get away from mere +dynastic or political considerations, leave behind the bang of drums or +the blare of trumpets, and reach down to the living facts of common +human activity themselves--the realities of the workaday world of +toilers and spinners. By narrowing our field of view, in fact, we gain +a clearer picture on our smaller focus. We see how the big historical +revolutions actually affected the life of the people; and we trace more +readily the true nature of deep-reaching changes when we follow them +out in detail over a particular area. + + + + + A HILL-TOP STRONGHOLD. + +'Why, what did they want to build a city right up here for, anyway?' +the pretty American asked, who had come with us to Fiesole, as we +rested, panting, after our long steep climb, on the cathedral platform. + +Now the question was a pertinent and in its way a truly philosophical +one. Fiesole crests the ridge of a Tuscan hill, and in America they +don't build cities on hill-tops. You may search through the length and +breadth of the United States, from Maine to California, and I venture +to bet a modest dollar you won't find a single town perched anywhere in +a position at all resembling that of many a glowing Etrurian fastness, +that 'Like an eagle's nest Hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine.' +Towns in America stand all on the level: most of them are built by +harbours of sea or inland lake; or by navigable rivers; or at the +junction of railways; or at a point where cataracts (sadly debased) +supply ample water-power for saw-mills and factories; or else in the +immediate neighbourhood of coal, iron, oil wells, or gold and silver +mines. In short, the position of American towns bears always an +immediate and obvious reference to the wants and necessities of our +modern industrial and commercial system. They are towns that have grown +up in a state of profound peace, and that imply advanced means of +communication, with a free interchange of agricultural and manufactured +products. + +Hence in America it is always quite easy to see at a glance the _raison +d'être_ of every town or village one comes across. New York, Boston, +Philadelphia, Baltimore--New Orleans, Montreal, San Francisco, +Charleston--are all great ports for the exportation of corn, pork, +'lumber,' cotton, or tobacco, and the importation of European +manufactured goods. Chicago is the main collecting and distributing +centre for the wide basin of the upper Great Lakes, as Cincinnati is +for the Ohio Valley, and St. Louis for the Mississippi and Missouri +confluents. Pittsburg bases itself upon its coal and its iron; Buffalo +exists as the point of transfer where elevators raise the corn of +Chicago from lake-going vessels into the long, low barges of the Erie +Canal. In every case, in that newest of worlds, one can see for oneself +at a glance exactly why so large a body of human beings has collected +just at that precise spot, and at no other. + +But when you have toiled up, hot and breathless, through olive and +pine, from the Viale at Florence to the antique Cyclopean walls of +Etruscan Fæsulæ, you wonder to yourself, like our American friend, as +you pant on the terrace of the Romanesque cathedral, what on earth they +could ever have wanted to build a town up there for, anyway. + +If we look away from Tuscany to our own England, however, we shall find +on many a deserted down or lonely tor ample evidence of the causes +which led the people of this ancient Etruscan town to build their +citadel at so great a height above the neighbouring valley. Fiesole, +says Dante, in a well-known verse, was the mother of Florence. Even so +in England, Old Sarum was indeed the mother of Salisbury, and Caer +Badon or Sulis was the mother of Bath. And when there was first a +Fæsulæ on the hill here there could be no Florence, as when first there +was an Old Sarum on the Wiltshire downs there could be no Salisbury, +and when first there was a Caer Badon on the heights of Avon there +could be no Bath. + +In very early times indeed, in the European land area, when men began +first to gather together into towns or villages, two necessities +determined their choice of a place to dwell in: first, food-supply +(including water); and second, defence. Hence every early community +stands, to start with, near its own cultivable territory, usually a +broad river-valley, an alluvial plain, a 'carse' or lowland, for +uplands as yet were incapable of tillage by the primitive agriculture +of those early epochs. But it does not stand actually _in_ the carse; +it occupies as a rule the nearest convenient height or hill-top, most +often the one that juts out farthest into the subjacent plain, by way +of security against the attack of enemies. This is the beginning of +almost every great historical European town; it is an arx or acropolis +overhanging its own tilth or _ager_; and though in many cases the town +came down at last into the valley, retaining still its old name, yet +the remains of the old earthworks or walls on the hill-top above often +bear witness to our own day to the original site of the antique +settlement upon the high places. + +One can mark, too, various stages in this gradual process of secular +descent from the wind-swept hills into the valleys below, as freer +communications and greater security made access to water, roads, and +rivers of greater importance than mere defence or elevated position. At +Bath, for example, it was the Pax Romana that brought down the town +from the stockaded height of Caer Badon, and the Hill of Solisbury to +the ford and the hot springs in the valley of the Avon. At Old Sarum, +on the other hand, the hill-top town remained much longer: it lived +from the Celtic first into the Roman and then into the West Saxon +world; it had a cathedral of its own in Norman times; and even long +after Bishop Roger Poore founded the New Sarum, which we now call +Salisbury, at the point where the great west road passed the river +below, the hill-top town continued to be inhabited, and, as everybody +knows, when all its population had finally dwindled away, retained some +vestige of its ancient importance by returning a member of its own for +a single farmhouse to the unreformed Parliament till '32. As for +Fiesole, though Florence has long since superseded it as the capital of +the Arno Valley, the town itself still lives on to our own time in a +dead-alive way, and, like Norman. Old Sarum, retains even now its +beautiful old cathedral, its Palazzo Pretorio, and its acknowledged +claims to ancient boroughship. In England, I know by personal +experience only one such hill-top town of the antique sort still +surviving, and that is Shaftsbury; but I am told that Launceston, with +its strong castle overlooking the Tamar, is even a finer example. This +relatively early disappearance of the hill-top fortress from our own +midst is in part due, no doubt, to the early growth of the industrial +spirit in England, and our long-continued freedom from domestic +warfare. But all over Southern Europe, as everybody must have noticed, +the hill-top town, perched, like Eza, on the very summit of a pointed +pinnacle, still remains everywhere in evidence as a common object of +the country in our own day. + +I said above that Fiesole was the mother of Florence, and, in spite of +formal objections to the contrary, I venture to defend that now +somewhat obsolete and heretical opinion. For why does Fiesole stand +just where it does? What made them build a city up there, anyway? Well, +a town always exists just where it does exist for some good and amply +sufficient reason. Even if, like Fiesole, it is mainly a survival +(though at Fiesole there are, indeed, olives in plenty and other live +trades to keep a town going), it yet exists there in virtue of facts +which once upon a time were quite sufficient to bring the world to the +spot, and it goes on existing, partly by mere conservative use and +wont, no doubt, but partly also because there are houses, churches, +mills, and roads all ready built there. Now, a town must always, from a +very early period, have existed upon the exact site of Fiesole. And +why? To answer that question you have only to look at the view from the +platform. I do not mean to suggest that the ancient Etruscans came +there to enjoy the prospect as we go nowadays to the hotels on the Rigi +or to the summit of Mount Washington. The ancient Etruscan was a +practical man, and his views about views were probably rudimentary. But +gaze down for a moment from the cathedral platform upon the valley of +the Arno, spread like a glowing picture at your feet, and see how +immediately it resolves the doubt. Not, indeed, the valley of the Arno +as it stands at present, thick set with tower and spire and palace. In +order to arrive at the _raison d'être_ of Fiesole you must blot out +mentally Arnolfo's vast pile, and Brunelleschi's dome, and Giotto's +campanile, and Savonarola's monastery, and the tall and slender tower +of the Palazzo Vecchio, rising like a shaft sheer into the air far, far +below--you must blot out, in short, all that makes the world now +congregate at Florence, and all Florence itself into the bargain. +Nowhere on earth do I know a more peopled plain than that plain of Arno +in our own time, seen on a sunny autumn day, when the light glints +clearly on each white villa and church and hamlet, from this specular +mount of antique Fiesole. But to understand why Fiesole itself stands +there at all you must neglect all this, neglect all the wealth of art +that makes each inch of that valley classic ground, and look only, if +you can for a brief moment, at the bare facts of primitive nature. + +And what then do you see? Spread far below you, and basking in the +sunshine, a comparatively flat and wide, open valley; olive and stone +pine and mulberry on its slopes; pasture land and flowery vale in its +midst. North and south, in two long ridges, the Apennines stretch their +hard, blue outlines from Carrara to Siena against the afternoon +sky--outlines of a sort that one never gets in northern lands, but +which remind one so exactly of the painted background to a +fifteenth-century Italian picture that nature seems here, to our +topsy-turvy fancy, to be whimsically imitating an effect from art. But +in between those two tossed and tumbled guardian ridges, the valley of +the Arno, as it flows towards Pisa, with the minor basins of its +tributary streams, expands for a while about Florence itself into a +broad and comparatively level plain. In a mountain country so broken +and heaved about as Peninsular Italy, every spare inch of cultivable +plain like that has incalculable value. True, on the terraced slopes of +the hillsides generation after generation of ingenious men have managed +to build up, tier by tier, a wonderful expanse of artificial tilth. But +while oil and wine can be produced upon the terraces, it is on the +river valleys alone that the early inhabitants had to depend for their +corn, their cheese, and their flesh-meat. Hence, in primitive Italy and +in primitive England alike, every such open alluvial plain, fit for +tilth or grazing, had overhanging it a stockaded hill-fort, which grew +with time into a mediæval town or a walled city. It is just so that +Caer Badon at Bath overhangs, with its prehistoric earthworks, the +plain of Avon on which Beau Nash's city now spreads its streets, and it +is just so that Old Sarum in turn overhangs, with its regular Roman +fosses and gigantic glacis, the dale of the namesake river in Wilts, +near its point of confluence with the stream of the Wily. + +We find it hard, no doubt, to imagine nowadays that once upon a time +England was almost as thickly covered with hill-top villages (though on +minor heights) as Italy is in the present century. Yet such was +undoubtedly the case in prehistoric times. I know no better instance of +the way these stockaded villages were built than the magnificent group +of antique earthworks in Dorset and Devon which rings round with a +double row of fortresses the beautiful valley of the Axminster Axe. +There, on one side, a long line of strongholds built by the Durotriges +caps every jutting down and hill-top on the southern and eastern bank +of the river, while facing them, on the opposite northern and western +side, rises a similar series of Damnonian fortresses, crowning the +corresponding Devonshire heights. Lambert's Castle, Musberry Castle, +Hawksdown Castle, and so forth, the local nomenclature still calls +them, but they are castles, or _castra_, only in the now obsolete Roman +sense; prehistoric earthworks, with dyke and trench, once stockaded +with wooden palings on top, and enclosing the huts and homes of the +inhabitants. The river ran between the hostile territories; each +village held its own strip of land below its fortress-height, and drove +up its cattle, its women, and its children, in times of foray, to the +safety of the kraal or hill-top encampment. + +In such a condition of society, of course, every community was +absolutely dependent upon its own territory for the means of +subsistence. And wherever the means of subsistence existed, a village +was sure to spring up in time upon the nearest hill-top. That is how +the oldest Fiesole of all first came to be perched there. It was a +hill-top refuge for the tillers and grazers of the fertile Arno vale at +its feet. + +But why did the people of the Arno Valley fix upon the particular site +of Fiesole? Surely on the southern side of the river, about the Viale +dei Colli, the hills approach much nearer to the plain. From San +Miniato and the Bello Sguardo one looks down far more directly upon the +domes and palaces and campaniles of Florence spread right at one's +feet. Why didn't the primitive inhabitants of the valley fix rather on +a spur of that nearer range--say the one where Galileo's tower +stands--for the site of their village? + +If you know Florence and have asked that question within yourself in +all seriousness as you read, I see you haven't yet begun to throw +yourself into the position of affairs in prehistoric Tuscany. You can't +shuffle off your own century. For between the broad plain and the range +of hills where the Viale dei Colli now winds serpentine on its +beautiful way round the glens and ravines, the Arno runs, a broad +torrent flood in times of freshet: the Arno, unbridged as yet (in the +days I speak of) by the Ponte Vecchio, an impassable frontier between +the wide territory of prehistoric Fiesole and the narrow fields of some +minor village, long since forgotten, on the opposite bank. The great +alluvial plain lies north of the river; the three streams whose silt +contributes to form it flow into the main channel from Pistoja and +Prato. To live across the river on the south bank would have been +absolutely impossible for the owners of the plain. But Fiesole occupies +a central spur of the northern heights, overlooking the valley to east +and west, and must therefore have been always the natural place from +which to command the plain of Arno. A little above and a little below +Florence gorges once more hem the river in. So that the plain of +Florence (as we call it nowadays), the plain of Fiesole, as it once +was, formed at the beginning a little natural principality by itself, +of which Fiesole was the obvious capital and stronghold. + +For in order to understand Fiesole aright, we must always manage in our +own minds to get rid entirely of that beautiful mushroom growth, +Florence, and to think only of the most ancient epoch. While we are in +Florence itself, to be sure, it seems to us always, by comparison with +our modern English towns, that Florence is a place of immemorial +antiquity. It was civilized when Britain was a den of thieves. While in +feudal England Edward I. was summoning his barons to repress the rising +of William Wallace, in Florence, already a great commercial town, +Arnolfo di Cambio had received the sublime orders of the Signoria to +construct for the Duomo 'the most sumptuous edifice that human +invention could desire or human labour execute,' and had carried out +those orders with consummate skill. While Edward III. was dreaming of +his lawless filibustering expeditions into France, Ciotto was +encrusting the face of his glorious belfry with that magnificent +decoration of many-coloured marbles which makes northern churches look +so cold and grey and barbaric by comparison. While Englishmen were +burning Joan of Arc at Rouen, Fra Angelico was adorning the walls of +San Marco with those rapt saints and those spotless Madonnas. Even the +very back streets of Florence recall at every step its mediæval +magnificence. But when from Florence itself one turns to Fiesole, the +city by the Arno sinks at once by a sudden revulsion into a mere thing +of yesterday by the side of the city on the Etruscan hill-top. Fiesole +was a town of immemorial antiquity while Florence was still, what +perhaps its poetical name imports, a field of flowers. + +But why this particular height rather than any other of the dozen that +jut out into the plain? Well, there we get at another fundamental point +in hill-top town history. Fiesole had water. A spring at such a height +is comparatively rare, but it is a necessary accompaniment, or rather a +condition precedent, of all high-place villages. In the Borgo Unto you +will still find this spring--a natural fountain, the Fonte Sotterra--in +an underground passage, now approached (so greatly did the Fiesolans +appreciate its importance) by a Gothic archway. The water supplies the +whole neighbourhood; and that accounts for the position of the town on +the low _col_ just below the acropolis. + +Who first chose the site it would be impossible to say; the earliest +stockaded fort at Fiesole (enclosing the town and arx above) must go +back to the very dawn of neolithic history, long before the Etruscans +had ever issued forth from their Rhætian fastnesses to occupy the blue +and silver-grey hills of modern Tuscany. Nor do we know who built the +great Cyclopean walls, whose huge rough blocks still overhang the +modern carriage road that leads past Boccaccio's Valley of the Ladies +and Fra Angelico's earliest convent from the town in the Valley. They +are attributed to the Etruscans, of course, on much the same grounds as +Stonehenge is attributed to the Druids--because in the minds of the +people who made the attribution Etruscans and Druids were each in their +own place the _ne plus ultra_ of aboriginal antiquity. But at any rate, +at some very early time, the people who held the valley of the Arno +erected these vast megalithic walls round their city and citadel as a +protection, probably, against the people who held the Ligurian +sea-board. Throughout the early historical period at least we know that +Fæsulæ was an Etruscan border-town against the Ligurian freebooters, +and we can see that the arx or acropolis of Fæsulæ must have occupied +the hill-top now occupied by the Franciscan monastery on the height +above the town, while the houses must have spread, as they still do +within shrunken limits, about the spring and over the _col_ at its +base. + +Fæsulæ was not one of the great Etrurian cities, not one of the twelve +cities of the Etruscan League. Volterra occupies the site of the large +Tuscan town which lorded it over this part of the Lower Apennines. But +Fæsulæ must still have been a considerable place, to judge by the +magnitude and importance of its fortifications, and it must have +gathered into itself the entire population of all the little Arno +plain. As long as _fortis Etruria crevit_, Fæsulæ must always have held +its own as a frontier post against the Ligurian foe. But when _fortis +Etruria_ began to decline, and Rome to become the summit of all things, +the glory of Fæsulæ received a severe shock. Not indeed by +conquest--that counts for little--but the Roman peace introduced into +Italy a new order of things, fatal to the hill-tops. Sulla, who humbled +Fæsulæ, did far worse than that: he planted a Roman colony in the +valley at its foot--the colony of Florentia--at the point where the +road crossed the Arno--the colony that was afterwards to become the +most famous commercial and artistic town of the mediæval world as +Florence. + +The position of the new town marks the change that had come over the +conditions of life in Upper Italy. Florence was a Fiesole descended to +the plain. And it descended for just the selfsame reason that made +Bishop Poore thirteen centuries later bring down Sarum from its lofty +hill-top to the new white minster by the ford of Avon. Roads, +communications, internal trade were henceforth to exist and to count +for much; what was needed now was a post and trading town on the river +to guard the passage from north to south against possible aggression. +Fiesole had been but a mountain stronghold; Florence was marked from +the very beginning by its mere position as a great commercial and +manufacturing town. + +Nevertheless, just as in mediæval England the upper town on the hill, +the castled town of the barons, often existed for many years side by +side with the lower town on the river, the high-road town of the +merchant guilds--just as Old Sarum, for example, continued to exist +side by side with Salisbury--so Fæsulæ continued to exist side by side +with Florentia. As a military post, commanding the plain, it was +needful to retain it; and so, though Sulla destroyed in part its +population, he reinstated it before long as one of his own Roman +colonies. And for a long time, during the ages of doubtful peace that +succeeded the first glorious flush of the military empire, Fæsulæ must +have kept up its importance unchanged. The remains of the Roman theatre +on the slope behind the cathedral--great stone semicircles carved on a +scale to seat a large audience--betoken a considerable Roman town. And +from a very early period it seems to have possessed a Christian church, +whose first bishop, according to a tradition as good as most, was a +convert of St. Peter's, and was martyred, says his legend, in the +Neronian persecution. The existing cathedral, its later representative, +is still an early and very simple Tuscan basilica, with picturesque +crypt and raised choir, of a very plain Romanesque type. It looks like +a fitting church for the mother-town of Florence; it seems to recall in +its own cold and austere fabric the more ancient claims of the sombre +Etruscan hill-top city. + +It was the middle ages, however, that finally brought down Fiesole in +earnest to the plain. Pisa had been the earliest Tuscan town to attain +importance and maritime supremacy after the dark days of barbarian +incursion; but as soon as land-transit once more assumed general +importance, Florence, seated on the great route from the north to Rome +by Siena, and commanding the passage of the Arno and the gate of the +Apennines, naturally began to surpass in time its distanced rival. As +early as the Roman days a bridge is said to have spanned the Arno on +the site of the existing Ponte Vecchio. The mediæval walls enclosed the +southern _tête du pont_ within their picturesque circuit, thus securing +the passage of the river and giving Florence its little Janiculus, the +Oltrarno, with its southern exit by the Porta Romana. The real 'makers +of Florence' were the humble workmen who thus extended the firm hold of +the growing republic to the southern bank. By so doing, they gave their +city undoubted command of the imperial route from Germany Romeward, and +brought in their train Dante and Giotto, Brunelleschi and Donatello, +Fra Angelico and Savonarola, the Medici and the Pitti, Michael Angelo +and Raffaele, and all the glories of the Renaissance epoch. For as at +Athens, so in Florence, art and literature followed plainly in the wake +of commerce. But the rise of Florence was the fall of Fiesole. Already +in the eleventh century the undutiful daughter had conquered and +annexed her venerable mother; and in proportion as the mercantile +importance of the city in the plain waxed greater and greater, that of +the city on the hill-top must slowly have waned to less and less. At +the present day Fiesole has degenerated into a mere suburb of Florence, +which, indeed, it had almost become when Lorenzo the Magnificent held +his country court at the Villa Mozzi, or even earlier, when Boccaccio's +lively narrators fled from the plague to the gardens of the Palmieri, +though it still retains the dignity of its ancient cathedral, its +municipal palace, its gigantic seminary, and its great overgrown +Franciscan monastery, that replaces the citadel on the height above the +town. Nay, more, with its local museum, its bishop's palace, and its +quaint churches, it keeps up, to some extent, all the airs and graces +of a real living town. But in reality these few big buildings, and the +graceful campanile which makes so fair a show in all the neighbouring +views, are the best of the little city. Fiesole looks biggest seen from +afar. All that is vital in it is the ecclesiastical establishment, +which still clings, with true ecclesiastical conservatism, to the +hill-top city, and the trade of the straw plaiters, who make Leghorn +straw goods and pester the visitor with their flimsy wares, taking no +answer to all their importunities save one in solid coin of good King +Umberto. + +One last question. How does it come that in these southern climates the +hill-top town has survived so much more generally to our own day than +in Northern Europe? The obvious answer seems at first sight to be that +in the warmer climates life can be carried on comfortably, and +agriculture can yield good results, at a greater height than in a cold +climate. Olives, vines, chestnuts, maize will grow far up on Italian +hill sides, and that, no doubt, counts for something; but I do not +believe it covers all the ground. Two other points seem to me at least +equally important, especially when we remember that the hill-top town +was once as common in the north as in the south, and that what we have +really to account for in Italy is not its existence merely, but rather +its late survival into newer epochs. One point is that in Southern +Europe the state of perpetual internal warfare lasted much longer than +in the feudal north. The other point is that each little patch of +country in the south is still far more self-supporting, has had its +economic conditions far less disturbed by modern rearrangements and +commercial necessities, than in Northern Europe. In England every town +and village stands upon some high road; the larger stand almost +invariably upon some railway or some navigable river. In Italy it is +still quite possible, where agricultural conditions are favourable, to +have a comparatively flourishing town perched upon some out-of-the-way +mountain height. Even a carriage road is scarcely a necessity; a mule +path will do well enough for wine and oil and the other simple +commodities of southern life. The hill-top town, in short, belongs to +an earlier type of civilisation than ours; it survives, unaltered, on +its own pinnacle wherever that type of civilisation is still possible. + +And I sincerely hope our pretty American friend will pardon me for +having thus publicly answered, at so great length, her natural +question. + + + + + A PERSISTENT NATIONALITY. + +Standing to-day before the dim outline of Orcagna's "Hell" in the +Church of Santa Maria Novella, at Florence, and mentally comparing +those mediæval demons and monsters and torturers on the frescoed wall +in front of me with the more antique Etruscan devils and tormentors +pictured centuries earlier on the ancient tombs of Etrurian princes, +the thought, which had often occurred to me before, how essentially +similar were the Tuscan intellect and Tuscan art in all ages, forced +itself upon me once more at a flash with an irresistible burst of +internal conviction. The identity of old and new seemed to stand +confessed. Etruria throughout has been one and the same; and it is +almost impossible for any one to over-estimate the influence of the +powerful, but gloomy, Etruscan character upon the whole tone, not only +of popular Christianity, but of that modern civilisation which is its +offspring and outcome. + +I suppose it is hardly necessary, "in this age of enlightenment" (as +people used to say in the last century), to insist any longer upon the +obvious fact that conquest and absorption do not in any way mean +extermination. Most people still vaguely fancy to themselves, to be +sure, that, when Rome conquered and absorbed Etruria, the ancient +Etruscan ceased at once to exist--was swallowed, as it were, and became +forthwith, in some mysterious way, first a Roman, and then a modern +Italian. And, in a certain sense, this is, no doubt, more or less true; +but that sense is decidedly not the genealogical one. Manners change, +but blood persists. The Tuscan people went on living and marrying under +consul and emperor just as they had done under _lar_ and _lucumo_; +Latin and Gaul, Lombard and Goth, mingled with them in time, but did +not efface them; and I do not doubt that the vast mass of the +population of Tuscany at the present day is still of preponderatingly +Etruscan blood, though qualified, of course (and perhaps improved), by +many Italic, Celtic, and Teutonic elements. + +Again, when we remember that Florence, Pisa, Siena, Perugia are all +practically in Tuscany, and that Florence alone has really given to the +world Dante and Boccaccio, Galileo and Savonarola, Cimabue and Giotto, +Botticelli and Fra Angelico, Donatello and Ghiberti, Michael Angelo and +Raffael, Leonardo da Vinci and Macchiavelli and Alfieri, and a host of +other almost equally great names, it will be obvious to every one that +the problem of the origin of this Tuscan nationality must be one that +profoundly interests the whole world. Nay, more, we must remember, too, +that Etruria had other and earlier claims than these; that it spread up +to the very walls of Rome; that the Etruscan element in Rome itself was +immensely strong; that the Roman religion owed, confessedly, much to +Tuscan ideas; that Latin Christianity, the Christianity of all the +Western world, took its shape in semi-Tuscan Rome; that the Roman +Empire was largely modelled by the Etruscan Mæcenas; that the Italian +renaissance was largely influenced by the Florentine Medici; that Leo +the Tenth was himself a member of that great house; and that the +artists whom he summoned to the metropolis to erect St. Peter's and to +beautify the Vatican were, almost all of them, Florentines by birth, +training, or domicile. I think, when we have run over mentally these +and ten thousand other like facts, we will readily admit to ourselves +the magnitude of the world's debt to Tuscany--social, artistic, +intellectual, religious--both in ancient, mediæval, and modern times. + +And what, now, was this strong Tuscan nationality, which persists so +thoroughly through all external historical changes, and which has +contributed so large and so marvellous a part to the world's thought +and the world's culture? It is a curious consideration for those who +talk so glibly, about the enormous natural superiority of the Aryan +race, that the ancient Etruscans were the one people of the antique +European world, who, by common consent, did _not_ belong to the Aryan +family. They were strangers in the land, or, rather, perhaps they were +its oldest possessors. Their language, their physique, their creed, +their art, all point to a wholly different origin from the Aryans. I am +not going, in a brief essay like this, to settle dogmatically, +off-hand, the vexed question of the origin and affinities of the +Etruscan type; more nonsense, I suppose, has been talked and written +upon that occult subject by learned men than even learned men have ever +poured forth upon any other sublunary topic; but one thing at least, I +take it, is absolutely certain amid the conflicting theories of +ingenious theorists about the Etruscan race, and that one thing is that +the Rasennæ stand in Europe absolutely alone, the sole representatives +of some ancient and elsewhere exterminated stock, surviving only in +Tuscany itself, and in the Rhætian Alps of the Canton Grisons. + +At the moment when the Etruscans first appear in history, however, they +appear as a race capable of acquiring and assimilating culture with +great ease, rapidity, and certainty. No sooner do they come into +contact with the Greek world than they absorb and reproduce all that +was best and truest in Greek civilization. 'Merely receptive--European +Chinese,' says, in effect, Mommsen, the great Roman historian: to me, +that judgment, though true in some small degree, seems harsh indeed on +a wider view, when applied to a people who begot at last the 'Divina +Commedia,' the campanile of Florence, the dome of St. Peter's, and the +glories of the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace. It is quite true that the +Etruscans themselves, like the Japanese in our own time, did at first +accept most imitatively the Hellenic culture; but they gradually +remoulded it by their own effort into something new, growing and +changing from age to age, until at last, in the Italian renaissance, +they burst out with a wonderful and novel message to all the rest of +dormant Europe. + +One of the most persistent key-notes of this underlying Etruscan +character is the solemn, weird, and gloomy nature of so much of the +true Etruscan workmanship. From the very beginning they are strong, but +sullen. Solidity and power, rather than beauty and grace, are what they +aim at; and in this, Michael Angelo was a true Tuscan. If we look at +the massive old Etruscan buildings, the Cyclopean walls of Fæsulæ and +Volterræ, with their gigantic unhewn blocks, or the gloomy tombs of +Clusium, with their heavy portals, and then at the frowning façade of +the Strozzi or the Pitti Palace, we shall see in these, their earliest +and latest terms, the special marks of Tuscan architecture. 'Piled by +the hands of giants for mighty kings of old,' says Macaulay, well, of +the Cyclopean walls. 'It somewhat resembles a prison or castle, and is +remarkable for its bold simplicity of style, the unadorned huge blocks +of stone being hewn smooth at the joints only,' says a modern writer, +of Brunelleschi's palatial masterpiece. Every visitor to Florence must +have noticed on every side the marks of this sullen and rugged Etruscan +character. Compare for a moment the dark bosses of the Palazzo Strozzi, +the '_âpre énergie_' of the Palazzo Vecchio, the '_beauté sombre et +sévère_' of the mediæval Bargello, with the open, airy brightness of +the Doge's Palace, or the glorious Byzantine gold-and-blue of St. +Mark's at Venice, and you get at once an admirable measure of this +persistent trait in the Etruscan idiosyncrasy. Tuscan architecture is +massive and morose where Venetian architecture is sunny and smiling. + +Now, Tuscan religion has in all times been specially influenced by the +peculiarly gloomy tinge of the Tuscan character. It has always been a +religion of fear rather than of love; a religion that strove harder to +terrorize than to attract; a religion full of devils, flames, tortures, +and horrors; in short, a sort of horrible Chinese religion of dragons +and monstrosities, and flames and goblins. In the painted tombs of +ancient Etruria you may see the familiar devil with his three-pronged +fork thrusting souls back into the seething flood of a heathen hell, as +Orcagna's here thrust them back similarly into that of its more modern +Christian successor. All Etruscan art is full throughout of such +horrors. You find their traces abundantly in the antique Etruscan +museum at Florence; you find them on the mediæval Campo Santo at Pisa; +you find them with greater skill, but equal repulsiveness, in the work +of the great Renaissance artists. The 'ghastly glories of saints' the +Tuscan revels in. The most famous portion of the most famous Tuscan +poem is the 'Inferno'--the part that gloats with minute and truly +Tuscan realism over the torments of the damned in every department of +the mediæval hell. And, as if still further to mark the continuity of +thought, here in Orcagna's frescoes at Santa Maria Novella you have +every horror of the heathen religion incongruously mingled with every +horror of the Christian--gorgons and harpies and chimæras dire are +tormenting the wicked under the eyes of the Madonna; centaurs are +shooting and prodding them before the God of Love from the torrid banks +of fiery lakes; furies with snaky heads are directing their +punishments; Minos and Æacus are superintending their tasks; and, in +the centre of all, a huge Moloch demon is devouring them bodily in his +fiery jaws, with hideous tusks as of a Japanese monster. + +It would be a curious question to inquire how far these old and +ingrained Etruscan ideas may have helped to modify and colour the +gentler conceptions of primitive Christianity. Certainly, one must +never for a moment forget that Rome was at bottom nearly one-half +Etruscan in character; that during the imperial period it became, in +fact, the capital of Etruria; that myriads of Etruscans flocked to +Rome; and that many of them, like Sejanus, had much to do with moulding +and building up the imperial system. I do not doubt, myself, that +Etruscan notions large interwove themselves, from the very outset, with +Roman Christianity; and whenever in the churches or galleries of Italy +I see St. Lawrence frying on his gridiron, or St. Sebastian pierced +through with many arrows, or the Innocents being massacred in +unpleasant detail, or hell being represented with Dantesque minuteness +and particularity of delineation, I say to myself, with an internal +smile, 'Etruscan influence.' + +How interesting it is, too, to observe the constant outcrop, under all +forms and faiths, of this strange, underlying, non-Aryan type! The +Etruscans are and always were remarkable for their intellect, their +ingenuity, their artistic faculty; and even to this day, after so many +vicissitudes, they stand out as a wholly superior people to the rough +Genoese and the indolent Neapolitans. They have had many crosses of +blood meanwhile, of course; and it seems probable that the crosses have +done them good: for in ancient times it was Rome, the Etrurianised +border city of the Latins, that rose to greatness, not Etruria itself; +and at a later date, it was after the Germans had mingled their race +with Italy that Florence almost took the place of Rome. Nay, it is +known as a fact that under Otto the Great a large Teutonic colony +settled in Florence, thus adding to the native Etrurian race +(especially to the nobility) that other element which the Tuscan seems +to need in order that he may be spurred to the realisation of his best +characteristics. But allow as we may for foreign admixture, two points +are abundantly clear to the impartial observer of Tuscan history: one, +that this non-Aryan race has always been one of the finest and +strongest in Italy; and the other, that from the very dawn of history +its main characteristics, for good or for evil, have persisted most +uninterruptedly till the present day. + + + + + CASTERS AND CHESTERS. + +Everybody knows, of course, that up and down over the face of England a +whole crop of places may be found with such terminations as Lancaster, +Doncaster, Manchester, Leicester, Gloucester, or Exeter; and everybody +also knows that these words are various corruptions or alterations of +the Latin _castra_, or perhaps we ought rather to say of the singular +form, _castrum_. So much we have all been told from our childhood +upward; and for the most part we have been quite ready to acquiesce in +the statement without any further troublesome inquiry on our own +account. But in reality the explanation thus vouchsafed us does not +help us much towards explaining the real origin and nature of these +ancient names. It is true enough as far as it goes, but it does not go +nearly far enough. It reminds one a little of Charles Kingsley's +accomplished pupil-teacher, with his glib derivation of amphibious, +'from two Greek words, _amphi_, the land, and _bios_, the water.' A +detailed history of the root 'Chester' in its various British usages +may serve to show how far such a rough-and-ready solution as the +pupil-teacher's falls short of complete accuracy and comprehensiveness. + +In the first place, without troubling ourselves for the time being with +the diverse forms of the word as now existing, a difficulty meets us at +the very outset as to how it ever got into the English language at all. +'It was left behind by the Romans,' says the pupil teacher +unhesitatingly. No doubt; but if so, the only language in which it +could be left would be Welsh; for when the Romans quitted Britain there +were probably as yet no English settlements on any part of the eastern +coast. Now the Welsh form of the word, even as given us in the very +ancient Latin Welsh tract ascribed to Nennius, is 'Caer' or 'Kair;' and +there is every reason to believe that the Celtic _cathir_ or the Latin +_castrum_ had been already worn down into this corrupt form at least as +early as the days of the first English colonisation of Britain. Indeed +I shall show ground hereafter for believing that that form survives +even now in one or two parts of Teutonic England. But if this be so, it +is quite clear that the earliest English conquerors could not have +acquired the use of the word from the vanquished Welsh whom they spared +as slaves or tributaries. The newcomers could not have learned to speak +of a Ceaster or Chester from Welshmen who called it a Caer; nor could +they have adopted the names of Leicester or Gloucester from Welshmen +who knew those towns only as Kair Legion or Kair Gloui. It is clear +that this easy off-hand theory shirks all the real difficulties of the +question, and that we must look a little closer into the matter in +order to understand the true history of these interesting philological +fossils. + +Already we have got one clear and distinct principle to begin with, +which is too often overlooked by amateur philologists. The Latin +language, as spoken by Romans in Britain during their occupation of the +island, has left and can have left absolutely no directs marks upon our +English tongue, for the simple reason that English (or Anglo-Saxon as +we call it in its earlier stages) did not begin to be spoken in any +part of Britain for twenty or thirty years after the Romans retired. +Whatever Latin words have come down to us in unbroken succession from +the Roman times--and they are but a few--must have come down from Welsh +sources. The Britons may have learnt them from their Italian masters, +and may then have imparted them, after the brief period of precarious +independence, to their Teutonic masters; but of direct intercourse +between Roman and Englishman there was probably little or none. + +Three ways out of this difficulty might possibly be suggested by any +humble imitator of Mr. Gladstone. First, the early English pirates may +have learnt the word _castrum_ (they always used it as a singular) +years before they ever came to Britain as settlers at all. For during +the long decay of the empire, the corsairs of the flat banks and islets +of Sleswick and Friesland made many a light-hearted plundering +expedition upon the unlucky coasts of the maritime Roman provinces; and +it was to repel their dreaded attacks that the Count of the Saxon Shore +was appointed to the charge of the long exposed tract from the fenland +of the Wash to the estuary of the Rother in Sussex. On one occasion +they even sacked London itself, already the chief trading town of the +whole island. During some such excursions, the pirates would be certain +to pick up a few Latin words, especially such as related to new +objects, unseen in the rude society of their own native heather-clad +wastes; and amongst these we may be sure that the great Roman +fortresses would rank first and highest in their barbaric eyes. Indeed, +modern comparative philologists have shown beyond doubt that a few +southern forms of speech had already penetrated to the primitive +English marshland by the shores of the Baltic and the mouth of the Elbe +before the great exodus of the fifth century; and we know that Roman or +Byzantine coins, and other objects belonging to the Mediterranean +civilisation, are found abundantly in barrows of the first Christian +centuries in Sleswick--the primitive England of the colonists who +conquered Britain. But if the word _castrum_ did not get into early +English by some such means, then we must fall back either upon our +second alternative explanation, that the townspeople of the +south-eastern plains in England had become thoroughly Latinised in +speech during the Roman occupation; or upon our third, that they spoke +a Celtic dialect more akin to Gaulish than the modern Welsh of Wales, +which may be descended from the ruder and older tongue of the western +aborigines. This last opinion would fit in very well with the views of +Mr. Rhys, the Celtic professor at Oxford, who thinks that all +south-eastern Britain was conquered and colonised by the Gauls before +the Roman invasion. If so, it maybe only the western Welsh who said +Caer; the eastern may have said _castrum_, as the Romans did. In either +of the latter two cases, we must suppose that the early English learnt +the word from the conquered Britons of the districts they overran. But +I myself have very little doubt that they had borrowed it long before +their settlement in our island at all. + +However this may be--and I confess I have been a little puritanically +minute upon the subject--the English settlers learned to use the word +from the first moment they landed in Britain. In its earliest English +dress it appears as Ceaster, pronounced like Keaster, for the soft +sound of the initial in modern English is due to later Norman +influences. The new comers--Anglo-Saxons, if you choose to call them +so--applied the word to every Roman town or ruin they found in Britain. +Indeed, all the Latin words of the first crop in English--those used +during the heathen age, before Augustine and his monks introduced the +Roman civilisation--belong to such material relics of the older +provincial culture as the Sleswick pirates had never before known: +_way_ from _via_, _wall_ from _vallum_, _street_ from _strata_, and +_port_ from _portus_. In this first crop of foreign words Ceaster also +must be reckoned, and it was originally employed in English as a common +rather than as a proper name. Thus we read in the brief _Chronicle_ of +the West Saxon kings, under the year 577, 'Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought +against the Welsh, and offslew three kings, Conmail and Condidan and +Farinmail, and took three ceasters, Gleawan ceaster and Ciren ceaster +and Bathan ceaster.' We might modernise a little, so as to show the +real sense, by saying 'Glevum city and Corinium city and Bath city.' +Here it is noticeable that in two of the cases--Gloucester and +Cirencester--the descriptive termination has become at last part of the +name; but in the third case--that of Bath--it has never succeeded in +doing so. Ages after, in the reign of King Alfred, we still find the +word used as a common noun; for the _Chronicle_ mentions that a body of +Danish freebooters 'fared to a waste ceaster in Wirral; it is hight +Lega ceaster;' that is to say, Legionis castra, now Chester. The grand +old English epic of Beowulf, which is perhaps older than the +colonisation of Britain, speaks of townsfolk as 'the dwellers in +ceasters.' + +As a rule, each particular Roman town retained its full name, in a more +or less clipped form, for official uses; but in the ordinary colloquial +language of the neighbourhood they all seem to have been described as +'the Ceaster' simply, just as we ourselves habitually speak of 'town,' +meaning the particular town near which we live, or, in a more general +sense, London. Thus, in the north, Ceaster usually means York, the +Roman capital of the province; as when the _Chronicle_ tells us that +'John succeeded to the bishopric of Ceaster'; that 'Wilfrith was +hallowed as bishop at Ceaster'; or that 'Æthelberht the archbishop died +at Ceaster.' In the south it is employed to mean Winchester, the +capital of the West Saxon kings and overlords of all Britain; as when +the _Chronicle_ says that 'King Edgar drove out the priests at Ceaster +from the Old Minster and the New Minster, and set them with monks.' So, +as late as the days of Charles II., 'to go to town' meant in Shropshire +to go to Shrewsbury, and in Norfolk to go to Norwich. In only one +instance has this colloquial usage survived down to our own days in a +large town, and that is at Chester, where the short form has quite +ousted the full name of Lega ceaster. But in the case of small towns or +unimportant Roman stations, which would seldom need to be mentioned +outside their own immediate neighbourhood, the simple form is quite +common, as at Caistor in Norfolk, Castor in Hunts, and elsewhere. At +times, too, we get an added English termination, as at Casterton, +Chesterton, and Chesterholme; or a slight distinguishing mark, as at +Great Chesters, Little Chester, Bridge Casterton, and Chester-le-Street. +All these have now quite lost their old distinctive names, though they +have acquired new ones to distinguish them from _the_ Chester, or from +one another. For example, Chester-le-Street was Conderco in Roman +times, and Cunega ceaster in the early English period. Both names are +derived from the little river Cone, which flows through the village. + +Before we pass on to the consideration of those _castra_ which, like +Manchester and Lancaster, have preserved to the present day their +original Roman or Celtic prefixes in more or less altered shapes, we +must glance briefly at a general principle running through the +modernised forms now in use. The reader, with his usual acuteness, will +have noticed that the word Ceaster reappears under many separate +disguises in the names of different modern towns. Sometimes it is +_caster_, sometimes _chester_, sometimes _cester_, and sometimes even +it gets worn down to a mere fugitive relic, as _ceter_ or _eter_. But +these different corruptions do not occur irregularly up and down the +country, one here and one there; they follow a distinct law and are due +to certain definite underlying facts of race or language. Each set of +names lies in a regular stratum; and the different strata succeed one +another like waves over the face of England, from north-east to +south-westward. In the extreme north and east, where the English or +Anglian blood is purest, or is mixed only with Danes and Northmen to +any large extent, such forms as Lancaster, Doncaster, Caistor, and +Casterton abound. In the mixed midlands and the Saxon south, the sound +softens into Chesterfield, Chester, Winchester, and Dorchester. In the +inner midlands and the Severn vale, where the proportion of Celtic +blood becomes much stronger, the termination grows still softer in +Leicester, Bicester, Cirencester, Gloucester, and Worcester, while at +the same time a marked tendency towards elision occurs; for these words +are really pronounced as if written Lester, Bister, Cisseter, Gloster, +and Wooster. Finally, on the very borders of Wales, and of that +Damnonian country which was once known to our fathers as West Wales, we +get the very abbreviated forms Wroxeter, Uttoxeter, and Exeter, of +which the second is colloquially still further shortened into Uxeter. +Sometimes these tracts approach very closely to one another, as on the +banks of the Nene, where the two halves of the Roman Durobrivæ have +become castor on one side of the river, and Chesterton on the other; +but the line can be marked distinctly on the map, with a slight outward +bulge, with as great regularity as the geological strata. It will be +most convenient here, therefore, to begin with the _casters_, which +have undergone the least amount of rubbing down, and from them to pass +on regularly to the successively weaker forms in _chester_, _cester_, +_ceter_, and _eter_. + +Nothing, indeed, can be more deceptive than the common fashion, of +quoting a Roman name from the often blundering lists of the +Itineraries, and then passing on at once to the modern English form, +without any hint of the intermediate stages. To say that Glevum is now +Gloucester is to tell only half the truth; until we know that the two +were linked together by the gradual steps of Glevum castrum, Gleawan +ceaster, Gleawe cester, Gloucester, and Gloster, we have not really +explained the words at all. By beginning with the least corrupt forms +we shall best be able to see the slow nature of the change, and we +shall also find at the same time that a good deal of incidental light +is shed upon the importance and extent of the English settlement. + +Doncaster is an excellent example of the simplest form of +modernisation. It appears in the Antonine Itinerary and in the _Notitia +Imperii_ as Danum. This, with the ordinary termination affixed, becomes +at once Dona ceaster or Doncaster. The name is of course originally +derived in either form from the river Don, which flows beside it; and +the Northumbrian invaders must have learnt the names of both river and +station from their Brigantian British serfs. It shows the fluctuating +nature of the early local nomenclature, however, when we find that Bæda +('the Venerable Bede') describes the place in his Latinised vocabulary +as Campodonum--that is to say, the Field of Don, or, more +idiomatically, Donfield, a name exactly analogous to those of +Chesterfield Macclesfield, Mansfield, Sheffield, and Huddersfield in +the neighbouring region. The comparison of Doncaster and Chesterfield +is thus most interesting: for here we have two Roman Stations, each of +which must once have had two alternative names; but in the one case the +old Roman name has ultimately prevailed, and in the other case the +modern English one. + +The second best example of a Caster, perhaps, is Lancaster. In all +probability this is the station which appears in the _Notitia Imperii_ +as Longovico, an oblique case which it might be hazardous to put in the +nominative, seeing that it seems rather to mean the town on the Lune or +Loan than the Long Village. Here, as in many other cases, the formative +element, vicus, is exchanged for Ceaster, and we get something like +Lon-ceaster or finally Lancaster. Other remarkable Casters are +Brancaster in Norfolk, once Branadunum (where the British termination +_dun_ has been similarly dropped); Ancaster in Lincolnshire, whose +Roman name is not certainly known; and Caistor, near Norwich, once +Venta Icenorum, a case which may best be considered under the head of +Winchester. On the other hand, Tadcaster gives us an instance where the +Roman prefix has apparently been entirely altered, for it appears in +the Antonine Itinerary (according to the best identification) as +Calcaria, so that we might reasonably expect it to be modernised as +Calcaster. Even here, however, we might well suspect an earlier +alternative title, of which we shall get plenty when we come to examine +the Chesters; and in fact, in Bæda, it still bears its old name in a +slightly disguised form as Kaelca ceaster. + +First among the softer forms, let us examine the interesting group to +which Chester itself belongs. Its Roman name was, beyond doubt, Diva, +the station on the Dee--as Doncaster is the station on the Don, and +Lancaster the station on the Lune. Its proper modern form ought, +therefore, to be Deechester. But it would seem that in certain places +the neighbouring rustics knew the great Roman town of their district, +not by its official title, but as the legion's Camp--Castra Legionis. +At least three such cases undoubtedly occur--one at Deva or Chester; +one at Ratæ or Leicester; and one at Isca Silurum or Caerleon-upon-Usk. +In each case the modernisation has taken a very different form. Diva +was captured by the heathen English king, Æthelfrith of Northumbria, in +a battle rendered famous by Bæda, who calls the place 'The City of +Legions.' The Latin compilation by some Welsh writer, ascribed to +Nennius, calls it Cair Legion, which is also its name in the Irish +annals. In the _English Chronicle_ it appears as Lege ceaster, Læge +ceaster, and Leg ceaster; but after the Norman Conquest it becomes +Ceaster alone. On midland lips the sound soon grew into the familiar +Chester. About the second case, that of Leicester, there is a slight +difficulty, for it assumes in the _Chronicle_ the form of Lægra +ceaster, with an apparently intrusive letter; and the later Welsh +writers seized upon the form to fit in with their own ancient legend of +King Lear. Nennius calls it Cair Lerion; and that unblushing romancer, +Geoffrey of Monmouth, makes it at once into Cair Leir, the city of +Leir. More probably the name is a mixture of Legionis and Ratæ, Leg-rat +ceaster, the camp of the Legion at Ratæ. This, again, grew into Legra +ceaster, Leg ceaster, and Lei ceaster, while the word, though written +Leicester, is now shortened by south midland voices to Lester. The +third Legionis Castra remained always Welsh, and so hardened on Cymric +lips into Kair Leon or Caerleon. Nennius applies the very similar name +of Cair Legeion to Exeter, still in his time a Damnonian or West Welsh +fortress. + +Equally interesting have been the fortunes of the three towns of which +Winchester is the type. In the old Welsh tongue, Gwent means a +champaign country, or level alluvial plain. The Romans borrowed the +word as Venta, and applied it to the three local centres of Venta +Icenorum in Norfolk, Venta Belgarum in Hampshire, and Venta Silurum in +Monmouth. When the first West Saxon pirates, under their real or +mythical leader, Cerdic, swarmed up Southampton Water and occupied the +Gwent of the Belgæ, they called their new conquest Wintan ceaster, +though the still closer form Wæntan once occurs. Thence to Winte +ceaster and Winchester is no far cry. Gwent of the Iceni had a +different history. No doubt it also was known at first as Wintan +ceaster; but, as at Winchester, the shorter form Ceaster would +naturally be employed in local colloquial usage; and when the chief +centre of East Anglian population was removed a few miles north to +Norwich, the north wick--then a port on the navigable estuary of the +Yare--the older station sank into insignificance, and was only locally +remembered as Caistor. Lastly, Gwent of the Silurians has left its name +alone to Caer-Went in Monmouthshire, where hardly any relics now remain +of the Roman occupation. + +Manchester belongs to exactly the same class as Winchester. Its Roman +name was Mancunium, which would easily glide into Mancunceaster. In the +_English Chronicle_ it is only once mentioned, and then as +Mameceaster--a form explained by the alternative Mamucium in the +Itinerary, which would naturally become Mamue ceaster. Colchester of +course represents Colonia, corrupted first into Coln ceaster, and so +through Col ceaster into its present form. Porchester in Hants is +Portus Magnus; Dorchester is Durnovaria, and then Dorn ceaster. +Grantchester, Godmanchester, Chesterfield, Woodchester, and many others +help us to trace the line across the map of England, to the most +western limit of all at Ilchester, anciently Ischalis, though the +intermediate form of Givel ceaster is certainly an odd one. + +Besides these Chesters of the regular order, there are several curious +outlying instances in Durham and Northumberland, and along the Roman +Wall, islanded, as it were, beyond the intermediate belt of Casters. +Such are Lanchester in Durham, which maybe compared with the more +familiar Lancaster; Great Chesters in Northumberland, Ebchester on the +northern Watling Street, and a dozen more. How to account for these is +rather a puzzle. Perhaps the Casters may be mainly due to Danish +influence (which is the common explanation), and it is known that the +Danes spread but sparingly to the north of the Tees. However, this +rough solution of the problem proves too much: for how then can we have +a still softer form in Danish Leicester itself? Probably we shall be +nearer the truth if we say that these are late names; for +Northumberland was a desert long after the great harrying by William +the Conqueror; and by the time it was repeopled, Chester had become the +recognised English form, so that it would naturally be employed by the +new occupants of the districts about the Wall. + +No name in Britain, however, is more interesting than that of +Rochester, which admirably shows us how so many other Roman names have +acquired a delusively English form, or have been mistaken for memorials +of the English conquest. The Roman town was known as Durobrivæ, which +does not in the least resemble Rochester; and what is more, Bæda +distinctly tells us that Justus, the first bishop of the West Kentish +see, was consecrated 'in the city of Dorubrevi, which the English call +Hrofæs ceaster, from one of its former masters, by name Hrof.' If this +were all we knew about it, we should be told that Bæda clearly +described the town as being called Hrof's Chester, from an English +conqueror Hrof, and that to contradict this clear statement of an early +writer was presumptuous or absurd. Fortunately, however, we have the +clearest possible proof that Hrof never existed, and that he was a pure +creation of Bæda's own simple etymological guesswork. King Alfred +clearly knew better, for he omitted this wild derivation from his +English translation. The valuable fragment of a map of Roman Britain +preserved for us in the mediæval transcript known as the _Peutinger +Tables_, sets down Rochester as Rotibis. Hence it is pretty certain +that it must have had two alternative names, of which the other was +Durobrivæ. Rotibis would easily pass (on the regular analogies) into +Rotifi ceaster, and that again into Hrofi ceaster and Rochester; just +as Rhutupiæ or Ritupæ passed into Rituf burh, and so finally into +Richborough. Moreover, in a charter of King Ethelberht of Kent, older a +good deal than Bæda's time, we find the town described under the mixed +form of Hrofi-brevi. After such a certain instance of philological +blundering as this, I for one am not inclined to place great faith in +such statements as that made by the _English Chronicle_ about +Chichester, which it attributes to the mythical South Saxon king Cissa. +Whatever Cissanceaster may mean, it seems to me much more likely that +it represents another case of double naming; for though the Roman town +was commonly known as Regnum, that is clearly a mere administrative +form, derived from the tribal name of the Regni. Considering that the +same veracious _Chronicle_ derives Portsmouth, the Roman Portus, from +an imaginary Teutonic invader, Port, and commits itself to other wild +statements of the same sort, I don't think we need greatly hesitate +about rejecting its authority in these earlier and conjectural +portions. + +Silchester is another much disputed name. As a rule, the site has been +identified with that of Calleva Atrebatum; but the proofs are scanty, +and the identification must be regarded as a doubtful one. I have +already ventured to suggest that the word may contain the root Silva, +as the town is situated close upon the ancient borders of Pamber +Forest. The absence of early forms, however, makes this somewhat of a +random shot. Indeed, it is difficult to arrive at any definite +conclusions in these cases, except by patiently following up the name +from first to last, through all its variations, corruptions, and +mis-spellings. + +The _Cesters_ are even more degraded (philologically speaking) than the +_Chesters_, but are not less interesting and illustrative in their way. +Their farthest northeasterly extension, I believe, is to be found at +Leicester and Towcester. The former we have already considered: the +latter appears in the _Chronicle_ as Tofe ceaster, and derives its name +from the little river Towe, on which it is situated. Anciently, no +doubt, the river was called Tofe or Tofi, like the Tavy in Devonshire; +for all these river-words recur over and over again, both in England +and on the Continent. In this case, there seems no immediate connection +with the Roman name, if the site be rightly identified with that of +Lactodorum; but at any rate the river name is Celtic, so that Towcester +cannot be claimed as a Teutonic settlement. + +Cirencester, the meeting-place of all the great Roman roads, is the +Latin Corinium, sometimes given as Durocornovium, which well +illustrates the fluctuating state of Roman nomenclature in Britain. As +this great strategical centre--the key of the west--had formerly been +the capital of the Dobuni, whose name it sometimes bears, it might +easily have come down to us as Durchester, or Dobchester, instead of +under its existing guise. The city was captured by the West Saxons in +577, and is then called Ciren ceaster in the brief record of the +conquerors. A few years later, the _Chronicle_ gives it as Cirn +ceaster; and since the river is called Chirn, this is the form it might +fairly have been expected to retain, as in the case of Cerney close by. +But the city was too far west not to have its name largely rubbed down +in use; so it softened both its initials into Cirencester, while Cissan +ceaster only got (through Cisse ceaster) as far as Chichester. At that +point the spelling of the western town has stopped short, but the +tongues of the natives have run on till nothing now remains but +Cisseter. If we had only that written form on the one hand, and +Durocornovium on the other, even the boldest etymologist would hardly +venture to suggest that they had any connection with one another. Of +course the common prefix Duro, is only the Welsh Dwr, water, and its +occurrence in a name merely implies a ford or river. The alternative +forms may be Anglicised as Churn, and Churnwater, just like Grasmere, +and Grasmere Lake. + +I wish I could avoid saying anything about Worcester, for it is an +obscure and difficult subject; but I fear the attempt to shirk it would +be useless in the long run. I know from sad experience that if I omit +it every inhabitant of Worcestershire who reads this article will hunt +me out somehow, and run me to earth at last, with a letter demanding a +full and explicit explanation of this silent insult to his native +county. So I must try to put the best possible face upon a troublesome +matter. The earliest existing form of the name, after the English +Conquest, seems to be that given in a Latin Charter of the eighth +century as _Weogorna civitas_. (Here it is difficult to disentangle the +English from its Latin dress.) A little later it appears in a +vernacular shape (also in a charter) as Wigran ceaster. In the later +part of the _English Chronicle_ it becomes Wigera ceaster, and Wigra +ceaster; but by the twelfth century it has grown into Wigor ceaster, +from which the change to Wire ceaster and Worcester (fully pronounced) +is not violent. This is all plain sailing enough. But what is the +meaning of Wigorna ceaster or Wigran ceaster? And what Roman or English +name does it represent? The old English settlers of the neighbourhood +formed a little independent principality of Hwiccas (afterwards subdued +by the Mercians), and some have accordingly suggested that the original +word may have been Hwiccwara ceaster, the Chester of the Hwicca men, +which would be analogous to Cant-wara burh (Canterbury), the Bury of +the Kent men, or to Wiht-gara burh (Carisbrooke), the Bury of the Wight +men. Others, again, connect it with the Braunogenium of the Ravenna +geographer, and the Cair Guoranegon or Guiragon of Nennius, which +latter is probably itself a corrupted version of the English name. +Altogether, it must be allowed that Worcester presents a genuine +difficulty, and that the facts about its early forms are themselves +decidedly confused, if not contradictory. The only other notable +_Ceasters_, are Alcester, once Alneceaster, in Worcestershire, the +Roman Alauna; Gloucester or Glevum, already sufficiently explained; and +Mancester in Staffordshire, supposed to occupy the site of +Manduessedum. + +Among the most corrupted forms of all, Exeter may rank first. Its Latin +equivalent was Isca Damnoniorum, Usk of the Devonians; Isca being the +Latinised form of that prevalent Celtic river name which crops up again +in the Usk, Esk, Exe, and Axe, besides forming the first element of +Uxbridge and Oxford; while the tribal qualification was added to +distinguish it from its namesake, Isca Silurum, Usk of the Silurians, +now Caerleon-upon-Usk. In the west country, to this day, _ask_ always +becomes _ax_, or rather remains so, for that provincial form was the +King's English at the court of Alfred; and so Isca became on Devonian +lips Exan ceaster, after the West Saxon conquest. Thence it passed +rapidly through the stages of Exe ceaster and Exe cester till it +finally settled down into Exeter. At the same time, the river itself +became the Exe; and the Exan-mutha of the _Chronicle_ dropped into +Exmouth. We must never forget, however, that Exeter, was a Welsh town +up to the reign of Athelstan, and that Cornish Welsh was still spoken +in parts of Devonshire till the days of Queen Elizabeth. + +Wroxeter is another immensely interesting fossil word. It lies just at +the foot of the Wrekin, and the hill which takes that name in English +must have been pronounced by the old Celtic inhabitants much like +Uricon: for of course the awkward initial letter has only become silent +in these later lazy centuries. The Romans turned it into Uriconium; but +after their departure, it was captured and burnt to the ground by a +party of raiding West Saxons, and its fall is graphically described in +the wild old Welsh elegy of Llywarch the Aged. The ruins are still +charred and blackened by the West Saxon fires. The English colonists of +the neighbourhood called themselves the Wroken-sætas, or Settlers by +the Wrekin--a word analogous to that of Wilsætas, or Settlers by the +Wyly; Dorsætas, or Settlers among the Durotriges; and Sumorsætas, or +Settlers among the Sumor-folk,--which survive in the modern counties of +Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset. Similar forms elsewhere are the Pecsætas +of the Derbyshire Peak, the Elmedsætas in the Forest of Elmet, and the +Cilternsætas in the Chiltern Hills. No doubt the Wroken-sætas called +the ruined Roman fort by the analogous name of Wroken ceaster; and this +would slowly become Wrok ceaster, Wrok-cester, and Wroxeter, by the +ordinary abbreviating tendency of the Welsh borderlands. Wrexham +doubtless preserves the same original root. + +Having thus carried the _Castra_ to the very confines of Wales, it +would be unkind to a generous and amiable people not to carry them +across the border and on to the Western sea. The Welsh corruption, +whether of the Latin word or of a native equivalent _cathir_, assumes +the guise of Caer. Thus the old Roman station of Segontium, near the +Menai Straits, is now called Caer Seiont; but the neighbouring modern +town which has gathered around Edward's new castle on the actual shore, +the later metropolis of the land of Arfon, became known to Welshmen as +Caer-yn-Arfon, now corrupted into Caernarvon or even into Carnarvon. +Gray's familiar line about the murdered bards--'On Arvon's dreary shore +they lie'--keeps up in some dim fashion the memory of the true +etymology. Caermarthen is in like manner the Roman Muridunum or +Moridunum--the fort by the sea--though a duplicate Moridunum in South +Devon has been simply translated into English as Seaton. Innumerable +other Caers, mostly representing Roman sites, may be found scattered up +and down over the face of Wales, such as Caersws, Caerleon, Caergwrle, +Caerhun, and Caerwys, all of which still contain traces of Roman +occupation. On the other hand, Cardigan, which looks delusively like a +shortened Caer, has really nothing to do with this group of ancient +names, being a mere corruption of Ceredigion. + +But outside Wales itself, in the more Celtic parts of England proper, a +good many relics of the old Welsh Caers still bespeak the +incompleteness of the early Teutonic conquest. If we might trust the +mendacious Nennius, indeed, all our Casters and Chesters were once good +Cymric Caers; for he gives a doubtful list of the chief towns in +Britain, where Gloucester appears as Cair Gloui, Colchester as Cair +Colun, and York as Cair Ebrauc. These, if true, would be invaluable +forms; but unfortunately there is every reason to believe that Nennius +invented them himself, by a simple transposition of the English names. +Henry of Huntingdon is nearly as bad, if not worse; for when he calls +Dorchester 'Kair Dauri,' and Chichester 'Kair Kei,' he was almost +certainly evolving what he supposed to be appropriate old British names +from the depths of his own consciousness. His guesswork was on a par +with that of the schoolboys who introduce 'Stirlingia' or 'Liverpolia' +into their Ovidian elegiacs. That abandoned story-teller, Geoffrey of +Monmouth, goes a step further, and concocts a Caer Lud for London and a +Caer Osc for Exeter, whenever the fancy seizes him. The only examples +amongst these pretended old Welsh forms which seem to me to have any +real historical value are an unknown Kair Eden, mentioned by Gildas, +and a Cair Wise, mentioned by Simeon of Durham, undoubtedly the true +native name of Exeter. + +Still we have a few indubitable Caers in England itself surviving to +our own day. Most of them are not far from the Welsh border, as in the +case of the two Caer Caradocs, in Shropshire, crowned by ancient +British fortifications. Others, however, lie further within the true +English pale, though always in districts which long preserved the Welsh +speech, at least among the lower classes of the population. The +earthwork overhanging Bath bears to this day its ancient British title +of Caer Badon. An old history written in the monastery of Malmesbury +describes that town as Caer Bladon, and speaks of a Caer Dur in the +immediate neighbourhood. There still remains a Caer Riden on the line +of the Roman wall in the Lothians. Near Aspatria, in Cumberland, stands +a mouldering Roman camp known even now as Caer Moto. In Carvoran, +Northumberland, the first syllable has undergone a slight contraction, +but may still be readily recognised. The Carr-dyke in Norfolk seems to +me to be referable to a similar origin. + +Most curious of all the English Caers, however, is Carlisle. The +Antonine Itinerary gives the town as Luguvallium. Bæda, in his +barbarised Latin fashion calls it Lugubalia. 'The Saxons,' says +_Murray's Guide_, with charming _naïveté_, 'abbreviated the name into +Luel, and afterwards called it Caer Luel.' This astounding hotchpotch +forms an admirable example of the way in which local etymology is still +generally treated in highly respectable publications. So far as we +know, there never was at any time a single Saxon in Cumberland; and why +the Saxons, or any other tribe of Englishmen, should have called a town +by a purely Welsh name, it would be difficult to decide. If they had +given it any name at all, that name would probably have been Lul +ceaster, which might have been modernised into Lulcaster or Lulchester. +The real facts are these. Cumberland, as its name imports, was long a +land of the Cymry--a northern Welsh principality, dependent upon the +great kingdom of Strathclyde, which held out for ages against the +Northumbrian English invaders among the braes and fells of Ayrshire and +the Lake District. These Cumbrian Welshmen called their chief town Caer +Luel, or something of the sort; and there is some reason for believing +that it was the capital of the historical Arthur, if any Arthur ever +existed, though later ages transferred the legend of the British hero +to Caerleon-upon-Usk, after men had begun to forget that the region +between the Clyde and the Mersey had once been true Welsh soil. The +English overran Cumberland very slowly; and when they did finally +conquer it, they probably left the original inhabitants in possession +of the country, and only imposed their own overlordship upon the +conquered race. The story is too long a one to repeat in full here: it +must suffice to say that, though the Northumbrian kings had made the +'Strathclyde Welsh' their tributaries, the district was never +thoroughly subdued till the days of Edmund the West Saxon, who harried +the land, and handed it over to the King of Scots. Thus it happens that +Carlisle, alone among large English towns, still keeps unchanged its +Cymric name, instead of having sunk into an Anglicised Chester. The +present spelling is a mere etymological blunder, exactly similar to +that which has turned the old English word _igland_ into _island_, +through the false analogy of _isle_, which of course comes from the old +French _isle_, derived through some form akin to the Italian _isola_, +from the original Latin _insula_. Kair Leil is the spelling in +Geoffrey; Cardeol (by a clerical error for Carleol, I suspect) that in +the _English Chronicle_, which only once mentions the town; and Carleol +that of the ordinary mediæval historians. The surnames Carlyle and +Carlile still preserve the better orthography. + +To complete the subject, it will be well to say a few words about those +towns which were once _Ceasters_, but which have never become Casters +or Chesters. Numerous as are the places now so called, a number more +may be reckoned in the illimitable chapter of the might-have-beens; and +it is interesting to speculate on the forms which they would have +taken, 'si qua fata aspera rupissent.' Among these still-born Chesters, +Newcastle-upon-Tyne may fairly rank first. It stands on the Roman site, +called, from its bridge across the Tyne, Pons Aelii, and known later +on, from its position on the great wall, as Ad Murum. Under the early +English, after their conversion to Christianity, the monks became the +accepted inheritors of Roman ruins; and the small monastery which was +established here procured it the English name of Muneca-ceaster, or, as +we should now say, Monk-chester, though no doubt the local +modernisation would have taken the form of Muncaster. William of +Normandy utterly destroyed the town during his great harrying of +Northumberland; and when his son, Robert Curthose, built a fortress on +the site, the place came to be called Newcastle--a word whose very form +shows its comparatively modern origin. _Castra_ and _Ceasters_ were now +out of date, and castles had taken their place. Still, we stick even +here to the old root: for of course castle is only the diminutive +_castellum_--a scion of the same Roman stock, which, like so many other +members of aristocratic families, 'came over with William the +Conqueror.' The word _castel_ is never used, I believe, in any English +document before the Conquest; but in the very year of William's +invasion, the _Chronicle_ tells us, 'Willelm earl came from Normandy +into Pevensey, and wrought a castel at Hastings port.' So, while in +France itself the word has declined through _chastel_ into _château_, +we in England have kept it in comparative purity as castle. + +York is another town which had a narrow escape of becoming Yorchester. +Its Roman name was Eburacum, which the English queerly rendered as +Eoforwic, by a very interesting piece of folks-etymology. _Eofor_ is +old English for a boar, and _wic_ for a town; so our rude ancestors +metamorphosed the Latinised Celtic name into this familiar and +significant form, much as our own sailors turn the Bellerophon into the +Billy Ruffun, and the Anse des Cousins into the Nancy Cozens. In the +same way, I have known an illiterate Englishman speak of +Aix-la-Chapelle as Hexley Chapel. To the name, thus distorted, our +forefathers of course added the generic word for a Roman town, and so +made the cumbrous title of Eoforwic-ceaster, which is the almost +universal form in the earlier parts of the _English Chronicle_. This +was too much of a mouthful even for the hardy Anglo-Saxon, so we soon +find a disposition to shorten it into Ceaster on the one hand, or +Eoforwic on the other. Should the final name be Chester or York?--that +was the question. Usage declared in favour of the more distinctive +title. The town became Eoforwic alone, and thence gradually declined +through Evorwic, Euorwic, Eurewic, and Yorick into the modern York. It +is curious to note that some of these intermediate forms very closely +approach the original Eburac, which must have been the root of the +Roman name. Was the change partly due to the preservation of the older +sound on the lips of Celtic serfs? It is not impossible, for marks of +British blood are strong in Yorkshire; and Nennius confirms the idea by +calling the town Kair Ebrauc. + +Among the other _Ceasters_ which have never developed into full-blown +Chesters, I may mention Bath, given as Akemannes ceaster and Bathan +ceaster in our old documents, so that it might have become +Achemanchester or Bathceter in the course of ordinary changes. +Canterbury, again, the Roman Durovernum, dropped through Dorobernia +into Dorwit ceaster, which would no doubt have turned into a third +Dorchester, to puzzle our heads by its likeness to Dorne ceaster in +Dorsetshire, and to Dorce ceaster near Oxford; while Chesterton in +Huntingdonshire, which was once Dorme ceaster, narrowly escaped +burdening a distracted world with a fourth. Happily, the colloquial +form Cantwara burh, or Kentmen's bury, gained the day, and so every +trace of Durovernum is now quite lost in Canterbury. North Shields was +once Scythles-ceaster, but here the Chester has simply dropped out. +Verulam, or St. Albans, is another curious case. Its Romano-British +name was Verulamium, and Bæda calls it Verlama ceaster. But the early +English in Sleswick believed in a race of mythical giants, the +Wætlingas or Watlings, from whom they called the Milky Way 'Watling +Street.' When the rude pirates from those trackless marshes came over +to Britain and first beheld the great Roman paved causeway which ran +across the face of the country from London to Caernarvon, they seemed +to have imagined that such a mighty work could not have been the +handicraft of men; and just as the Arabs ascribe the rock-hewn houses +of Petra to the architectural fancy of the Devil, so our old English +ancestors ascribed the Roman road to the Titanic Watlings. Even in our +own day, it is known along its whole course as Watling Street. Verulam +stands right in its track, and long contained some of the greatest +Roman remains in England; so the town, too, came to be considered as +another example of the work of the Watlings. Bæda, in his Latinised +Northumbrian, calls it Vætlinga ceaster, as an alternative title with +Verlama ceaster; so that it might nowadays have been familiar to us all +either as Watlingchester or Verlamchester. This is one of the numerous +cases where a Roman and English name lived on during the dark period +side by side. In some of Mr. Kemble's charters it appears as Walinga +ceaster. But when Offa of Mercia founded his great abbey on the very +spot where the Welsh martyr Alban had suffered during the persecution +of Diocletian, Roman and English names were alike forgotten, and the +place was remembered only after the British Christian as St. Albans. + +There are other instances where the very memory of a Roman city seems +now to have failed altogether. For example, Bæda mentions a certain +town called Tiowulfinga ceaster--that is to say, the Chester of the +Tiowulfings, or sons of Tiowulf. Here an English clan would seem to +have taken up its abode in a ruined Roman station, and to have called +the place by the clan-name--a rare or almost unparalleled case. But its +precise site is now unknown. However, Bæda's description clearly points +to some town in Nottinghamshire, situated on the Trent; for St. +Paulinus of York baptized large numbers of converts in that river at +Tiowulfinga ceaster; and the site may therefore be confidently +identified with Southwell, where St. Mary's Minster has always +traditionally claimed Paulinus as its founder. Bæda also mentions a +place called Tunna ceaster, so named from an abbot Tunna, who exists +merely for the sake of a legend, and is clearly as unhistorical as his +piratical compeer Hrof--a wild guess of the eponymic sort with which we +are all so familiar in Greek literature. Simeon of Durham speaks of an +equally unknown Delvercester. Syddena ceaster or Sidna cester--the +earliest see of the Lincolnshire diocese--has likewise dropped out of +human memory; though Mr. Pearson suggests that it may be identical with +Ancaster--a notion which appears to me extremely unlikely. Wude cester +is no doubt Outchester, and other doubtful instances might easily be +recognised by local antiquaries, though they may readily escape the +general archæologist. In one case at least--that of Othonæ in +Essex--town, site, and name have all disappeared together. Bæda calls +it Ythan ceaster, and in his time it was the seat of a monastery +founded by St. Cedd; but the whole place has long since been swept away +by an inundation of the Blackwater. Anderida, which is called +Andredes-ceaster in the _Chronicle_, becomes Pefenesea, or Pevensey, +before the date of the Norman Conquest. + +It must not be supposed that the list given here is by any means +exhaustive of all the Casters and Chesters, past and present, +throughout the whole length and breadth of Britain. On the contrary, +many more might easily be added, such as Ribbel ceaster, now +Ribchester; Berne ceaster, now Bicester; and Blædbyrig ceaster, now +simply Bladbury. In Northumberland alone there are a large number of +instances which I might have quoted, such as Rutchester, Halton +Chesters, and Little Chesters on the Roman Wall, together with +Hetchester, Holy Chesters, and Rochester elsewhere--the county +containing no less than four places of the last name. Indeed, one can +track the Roman roads across England by the Chesters which accompany +their route. But enough instances have probably been adduced to +exemplify fully the general principles at issue. I think it will be +clear that the English conquerors did not usually change the names of +Roman or Welsh towns, but simply mispronounced them about as much as we +habitually mispronounce Llangollen or Llandudno. Sometimes they called +the place by its Romanised title alone, with the addition of Ceaster; +sometimes they employed the servile British form; sometimes they even +invented an English alternative; but in no case can it be shown that +they at once disused the original name, and introduced a totally new +one of their own manufacture. In this, as in all other matters, the +continuity between Romano-British and English times is far greater than +it is generally represented to be. The English invasion was a cruel and +a desolating one, no doubt; but it could not and it did not sweep away +wholly the old order of things, or blot out all the past annals of +Britain, so as to prepare a _tabula rasa_ on which Mr. Green might +begin his _History of the English People_ with the landing of Hengest +and Horsa in the Isle of Thanet. The English people of to-day is far +more deeply rooted in the soil than that: our ancestors have lived +here, not for a thousand years alone, but for ten thousand or a hundred +thousand, in certain lines at least. And the very names of our towns, +our rivers, and our hills, go back in many cases, not merely to the +Roman corruptions, but to the aboriginal Celtic, and the still more +aboriginal Euskarian tongue. + +THE END. + + +HENDERSON & SPALDING, LTD., 3 & 5, MARYLEBONE LANE, W. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Science in Arcady, by Grant Allen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENCE IN ARCADY *** + +***** This file should be named 16325-8.txt or 16325-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/3/2/16325/ + +Produced by Clare Boothby, Peter Yearsley and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Science in Arcady + +Author: Grant Allen + +Release Date: July 18, 2005 [EBook #16325] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENCE IN ARCADY *** + + + + +Produced by Clare Boothby, Peter Yearsley and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>SCIENCE IN ARCADY</h1> + +<h3>BY<br /> +GRANT ALLEN +</h3> +<h4>LONDON:<br /> +LAWRENCE & BULLEN,<br /> +16, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 1892.</h4> +<hr /> + +<h3> To GRANT RICHARDS,<br /> +<i>IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MANY KIND OFFICES.</i><br /> +Avuncular Greeting.</h3> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellspacing="2" summary="TOC" width="60%"> +<tr><td></td><td align='left'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch01">MY ISLANDS</a></td><td align='right'>1</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch02">TROPICAL EDUCATION</a></td><td align='right'>21</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch03">ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND</a></td><td align='right'>40</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch04">A DESERT FRUIT</a></td><td align='right'>56</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch05">PRETTY POLL</a></td><td align='right'>71</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch06">HIGH LIFE</a></td><td align='right'>90</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch07">EIGHT-LEGGED FRIENDS</a></td><td align='right'>105</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch08">MUD</a></td><td align='right'>123</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch09">THE GREENWOOD TREE</a></td><td align='right'>140</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch10">FISH AS FATHERS</a></td><td align='right'>157</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch11">AN ENGLISH SHIRE</a></td><td align='right'>177</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch12">THE BRONZE AXE</a></td><td align='right'>212</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch13">THE ISLE OF RUIM</a></td><td align='right'>231</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch14">A HILL-TOP STRONGHOLD</a></td><td align='right'>250</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch15">A PERSISTENT NATIONALITY</a></td><td align='right'>266</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ch16">CASTERS AND CHESTERS</a></td><td align='right'>274</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr /> + +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> +<p> +These essays deal for the most part with Science in Arcady. 'Tis my +native country: for I am not of those who 'praise the busy town.' On +the contrary, in the words of the great poet who has just departed to +join Milton and Shelley in a place of high collateral glory, I 'love to +rail against it still,' with a naturalist's bitterness. For the town is +always dead and lifeless. There are who admire it, they say—poor +purblind creatures—because, forsooth, 'there is so much life there.' +So much life, indeed! No grass in the streets; no flowers in the lanes; +no beetles or butterflies on the dull stone pavements! Brick and mortar +have killed out all life over square miles of Middlesex. For myself, I +love better the densely-peopled fields than this human desert, this +beflagged and macadamised man-made solitude. The country teems with +life on every hand; a thousand different plants and flowers in the +spangled meadows; a thousand varied denizens of pond, and air, and +heath, and copses. Their ways are endless. They attract me far more +with their infinite diversity than the grey and gloomy haunts of the +cab-horse and the stock-broker. +</p> +<p> +But my Arcady, as you will see, is none the less tolerably broad and +eclectic in its limits. These various essays have been suggested to my +pen by rambles far and wide between its elastic confines. The little +tractate on <i>Mud</i>, for example, recalls to mind some pleasant weeks +among the Italian lakes and on the plain of Lombardy. <i>A Desert Fruit</i> +owes its origin to a morning at Luxor. <i>High Life</i> had its key-note +struck by a fortnight in the Tyrol. <i>Tropical Education</i> is a dim +reminiscence of old Jamaican experiences. Our <i>Eight-Legged Friends</i> +were observed at leisure on the window-panes of our own little nook at +Dorking. <i>A Hill-Top Stronghold</i> was sketched <i>in situ</i> at Florence by +a window that looked across the valley to Fiesole. Excursions into +books or into the remoter past have given occasion for the +archæological essays relegated here to the end of the volume. +</p> +<p> +My thanks are due to Messrs. Longmans for permission to reprint from +their magazine <i>My Islands</i>, <i>A Hill-Top Stronghold</i>, <i>A Desert Fruit</i>, +<i>The Isle of Ruim</i>, <i>Eight-Legged Friends</i>, and <i>Tropical Education</i>. I +have also to acknowledge a similar courtesy on the part of Messrs. +Smith & Elder with regard to <i>Mud</i>, <i>The Bronze Axe</i>, <i>High Life</i>, +<i>Pretty Poll</i>, <i>The Greenwood Tree</i>, <i>On the Wings of the Wind</i>, +<i>Casters and Chesters</i>, and <i>Fish as Fathers</i>, all of which originally +appeared in the <i>Cornhill</i>. Messrs. Chatto & Windus have been equally +kind as regards the paper on <i>An English Shire</i> contributed to the +<i>Gentleman's</i>. <i>A Persistent Nationality</i> made its first bow in the +<i>North American Review</i>, and has still to be introduced to an English +audience. +</p> +<p class="right"> +G.A. +</p> +<p> +Hind Head, Surrey, <br /> +<i>Oct.</i>, 1892. +</p> +<hr /> +<h1>SCIENCE IN ARCADY. +</h1> +<hr /> +<h2><a name="ch01"></a>MY ISLANDS. +</h2> +<p> +About the middle of the Miocene period, as well as I can now remember +(for I made no note of the precise date at the moment), my islands +first appeared above the stormy sheet of the North-West Atlantic as a +little rising group of mountain tops, capping a broad boss of submarine +volcanoes. My attention was originally called to the new archipelago by +a brother investigator of my own aerial race, who pointed out to me on +the wing that at a spot some 900 miles to the west of the Portuguese +coast, just opposite the place where your mushroom city of Lisbon now +stands, the water of the ocean, as seen in a bird's-eye view from some +three thousand feet above, formed a distinct greenish patch such as +always betokens shoals or rising ground at the bottom. Flying out at +once to the point he indicated, and poising myself above it on my broad +pinions at a giddy altitude, I saw at a glance that my friend was quite +right. Land making was in progress. A volcanic upheaval was taking +place on the bed of the sea. A new island group was being forced right +up by lateral pressure or internal energies from a depth of at least +two thousand fathoms. +</p> +<p> +I had always had a great liking for the study of material plants and +animals, and I was so much interested in the occurrence of this novel +phenomenon—the growth and development of an oceanic island before my +very eyes—that I determined to devote the next few thousand centuries +or so of my æonian existence to watching the course of its gradual +evolution. +</p> +<p> +If I trusted to unaided memory, however, for my dates and facts, I +might perhaps at this distance of time be uncertain whether the moment +was really what I have roughly given, within a geological age or two, +the period of the Mid-Miocene. But existing remains on one of the +islands constituting my group (now called in your new-fangled +terminology Santa Maria) help me to fix with comparative certainty the +precise epoch of their original upheaval. For these remains, still in +evidence on the spot, consist of a few small marine deposits of Upper +Miocene age; and I recollect distinctly that after the main group had +been for some time raised above the surface of the ocean, and after +sand and streams had formed a small sedimentary deposit containing +Upper Miocene fossils beneath the shoal water surrounding the main +group, a slight change of level occurred, during which this minor +island was pushed up with the Miocene deposits on its shoulders, as a +sort of natural memorandum to assist my random scientific +recollections. With that solitary exception, however, the entire group +remains essentially volcanic in its composition, exactly as it was when +I first saw its youthful craters and its red-hot ash-cones pushed +gradually up, century after century, from the deep blue waters of the +Mid-Miocene ocean. +</p> +<p> +All round my islands the Atlantic then, as now, had a depth, as I said +before, of two thousand fathoms; indeed, in some parts between the +group and Portugal the plummet of your human navigators finds no +bottom, I have often heard them say, till it reaches 2,500; and out of +this profound sea-bed the volcanic energies pushed up my islands as a +small submarine mountain range, whose topmost summits alone stood out +bit by bit above the level of the surrounding sea. One of them, the +most abrupt and cone-like, by name now Pico, rises to this day, a +magnificent sight, sheer seven thousand feet into the sky from the +placid sheet that girds it round on every side. You creatures of +to-day, approaching it in one of your clumsy new-fashioned fire-driven +canoes that you call steamers, must admire immensely its conical peak, +as it stands out silhouetted against the glowing horizon in the deep +red glare of a sub-tropical Atlantic sunset. +</p> +<p> +But when I, from my solitary aerial perch, saw my islands rise bare and +massive first from the water's edge, the earliest idea that occurred to +me as an investigator of nature was simply this: how will they ever get +clad with soil and herbage and living creatures? So naked and barren +were their black crags and rocks of volcanic slag, that I could hardly +conceive how they could ever come to resemble the other smiling oceanic +islands which I looked down upon in my flight from day to day over so +many wide and scattered oceans. I set myself to watch, accordingly, +whence they would derive the first seeds of life, and what changes +would take place under dint of time upon their desolate surface. +</p> +<p> +For a long epoch, while the mountains were still rising in their active +volcanic state, I saw but little evidence of a marked sort of the +growth of living creatures upon their loose piles of pumice. Gradually, +however, I observed that spores of lichens, blown towards them by the +wind, were beginning to sprout upon the more settled rocks, and to +discolour the surface in places with grey and yellow patches. Bit by +bit, as rain fell upon the new-born hills, it brought down from their +weathered summits sand and mud, which the torrents ground small and +deposited in little hollows in the valleys; and at last something like +earth was found at certain spots, on which seeds, if there had been +any, might doubtless have rooted and flourished exceedingly. +</p> +<p> +My primitive idea, as I watched my islands in this their almost +lifeless condition, was that the Gulf Stream and the trade winds from +America would bring the earliest higher plants and animals to our +shores. But in this I soon found I was quite mistaken. The distance to +be traversed was so great, and the current so slow, that the few seeds +or germs of American species cast up upon the shore from time to time +were mostly far too old and water-logged to show signs of life in such +ungenial conditions. It was from the nearer coasts of Europe, on the +contrary, that our earliest colonists seemed to come. Though the +prevalent winds set from the west, more violent storms reached us +occasionally from the eastward direction; and these, blowing from +Europe, which lay so much closer to our group, were far more likely to +bring with them by waves or wind some waifs and strays of the European +fauna and flora. +</p> +<p> +I well remember the first of these great storms that produced any +distinct impression on my islands. The plants that followed in its wake +were a few small ferns, whose light spores were more readily carried on +the breeze than any regular seeds of flowering plants. For a month or +two nothing very marked occurred in the way of change, but slowly the +spores rooted, and soon produced a small crop of ferns, which, finding +the ground unoccupied, spread when once fairly started with +extraordinary rapidity, till they covered all the suitable positions +throughout the islands. +</p> +<p> +For the most part, however, additions to the flora, and still more to +the fauna, were very gradually made; so much so that most of the +species now found in the group did not arrive there till after the end +of the Glacial epoch, and belong essentially to the modern European +assemblage of plants and animals. This was partly because the islands +themselves were surrounded by pack-ice during that chilly period, which +interrupted for a time the course of my experiment. It was interesting, +too, after the ice cleared away, to note what kinds could manage by +stray accidents to cross the ocean with a fair chance of sprouting or +hatching out on the new soil, and which were totally unable by original +constitution to survive the ordeal of immersion in the sea. For +instance, I looked anxiously at first for the arrival of some casual +acorn or some floating filbert, which might stock my islands with +waving greenery of oaks and hazel bushes. But I gradually discovered, +in the course of a few centuries, that these heavy nuts never floated +securely so far as the outskirts of my little archipelago; and that +consequently no chestnuts, apple trees, beeches, alders, larches, or +pines ever came to diversify my island valleys. The seeds that did +really reach us from time to time belonged rather to one or other of +four special classes. Either they were very small and light, like the +spores of ferns, fungi, and club-mosses; or they were winged and +feathery, like dandelion and thistle-down; or they were the stones of +fruits that are eaten by birds, like rose-hips and hawthorn; or they +were chaffy grains, enclosed in papery scales, like grasses and sedges, +of a kind well adapted to be readily borne on the surface of the water. +In all these ways new plants did really get wafted by slow degrees to +the islands; and if they were of kinds adapted to the climate they grew +and flourished, living down the first growth of ferns and flowerless +herbs in the rich valleys. +</p> +<p> +The time which it took to people my archipelago with these various +plants was, of course, when judged by your human standards, immensely +long, as often the group received only a single new addition in the +lapse of two or three centuries. But I noticed one very curious result +of this haphazard and lengthy mode of stocking the country: some of the +plants which arrived the earliest, having the coast all clear to +themselves, free from the fierce competition to which they had always +been exposed on the mainland of Europe, began to sport a great deal in +various directions, and being acted upon here by new conditions, soon +assumed under stress of natural selection totally distinct specific +forms. (You see, I have quite mastered your best modern scientific +vocabulary.) For instance, there were at first no insects of any sort +on the islands; and so those plants which in Europe depended for their +fertilisation upon bees or butterflies had here either to adapt +themselves somehow to the wind as a carrier of their pollen or else to +die out for want of crossing. Again, the number of enemies being +reduced to a minimum, these early plants tended to lose various +defences or protections they had acquired on the mainland against slugs +or ants, and so to become different in a corresponding degree from +their European ancestors. The consequence was that by the time you men +first discovered the archipelago no fewer than forty kinds of plants +had so far diverged from the parent forms in Europe or elsewhere that +your savants considered them at once as distinct species, and set them +down at first as indigenous creations. It amused me immensely. +</p> +<p> +For out of these forty plants thirty-four were to my certain knowledge +of European origin. I had seen their seeds brought over by the wind or +waves, and I had watched them gradually altering under stress of the +new conditions into fresh varieties, which in process of time became +distinct species. Two of the oldest were flowers of the dandelion and +daisy group, provided with feathery seeds which enable them to fly far +before the carrying breeze; and these two underwent such profound +modifications in their insular home that the systematic botanists who +at last examined them insisted upon putting each into a new genus, all +by itself, invented for the special purpose of their reception. One +almost equally ancient inhabitant, a sort of harebell, also became in +process of time extremely unlike any other harebell I had ever seen in +any part of my airy wanderings. But the remaining thirty new species or +so evolved in the islands by the special circumstances of the group had +varied so comparatively little from their primitive European ancestors, +that they hardly deserved to be called anything more than very distinct +and divergent varieties. +</p> +<p> +Some five or six plants, however, I noted arrive in my archipelago, not +from Europe, but from the Canaries or Madeira, whose distant blue peaks +lay dim on the horizon far to the south-west of us, as I poised in +mid-air high above the topmost pinnacle of my wild craggy Pico. These +kinds, belonging to a much warmer region, soon, as I noticed, underwent +considerable modification in our cooler climate, and were all of them +adjudged distinct species by the learned gentlemen who finally reported +upon my island realm to British science. +</p> +<p> +As far as I can recollect, then, the total number of flowering plants I +noted in the islands before the arrival of man was about 200; and of +these, as I said before, only forty had so far altered in type as to be +considered at present peculiar to the archipelago. The remainder were +either comparatively recent arrivals or else had found the conditions +of their new home so like those of the old one from which they +migrated, that comparatively little change took place in their forms or +habits. Of course, just in proportion as the islands got stocked I +noticed that the changes were less and less marked; for each new plant, +insect, or bird that established itself successfully tended to make the +balance of nature more similar to the one that obtained in the mainland +opposite, and so decreased the chances of novelty of variation. +</p> +<p> +Hence, it struck me that the oldest arrivals were the ones which +altered most in adaptation to the circumstances, while the newest, +finding themselves in comparatively familiar surroundings, had less +occasion to be selected for strange and curious freaks or sports of +form or colour. +</p> +<p> +The peopling of the islands with birds and animals, however, was to me +even a more interesting and engrossing study in natural evolution than +its peopling by plants, shrubs, and trees. I may as well begin, +therefore, by telling you at once that no furry or hairy quadruped of +any sort—no mammal, as I understand your men of science call them—was +ever stranded alive upon the shores of my islands. For twenty or thirty +centuries indeed, I waited patiently, examining every piece of +driftwood cast up upon our beaches, in the faint hope that perhaps some +tiny mouse or shrew or water-vole might lurk half drowned in some +cranny or crevice of the bark or trunk. But it was all in vain. I ought +to have known beforehand that terrestrial animals of the higher types +never by any chance reach an oceanic island in any part of this planet. +The only three specimens of mammals I ever saw tossed up on the beach +were two drowned mice and an unhappy squirrel, all as dead as +doornails, and horribly mauled by the sea and the breakers. Nor did we +ever get a snake, a lizard, a frog, or a fresh-water fish, whose eggs I +at first fondly supposed might occasionally be transported to us on +bits of floating trees or matted turf, torn by floods from those +prehistoric Lusitanian or African forests. No such luck was ours. Not a +single terrestrial vertebrate of any sort appeared upon our shores +before the advent of man with his domestic animals, who played havoc at +once with my interesting experiment. +</p> +<p> +It was quite otherwise with the unobtrusive small deer of life—the +snails, and beetles, and flies, and earthworms—and especially with the +winged things: birds, bats, and butterflies. In the very earliest days +of my islands' existence, indeed, a few stray feathered fowls of the +air were driven ashore here by violent storms, at a time when +vegetation had not yet begun to clothe the naked pumice and volcanic +rock; but these, of course, perished for want of food, as did also a +few later arrivals, who came under stress of weather at the period when +only ferns, lichens, and mosses had as yet obtained a foothold on the +young archipelago. Sea-birds, of course, soon found out our rocks; but +as they live off fish only, they contributed little more than rich beds +of guano to the permanent colonising of the islands. As well as I can +remember, the land-snails were the earliest truly terrestrial casuals +that managed to pick up a stray livelihood in these first colonial days +of the archipelago. They came oftenest in the egg, sometimes clinging +to water-logged leaves cast up by storms, sometimes hidden in the bark +of floating driftwood, and sometimes swimming free on the open ocean. +In one case, as I recall to myself well, a swallow, driven off from the +Portuguese coast, a little before the Glacial period had begun to +whiten the distant mountains of central and northern Europe, fell +exhausted at last upon the shore of Terceira. There were no insects +then for the poor bird to feed upon, so it died of starvation and +weariness before the day was out; but a little earth that clung in a +pellet to one of its feet contained the egg of a land-shell, while the +prickly seed of a common Spanish plant was entangled among the winged +feathers by its hooked awns. The egg hatched out, and became the parent +of a large brood of minute snails, which, outliving the cold spell of +the Ice Age, had developed into a very distinct type in the long period +that intervened before the advent of man in the islands; while the seed +sprang up on the natural manure heap afforded by the swallow's decaying +body, and clinging to the valleys during the Glacial Age on the +hill-tops, gave birth in due season to one of the most markedly +indigenous of our Terceira plants. +</p> +<p> +Occasionally, too, very minute land-snails would arrive alive on the +island after their long sea-voyage on bits of broken forest-trees—a +circumstance which I would perhaps hesitate to mention in mere human +society were it not that I have been credibly informed your own great +naturalist, Darwin, tried the experiment himself with one of the +biggest European land-molluscs, the great edible Roman snail, and found +that it still lived on in vigorous style after immersion in sea-water +for twenty days. Now, I myself observed that several of these bits of +broken trees, torn down by floods in heavy storm time from the banks of +Spanish or Portuguese rivers, reached my island in eight or ten days +after leaving the mainland, and sometimes contained eggs of small +land-snails. But as very long periods often passed without a single new +species being introduced into the group, any kind that once managed to +establish itself on any of the islands usually remained for ages +undisturbed by new arrivals, and so had plenty of opportunity to adapt +itself perfectly by natural selection to the new conditions. The +consequence was, that out of some seventy land-snails now known in the +islands, thirty-two had assumed distinct specific features before the +advent of man, while thirty-seven (many of which, I think, I never +noticed till the introduction of cultivated plants) are common to my +group with Europe or with the other Atlantic islands. Most of these, I +believe, came in with man and his disconcerting agriculture. +</p> +<p> +As to the pond and river snails, so far as I could observe, they mostly +reached us later, being conveyed in the egg on the feet of stray waders +or water-birds, which gradually peopled the island after the Glacial +epoch. +</p> +<p> +Birds and all other flying creatures are now very abundant in all the +islands; but I could tell you some curious and interesting facts, too, +as to the mode of their arrival and the vicissitudes of their +settlement. For example, during the age of the Forest Beds in Europe, a +stray bullfinch was driven out to sea by a violent storm, and perched +at last on a bush at Fayal. I wondered at first whether he would effect +a settlement. But at that time no seeds or fruits fit for bullfinches +to eat existed on the islands. Still, as it turned out, this particular +bullfinch happened to have in his crop several undigested seeds of +European plants exactly suited to the bullfinch taste; so when he died +on the spot, these seeds, germinating abundantly, gave rise to a whole +valleyful of appropriate plants for bullfinches to feed upon. Now, +however, there was no bullfinch to eat them. For a long time, indeed, +no other bullfinches arrived at my archipelago. Once, to be sure, a few +hundred years later, a single cock bird did reach the island alone, +much exhausted with his journey, and managed to pick up a living for +himself off the seeds introduced by his unhappy predecessor. But as he +had no mate, he died at last, as your lawyers would say, without issue. +</p> +<p> +It was a couple of hundred years or so more before I saw a third +bullfinch—which didn't surprise me, for bullfinches are very woodland +birds, and non-migratory into the bargain—so that they didn't often +get blown seaward over the broad Atlantic. At the end of that time, +however, I observed one morning a pair of finches, after a heavy storm, +drying their poor battered wings upon a shrub in one of the islands. +From this solitary pair a new race sprang up, which developed after a +time, as I imagined they must, into a distinct species. These local +bullfinches now form the only birds peculiar to the islands; and the +reason is one well divined by one of your own great naturalists (to +whom I mean before I end to make the <i>amende honorable</i>). In almost all +other cases the birds kept getting reinforced from time to time by +others of their kind blown out to sea accidentally—for only such +species were likely to arrive there—and this kept up the purity of the +original race, by ensuring a cross every now and again with the +European community. But the bullfinches, being the merest casuals, +never again to my knowledge were reinforced from the mainland, and so +they have produced at last a special island type, exactly adapted to +the peculiarities of their new habitat. +</p> +<p> +You see, there was hardly ever a big storm on land that didn't bring at +least one or two new birds of some sort or other to the islands. +Naturally, too, the newcomers landed always on the first shore they +could sight; and so at the present day the greatest number of species +is found on the two easternmost islands nearest the mainland, which +have forty kinds of land-birds, while the central islands have but +thirty-six, and the western only twenty-nine. It would have been quite +different, of course, if the birds came mainly from America with the +trade winds and the Gulf Stream, as I at first anticipated. In that +case, there would have been most kinds in the westernmost islands, and +fewest stragglers in the far eastern. But your own naturalists have +rightly seen that the existing distribution necessarily implies the +opposite explanation. +</p> +<p> +Birds, I early noticed, are always great carriers of fruit-seeds, +because they eat the berries, but don't digest the hard little stones +within. It was in that way, I fancy, that the Portugal laurel first +came to my islands, because it has an edible fruit with a very hard +seed; and the same reason must account for the presence of the myrtle, +with its small blue berry; the laurustinus with its currant-like fruit; +the elder-tree, the canary laurel, the local sweet-gale, and the +peculiar juniper. Before these shrubs were introduced thus +unconsciously by our feathered guests, there were no fruits on which +berry-eating birds could live; but now they are the only native trees +or large bushes on the islands—I mean the only ones not directly +planted by you mischief-making men, who have entirely spoilt my nice +little experiment. +</p> +<p> +It was much the same with the history of some among the birds +themselves. Not a few birds of prey, for example, were driven to my +little archipelago by stress of weather in its very early days; but +they all perished for want of sufficient small quarry to make a living +out of. As soon, however, as the islands had got well stocked with +robins, black-caps, wrens, and wagtails, of European types—as soon as +the chaffinches had established themselves on the seaward plains, and +the canary had learnt to nest without fear among the Portugal +laurels—then buzzards, long-eared owls, and common barn-owls, driven +westward by tempests, began to pick up a decent living on all the +islands, and have ever since been permanent residents, to the immense +terror and discomfort of our smaller song-birds. Thus the older the +archipelago got the less chance was there of local variation taking +place to any large degree, because the balance of life each day grew +more closely to resemble that which each species had left behind it in +its native European or African mainland. +</p> +<p> +I said a little while ago we had no mammal in the islands. In that I +was not quite strictly correct. I ought to have said, no terrestrial +mammal. A little Spanish bat got blown to us once by a rough +nor'easter, and took up its abode at once among the caves of our +archipelago, where it hawks to this day after our flies and beetles. +This seemed to me to show very conspicuously the advantage which winged +animals have in the matter of cosmopolitan dispersion; for while it was +quite impossible for rats, mice, or squirrels to cross the intervening +belt of three hundred leagues of sea, their little winged relation, the +flitter-mouse, made the journey across quite safely on his own leathery +vans, and with no greater difficulty than a swallow or a wood-pigeon. +</p> +<p> +The insects of my archipelago tell very much the same story as the +birds and the plants. Here, too, winged species have stood at a great +advantage. To be sure, the earliest butterflies and bees that arrived +in the fern-clad period were starved for want of honey; but as soon as +the valleys began to be thickly tangled with composites, harebells, and +sweet-scented myrtle bushes, these nectar-eating insects established +themselves successfully, and kept their breed true by occasional +crosses with fresh arrivals blown to sea afterwards. The development of +the beetles I watched with far greater interest, as they assumed fresh +forms much more rapidly under their new conditions of restricted food +and limited enemies. Many kinds I observed which came originally from +Europe, sometimes in the larval state, sometimes in the egg, and +sometimes flying as full-grown insects before the blast of the angry +tempest. Several of these changed their features rapidly after their +arrival in the islands, producing at first divergent varieties, and +finally, by dint of selection, acting in various ways, through climate, +food, or enemies, on these nascent forms, evolving into stable and +well-adapted species. But I noticed three cases where bits of driftwood +thrown up from South America on the western coasts contained the eggs +or larvae of American beetles, while several others were driven ashore +from the Canaries or Madeira; and in one instance even a small insect, +belonging to a type now confined to Madagascar, found its way safely by +sea to this remote spot, where, being a female with eggs, it succeeded +in establishing a flourishing colony. I believe, however, that at the +time of its arrival it still existed on the African continent, but +becoming extinct there under stress of competition with higher forms, +it now survives only in these two widely separated insular areas. +</p> +<p> +It was an endless amusement to me during those long centuries, while I +devoted myself entirely to the task of watching my fauna and flora +develop itself, to look out from day to day for any chance arrival by +wind or waves, and to follow the course of its subsequent vicissitudes +and evolution. In a great many cases, especially at first, the +new-comer found no niche ready for it in the established order of +things on the islands, and was fain at last, after a hard struggle, to +retire for ever from the unequal contest. But often enough, too, he +made a gallant fight for it, and, adapting himself rapidly to his new +environment, changed his form and habits with surprising facility. For +natural selection, I found, is a hard schoolmaster. If you happen to +fit your place in the world, you live and thrive, but if you don't +happen to fit it, to the wall with you without quarter. Thus sometimes +I would see a small canary beetle quickly take to new food and new +modes of life on my islands under my very eyes, so that in a century or +so I judged him myself worthy of the distinction of a separate species; +while in another case, I remember, a south European weevil evolved +before long into something so wholly different from his former self +that a systematic entomologist would have been forced to enrol him in a +distinct genus. I often wish now that I had kept a regular collection +of all the intermediate forms, to present as an illustrative series to +one of your human museums; but in those days, of course, we none of us +imagined anybody but ourselves would ever take an interest in these +problems of the development of life, and we let the chance slide till +it was too late to recover it. +</p> +<p> +Naturally, during all these ages changes of other sorts were going on +in my islands—elevations and subsidences, separations and reunions, +which helped to modify the life of the group considerably. Indeed, +volcanic action was constantly at work altering the shapes and sizes of +the different rocky mountain-tops, and bringing now one, now another, +into closer relations than before with its neighbours. Why, as recently +as 1811 (a date which is so fresh in my memory that I could hardly +forget it) a new island was suddenly formed by submarine eruption off +the coast of St. Michael's, to which the name of Sabrina was +momentarily given by your human geographers. It was about a mile around +and 300 feet high; but, consisting as it did of loose cinders only, it +was soon washed away by the force of the waves in that stormy region. I +merely mention it here to show how recently volcanic changes have taken +place in my islands, and how continuously the internal energy has been +at work modifying and re-arranging them. +</p> +<p> +Up to the moment of the arrival of man in the archipelago the whole +population, animal and vegetable, consisted entirely of these waifs and +strays, blown out to sea from Europe or Africa, and modified more or +less on the spot in accordance with the varying needs of their new +home. But the advent of the obtrusive human species spoilt the game at +once for an independent observer. Man immediately introduced oranges, +bananas, sweet potatoes, grapes, plums, almonds, and many other trees +or shrubs, in which, for selfish reasons, he was personally interested. +At the same time he quite unconsciously and unintentionally stocked the +islands with a fine vigorous crop of European weeds, so that the number +of kinds of flowering plants included in the modern flora of my little +archipelago exceeds, I think, by fully one-half that which I remember +before the date of the Portuguese occupation. In the same way, besides +his domestic animals, this spoil-sport colonist man brought in his +train accidentally rabbits, weasels, mice, and rats, which now abound +in many parts of the group, so that the islands have now in effect a +wild mammalian fauna. What is more odd, a small lizard has also got +about in the walls—not as you would imagine, a native-born Portuguese +subject, but of a kind found only in Madeira and Teneriffe, and, as far +as I could make out at the time, it seemed to me to come over with +cuttings of Madeira vines for planting at St. Michael's. It was about +the same time, I imagine, that eels and gold-fish first got loose from +glass globes into the ponds and water-courses. +</p> +<p> +I have forgotten to mention, what you will no doubt yourself long since +have inferred, that my archipelago is known among human beings in +modern times as the Azores; and also that traces of all these curious +facts of introduction and modification, which I have detailed here in +their historical order, may still be detected by an acute observer and +reasoner in the existing condition of the fauna and flora. Indeed, one +of your own countrymen, Mr. Goodman, has collected all the most salient +of these facts in his 'Natural History of the Azores,' and another of +your distinguished men of science, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, has given +essentially the same explanations beforehand as those which I have here +ventured to lay, from another point of view, before a critical human +audience. But while Mr. Wallace has arrived at them by a process of +arguing backward from existing facts to prior causes and probable +antecedents, it occurred to me, who had enjoyed such exceptional +opportunities of watching the whole process unfold itself from the very +beginning, that a strictly historical account of how I had seen it come +about, step after step, might possess for some of you a greater direct +interest than Mr. Wallace's inferential solution of the self-same +problem. If, through lapse of memory or inattention to detail at so +remote a period, I have set down aught amiss, I sincerely trust you +will be kind enough to forgive me. But this little epic of the peopling +of a single oceanic archipelago by casual strays, which I alone have +had the good fortune to follow through all its episodes, seemed to me +too unique and valuable a chapter in the annals of life to be withheld +entirely from the scientific world of your eager, ephemeral, nineteenth +century humanity. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch02"></a>TROPICAL EDUCATION. +</h2> +<p> +If any one were to ask me (which is highly unlikely) 'In what +university would an intelligent young man do best to study?' I think I +should be very much inclined indeed to answer offhand, 'In the +Tropics.' +</p> +<p> +No doubt this advice sounds on first hearing just a trifle paradoxical; +and no doubt, too, the proposed university has certain serious +drawbacks (like many others) on the various grounds of health, expense, +faith, and morals. Senior Proctors are unknown at Honolulu; Select +Preachers don't range as far as the West Coast. But it has always +seemed to me, nevertheless, that certain elements of a liberal +education are to be acquired tropically which can never be acquired in +a temperate, still less in an arctic or antarctic academy. This is more +especially true, I allow, in the particular cases of the biologist and +the sociologist; but it is also true in a somewhat less degree of the +mere common arts course, and the mere average seeker after liberal +culture. Vast aspects of nature and human life exist which can never +adequately be understood aright except in tropical countries; vivid +side-lights are cast upon our own history and the history of our globe +which can never adequately be appreciated except beneath the searching +and all too garish rays of a tropical sun. +</p> +<p> +Whenever I meet a cultivated man who knows his Tropics—and more +particularly one who has known his Tropics during the formative period +of mental development, say from eighteen to thirty—I feel +instinctively that he possesses certain keys of man and nature, certain +clues to the problems of the world we live in, not possessed in +anything like the same degree by the mere average annual output of +Oxford or of Heidelberg. I feel that we talk like Freemasons +together—we of the Higher Brotherhood who have worshipped the sun, +<i>præsentiorem deum</i>, in his own nearer temples. +</p> +<p> +Let me begin by positing an extreme parallel. How obviously inadequate +is the conception of life enjoyed by the ordinary Laplander or the most +intelligent Fuegian! Suppose even he has attended the mission school of +his native village, and become learned there in all the learning of the +Egyptians, up to the extreme level of the sixth standard, yet how +feeble must be his idea of the planet on which he moves! How much must +his horizon be cabined, cribbed, confined by the frost and snow, the +gloom and poverty, of the bare land around him! He lives in a dark cold +world of scrubby vegetation and scant animal life: a world where human +existence is necessarily preserved only by ceaseless labour and at +severe odds; a world out of which all the noblest and most beautiful +living creatures have been ruthlessly pressed; a world where nothing +great has been or can be; a world doomed by its mere physical +conditions to eternal poverty, discomfort, and squalor. For green +fields he has snow and reindeer moss: for singing birds and flowers, +the ptarmigan and the tundra. How can he ever form any fitting +conception of the glory of life—of the means by which animal and +vegetable organisms first grew and flourished? How can he frame to +himself any reasonable picture of civilised society, or of the origin +and development of human faculty and human organisation? +</p> +<p> +Somewhat the same, though of course in a highly mitigated degree, are +the disadvantages under which the pure temperate education labours, +when compared with the education unconsciously drunk in at every pore +by an intelligent mind in tropical climates. And fully to understand +this pregnant educational importance of the Tropics we must consider +with ourselves how large a part tropical conditions have borne in the +development of life in general, and of human life and society in +particular. +</p> +<p> +The Tropics, we must carefully remember, are the norma of nature: the +way things mostly are and always have been. They represent to us the +common condition of the whole world during by far the greater part of +its entire existence. Not only are they still in the strictest sense +the biological head-quarters: they are also the standard or central +type by which we must explain all the rest of nature, both in man and +beast, in plant and animal. +</p> +<p> +The temperate and arctic worlds, on the other hand, are a mere passing +accident in the history of our planet: a hole-and-corner development; a +special result of the great Glacial epoch, and of that vast slow +secular cooling which preceded and led up to it, from the beginning of +the Miocene or Mid-Tertiary period. Our European ideas, poor, harsh, +and narrow, are mainly formed among a chilled and stunted fauna and +flora, under inclement skies, and in gloomy days, all of which can give +us but a very cramped and faint conception of the joyous exuberance, +the teeming vitality, the fierce hand-to-hand conflict, and the +victorious exultation of tropical life in its full free development. +</p> +<p> +All through the Primary and Secondary epochs of geology, it is now +pretty certain, hothouse conditions practically prevailed almost +without a break over the whole world from pole to pole. It may be true, +indeed, as Dr. Croli believes (and his reasoning on the point I confess +is fairly convincing), that from time to time glacial periods in one or +other hemisphere broke in for a while upon the genial warmth that +characterised the greater part of those vast and immeasurable primæval +æons. But even if that were so—if at long intervals the world for some +hours in its cosmical year was chilled and frozen in an insignificant +cap at either extremity—these casual episodes in a long story do not +interfere with the general truth of the principle that life as a whole +during the greater portion of its antique existence has been carried on +under essentially tropical conditions. No matter what geological +formation we examine, we find everywhere the same tale unfolded in +plain inscriptions before our eyes. Take, for example, the giant +club-mosses and luxuriant tree-ferns nature-printed on shales of the +coal age in Britain: and we see in the wild undergrowth of those +palæozoic forests ample evidence of a warm and almost West Indian +climate among the low basking islets of our northern carboniferous +seas. Or take once more the oolitic epoch in England, lithographed on +its own mud, with its puzzle-monkeys and its sago-palms, its crocodiles +and its deinosaurs, its winged pterodactyls and its whale-like lizards. +All these huge creatures and these broad-leaved trees plainly indicate +the existence of a temperature over the whole of Northern Europe almost +as warm as that of the Malay Archipelago in our own day. The weather +report for all the earlier ages stands almost uninterruptedly at Set +Fair. +</p> +<p> +Roughly speaking, indeed, one may say that through the long series of +Primary and Secondary formations hardly a trace can be found of ice or +snow, autumn or winter, leafless boughs or pinched and starved +deciduous vegetation. Everything is powerful, luxuriant, vivid. Life, +as Comus feared, was strangled with its waste fertility. Once, indeed, +in the Permian Age, all over the temperate regions, north and south, we +get passing indications of what seems very like a glacial epoch, +partially comparable to that great glaciation on whose last fringe we +still abide to-day. But the Ice Age of the Permian, if such there were, +passed away entirely, leaving the world once more warm and fruitful up +to the very poles under conditions which we would now describe as +essentially tropical. +</p> +<p> +It was with the Tertiary period—perhaps, indeed, only with the middle +subdivision of that period—that the gradual cooling of the polar and +intermediate regions began. We know from the deposits of the chalk +epoch in Greenland that late in Secondary times ferns, magnolias, +myrtles, and sago-palms—an Indian or Mexican flora—flourished +exceedingly in what is now the dreariest and most ice-clad region of +the northern hemisphere. Later still, in the Eocene days, though the +plants of Greenland had grown slightly more temperate in type, we still +find among the fossils, not only oaks, planes, vines, and walnuts, but +also wellingtonias like the big trees of California, Spanish chestnuts, +quaint southern salisburias, broad-leaved liquidambars, and American +sassafras. Nay, even in glacier-clad Spitzbergen itself, where the +character of the flora already begins to show signs of incipient +chilling, we nevertheless see among the Eocene types such plants as the +swamp-cyprus of the Carolinas and the wellingtonias of the Far West, +together with a rich forest vegetation of poplars, birches, oaks, +planes, hazels, walnuts, water-lilies, and irises. As a whole, this +vegetation still bespeaks a climate considerably more genial, mild, and +equable than that of modern England. +</p> +<p> +It was in this basking world of the chalk and the Eocene that the great +mammalian fauna first took its rise; it was in this easy world of +fruits and sunshine that the primitive ancestors of man first began to +work upwards toward the distinctively human level of the palæolithic +period. +</p> +<p> +But then, in the mid-career of that third day of the geological drama, +came a frost—a nipping-frost; and slowly but surely the whole arctic +and antarctic worlds were chilled and cramped, degree after degree, by +the gradual on-coming of the Great Ice Age. I am not going to deal here +with either the causes or the extent of that colossal cataclysm; I +shall take all those for granted at present: what we are concerned with +now are the results it left behind—the changes which it wrought on +fauna and flora and on human society. Especially is it of importance in +this connection to point out that the Glacial epoch is not yet entirely +finished—if, indeed, it is ever destined to be finished. We are living +still on the fringe of the Ice Age, in a cold and cheerless era, the +legacy of the accumulated glaciers of the northern and southern +snow-fields. +</p> +<p> +If once that ice were melted off—ah, well, there is much virtue in an +<i>if</i>. Still, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace seems to suggest somewhere that +the sun is gradually making inroads even now on those great +glacier-sheets of the northern cap, just as we know he is doing on the +smaller glacier-sheets of Switzerland (most of which are receding), and +that in time perhaps (say in a hundred thousand years or so) warm ocean +currents may once more penetrate to the very poles themselves. That, +however, is neither here nor there. The fact remains that we of +Northern Europe live to-day in a cramped, chilled, contracted world; a +world from which all the larger, fiercer, and grander types have either +been killed off or driven south; a world which stands to the full and +vigorous world of the Eocene and Miocene periods in somewhat the same +relation as Lapland stands to-day to Italy or the Riviera. +</p> +<p> +This being so, it naturally results that if we want really to +understand the history of life, its origin and its episodes, we must +turn nowadays to that part of our planet which still most nearly +preserves the original conditions—that is to say, the Tropics. And it +has always seemed to me, both <i>à priori</i> and <i>à posteriori</i>, that the +Tropics on this account do really possess for every one of us a vast +and for the most part unrecognised educational importance. +</p> +<p> +I say 'for every one of us,' of deliberate design. I don't mean merely +for the biologist, though to him, no doubt, their value in this respect +is greatest of all. Indeed, I doubt whether the very ideas of the +struggle for life, natural selection, the survival of the fittest, +would ever have occurred at all to the stay-at-home naturalists of the +Linnæan epoch. It was in the depths of Brazilian forests, or under the +broad shade of East Indian palms, that those fertile conceptions first +flashed independently upon two southern explorers. It is very +noteworthy indeed that all the biologists who have done most to +revolutionise the science of life in our own day—Darwin, Huxley, +Wallace, Bates, Fritz Müller, and Belt—have without exception formed +their notions of the plant and animal world during tropical travels in +early life. No one can read the 'Voyage of the <i>Beagle</i>,' the +'Naturalist on the Amazons,' or the 'Malay Archipelago' without feeling +at every page how profoundly the facts of tropical nature had +penetrated and modified their authors' minds. On the other hand, it is +well worth while to notice that the formal opposition to the new and +more expansive evolutionary views came mainly from the museum and +laboratory type of naturalists in London and Paris, the official +exponents of dry bones, who knew nature only through books and +preserved specimens, or through her impoverished and far less plastic +developments in northern lands. The battle of organic evolution has +been waged by the Darwins, the Huxleys, and the Müllers on the one +hand, against the Cuviers, the Owens, and the Virchows on the other. +</p> +<p> +Still, it is not only in biology, as I said just now, that a taste of +the Tropics in early life exerts a marked widening and philosophic +influence upon a man's whole mental horizon. In ten thousand ways, in +that great tropical university, men feel themselves in closer touch +than elsewhere with the ultimate facts and truths of nature. I don't +know whether it is all fancy and preconceived opinion, but I often +imagine when I talk with new-met men that I can detect a certain +difference in tone and feeling at first sight between those who have +and those who have not passed the Tropical Tripos. In the Tropics, in +short, we seem to get down to the very roots of things. Thousands of +questions, social, political, economical, ethical, present themselves +at once in new and more engagingly simple aspects. Difficulties vanish, +distinctions disappear, conventions fade, clothes are reduced to their +least common measure, man stands forth in his native nakedness. Things +that in the North we had come to regard as inevitable—garments, +firing, income tax, morality—evaporate or simplify themselves with +instructive ease and phantasmagoric readiness. Malthus and the food +question assume fresh forms, as in dissolving views, before our very +eyes. How are slums conceivable or East Ends possible where every man +can plant his own yam and cocoa-nut, and reap their fruit +four-hundred-fold? How can Mrs. Grundy thrive where every woman may +rear her own ten children on her ten-rood plot without aid or +assistance from their indeterminate fathers? What need of carpentry +where a few bamboos, cut down at random, can be fastened together with +thongs into a comfortable chair? What use of pottery where calabashes +hang on every tree, and cocoa-nuts, with the water fresh and pure +within, supply at once the cup, and the filter, and the Apollinaris +within? +</p> +<p> +Of course I don't mean to assert, either, that this tropical university +will in itself suffice for all the needs of educated or rather of +educable men. It must be taken, <i>bien entendu</i>, as a supplementary +course to the Literæ Humaniores. There are things which can only be +learnt in the crowded haunts and cities of men—in London, Paris, New +York, Vienna. There are things which can only be learnt in the centres +of culture or of artistic handicraft—in Oxford, Munich, Florence, +Venice, Rome. There is only one Grand Canal and only one Pitti Palace. +We must have Shakespeare, Homer, Catullus, Dante; we must have Phidias, +Fra Angelico, Rafael, Mendelssohn; we must have Aristotle, Newton, +Laplace, Spencer. But after all these, and before all these, there is +something more left to learn. Having first read them, we must read +ourselves out of them. We must forget all this formal modern life; we +must break away from this cramped, cold, northern world; we must find +ourselves face to face at last, in Pacific isles or African forests, +with the underlying truths of simple naked nature. For that, in its +perfection, we must go to the Tropics; and there, we shall learn and +unlearn much, coming back, no doubt, with shattered faiths and broken +gods, and strangely disconcerted European prejudices, but looking out +upon life with a new outlook, an outlook undimmed by ten thousand +preconceptions which hem in the vision and obstruct the view of the +mere temperately educated. +</p> +<p> +Nor is it only on the <i>élite</i> of the world that this tropical training +has in its own way a widening influence. It is good, of course, for our +Galtons to have seen South Africa; good for our Tylors to have studied +Mexico; good for our Hookers to have numbered the rhododendrons and +deodars of the Himalayas. I sometimes fancy, even, that in the works of +our very greatest stay-at-home thinkers on anthropological or +sociological subjects, I detect here and there a certain formalist and +schematic note which betrays the want of first-hand acquaintance with +the plastic and expansive nature of tropical society. The beliefs and +relations of the actual savage have not quite that definiteness of form +and expression which our University Professors would fain assign to +them. But apart from the widening influence of the Tropics on these +picked minds, there is a widening influence exerted insensibly on the +very planters or merchants, the rank and file of European settlers, +which can hardly fail to impress all those who have lived amongst them. +The cramping effect of the winter cold and the artificial life is all +removed. Men live in a freer, wider, warmer air; their doors and +windows stand open day and night; the scent of flowers and the hum of +insects blow in upon them with every breeze; their brother man and +sister woman are more patent in every action to their eyes; the world +shows itself more frankly; it has fewer secrets, and readier +sympathies. I don't mean to say the result is all gain. Far from it. +There are evils inherent in tropical life which, as a noble lord +remarks of nature generally, "no preacher can heal." But viewed as +education, like Saint-Simon's thieving, it is all valuable. I should +think most men who have once passed through a tropical experience would +no more wish that full chapter blotted out of their lives than they +would consent to lose their university culture, their Continental +travel, or their literary, scientific, or artistic education. +</p> +<p> +And what are the elements of this tropical curriculum which give it +such immense educational value? I think they are manifold. A few only +may be selected as of typical importance. +</p> +<p> +In the first place, because first in order of realisation, there is its +value as a mental <i>bouleversement</i>, a revolution in ideas, a sort of +moral and intellectual cold shower-bath, a nervous shock to the system +generally. The patient or pupil gets so thoroughly upset in all his +preconceived ideas; he finds all round him a life so different from the +life to which he has been accustomed in colder regions, that he wakes +up suddenly, rubs his eyes hard, and begins to look about him for some +general explanation of the world he lives in. It is good for the +ordinary man to get thus unceremoniously upset. Take the average young +intelligence of the London streets, with its glib ideas already formed +from supply and demand in a civilised country, where soil is +appropriated, and classes distinct, and commodities drop as it were +from the clouds upon the middle-class breakfast-table—take such an +intelligence, self-satisfied and empty, and place its possessor all at +once in a new environment, where everything material, mental, and moral +seems topsy-turvy, where life is real and morals are rudimentary—and +unless he is a very particular fool indeed, what a lot you must really +give that blithe new-comer to turn over and think about! The sun that +shifts now north, now south of him; the seasons that go by fours +instead of twos; the trees that blossom and bear fruit from January to +December, with no apparent regard for the calendar months as by law +established; the black, brown, or yellow people, who know not his creed +or his social code; the castes and cross-divisions that puzzle and +surprise him; the pride and the scruples, deeper than those of +civilised life, but that nevertheless run counter to his own; the +economic conditions that defy his preconceptions; the virtues and the +vices that equally rub him up the wrong way—all these things are +highly conducive to the production of that first substratum of +philosophic thinking, a Socratic attitude of supreme ignorance, a pure +Cartesian frame of universal doubt. +</p> +<p> +Then again there is the marvellous exuberance and novelty of the fauna +and flora. And this once more has something better for us all than mere +specialist interest. Sugar and ginger grow for all alike. For we must +remember that not only do the Tropics represent the vastly greater +portion of the world's past: they also represent the vastly greater +portion of the world's present. By far the larger part of the land +surface of the earth is tropical or subtropical; the temperate and +arctic regions make up but a minor and unimportant fraction of the soil +of our planet. And if we include the sea as well, this truth becomes +even more strikingly evident: the Tropics are even now the rule of +life; the colder regions are but an abnormal and outlying eccentricity +of nature. Yet it is from this starved and dwarfed and impoverished +northern area that most of us have formed our views of life, to the +total exclusion of the wider, richer, more varied world that calls for +our admiration in tropical latitudes. +</p> +<p> +Insensibly this richness and vividness of nature all around one, on a +first visit to the Tropics, sinks into one's mind, and produces +profound, though at first unconscious, modifications in one's whole +mode of regarding man and his universe. Especially is this the case in +early life, when the character is still plastic and the eye still keen: +pictures are formed in that brilliant sunshine and under those dim +arches of hot grey sky that photograph themselves for ever on the +lasting tablets of the human memory. John Stuart Mill in his +Autobiography dwells lovingly, I remember, on the profound effect +produced on himself by his childish visits to Jeremy Bentham at Ford +Abbey in Dorsetshire, on the delightful sense of space and freedom and +generous expansion given to his mind by the mere act of living and +moving in those stately halls and wide airy gardens. Every university +man must look back with pleasure of somewhat the same sort to the free +breezy memories of the quadrangles and common rooms of Christ Church or +of Trinity. But in the tropical university everybody passes his time in +arcades of Greek or Pompeian airiness: the palm-trees wave and whisper +around his head as he sits for coolness on his wide verandah; the +humming-birds dart from flower to flower on the delicate bouquets that +crowd his drawing-room. I knew a lady who made a capital collection of +butterflies and moths at her own dinner-table by simply impounding in +paper boxes the insects that flitted about the lamp at dessert. Why, if +it comes to that, the very bread itself comprises generally a whole +entomological cabinet, and contains in fragments the <i>disjecta membra</i> +of specimens enough to stock entire glass cases at severe South +Kensington. How's that for an inducement to study life where it is +richest and most abundant in its native starting-place? +</p> +<p> +But above all in educational importance I rank the advantage of seeing +human nature in its primitive surroundings, far from the squalid and +chilly influences of the tail-end of the Glacial epoch. I admit at once +that cold has done much, exceeding much, for human development—has +been the mother of civilisation in somewhat the same sense that +necessity has been the mother of invention. To it, no doubt, we owe to +a great extent, in varying stages, clothing, the house, fire, the +steam-engine. Yet none the less is it true that the first levels of +society must needs have been passed under essentially tropical +conditions, and that nascent civilisation spread but slowly northward, +from Egypt and Asia, through Greece and Italy, to the cloudy regions +where its chief centres are at present domiciled under canopies of coal +smoke. And even to-day the sight of the tropics, green and luxuriant, +brings us into touch at once with earlier ideas and habits of the +race—makes us more able not only to understand, but also to sympathise +with, our ancient ancestors of the naked-and-not-ashamed era of +culture. Views formed exclusively in the North tend too much to imitate +the reduced gentlewoman's outlook upon life; views formed in the +Tropics correct this refractive influence by a certain genial and +tolerant virile expansion, not to be learned at the Common, Clapham. +</p> +<p> +To one whose economic pendulum has hitherto oscillated between selfish +luxury in Mayfair and squalid poverty in Seven Dials, there is indeed a +world of novelty in the first view of the tropical poverty that is not +squalid but contentedly luxurious—of the dusky father with his wife or +wives (the mere number is a detail) sprawling at full length, half +clad, in the eye of the sun, before the palm-thatched hut, while the +fat black babies and the fat black little pigs wallow together almost +indistinguishably in the dust at his side, just out of reach of the +muscular foot that might otherwise of pure wantonness molest them. What +a flood of light it all casts upon the future possibilities of society, +that leisured, cultureless household, on whose garden-plot yam or +bread-fruit or bananas or sweet potatoes can be grown in sufficient +quantity to support the family without more labour than in England +would pay for its kitchen coals; where the hut is but a shelter from +rain, or a bed-curtain for night, and where the untaxed sun supplies +the place of a drawing-room fire all the year round, and warms the +water for the baby's bath at nothing the gallon! If there is any man +who doesn't sympathise with his dusky brother when he sees him thus at +home in his airy palace—any man who doesn't fraternise closely with +his kind when thus brought face to face with our primitive existence, I +don't envy him his stern and wild Caledonian ethics. The beach-comber +instinct should be strong in all sane minds. Or if that blunt way of +putting it perchance offend the weaker brethren, let us say rather, the +spirit of the Lotus-eaters. For the man who doesn't want to eat of the +Lotus just once in his life has become too civilised: the iron of the +Gradgrind era of universal competition and payment by results has +entered to deeply into his sordid soul. He wants a course of Egypt and +Tahiti. +</p> +<p> +Oh, yes; I know what you are going to object, and I grant it at once: +the influence of the Tropics is by no means an ascetic one. They, tend +rather to encourage a certain genial and friendly tolerance of all +possible human forms of society—even the lowest. They are essentially +democratic, not to say socialistic and revolutionary in tone. By +bringing us all down to the underlying verities of life, apart from its +conventions, they beget perhaps a somewhat hasty impatience of Court +dress and the Lord Chamberlain's regulations. But, <i>per contra</i>, they +teach us to feel that every man, whether black, brown, or white, is +very human, and every woman and child, if possible, even a trifle more +so. Wicked as it all is, there is yet in tropical political economy +more of the Gospel according to St. John, and less of Adam Smith, +Ricardo, and Malthus, than in any orthodox political economy prescribed +by examiners for the University of London. It is something to see a +world where ceaseless toil is not the necessary and inevitable lot of +all who don't pay income tax on a thousand a year, even if Board +schools are unknown and quadratic equations a vanishing quantity. It is +something to see a stick of sugar-cane protruding from the mouth of +every child, and oranges retailed at twelve for a ha'penny. It is +something to know how the vast majority of the human race still live +and move and have their being, and to feel that after all their mode of +life, though lacking in Greek iambics, wallpapers, and the <i>Saturday +Review</i>, yet appeals in its own beach-comberish way to some of one's +inmost and deepest yearnings. The hibiscus that flames before the +wattled hut, the parrot that chatters from the green and golden +mango-tree, the lithe, healthy figures of the children in the stream, +are some compensation for the lack of London mud, London fog, and +London illustrations of practical Christianity in the Isle of Dogs and +the Bermondsey purlieus. I don't know whether I am knocking the last +nail into the completed coffin of my own contention, but I believe +every right-minded man returns from the Tropics a good deal more of a +Communist than when he went there. +</p> +<p> +One word of explanation to prevent mistake. I am not myself, like +Kingsley or Wallace, an enthusiastic tropicist. On the contrary, viewed +as a place of permanent residence, I don't at all like the Tropics to +live in. I am pleading here only for their educational value, in small +doses. Spending two or three years there in the heyday of life is very +much like reading Herodotus—a thing one is glad one had once to do, +but one would never willingly do again for any money. We northern +creatures are remote products of the Great Ice Age, and by this time, +like Polar bears, we have grown adapted to our glacial environment. All +the more, therefore, is it a useful shaking-up for us to get +transported bodily from our cramped and poverty-stricken northern +slums, just once in our life, to the palms and temples of the South, +the lands where the human body is a hardy plant, not a frail exotic. We +come back to our chilly home among the fogs and bogs with wider +projects for the thawing down of the social ice-heap, and the +introduction of the bread-fruit-tree and the currant-bun-bush into the +remotest wilds of the borough of Hackney. I am not even quite sure that +tropical experience doesn't predispose us somewhat in favour of +planting the sweet potato instead of grazing battering-rams in the +uplands of Connemara. But hush; I hear an editorial frown. No more of +this heresy. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch03"></a>ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. +</h2> +<p> +Of course, you know my friend the squirting cucumber. If you don't, +that can be only because you've never looked in the right place to find +him. On all waste ground outside most southern cities—Nice, Cannes, +Florence: Rome, Algiers, Granada: Athens, Palermo, Tunis, where you +will—the soil is thickly covered by dark trailing vines which bear on +their branches a queer hairy green fruit, much like a common cucumber +at that early stage of its existence when we know it best in the +commercial form of pickled gherkins. As long as you don't interfere +with them, these hairy green fruits do nothing out of the common in the +way of personal aggressiveness. Like the model young lady of the books +on etiquette, they don't speak unless they're spoken to. But if +peradventure you chance to brush up against the plant accidentally, or +you irritate it of set purpose with your foot or your cane, then, as +Mr. Rider Haggard would say, 'a strange thing happens': off jumps the +little green fruit with a startling bounce, and scatters its juice and +pulp and seeds explosively through a hole in the end where the stem +joined on to it. The entire central part of the cucumber, in short +(answering to the seeds and pulp of a ripe melon), squirts out +elastically through the breach in the outer wall, leaving the hollow +shell behind as a mere empty windbag. +</p> +<p> +Naturally, the squirting cucumber knows its own business best, and is +not without sufficient reasons of its own for this strange and, to some +extent, unmannerly behaviour. By its queer trick of squirting, it +manages to kill at least two birds with one stone. For, in the first +place, the sudden elastic jump of the fruit frightens away browsing +animals, such as goats and cattle. Those meditative ruminants are +little accustomed to finding shrubs or plants take the aggressive +against them; and when they see a fruit that quite literally flies in +their faces of its own accord, they hesitate to attack the uncanny vine +which bristles with such magical and almost miraculous defences. +Moreover, the juice of the squirting cucumber is bitter and nauseous, +and if it gets into the eyes or nostrils of man or beast, it impresses +itself on the memory by stinging like red pepper. So the trick of +squirting serves in a double way as a protection to the plant against +the attacks of herbivorous animals and other enemies. +</p> +<p> +But that's not all. Even when no enemy is near, the ripe fruits at last +drop off of themselves, and scatter their seeds elastically in every +direction. This they do simply in order to disseminate their kind in +new and unoccupied spots, where the seedlings will root and find an +opening in life for themselves. Observe, indeed, that the very word +'disseminate' implies a general vague recognition of this principle of +plant-life on the part of humanity. It means, etymologically, to +scatter seed; and it points to the fact that everywhere in nature seeds +are scattered broadcast, infinite pains being taken by the mother-plant +for their general diffusion over wide areas of woodland, plain, or +prairie. +</p> +<p> +Let us take as examples a single little set of instances, familiar to +everybody, but far commoner in the world at large than the inhabitants +of towns are at all aware of: I mean, the winged seeds, that fly about +freely in the air by means of feathery hairs or gossamer, like +thistle-down and dandelion. Of these winged types we have many hundred +varieties in England alone. All the willow-herbs, for example, have +such feathery seeds (or rather fruits) to help them on their way +through life; and one kind, the beautiful pink rose-bay, flies about so +readily, and over such wide spaces of open country, that the plant is +known to farmers in America as fireweed, because it always springs up +at once over whole square miles of charred and smoking soil after every +devastating forest fire. It travels fast, for it travels like Ariel. In +much the same way, the coltsfoot grows on all new English railway +banks, because its winged seeds are wafted everywhere in myriads on the +winds of March. All the willows and poplars have also winged seeds: so +have the whole vast tribe of hawkweeds, groundsels, ragworts, thistles, +fleabanes, cat's-ears, dandelions, and lettuces. Indeed, one may say +roughly, there are very few plants of any size or importance in the +economy of nature which don't deliberately provide, in one way or +another, for the dispersal and dissemination of their fruits or +seedlings. +</p> +<p> +Why is this? Why isn't the plant content just to let its grains or +berries drop quietly on to the soil beneath, and there shift for +themselves as best they may on their own resources? +</p> +<p> +The answer is a more profound one than you would at first imagine. +Plants discovered the grand principle of the rotation of crops long +before man did. The farmer now knows that if he sows wheat or turnips +too many years running on the same plot, he 'exhausts the soil,' as we +say—deprives it of certain special mineral or animal constituents +needful for that particular crop, and makes the growth of the plant, +therefore, feeble or even impossible. To avoid this misfortune, he lets +the land lie fallow, or varies his crops from year to year according to +a regular and deliberate cycle. Well, natural selection forced the same +discovery upon the plants themselves long before the farmer had dreamed +of its existence. For plants, being, in the strictest sense, 'rooted to +the spot,' absolutely require that all their needs should be supplied +quite locally. Hence, from the very beginning, those plants which +scattered their seeds widest throve the best; while those which merely +dropped them on the ground under their own shadow, and on soil +exhausted by their own previous demands upon it, fared ill in the +struggle for life against their more discursive competitors. The result +has been that in the long run few species have survived, except those +which in one way or another arranged beforehand for the dispersal of +their seeds and fruits over fresh and unoccupied areas of plain or +hillside. +</p> +<p> +I don't, of course, by any means intend to assert that seeds always do +it by the simple device of wings or feathery projections. Every variety +of plan or dodge or expedient has been adopted in turn to secure the +self-same end; and provided only it succeeds in securing it, any +variety of them all is equally satisfactory. One might parallel it with +the case of hatching birds' eggs. Most birds sit upon their eggs +themselves, and supply the necessary warmth from their own bodies. But +any alternative plan that attains the same end does just as well. The +felonious cuckoo drops her foundlings unawares in another bird's nest: +the ostrich trusts her unhatched offspring to the heat of the burning +desert sand: and the Australian brush-turkeys, with vicarious maternal +instinct, collect great mounds of decaying and fermenting leaves and +rubbish, in which they deposit their eggs to be artificially incubated, +as it were, by the slow heat generated in the process of putrefaction. +Just in the same way, we shall see in the case of seeds that any method +of dispersion will serve the plant's purpose equally well, provided +only it succeeds in carrying a few of the young seedlings to a proper +place in which they may start fair at last in the struggle for +existence. +</p> +<p> +As in the case of the fertilization of flowers, so in that of the +dispersal of seeds, there are two main ways in which the work is +effected—by animals and by wind-power. I will not insult the +intelligence of the reader at the present time of day by telling him +that pollen is usually transferred from blossom to blossom in one or +other of these two chief ways—it is carried on the heads or bodies of +bees and other honey-seeking insects, or else it is wafted on the wings +of the wind to the sensitive surface of a sister-flower. So, too, seeds +are for the most part either dispersed by animals or blown about by the +breezes of heaven to new situations. These are the two most obvious +means of locomotion provided by nature; and it is curious to see that +they have both been utilized almost equally by plants, alike for their +pollen and their seeds, just as they have been utilized by man for his +own purposes on sea or land, in ship, or windmill, or pack-horse, or +carriage. +</p> +<p> +There are two ways in which animals may be employed to disperse +seeds—voluntarily and involuntarily. They may be compelled to carry +them against their wills: or they may be bribed and cajoled and +flattered into doing the plant's work for it in return for some +substantial advantage or benefit the plant confers upon them. The first +plan is the one adopted by burrs and cleavers. These adhesive fruits +are like the man who buttonholes you and won't be shaken off: they are +provided with little curved hooks or bent and barbed hairs which catch +upon the wool of sheep, the coat of cattle, or the nether integuments +of wayfaring humanity, and can't be got rid of without some little +difficulty. Most of them, you will find on examination, belonged to +confirmed hedgerow or woodside plants: they grow among bushes or low +scrub, and thickets of gorse or bramble. Now, to such plants as these, +it is obviously useful to have adhesive fruits and seeds: for when +sheep or other animals get them caught in their coats, they carry them +away to other bushy spots, and there, to get rid of the annoyance +caused by the foreign body, scratch them off at once against some +holly-bush or blackthorn. You may often find seeds of this type +sticking on thorns as the nucleus of a little matted mass of wool, so +left by the sheep in the very spots best adapted for the free growth of +their vigorous seedlings. +</p> +<p> +Even among plants which trust to the involuntary services of animals in +dispersing their seeds, a great many varieties of detail may be +observed on close inspection. For example, in hound's-tongue and +goose-grass, two of the best-known instances among our common English +weeds, each little nut is covered with many small hooks, which make it +catch on firmly by several points of attachment to passing animals. +These are the kinds we human beings of either sex oftenest find +clinging to our skirts or trousers after a walk in a rabbit-warren. But +in herb-bennet and avens each nut has a single long awn, crooked near +the middle with a very peculiar S-shaped joint, which effectually +catches on to the wool or hair, but drops at the elbow after a short +period of withering. Sometimes, too, the whole fruit is provided with +prehensile hooks, while sometimes it is rather the individual seeds +themselves that are so accommodated. Oddest of all is the plan followed +by the common burdock. Here, an involucre or common cup-shaped +receptacle of hooked bracts surrounds an entire head of purple tubular +flowers, and each of these flowers produces in time a distinct fruit; +but the hooked involucre contains the whole compound mass, and, being +pulled off bodily by a stray sheep or dog, effects the transference of +the composite lot at once to some fitting place for their germination. +</p> +<p> +Those plants, on the other hand, which depend rather, like London +hospitals, upon the voluntary system, produce that very familiar form +of edible capsule which we commonly call in the restricted sense a +fruit or berry. In such cases, the seed-vessel is usually swollen and +pulpy: it is stored with sweet juices to attract the birds or other +animal allies, and it is brightly coloured so as to advertise to their +eyes the presence of the alluring sugary foodstuff. These instances, +however, are now so familiar to everybody that I won't dwell upon them +at any length. Even the degenerate schoolboy of the present day, much +as he has declined from the high standard set forth by Macaulay, knows +all about the way the actual seed itself is covered (as in the plum or +the cherry) by a hard stony coat which 'resists the action of the +gastric juice' (so physiologists put it, with their usual frankness), +and thus passes undigested through the body of its swallower. All I +will do here, therefore, is to note very briefly that some edible +fruits, like the two just mentioned, as well as the apricot, the peach, +the nectarine, and the mango, consist of a single seed with its outer +covering; in others, as in the raspberry, the blackberry, the +cloudberry, and the dew-berry, many seeds are massed together, each +with a separate edible pulp; in yet others, as in the gooseberry, the +currant, the grape, and the whortleberry, several seeds are embedded +within the fruit in a common pulpy mass; and in others again, as in the +apple, pear, quince, and medlar, they are surrounded by a quantity of +spongy edible flesh. Indeed, the variety that prevails among fruits in +this respect almost defies classification: for sometimes, as in the +mulberry, the separate little fruits of several distinct flowers grow +together at last into a common berry: sometimes, as in a fig, the +general flower-stalk of several tiny one-seeded blossoms forms the +edible part: and sometimes, as in the strawberry, the true little nuts +or fruits appear as mere specks or dots on the bloated surface of the +swollen and overgrown stem, which forms the luscious morsel dear to the +human palate. +</p> +<p> +Yet in every case it is interesting to observe that, while the seeds +which depend for dispersion upon the breeze are easily detached from +the parent plant and blown about by every wind of doctrine, the seeds +or fruits which depend for their dispersion upon birds or animals +always, on the contrary, hang on to their native boughs to the very +last, till some unconscious friend pecks them off and devours them. +Haws, rose-hips, and holly-berries will wither and wilt on the tree in +mild winters, because they can't drop off of themselves without the aid +of birds, while the birds are too well supplied with other food to care +for them. One of the strangest cases of all, however, is that of the +mistletoe, which, living parasitically upon the forest-boughs and +apple-trees, would of course be utterly lost if its berries dropped +their seeds on to the ground beneath it. To avoid such a misfortune, +the mistletoe berries are filled with an exceedingly viscid and sticky +pulp, surrounding the hard little nut-like seeds: and this pulp makes +the seeds cling to the bills and feet of various birds which feed upon +the fruit, but most particularly of the missel thrush, who derives his +common English name from his devotion to the mistletoe. The birds then +carry them away unwittingly to some neighbouring tree, and rub them +off, when they get uncomfortable, against a forked branch—the exact +spots that best suits the young mistletoe for sprouting in. Man, in +turn, makes use of the sticky pulp for the manufacture of bird-lime, +and so employs against the birds the very qualities which the plant +intended as a bribe for their kindly services. +</p> +<p> +Among seeds that trust for their disposal to the wind, the commonest, +simplest, and least evolved type is that of the ordinary capsule, as in +the poppies and campions. At first sight, to be sure, a casual observer +might suppose there existed in these cases no recognisable device at +all for the dissemination of the seedlings. But you and I, most +excellent and discreet reader, are emphatically <i>not</i>, of course, mere +casual observers. <i>We</i> look close, and go to the very root of things. +And when we do so, we see for ourselves at once that almost all +capsules open—where? why, at the top, so that the seeds can only be +shaken out when there is a high enough wind blowing to sway the stems +to and fro with some violence, and scatter the small black grains +inside to a considerable distance. Furthermore, in many instances, of +which the common poppy-head is an excellent example, the capsule opens +by lateral pores at the top of a flat head—a further precaution which +allows the seeds to get out only by a few at a time, after a distinct +jerk, and so scatters them pretty evenly, with different winds, over a +wide circular space around the mother plant. Experiment will show how +this simple dodge works. Try to shake out the poppy-seed from a ripe +poppy-head on the plant as it grows, without breaking the stem or +bending it unnaturally, and you will easily see how much force of wind +is required in order to put this unobtrusive but very effective +mechanism into working order. +</p> +<p> +The devices of this character employed by various plants for the +dispersal of seeds even in ordinary dry capsules are far too numerous +for me to describe in full detail, though they form a delightful +subject for individual study in any small suburban garden. I will only +give one more illustrative case, just to show the sort of point an +amateur should always be on the look-out for. There is an extremely +common, though inconspicuous, English weed, the mouse-ear chickweed, +found everywhere in flower-beds or grass-plots, however small, and +noticeable for its quaint little horn-shaped capsules. These have a +very odd sort of twist or cock-up in the middle, just above the part +where the seeds lie; and they open at the top by ten small teeth, +pointed obliquely outward for no apparent reason. Yet every point has a +meaning of its own for all that. The plant is one that lies rather +close upon the ground; and the effect of this twist in the capsule is +that the seeds, which are relatively heavy, and well stored with +nutriment, can never get out at all, unless a very strong wind is +blowing, which sweeps over the herbage in long quick waves, and carries +everything it shakes out for great distances before it. So much design +have even the smallest weeds put into the mechanism for the dispersion +of their precious seeds, the hope of their race and the earnest of +their future! +</p> +<p> +Artillery marks a higher stage than the sling and the stone. Just so, +in many plants, a step higher in the evolutionary scale as regards the +method of dispersion, the capsule itself bursts open explosively, and +scatters its contents to the four winds of heaven. Such plants may be +said to discharge their grains on the principle of the bow and arrow. +The balsam is a familiar example of this startling mode of moving to +fresh fields and pastures new: its capsule consists of five long +straight valves, which break asunder elastically the moment they are +touched, when fully ripe, and shed their seeds on all sides, like so +many small bombshells. Our friend the squirting cucumber, which served +as the prime text for this present discourse, falls into somewhat the +same category, though in other ways it rather resembles the true +succulent fruits, and belongs, indeed, to the same family as the melon, +the gourd, the pumpkin, and the vegetable-marrow, almost all of which +are edible and in every way fruit-like. Among English weeds, the little +bittercress that grows on dry walls and hedge-banks forms an excellent +example of the same device. Village children love to touch the long, +ripe, brown capsules on the top with one timid finger, and then jump +away, half laughing, half terrified, when the mild-looking little plant +goes off suddenly with a small bang and shoots its grains like a +catapult point-blank in their faces. +</p> +<p> +It is in the tropics, however, that these elastic fruits reach their +highest development. There they have to fight, not merely against such +small fry as robins, squirrels, and harvest-mice, but against the +aggressive parrot, the hard-billed toucan, the persistent lemur, and +the inquisitive monkey. Moreover, the elastic fruits of the tropics +grow often on spreading forest trees, and must therefore shed their +seeds to immense distances if they are to reach comparatively virgin +soil, unexhausted by the deep-set roots of the mother trunk. Under such +exceptional circumstances, the tropical examples of these elastic +capsules are by no means mere toys to be lightly played with by babes +and sucklings. The sand-box tree of the West Indies has large round +fruits, containing seeds about as big as an English horsebean; and the +capsule explodes, when ripe, with a detonation like a pistol, +scattering its contents with as much violence as a shot from an +air-gun. It is dangerous to go too near these natural batteries during +the shooting season. A blow in the eye from one would blind a man +instantly. I well remember the very first night I spent in my own house +in Jamaica, where I went to live shortly after the repression of +'Governor Eyre's rebellion,' as everybody calls it locally. All night +long I heard somebody, as I thought, practising with a revolver in my +own back garden: a sound which somewhat alarmed me under those very +unstable social conditions. An earthquake about midnight, it is true, +diverted my attention temporarily from the recurring shots, but didn't +produce the slightest effect upon the supposed rebel's devotion to the +improvement of his marksmanship. When morning dawned, however, I found +it was only a sand-box tree, and that the shots were nothing more than +the explosions of the capsules. As to the wonderful tales told about +the Brazilian cannon-ball tree, I cannot personally endorse them from +original observation, and will not stain this veracious page with any +second-hand quotations from the strange stories of modern scientific +Munchausens. +</p> +<p> +Still higher in the evolutionary scale than the elastic fruits are +those airy species which have taken to themselves wings like the eagle, +and soar forth upon the free breeze in search of what the Americans +describe as 'fresh locations.' Of this class the simplest type may be +seen in those forest-trees, like the maple and the sycamore, whose +fruits are flattened out into long expansions or parachutes, +technically known as 'keys,' by whose aid they flutter down obliquely +to the ground at a considerable distance. The keys of the sycamore, to +take a single instance, when detached from the tree in autumn, fall +spirally through the air owing to the twist of the winged arm, and are +carried so far that, as every gardener knows, young sycamore trees rank +among the commonest weeds among our plots and flower-beds. A curious +variant upon this type is presented by the lime, or linden, whose +fruits are in themselves small wingless nuts; but they are born in +clusters upon a common stalk, which is winged on either side by a large +membranous bract. When the nuts are ripe, the whole cluster detaches +itself in a body from the branch, and flutters away before the breeze +by means of the common parachute, to some spot a hundred yards or more, +where the wind chances to land it. +</p> +<p> +The topmost place of all in the hierarchy of seed life, it seems to me, +is taken by the feathery fruits and seeds which float freely hither and +thither wherever the wind may bear them. An immense number of the very +highest plants—the aristocrats of the vegetable kingdom, such as the +lordly composites, those ultimate products of plant evolution—possess +such floating feathery seeds; though here, again, the varieties of +detail are too infinite for rapid or popular classification. Indeed, +among the composites alone—the thistle and dandelion tribe with downy +fruits—I can reckon up more than a hundred and fifty distinct +variations of plan among the winged seeds known to me in various parts +of Europe. But if I am strong, I am merciful: I will let the public off +with a hundred and forty-eight of them. My two exceptions shall be +John-go-to-bed-at-noon and the hairy hawkweed, both of them common +English meadow-plants. The first, and more quaintly named, of the two +has little ribbed fruits that end in a long and narrow beak, supporting +a radial rib-work of spokes like the frame of an umbrella; and from rib +to rib of this framework stretch feathery cross-pieces, continuous all +round, so as to make of the whole mechanism a perfect circular +parachute, resembling somewhat the web of a geometrical spider. But the +hairy hawkweed is still more cunning in its generation; for that clever +and cautious weed produces its seeds or fruits in clustered heads, of +which the central ones are winged, while the outer are heavy, squat, +and wingless. Thus does the plant make the best of all chances that may +happen to open before it: if one lot goes far and fares but ill, the +other is pretty sure to score a bull's-eye. +</p> +<p> +These are only a few selected examples of the infinite dodges employed +by enlightened herbs and shrubs to propagate their scions in foreign +parts. Many more, equally interesting, must be left undescribed. Only +for a single case more can I still find room—that of the subterranean +clover, which has been driven by its numerous enemies to take refuge at +last in a very remarkable and almost unique mode, of protecting its +offspring. This particular kind of clover affects smooth and +close-cropped hillsides, where the sheep nibble down the grass and +other herbage almost as fast as it springs up again. Now, clover seeds +resemble their allies of the pea and bean tribe in being exceedingly +rich in starch and other valuable foodstuffs. Hence, they are much +sought after by the inquiring sheep, which eat them off wherever found, +as exceptionally nutritious and dainty morsels. Under these +circumstances, the subterranean clover has learnt to produce small +heads of bloom, pressed close to the ground, in which only the outer +flowers are perfect and fertile, while the inner ones are transformed +into tiny wriggling corkscrews. As soon as the fertile flowers have +begun to set their seed, by the kind aid of the bees, the whole stem +bends downward, automatically, of its own accord; the little corkscrews +then worm their way into the turf beneath; and the pods ripen and +mature in the actual soil itself, where no prying ewe can poke an +inquisitive nose to grub them up and devour them. Cases like this point +in certain ways to the absolute high-water-mark of vegetable ingenuity: +they go nearest of all in the plant-world to the similitude of +conscious animal intelligence. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch04"></a>A DESERT FRUIT. +</h2> +<p> +Who knows the Mediterranean, knows the prickly pear. Not that that +quaint and uncanny-looking cactus, with its yellow blossoms and +bristling fruits that seem to grow paradoxically out of the edge of +thick fleshy leaves, is really a native of Italy, Spain, and North +Africa, where it now abounds on every sun-smitten hillside. Like Mr. +Henry James and Mr. Marion Crawford, the Barbary fig, as the French +call it, is, in point of fact, an American citizen, domiciled and half +naturalised on this side of the Atlantic, but redolent still at heart +of its Columbian origin. Nothing is more common, indeed, than to see +classical pictures of the Alma-Tadema school—not, of course, from the +brush of the master himself, who is impeccable in such details, but +fair works of decent imitators—in which Caia or Marcia leans +gracefully in her white stole on one pensive elbow against a marble +lintel, beside a courtyard decorated with a Pompeian basin, and +overgrown with prickly pear or "American aloes." I need hardly say +that, as a matter of plain historical fact, neither cactuses nor agaves +were known in Europe till long after Christopher Columbus had steered +his wandering bark to the sandy shores of Cat's Island in the Bahamas. +(I have seen Cat's Island with these very eyes, and can honestly assure +you that its shores <i>are</i> sandy.) But this is only one among the many +pardonable little inaccuracies of painters, who thrust scarlet +geraniums from the Cape of Good Hope into the fingers of Aspasia, or +supply King Solomon in all his glory with Japanese lilies of the most +recent introduction. +</p> +<p> +At the present day, it is true, both the prickly-pear cactus and the +American agave (which the world at large insists upon confounding with +the aloe, a member of a totally distinct family) have spread themselves +in an apparently wild condition over all the rocky coasts both of +Southern Europe and of Northern Africa. The alien desert weeds have +fixed their roots firmly in the sunbaked clefts of Ligurian Apennines; +the tall candelabrum of the western agave has reared its great spike of +branching blossoms (which flower, not once in a century, as legend +avers, but once in some fifteen years or so) on all the basking +hillsides of the Mauritanian Atlas. But for the origin, and therefore +for the evolutionary history, of either plant, we must look away from +the shore of the inland sea to the arid expanse of the Mexican desert. +It was there, among the sweltering rocks of the Tierras Calientes, that +these ungainly cactuses first learned to clothe themselves in prickly +mail, to store in their loose tissues an abundant supply of sticky +moisture, and to set at defiance the persistent attacks of all external +enemies. The prickly pear, in fact, is a typical instance of a desert +plant, as the camel is a typical instance of a desert animal. Each lays +itself out to endure the long droughts of its almost rainless habitat +by drinking as much as it can when opportunity offers, hoarding up the +superfluous water for future use, and economising evaporation by every +means in its power. +</p> +<p> +If you ask that convenient fiction, the Man in the Street, what sort of +plant a cactus is, he will probably tell you it is all leaf and no +stem, and each of the leaves grows out of the last one. Whenever we set +up the Man in the Street, however, you must have noticed we do it in +order to knock him down again like a nine-pin next moment: and this +particular instance is no exception to the rule; for the truth is that +a cactus is practically all stem and no leaves, what looks like a leaf +being really a branch sticking out at an angle. The true leaves, if +there are any, are reduced to mere spines or prickles on the surface, +while the branches, in the prickly-pear and many of the ornamental +hot-house cactuses, are flattened out like a leaf to perform foliar +functions. In most plants, to put it simply, the leaves are the mouths +and stomachs of the organism; their thin and flattened blades are +spread out horizontally in a wide expanse, covered with tiny throats +and lips which suck in carbonic acid from the surrounding air, and +disintegrate it in their own cells under the influence of sunlight. In +the prickly pears, on the contrary, it is the flattened stem and +branches which undertake this essential operation in the life of the +plant—the sucking-in of carbon and giving-out of oxygen, which is to +the vegetable exactly what the eating and digesting of food is to the +animal organism. In their old age, however, the stems of the prickly +pear display their true character by becoming woody in texture and +losing their articulated leaf-like appearance. +</p> +<p> +Everything on this earth can best be understood by investigating the +history of its origin and development, and in order to understand this +curious reversal of the ordinary rule in the cactus tribe we must look +at the circumstances under which the race was evolved in the howling +waste of American deserts. (All deserts have a prescriptive right to +howl, and I wouldn't for worlds deprive them of the privilege.) Some +familiar analogies will help us to see the utility of this arrangement. +Everybody knows our common English stone-crops—or if he doesn't he +ought to, for they are pretty and ubiquitous. Now stone-crops grow for +the most part in chinks of the rock or thirsty sandy soil; they are +essentially plants of very dry positions. Hence they have thick and +succulent little stems and leaves, which merge into one another by +imperceptible gradations. All parts of the plant alike are stumpy, +green, and cylindrical. If you squash them with your finger and thumb +you find that though the outer skin or epidermis is thick and firm, the +inside is sticky, moist, and jelly-like. The reason for all this is +plain; the stone-crops drink greedily by their roots whenever they get +a chance, and store up the water so obtained to keep them from +withering under the hot and pitiless sun that beats down upon them for +hours in the baked clefts of their granite matrix. It's the camel trick +over again. So leaves and stem grow thick and round and juicy within; +but outside they are enclosed in a stout layer of epidermis, which +consists of empty glassy cells, and which can be peeled off or flayed +with a knife like the skin of an animal. This outer layer prevents +evaporation, and is a marked feature of all succulent plants which grow +exposed to the sun on arid rocks or in sandy deserts. +</p> +<p> +The tendency to produce rounded stems and leaves, little +distinguishable from one another, is equally noticeable in many seaside +plants which frequent the strip of thirsty sand beyond the reach of the +tides. That belt of dry beach that stretches between high-water mark +and the zone of vegetable mould, is to all intents and purpose a +miniature desert. True, it is watered by rain from time to time; but +the drops sink in so fast that in half an hour, as we know, the entire +strip is as dry as Sahara again. Now there are many shore weeds of this +intermediate sand-belt which mimic to a surprising degree the chief +external features of the cactuses. One such weed, the common +salicornia, which grows in sandy bottoms or hollows of the beach, has a +jointed stem, branched and succulent, after the true cactus pattern, +and entirely without leaves or their equivalents in any way. Still more +cactus-like in general effect is another familiar English seaside weed, +the kali or glasswort, so called because it was formerly burnt to +extract the soda. The glasswort has leaves, it is true, but they are +thick and fleshy, continuous with the stem, and each one terminating in +a sharp, needle-like spine, which effectually protects the weed against +all browsing aggressors. +</p> +<p> +Now, wherever you get very dry and sandy conditions of soil, you get +this same type of cactus-like vegetation—<i>plantes grasses</i>, as the +French well call them. The species which exhibit it are not necessary +related to one another in any way; often they belong to most widely +distinct families; it is an adaptive resemblance alone, due to +similarity of external circumstances only. The plants have to fight +against the same difficulties, and they adopt for the most part the +same tactics to fight them with. In other words, any plant of whatever +family, which wishes to thrive in desert conditions, must almost, as a +matter of course, become thick and succulent, so as to store up water, +and must be protected by a stout epidermis to prevent its evaporation +under the fierce heat of the sunlight. They do not necessarily lose +their leaves in the process; but the jointed stem usually answers the +purpose of leaves under such conditions far better than any thin and +exposed blade could do in the arid air of a baking desert. And +therefore, as a rule, desert plants are leafless. +</p> +<p> +In India, for example, there are no cactuses. But I wouldn't advise you +to dispute the point with a peppery, fire-eating Anglo-Indian colonel. +I did so once, myself, at the risk of my life, at a <i>table d'hôte</i> on +the Continent; and the wonder is that I'm still alive to tell the +story. I had nothing but facts on my side, while the colonel had fists, +and probably pistols. And when I say no cactuses, I mean, of course, no +indigenous species; for prickly pears and epiphyllums may naturally be +planted by the hand of man anywhere. But what people take for thickets +of cactus in the Indian jungle are really thickets of cactus-like +spurges. In the dry soil of India, many spurges grow thick and +succulent, learn to suppress their leaves, and assume the bizarre forms +and quaint jointed appearance of the true cactuses. In flower and +fruit, however, they are euphorbias to the end; it is only in the thick +and fleshy stem that they resemble their nobler and more beautiful +Western rivals. No true cactus grows truly wild anywhere on earth +except in America. The family was developed there, and, till man +transplanted it, never succeeded in gaining a foothold elsewhere. +Essentially tropical in type, it was provided with no means of +dispersing its seeds across the enormous expanse of intervening ocean +which separated its habitat from the sister continents. +</p> +<p> +But why are cactuses so almost universally prickly? From the grotesque +little melon-cactuses of our English hothouses to the huge and ungainly +monsters which form miles of hedgerows on Jamaican hillsides, the +members of this desert family are mostly distinguished by their +abundant spines and thorns, or by the irritating hairs which break off +in your skin if you happen to brush incautiously against them. Cactuses +are the hedgehogs of the vegetable world; their motto is <i>Nemo me +impune lacessit</i>. Many a time in the West Indies I have pushed my hand +for a second into a bit of tangled 'bush,' as the negroes call it, to +seize some rare flower or some beautiful insect, and been punished for +twenty-four hours afterwards by the stings of the almost invisible and +glass-like little cactus-needles. When you rub them they only break in +pieces, and every piece inflicts a fresh wound on the flesh where it +rankles. Some of the species have large, stout prickles; some have +clusters of irritating hairs at measured distances; and some rejoice in +both means of defence at once, scattered impartially over their entire +surface. In the prickly pear, the bundles of prickles are arranged +geometrically with great regularity in a perfect quincunx. But that is +a small consolation indeed to the reflective mind when you've stung +yourself badly with them. +</p> +<p> +The reason for this bellicose disposition on the part of the cactuses +is a tolerably easy one to guess. Fodder is rare in the desert. The +starving herbivores that find themselves from time to time belated on +the confines of such thirsty regions would seize with avidity upon any +succulent plant which offered them food and drink at once in their last +extremity. Fancy the joy with which a lost caravan, dying of hunger and +thirst in the byways of Sahara, would hail a great bed of melons, +cucumbers, and lettuces! Needless to say, however, under such +circumstances melon, cucumber, and lettuce would soon be exterminated: +they would be promptly eaten up at discretion without leaving a +descendant to represent them in the second generation. In the ceaseless +war between herbivore and plant, which is waged every day and all day +long the whole world over with far greater persistence than the war +between carnivore and prey, only those species of plant can survive in +such exposed situations which happen to develop spines, thorns, or +prickles as a means of defence against the mouths of hungry and +desperate assailants. +</p> +<p> +Nor is this so difficult a bit of evolution as it looks at first sight. +Almost all plants are more or less covered with hairs, and it needs but +a slight thickening at the base, a slight woody deposit at the point, +to turn them forthwith into the stout prickles of the rose or the +bramble. Most leaves are more or less pointed at the end or at the +summits of the lobes; and it needs but a slight intensification of this +pointed tendency to produce forthwith the sharp defensive foliage of +gorse, thistles, and holly. Often one can see all the intermediate +stages still surviving under one's very eyes. The thistles, themselves, +for example, vary from soft and unarmed species which haunt +out-of-the-way spots beyond the reach of browsing herbivores, to such +trebly-mailed types as that enemy of the agricultural interest, the +creeping thistle, in which the leaves continue themselves as prickly +wings down every side of the stem, so that the whole plant is amply +clad from head to foot in a defensive coat of fierce and bristling +spearheads. There is a common little English meadow weed, the +rest-harrow, which in rich and uncropped fields produces no defensive +armour of any sort; but on the much-browsed-over suburban commons and +in similar exposed spots, where only gorse and blackthorn stand a +chance for their lives against the cows and donkeys, it has developed a +protected variety in which some of the branches grow abortive, and end +abruptly in stout spines like a hawthorn's. Only those rest-harrows +have there survived in the sharp struggle for existence which happened +most to baffle their relentless pursuers. +</p> +<p> +Desert plants naturally carry this tendency to its highest point of +development. Nowhere else is the struggle for life so fierce; nowhere +else is the enemy so goaded by hunger and thirst to desperate measures. +It is a place for internecine warfare Hence, all desert plants are +quite absurdly prickly. The starving herbivores will attack and devour +under such circumstances even thorny weeds, which tear or sting their +tender tongues and palates, but which supply them at least with a +little food and moisture: so the plants are compelled in turn to take +almost extravagant precautions. Sometimes the leaves end in a stout +dagger-like point, as with the agave, or so-called American aloe; +sometimes they are reduced to mere prickles or bundles of needle-like +spikes; sometimes they are suppressed altogether, and the work of +defence is undertaken in their stead by irritating hairs intermixed +with caltrops of spines pointing outward from a common centre in every +direction. When one remembers how delicately sensitive are the tender +noses of most browsing herbivores, one can realize what an excellent +mode of defence these irritating hairs must naturally constitute. I +have seen cows in Jamaica almost maddened by their stings, and even +savage bulls will think twice in their rage before they attempt to make +their way through the serried spears of a dense cactus hedge. To put it +briefly, plants have survived under very arid or sandy conditions +precisely in proportion as they displayed this tendency towards the +production of thorns, spines, bristles, and prickles. +</p> +<p> +It is a marked characteristic of the cactus tribe to be very tenacious +of life, and when hacked to pieces, to spring afresh in full vigour +from every scrap or fragment. True vegetable hydras, when you cut down +one, ten spring in its place: every separate morsel of the thick and +succulent stem has the power of growing anew into a separate cactus. +Surprising as this peculiarity seems at first sight, it is only a +special desert modification of a faculty possessed in a less degree by +almost all plants and by many animals. If you cut off the end of a rose +branch and stick it in the ground under suitable conditions, it grows +into a rose tree. If you take cuttings of scarlet geraniums or common +verbenas, and pot them in moist soil, they bud out apace into new +plants like their parents. Certain special types can even be propagated +from fragments of the leaf; for example, there is a particularly +vivacious begonia off which you may snap a corner of one blade, and +hang it up by a string from a peg or the ceiling, when, hi, presto! +little begonia plants begin to bud out incontinently on every side from +its edges. A certain German professor went even further than that; he +chopped up a liverwort very fine into vegetable mincemeat, which he +then spread thin over a saucerful of moist sand, and lo! in a few days +the whole surface of the mess was covered with a perfect forest of +sprouting little liverworts. Roughly speaking, one may say that every +fragment of every organism has in it the power to rebuild in its +entirety another organism like the one of which it once formed a +component element. +</p> +<p> +Similarly with animals. Cut off a lizard's tail, and straightway a new +tail grows in its place with surprising promptitude. Cut off a +lobster's claw, and in a very few weeks that lobster is walking about +airily on his native rocks, with two claws as usual. True, in these +cases the tail and the claw don't bud out in turn into a new lizard or +a new lobster. But that is a penalty the higher organisms have to pay +for their extreme complexity. They have lost that plasticity, that +freedom of growth, which characterizes the simpler and more primitive +forms of life; in their case the power of producing fresh organisms +entire from a single fragment, once diffused equally over the whole +body, is now confined to certain specialized cells which, in their +developed form, we know as seeds or eggs. Yet, even among animals, at a +low stage of development, this original power of reproducing the whole +from a single part remains inherent in the organism; for you may chop +up a fresh-water hydra into a hundred little bits, and every bit will +be capable of growing afresh into a complete hydra. +</p> +<p> +Now, desert plants would naturally retain this primitive tendency in a +very high degree; for they are specially organized to resist +drought—being the survivors of generations of drought-proof +ancestors—and, like the camel, they have often to struggle on through +long periods of time without a drop of water. Exactly the same thing +happens at home to many of our pretty little European stone-crops. I +have a rockery near my house overgrown with the little white sedum of +our gardens. The birds often peck off a tiny leaf or branch; it drops +on the dry soil, and remains there for days without giving a sign of +life. But its thick epidermis effectually saves it from withering; and +as soon as rain falls, wee white rootlets sprout out from the under +side of the fragment as it lies, and it grows before long into a fresh +small sedum plant. Thus, what seem like destructive agencies +themselves, are turned in the end by mere tenacity of life into a +secondary means of propagation. +</p> +<p> +That is why the prickly pear is so common in all countries where the +climate suits it, and where it has once managed to gain a foothold. The +more you cut it down, the thicker it springs; each murdered bit becomes +the parent in due time of a numerous offspring. Man, however, with his +usual ingenuity, has managed to best the plant, on this its own ground, +and turn it into a useful fodder for his beasts of burden. The prickly +pear is planted abundantly on bare rocks in Algeria, where nothing else +would grow, and is cut down when adult, divested of its thorns by a +rough process of hacking, and used as food for camels and cattle. It +thus provides fresh moist fodder in the African summer when the grass +is dried up and all other pasture crops have failed entirely. +</p> +<p> +The flowers of the prickly pear, as of many other cactuses, grow +apparently on the edge of the leaves, which alone might give the +observant mind a hint as to the true nature of those thick and +flattened expansions. For whenever what look like leaves bear flowers +or fruit on their edge or midrib, as in the familiar instance of +butcher's broom, you may be sure at a glance they are really branches +in disguise masquerading as foliage. The blossoms in the prickly pear +are large, handsome, and yellow; at least, they would be handsome if +one could ever see them, but they are generally covered so thick in +dust that it is difficult properly to appreciate their beauty. They +have a great many petals in numerous rows, and a great many stamens in +a rosette in the centre; and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, +as lawyers put it, they are fertilized for the most part by tropical +butterflies; but on this point, having observed them but little in +their native habitats, I speak under correction. +</p> +<p> +The fruit itself, to which the plant owes its popular name, is +botanically a berry, though a very big one, and it exhibits in a highly +specialized degree the general tactics of all its family. As far as +their leaf-like stems go, the main object in life of the cactuses +is—not to get eaten. But when it comes to the fruit, this object in +life is exactly reversed; the plant desires its fruit to be devoured by +some friendly bird or adapted animal, in order that the hard little +seeds buried in the pulp within may be dispersed for germination under +suitable conditions. At the same time, true to its central idea, it +covers even the pear itself with deterrent and prickly hairs, meant to +act as a defence against useless thieves or petty depredators, who +would eat the soft pulp on the plant as it stands (much as wasps do +peaches) without benefiting the species in return by dispersing its +seedlings. This practice is fully in accordance with the general habit +of tropical or sub-tropical fruits, which lay themselves out to deserve +the kind offices of monkeys, parrots, toucans, hornbills, and other +such large and powerful fruit-feeders. Fruits which arrange themselves +for a <i>clientèle</i>, of this character have usually thick or nauseous +rinds, prickly husks, or other deterrent integuments; but they are full +within of juicy pulp, embedding stony or nutlike seeds, which pass +undigested through the gizzards of their swallowers. +</p> +<p> +For a similar reason, the actual prickly pears themselves are +attractively coloured. I need hardly point out, I suppose, at the +present time of day, that such tints in the vegetable world act like +the gaudy posters of our London advertisers. Fruits and flowers which +desire to attract the attention of beasts, birds, or insects, are +tricked out in flaunting hues of crimson, purple, blue, and yellow; +fruits and flowers which could only be injured by the notice of animals +are small and green, or dingy and inconspicuous. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch05"></a>PRETTY POLL. +</h2> +<p> +It is an error of youth to despise parrots for their much talking. +Loquacity isn't always a sign of empty-headedness, nor is silence a +sure proof of weight and wisdom. Biologists, for their part, know +better than that. By common consent, they rank the parrot group as the +very head and crown of bird creation. Not, of course, because pretty +Poll can talk (in a state of nature, parrots only chatter somewhat +meaninglessly to one another), but because the group display on the +whole, all round, a greater amount of intelligence, of cleverness, and +of adaptability to circumstances than any other birds, including even +their cunning and secretive rivals, the ravens, the jackdaws, the +crows, and the magpies. +</p> +<p> +What are the efficient causes of this exceptionally high intelligence +in parrots? Well, Mr. Herbert Spencer, I believe, was the first to +point out the intimate connection that exists throughout the animal +world between mental development and the power of grasping an object +all round so as to know exactly its shape and its tactile properties. +The possession of an effective prehensile organ—a hand or its +equivalent—seems to be the first great requisite for the evolution of +a high order of intellect. Man and the monkeys, for example, have a +pair of hands; and in their case one can see at a glance how dependent +is their intelligence upon these grasping organs. All human arts base +themselves ultimately upon the human hand; and even the apes approach +nearest to humanity in virtue of their ever-active and busy little +fingers. The elephant, again, has his flexible trunk, which, as we have +all heard over and over again, <i>usque ad nauseam</i>, is equally well +adapted to pick up a pin or to break the great boughs of tropical +forest trees. (That pin, in particular, is now a well-worn classic.) +The squirrel, once more, celebrated for his unusual intelligence when +judged by a rodent standard, uses his pretty little paws as veritable +hands, by which he can grasp a nut or fruit all round, and so gain in +his small mind a clear conception of its true shape and properties. +Throughout the animal kingdom generally, indeed, this correspondence, +or rather this chain of causation, makes itself everywhere felt; no +high intelligence without a highly developed prehensile and grasping +organ. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps the opossum is the very best and most crucial instance that +could possibly be adduced of the intimate connection which exists +between touch and intellect. For the opossum is a marsupial; it belongs +to the same group of lowly-organized, antiquated, and pouch-bearing +animals as the kangaroo, the wombat, and the other belated Australian +mammals. Now everybody knows the marsupials as a class are nothing +short of preternaturally stupid. They are just about the very dullest +and silliest of all existing quadrupeds. And this is reasonable enough, +when one comes to think of it, for they represent a very antique and +early type, the first rough sketch of the mammalian idea, if I may so +describe them, with wits unsharpened as yet by contact with the world +in the fierce competition of the struggle for life as it displays +itself on the crowded stage of the great continents. They stand, in +short, to the lions and tigers, the elephants and horses, the monkeys +and squirrels, of Europe and America, as the Australian blackfellow +stands to the Englishman or the Yankee. They are the last relic of the +original secondary quadrupeds, stranded for ages in a remote southern +island, and still keeping up among Australian forests the antique type +of life that went out of fashion in Europe, Asia, and America before +the chalk was laid down or the London Clay deposited on the bed of our +northern oceans. Hence they have still very narrow brains, and are so +extremely stupid that a kangaroo, it is said—though I don't vouch for +it myself—when struck a smart blow, will turn and bite the stick that +hurts him instead of expending his anger on the hand that holds it. +</p> +<p> +Now, every Girton girl is well aware that the opossum, though it is a +marsupial too, differs inexpressibly in psychological development from +the kangaroo and the wombat. Your opossum, in short, is active, sly, +and extremely intelligent. He knows his way about the world he lives +in. 'A 'possum up a gum-tree' is accepted by the observant American +mind as the very incarnation of animal cleverness, cunning, and +duplicity. In negro folk-lore the resourceful 'possum takes the place +of Reynard the Fox in European stories: he is the Macchiavelli of wild +beasts: there is no ruse on earth of which he isn't amply capable, no +artful trick which he can't design and execute, no wily manoeuvre which +he can't contrive and carry to an end successfully. All guile and +intrigue, the 'possum can circumvent even Uncle Remus himself by his +crafty diplomacy. And what is it that makes all the difference between +this 'cute Yankee marsupial and his backward and belated Australian +cousins? Why, nothing but the possession of a prehensile hand and tail. +Therein lies the whole secret. The opossum's hind foot has a genuine +opposable thumb; and he also uses his tail in climbing as a +supernumerary hand, almost as much as do any of the monkeys. He often +suspends himself by it, like an acrobat, swings his body to and fro to +get up steam, then lets go suddenly, and flies away to a distant +branch, which he clutches by means of his hand-like hind feet. If the +toes play him false, he can 'recover his tip,' as circus-folk put it, +with his prehensile tail. The consequence is that the opossum, being +able to form for himself clear and accurate conceptions of the real +shapes and relations of things by these two distinct grasping organs, +has acquired an unusual amount of general intelligence. And further, in +the keen competition of the American continent, he has been forced to +develop an amount of cleverness and low cunning which leaves his +Australian poor relations far behind in the Middle Ages of evolution. +</p> +<p> +At the risk of seeming to run off at a tangent and forsake our +ostensible subject, pretty Poll, altogether, I must just pause for one +moment more to answer an objection which I know has been trembling on +the tip of your tongue any time the last five minutes. You've been +waiting till you could get a word in edgeways to give me a friendly +nudge and remark very wisely, 'But look here, I say; how about the dog +and the horse in your argument? <i>They've</i> got no prehensile organ that +ever I heard of, and yet they're universally allowed to be the +cleverest and most intelligent of all earthly quadrupeds.' True, O most +sapient and courteous objector. I grant it you at once. But observe the +difference. The cleverness of the horse and the dog is acquired, not +original. It has probably arisen in the course of their long hereditary +intercourse and companionship with man, the cleverest and most +serviceable individuals being deliberately selected from generation to +generation, as dams and sires to breed from. We can't fairly compare +these artificial human products, therefore, with wild races whose +intelligence is all native and self-evolved. Moreover, the horse at +least <i>has</i> to some slight extent a prehensile organ in his very mobile +and sensitive lip, which he uses like an undeveloped or rudimentary +proboscis to feel things all over with. So that the dog alone remains +as a contradictory instance; and even the dog derives his cleverness +indirectly from man, whose hand and thumb in the last resort are really +at the bottom of his vicarious wisdom. +</p> +<p> +We may conclude, then, I believe, that touch, as Mr. Herbert Spencer +admirably words it, is 'the mother-tongue of the senses;' and that in +proportion as animals have or have not highly developed and serviceable +tactile organs will they rank high or low in the intellectual hierarchy +of nature. Now, how does this bear upon the family of parrots? Well, in +the first place, everybody who has ever kept a cockatoo or a macaw in +domestic slavery is well aware that in no other birds do the claws so +closely resemble a human or simian hand, not indeed in outer form or +appearance, but in opposability of the thumbs and in perfection of +grasping power. The toes on each foot are arranged in opposite +pairs—two turning in front and two backward, which gives all parrots +their peculiar firmness in clinging on a perch or on the branch of a +tree with one foot only, while they extend the other to grasp a fruit +or to clutch at any object they desire to take possession of. True, +this peculiarity isn't entirely confined to the parrots alone, as such. +They share the division of the foot into two thumbs and two fingers +with a whole large group of allied birds, called, in the charmingly +concise and poetical language of technical ornithology, the Scansorial +Picarians, and more generally, known to the unlearned herd (meaning you +and me) by their several names of woodpeckers, cuckoos, toucans, and +plantain-eaters. All the members of this great group, of which the +parrots proper are only the most advanced and developed family, possess +the same arrangement of the digits into front-toes and back-toes. But +in none is the arrangement so perfect as in the parrots, and in none is +the power of grasping an object all round so completely developed and +so pregnant in moral and intellectual consequences. +</p> +<p> +All the Scansorial Picarians, however (if the reader with his +proverbial courtesy will kindly pardon me the inevitable use of such +very bad words), are essentially tree-haunters; and the tree-haunting +and climbing habit, as is well beknown, seems particularly favourable +to the growth of intelligence. Thus schoolboys climb trees—but I +forgot: this is a scientific article, and such levity is inconsistent +with the dignity of science. Let us be serious! Well, at any rate, +monkeys, squirrels, opossums, wild cats, are all of them climbers, and +all of them, in the act of clinging, jumping, and balancing themselves +on boughs, gain such an accurate idea of geometrical figure, +perspective, distance, and the true nature of space-relations, as could +hardly be acquired in any other manner. In one word, they thoroughly +understand space of three dimensions, and the tactual realities that +answer to and underlie each visible appearance. This is the very +substratum of all intelligence; and the monkeys, possessing it more +profoundly than any other animals, have accordingly taken the top of +the form in the competitive examination perpetually conducted by +survival of the fittest. +</p> +<p> +So, too, among birds, the parrots and their allies climb trees and +rocks with exceptional ease and agility. Even in their own department +they are the great feathered acrobats. Anybody who watches a +woodpecker, for example, grasping the bark of a tree with its crooked +and powerful toes, while it steadies itself behind by digging its stiff +tail-feathers into the crannies of the outer rind, will readily +understand how clear a notion the bird must gain into the practical +action of the laws of gravity. But the true parrots go a step further +in the same direction than the woodpeckers or the toucans; for, in +addition to prehensile feet, they have also a highly-developed +prehensile bill, and within it a tongue which acts in reality as an +organ of touch. They use their crooked beaks to help them in climbing +from branch to branch; and being thus provided alike with wings, legs, +hands, fingers, bill and tongue, they are in fact the most truly +arboreal of all known animals, and present in the fullest and highest +degree all the peculiar features of the tree-haunting existence. +</p> +<p> +Nor is that all. Alone among birds or mammals, the parrots have the +curious peculiarity of being able to move the upper as well as the +lower jaw. It is this strange mobility of both the mandibles together, +combined with the crafty effect of the sideways glance from those +artful eyes, that gives the characteristic air of intelligence and +wisdom to the parrot's face. We naturally expect so clever a bird to +speak. And when it turns upon us suddenly with a copy-book maxim, we +are in no way astonished at its surpassing smartness. +</p> +<p> +Parrots are vegetarians; with a single degraded exception to whom I +shall recur hereafter, Sir Henry Thompson himself couldn't find fault +with their regimen. They live chiefly upon a light but nutritious diet +of fruit and seeds, or upon the abundant nectar of rich tropical +flowers. And it is mainly for the sake of getting at their chosen food +that they have developed the large and powerful bills which +characterise the family. You may have perhaps noted that most tropical +fruit-eaters, like the hornbills and the toucans, are remarkable for +the size and strength of their beaks: if you haven't, I dare say you +will generously take my word for it. And, <i>per contra</i>, it may also +have struck you that most tropical fruits have thick or hard or +nauseous rinds, which need to be torn off before the monkeys or birds +for whose use they are intended, can get at them and eat them. Our +little northern strawberries, and raspberries, and currants, and +whortleberries, developed with a single eye to the petty robins and +finches of temperate climates, can be popped into, the mouth whole and +eaten as they stand: they are meant for small birds to devour, and to +disperse the tiny undigested nut-like seeds in return for the bribe of +the soft pulp that surrounds them. But it is quite otherwise with +oranges, shaddocks, bananas, plantains, mangoes, and pine-apples: those +great tropical fruits can only be eaten properly with a knife and fork, +after stripping off the hard and often acrid rind that guards and +preserves them. They lay themselves out for dispersion by monkeys, +toucans, and other relatively large and powerful fruit-eaters; and the +rind is put there as a barrier against small thieves who would rob the +sweet pulp, but be absolutely incapable of carrying away and dispersing +the large and richly-stored seeds it covers. +</p> +<p> +Parrots and toucans, however, have no knives and forks to cut off the +rind with; but as monkeys use their fingers, so the birds use for the +same purpose their sharp and powerful bills. No better nut-crackers and +fruit-parers could possibly be found. The parrot, in particular, has +developed for the purpose his curved and inflated beak—a wonderful +weapon, keen as a tailor's scissors, and moved by powerful muscles on +either side of the face which bring together the cutting edges with +extraordinary energy. The way the bird holds the fruit gingerly in one +claw, while he strips off the rind dexterously with his under-hung +lower mandible, and keeps a sharp look-out meanwhile on either side +with those sly and stealthy eyes of his for a possible intruder, +suggests to the observing mind the whole living drama of his native +forest. One sees in that vivid world the watchful monkey ever ready to +swoop down upon the tempting tail-feathers of his hereditary foe: one +sees the canny parrot ever prepared for his rapid attack, and ever +eager to make him pay with five joints of his tail for his impertinent +interference with an unoffending fellow-citizen of the arboreal +community. +</p> +<p> +Still, there are parrots and parrots, of course. Not all this vast +family are in all things of like passions one with another. The great +black cockatoo, for example, the largest of the tribe, lives almost +entirely off the central shoot or 'cabbage' of palm-trees: an expensive +kind of food, for when once the 'cabbage' is eaten the tree dies +forthwith, so that each black cockatoo must have killed in his time +whole groves of cabbage-palms. Others, again, feed off fruits and +seeds; and not a few are entirely adapted for flower-haunting and +honey-sucking. +</p> +<p> +As a group, the parrots are comparatively modern birds. Indeed, they +could have no place in the world till the big tropical fruits and nuts +were beginning to be developed. And it is now pretty certain that +fruits and nuts are for the most part of very recent and special +evolution. To put it briefly, the monkeys and parrots developed the +fruits and nuts, while the fruits and nuts returned the compliment by +developing conversely the monkeys and parrots. In other words, both +types grew up side by side in mutual dependence, and evolved themselves +<i>pari passu</i> for one another's benefit. Without the fruits there could +be no fruit-eaters; and without the fruit-eaters to disperse their +seeds, there could just to the same extent be no fruits to speak of. +</p> +<p> +Most of the parrots very much resemble the monkeys and other tropical +fruit-feeders in their habits and manners. They are gregarious, +mischievous, noisy, and irresponsible. They have no moral sense, and +are fond of practical jokes and other schoolboy horseplay. They move +about in flocks, screeching aloud as they go, and alight together on +some tree well covered with berries. No doubt, they herd together for +the sake of protection and screech both to keep the flock in a body and +to strike alarm and consternation into the breasts of their enemies. +When danger threatens, the first bird that perceives it sounds a note +of warning; and in a moment the whole troop is on the wing at once, +vociferous and eager, roaring forth a song in their own tongue which +may be roughly interpreted as stating in English that they don't want +to fight, but by Jingo, if they do, they'll tear their enemy to shreds +and drink his blood up too. +</p> +<p> +The common grey parrot, the best known in confinement of all his kind, +and unrivalled as an orator for his graces of speech, is a native of +West Africa; so that he shares with other West Africans that perfect +command of language which has always been a marked characteristic of +the negro race. He feeds in a general way upon palm-nuts, bananas, +mangoes, and guavas, but he is by no means averse, if opportunity +offers, to the Indian corn of the industrious native. His wife +accompanies him in his solitary rambles, for they are not gregarious. +In her native haunts, indeed, Polly is an unsociable bird. It is only +in confinement that her finer qualities come out, and that she develops +into a speech-maker of distinguished attainments. +</p> +<p> +A very peculiar and exceptional offshoot of the parrot group is the +brush-tongued lory, several species of which are common in Australia, +India, and the Molucca Islands. These pretty and interesting creatures +are in point of fact parrots which have practically made themselves +into humming-birds by long continuance in the poetical habit of +visiting flowers for food. Like Mr. Oscar Wilde in his æsthetic days, +they breakfast off a lily. Flitting about from tree to tree with great +rapidity, they thrust their long extensible tongues, pencilled with +honey-gathering hairs, into the tubes of many big tropical blossoms. +The lories, indeed, live entirely on nectar, and they are so common in +the region they have made their own that all the larger flowers there +have been developed with a special view to their tastes and habits, as +well as to the structure of their peculiar brush-like honey-collector. +In most parrots the mouth is dry and the tongue horny; but in the +lories it is moist and much more like the same organ in the +humming-birds and sun-birds. The prevalence of very large and +brilliantly coloured flowers in the Malayan region must be set down for +the most part to the selective action of these æsthetic and +colour-loving little brush-tongued parrots. +</p> +<p> +Australia and New Zealand, as everybody knows, are the countries where +everything goes by contraries. And it is here that the parrot group has +developed some of its strangest and most abnormal offshoots. One would +imagine beforehand that no two birds could be more unlike in every +respect than the gaudy, noisy, gregarious cockatoos and the sombre, +nocturnal, solitary owls. Yet the New Zealand owl-parrot is, to put it +plainly, a lory which has assumed all the outer appearance and habits +of an owl. A lurker in the twilight or under the shades of night, +burrowing for its nest in holes in the ground, it has dingy brown +plumage like the owls, with an undertone of green to bespeak its parrot +origin: while its face is entirely made up of two great disks, +surrounding the eyes, which succeed in giving it a most marked and +unmistakable owl-like appearance. +</p> +<p> +Now, why should a parrot so strangely disguise itself and belie its +ancestry? The reason is plain. It found a place for it ready made in +nature. New Zealand is a remote and sparsely-stocked island, peopled by +mere casual waifs and strays of life from adjacent but still very +distant continents. There are no dangerous enemies there. Here, then, +was a clear chance for a nightly prowler. The owl-parrot with true +business instinct saw the opening thus clearly laid before it, and took +to a nocturnal and burrowing life, with the natural consequence that it +acquired in time the dingy plumage, crepuscular eyes, and broad +disk-like reflectors of other prowling night-fliers. Unlike the owls, +however, the owl-parrot, true to the vegetarian instincts of the whole +lory race, lives almost entirely upon sprigs of mosses and other +creeping plants. It is thus essentially a ground bird; and as it feeds +at night in a country possessing no native beasts of prey, it has +almost lost the power of flight, and uses its wings only as a sort of +parachute to break its fall in descending from a rock or tree to its +accustomed feeding-ground. To get up again, it climbs, parrot-like, +with its hooked claws, up the surface of the trunk or the face of a +precipice. +</p> +<p> +Even more aberrant in its ways, however, than the burrowing owl-parrot, +is that other strange and hated New Zealand lory, the kea, which, alone +among its kind, has abjured the gentle ancestral vegetarianism of the +cockatoos and macaws, in favour of a carnivorous diet of singular +ferocity. And what is odder still, this evil habit has been developed +in the kea since the colonization of New Zealand by the English, those +most demoralizing of new-comers. The settlers have taught the Maori to +wear tall hats and to drink strong liquors: and they have thrown +temptation in the way of even the once innocent native parrot. Before +the white man came, in fact, the kea was a mild-mannered fruit-eating +or honey-sucking bird. But as soon as sheep-stations were established +in the island these degenerate parrots began to acquire a distinct +taste for raw mutton. At first, to be sure, they ate only the sheep's +heads and offal that were thrown out from the slaughter-houses picking +the bones as clean of meat as a dog or a jackal. But in process of +time, as the taste for blood grew upon them, a still viler idea entered +into their wicked heads. The first step on the downward path suggested +the second. If dead sheep are good to eat, why not also living ones? +The kea, pondering deeply on this abstruse problem, solved it at once +with an emphatic affirmative. And he straightway proceeded to act upon +his convictions, and invent a really hideous mode of procedure. +Perching on the backs of the living sheep he has now learnt the exact +spot where the kidneys are to be found; and he tears open the flesh to +get at these dainty morsels, which he pulls out and devours, leaving +the unhappy animal to die in miserable agony. As many as two hundred +ewes have thus been killed in a night at a single station. I need +hardly add that the sheep-farmer naturally resents this irregular +proceeding, so opposed to all ideals of good grazing, and that the days +of the kea are now numbered in New Zealand. But from the purely +psychological point of view the case is an interesting one, as being +the best recorded instance of the growth of a new and complex instinct +actually under the eyes of human observers. +</p> +<p> +One word as to the general colouring of the parrot group as a whole. +Tropical forestine birds have usually a ground tone of green because +that colour enables them best to escape notice among the monotonous +verdure of equatorial woodland scenery. In the north, to be sure, green +is a very conspicuous colour; but that is only because for half the +year our trees are bare, and even during the other half they lack that +'breadth of tropic shade' which characterises the forests of all hot +countries. Therefore, in temperate climates, the common ground-tone of +birds is brown, to harmonise with the bare boughs and leafless twigs, +the clods of earth and dead turf or stubble. But in the evergreen +tropics green is the right hue for concealment or defence. Therefore +the parrots, the most purely tropical family of birds on earth, are +mostly greenish; and among the smaller and more defenceless sorts, like +the familiar little love-birds, where the need for protection is +greatest, the green of the plumage is almost unbroken. Of the tiny +Pigmy Parrots of New Guinea, for instance, Mr. Bowdler Sharpe says: +'Owing to their small size and the resemblance of their green colouring +to the forests they inhabit, they are not easily seen, and until recent +years were very hard to procure.' And of the green parrot of Jamaica, +Mr. Gosse remarks: 'Often we hear their voices proceeding from a +certain tree, or else have marked the descent of a flock on it; but on +proceeding to the spot, though the eye has not wandered from it, we +cannot discover an individual. We go close to the tree, but all is +silent and still as death. We institute a careful survey of every part +with the eye, to detect the slightest motion, or the form of a bird +among the leaves, but all in vain. We begin to think they have stolen +off unperceived; but on throwing a stone into the tree, a dozen throats +burst forth into a cry, and as many green birds rush forth upon the +wing. Green may thus be regarded as the normal or basal parrot tint, +from which all other colours are special decorative variations. +</p> +<p> +But fruit-eating and flower-feeding creatures, like butterflies and +humming-birds—seeking their food ever among the bright berries and +brilliant flowers, almost invariably acquire in the long run an +æsthetic taste for pure and varied colouring, and by the aid of sexual +selection this taste stereotypes itself at last in their own wings and +plumage. They choose their mates for colour as they choose their +foodstuffs. Hence all the larger and more gregarious parrots, in which +the need for concealment is less, tend to diversify the fundamental +green of their coats with crimson, yellow, or blue, which in some cases +take possession of the entire body. The largest kinds of all, like the +great blue and yellow or crimson macaws, are as gorgeous as Solomon in +all his glory: and they are also the species least afraid of enemies; +for in Brazil you may often see them wending their way homeward openly +in pairs every evening, with as little attempt at concealment as rooks +in England. In the Moluccas and New Guinea, says Mr. Wallace, white +cockatoos and gorgeous lories in crimson and blue are the very +commonest objects in the local fauna. Even the New Zealand owl-parrot, +however, still retains many traces of his original greenness, mixed +with the dirty brown and dingy yellow of his acquired nocturnal and +burrowing nature. +</p> +<p> +If fruit-eaters are fine, flower-haunters are magnificent. And the +brush-tongued lories, that search for nectar among the bells of Malayan +blossoms, are the brightest-coloured of all the parrot tribes. Indeed, +no group of birds, according to Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace (who ought to +know, if anybody does), exhibits within the same limited number of +types so extraordinary a diversity and richness of colouring as the +parrots. 'As a rule,' he says, 'parrots may be termed green birds, the +majority of the species having this colour as the basis of their +plumage, relieved by caps, gorgets, bands and wing-spots of other and +brighter hues. Yet this general green tint sometimes changes into light +or deep blue, as in some macaws; into pure yellow or rich orange, as in +some of the American macaw-parrots; into purple, grey or dove-colour, +as in some American, African, and Indian species; into the purest +crimson, as in some of the lories; into rosy-white and pure white, as +in the cockatoos; and into a deep purple, ashy or black, as in several +Papuan, Australian, and Mascarene species. There is in fact hardly a +single distinct and definable colour that cannot be fairly matched +among the 390 species of known parrots. Their habits, too, are such as +to bring them prominently before the eye. They usually feed in flocks; +they are noisy, and so attract attention; they love gardens, orchards, +and open sunny places; they wander about far in search of food, and +towards sunset return homeward in noisy flocks, or in constant pairs. +Their forms and motions are often beautiful and attractive. The +immensely long tails of the macaws and the more slender tails of the +Indian parroquets, the fine crest of the cockatoos, the swift flight of +many of the smaller species, and the graceful motions of the little +love-birds and allied forms, together with their affectionate natures, +aptitude for domestication, and power of mimicry, combine to render +them at once the most conspicuous and the most attractive of all the +specially tropical forms of bird life.' +</p> +<p> +I have purposely left to the last the one point about parrots which +most often attracts the attention of the young, the gay, the giddy, and +the thoughtless: I mean their power of mimicry in human language. And I +believe I am justified in passing it over lightly. For in fact this +power is but a very incidental result of the general intelligence of +parrots, combined with the other peculiarities of their social life and +forestine character. Dominant woodland animals, indeed, like monkeys, +parrots, toucans, and hornbills, at least if vegetarian in their +habits, are almost always gregarious, noisy, mischievous, and +imitative. And the imitation results directly from the unusual +intelligence; for, after all, what is the power of learning itself—at +least, in all save its very highest phases—but the faculty of +accurately imitating another? Monkeys for the most part imitate action +only, because they haven't very varied or flexible voices. Parrots and +many other birds, on the contrary—like the starling and still more +markedly the American mocking-bird—being endowed with considerable +flexibility of voice, imitate either songs or spoken words with great +distinctness. In the parrot the power of attention is also very +considerable, for the bird will often try over with itself repeatedly +the lesson it has set itself to learn. But people too generally forget +that at best the parrot knows only the general application of a +sentence, not the separate meanings of its component words. It knows, +for example, that 'Polly wants a lump of sugar' is a phrase often +followed by a present of food. But to believe it can understand an +abstract expression, like the famous 'By Jove! what a beastly lot of +parrots!' is to confound learning by rote with genuine comprehension. A +careful review of all the evidence makes almost every scientific +observer conclude that at most a parrot knows a word of command as a +horse knows 'Whoa!' or a dog knows the order to hunt for rats in the +wainscot. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch06"></a>HIGH LIFE. +</h2> +<p> +Everybody knows mountain flowers are beautiful. As one rises up any +minor height in the Alps or the Pyrenees below snow-level, one notices +at once the extraordinary brilliancy and richness of the blossoms one +meets there. All nature is dressed in its brightest robes. Great belts +of blue gentian hang like a zone on the mountain slopes; masses of +yellow globe-flower star the upland pastures; nodding heads of +soldanella lurk low among the rugged boulders by the glacier's side. No +lowland blossoms have such vividness of colouring, or grow in such +conspicuous patches. To strike the eye from afar, to attract and allure +at a distance, is the great aim and end in life of the Alpine flora. +</p> +<p> +Now, why are Alpine plants so anxious to be seen of men and angels? Why +do they flaunt their golden glories so openly before the world, instead +of shrinking in modest reserve beneath their own green leaves, like the +Puritan primrose and the retiring violet? The answer is, Because of the +extreme rarity of the mountain air. It's the barometer that does it. At +first sight, I will readily admit, this explanation seems as fanciful +as the traditional connection between Goodwin Sands and Tenterden +Steeple. But, like the amateur stories in country papers, it is +'founded on fact,' for all that. (Imagine, by the way, a tale founded +entirely on fiction! How charmingly aerial!) By a roundabout road, +through varying chains of cause and effect, the rarity of the air does +really account in the long run for the beauty and conspicuousness of +the mountain flowers. +</p> +<p> +For bees, the common go-betweens of the loves of the plants, cease to +range about a thousand or fifteen hundred feet below snow-level. And +why? Because it's too cold for them? Oh, dear, no: on sunny days in +early English spring, when the thermometer doesn't rise above freezing +in the shade, you will see both the honey-bees and the great black +bumble as busy as their conventional character demands of them among +the golden cups of the first timid crocuses. Give the bee sunshine, +indeed, with a temperature just about freezing-point, and he'll flit +about joyously on his communistic errand. But bees, one must remember, +have heavy bodies and relatively small wings: in the rarefied air of +mountain heights they can't manage to support themselves in the most +literal sense. Hence their place in these high stations of the world is +taken by the gay and airy butterflies, which have lighter bodies and a +much bigger expanse of wing-area to buoy them up. In the valleys and +plains the bee competes at an advantage with the butterflies for all +the sweets of life: but in this broad sub-glacial belt on the +mountain-sides the butterflies in turn have things all their own way. +They flit about like monarchs of all they survey, without a rival in +the world to dispute their supremacy. +</p> +<p> +And how does the preponderance of butterflies in the upper regions of +the air affect the colour and brilliancy of the flowers? Simply thus. +Bees, as we are all aware on the authority of the great Dr. Watts, are +industrious creatures which employ each shining hour (well-chosen +epithet, 'shining') for the good of the community, and to the best +purpose. The bee, in fact, is the <i>bon bourgeois</i> of the insect world: +he attends strictly to business, loses no time in wild or reckless +excursions, and flies by the straightest path from flower to flower of +the same species with mathematical precision. Moreover, he is careful, +cautious, observant, and steady-going—a model business man, in fact, +of sound middle-class morals and sober middle-class intelligence. No +flitting for him, no coquetting, no fickleness. Therefore, the flowers +that have adapted themselves to his needs, and that depend upon him +mainly or solely for fertilisation, waste no unnecessary material on +those big flaunting coloured posters which we human observers know as +petals. They have, for the most part, simple blue or purple flowers, +tubular in shape and, individually, inconspicuous in hue; and they are +oftenest arranged in long spikes of blossom to avoid wasting the time +of their winged Mr. Bultitudes. So long as they are just bright enough +to catch the bee's eye a few yards away, they are certain to receive a +visit in due season from that industrious and persistent commercial +traveller. Having a circle of good customers upon whom they can depend +with certainty for fertilisation, they have no need to waste any large +proportion of their substance upon expensive advertisements or gaudy +petals. +</p> +<p> +It is just the opposite with butterflies. Those gay and irrepressible +creatures, the fashionable and frivolous element in the insect world, +gad about from flower to flower over great distances at once, and think +much more of sunning themselves and of attracting their fellows than of +attention to business. And the reason is obvious, if one considers for +a moment the difference in the political and domestic economy of the +two opposed groups. For the honey-bees are neuters, sexless purveyors +of the hive, with no interest on earth save the storing of honey for +the common benefit of the phalanstery to which they belong. But the +butterflies are full-fledged males and females, on the hunt through the +world for suitable partners: they think far less of feeding than of +displaying their charms: a little honey to support them during their +flight is all they need:—'For the bee, a long round of ceaseless toil; +for me,' says the gay butterfly, 'a short life and a merry one.' Mr. +Harold Skimpole needed only 'music, sunshine, a few grapes.' The +butterflies are of his kind. The high mountain zone is for them a true +ball-room: the flowers are light refreshments laid out in the +vestibule. Their real business in life is not to gorge and lay by, but +to coquette and display themselves and find fitting partners. +</p> +<p> +So while the bees with their honey-bags, like the financier with his +money-bags, are storing up profit for the composite community, the +butterfly, on the contrary, lays himself out for an agreeable flutter, +and sips nectar where he will, over large areas of country. He flies +rather high, flaunting his wings in the sun, because he wants to show +himself off in all his airy beauty: and when he spies a bed of bright +flowers afar off on the sun-smitten slopes, he sails off towards them +lazily, like a grand signior who amuses himself. No regular plodding +through a monotonous spike of plain little bells for him: what he wants +is brilliant colour, bold advertisement, good honey, and plenty of it. +He doesn't care to search. Who wants his favours must make himself +conspicuous. +</p> +<p> +Now, plants are good shopkeepers; they lay themselves out strictly to +attract their customers. Hence the character of the flowers on this +beeless belt of mountain side is entirely determined by the character +of the butterfly fertilisers. Only those plants which laid themselves +out from time immemorial to suit the butterflies, in other words, have +succeeded in the long run in the struggle for existence. So the +butterfly-plants of the butterfly-zone are all strictly adapted to +butterfly tastes and butterfly fancies. They are, for the most part, +individually large and brilliantly coloured: they have lots of honey, +often stored at the base of a deep and open bell which the long +proboscis of the insect can easily penetrate: and they habitually grow +close together in broad belts or patches, so that the colour of each +reinforces and aids the colour of the others. It is this cumulative +habit that accounts for the marked flowerbed or jam-tart character +which everybody must have noticed in the high Alpine flora. +</p> +<p> +Aristocracies usually pride themselves on their antiquity: and the high +life of the mountains is undeniably ancient. The plants and animals of +the butterfly-zone belong to a special group which appears everywhere +in Europe and America about the limit of snow, whether northward or +upward. For example, I was pleased to note near the summit of Mount +Washington (the highest peak in New Hampshire) that a large number of +the flowers belonged to species well known on the open plains of +Lapland and Finland. The plants of the High Alps are found also, as a +rule, not only on the High Pyrenees, the Carpathians, the Scotch +Grampians, and the Norwegian fjelds, but also round the Arctic Circle +in Europe and America. They reappear at long distances where suitable +conditions recur: they follow the snow-line as the snow-line recedes +ever in summer higher north toward the pole or higher vertically toward +the mountain summits. And this bespeaks in one way to the reasoning +mind a very ancient ancestry. It shows they date back to a very old and +cold epoch. +</p> +<p> +Let me give a single instance which strikingly illustrates the general +principle. Near the top of Mount Washington, as aforesaid, lives to +this day a little colony of very cold-loving and mountainous +butterflies, which never descend below a couple of thousand feet from +the wind-swept summit. Except just there, there are no more of there +sort anywhere about: and as far as the butterflies themselves are +aware, no others of their species exist on earth: they never have seen +a single one of their kind, save of their own little colony. One might +compare them with the Pitcairn Islanders in the South Seas—an isolated +group of English origin, cut off by a vast distance from all their +congeners in Europe or America. But if you go north some eight or nine +hundred miles from New Hampshire to Labrador, at a certain point the +same butterfly reappears, and spreads northward toward the pole in +great abundance. Now, how did this little colony of chilly insects get +separated from the main body, and islanded, as it were, on a remote +mountain-top in far warmer New Hampshire? +</p> +<p> +The answer is, they were stranded there at the end of the Glacial +epoch. +</p> +<p> +A couple of hundred thousand years ago or thereabouts—don't let us +haggle, I beg of you, over a few casual centuries—the whole of +northern Europe and America was covered from end to end, as everybody +knows, by a sheet of solid ice, like the one which Frithiof Nansen +crossed from sea to sea on his own account in Greenland. For many +thousand years, with occasional warmer spells, that vast ice-sheet +brooded, silent and grim, over the face of the two continents. Life was +extinct as far south as the latitude of New York and London. No plant +or animal survived the general freezing. Not a creature broke the +monotony of that endless glacial desert. At last, as the celestial +cycle came round in due season, fresh conditions supervened. Warmer +weather set in, and the ice began to melt. Then the plants and animals +of the sub-glacial district were pushed slowly northward by the warmth +after the retreating ice-cap. As time went on, the climate of the +plains got too hot to hold them. The summer was too much for the +glacial types to endure. They remained only on the highest mountain +peaks or close to the southern limit of eternal snow. In this way, +every isolated range in either continent has its own little colony of +arctic or glacial plants and animals, which still survive by +themselves, unaffected by intercourse with their unknown and +unsuspected fellow-creatures elsewhere. +</p> +<p> +Not only has the Glacial epoch left these organic traces of its +existence, however; in some parts of New Hampshire, where the glaciers +were unusually thick and deep, fragments of the primæval ice itself +still remain on the spots where they were originally stranded. Among +the shady glens of the white mountains there occur here and there great +masses of ancient ice, the unmelted remnant of primæval glaciers; and +one of these is so large that an artificial cave has been cleverly +excavated in it, as an attraction for tourists, by the canny Yankee +proprietor. Elsewhere the old ice-blocks are buried under the <i>débris</i> +of moraine-stuff and alluvium, and are only accidentally discovered by +the sinking of what are locally known as ice-wells. No existing +conditions can account for the formation of such solid rocks of ice at +such a depth in the soil. They are essentially glacier-like in origin +and character: they result from the pressure of snow into a crystalline +mass in a mountain valley: and they must have remained there unmelted +ever since the close of the Glacial epoch, which, by Dr. Croll's +calculations, must most probably have ceased to plague our earth some +eighty thousand years ago. Modern America, however, has no respect for +antiquity: and it is at present engaged in using up this palæocrystic +deposit—this belated storehouse of prehistoric ice—in the manufacture +of gin slings and brandy cocktails. +</p> +<p> +As one scales a mountain of moderate height—say seven or eight +thousand feet—in a temperate climate, one is sure to be struck by the +gradual diminution as one goes in the size of the trees, till at last +they tail off into mere shrubs and bushes. This diminution—an old +commonplace of tourists—is a marked characteristic of mountain plants, +and it depends, of course, in the main upon the effect of cold, and of +the wind in winter. Cold, however, is by far the more potent factor of +the two, though it is the least often insisted upon: and this can be +seen in a moment by anyone who remembers that trees shade off in just +the self-same manner near the southern limit of permanent snow in the +Arctic regions. And the way the cold acts is simply this: it nips off +the young buds in spring in exposed situations, as the chilly +sea-breeze does with coast plants, which, as we commonly but +incorrectly say, are "blown sideways" from seaward. +</p> +<p> +Of course, the lower down one gets, and the nearer to the soil, the +warmer the layer of air becomes, both because there is greater +radiation, and because one can secure a little more shelter. So, very +far north, and very near the snow-line on mountains, you always find +the vegetation runs low and stunted. It takes advantage of every crack, +every cranny in the rocks, every sunny little nook, every jutting point +or wee promontory of shelter. And as the mountain plants have been +accustomed for ages to the strenuous conditions of such cold and +wind-swept situations, they have ended, of course, by adapting +themselves to that station in life to which it has pleased the powers +that be to call them. They grow quite naturally low and stumpy and +rosette-shaped: they are compact of form and very hard of fibre: they +present no surface of resistance to the wind in any way; rounded and +boss-like, they seldom rise above the level of the rooks and stones, +whose interstices they occupy. It is this combination of characters +that makes mountain plants such favourites with florists: for they +possess of themselves that close-grown habit and that rich profusion of +clustered flowers which it is the grand object of the gardener by +artificial selection to produce and encourage. +</p> +<p> +When one talks of the 'the limit of trees' on a mountain side, however, +it must be remembered that the phrase is used in a strictly human or +Pickwickian sense, and that it is only the size, not the type, of the +vegetation that is really in question. For trees exist even on the +highest hill-tops: only they have accommodated themselves to the +exigencies of the situation. Smaller and ever smaller species have been +developed by natural selection to suit the peculiarities of these +inclement spots. Take, for example, the willow and poplar group. Nobody +would deny that a weeping willow by an English river, or a Lombardy +poplar in an Italian avenue, was as much of a true tree as an oak or a +chestnut. But as one mounts towards the bare and wind-swept mountain +heights one finds that the willows begin to grow downward gradually. +The 'netted willow' of the Alps and Pyrenees, which shelters itself +under the lee of little jutting rocks, attains the height of only a few +inches; while the 'herbaceous willow,' common on all very high +mountains in Western Europe, is a tiny creeping weed, which nobody +would ever take for a forest tree by origin at all, unless he happened +to see it in the catkin-bearing stage, when its true nature and history +would become at once apparent to him. +</p> +<p> +Yet this little herb-like willow, one of the most northerly and hardy +of European plants, is a true tree at heart none the less for all that. +Soft and succulent as it looks in branch and leaf, you may yet count on +it sometimes as many rings of annual growth as on a lordly Scotch +fir-tree. But where? Why, underground. For see how cunning it is, this +little stunted descendant of proud forest lords: hard-pressed by +nature, it has learnt to make the best of its difficult and precarious +position. It has a woody trunk at core, like all other trees; but this +trunk never appears above the level of the soil: it creeps and roots +underground in tortuous zigzags between the crags and boulders that lie +strewn through its thin sheet of upland leaf-mould. By this simple plan +the willow manages to get protection in winter, on the same principle +as when we human gardeners lay down the stems of vines: only the willow +remains laid down all the year and always. But in summer it sends up +its short-lived herbaceous branches, covered with tiny green leaves, +and ending at last in a single silky catkin. Yet between the great +weeping willow and this last degraded mountain representative of the +same primitive type, you can trace in Europe alone at least a dozen +distinct intermediate forms, all well marked in their differences, and +all progressively dwarfed by long stress of unfavourable conditions. +</p> +<p> +From the combination of such unfavourable conditions in Arctic +countries and under the snow-line of mountains there results a curious +fact, already hinted at above, that the coldest floras are also, from +the purely human point of view, the most beautiful. Not, of course, the +most luxuriant: for lush richness of foliage and 'breadth of tropic +shade' (to quote a noble lord) one must go, as everyone knows, to the +equatorial regions. But, contrary to the common opinion, the tropics, +hoary shams, are not remarkable for the abundance or beauty of their +flowers. Quite otherwise, indeed: an unrelieved green strikes the +keynote of equatorial forests. This is my own experience, and it is +borne out (which is far more important) by Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, +who has seen a wider range of the untouched tropics, in all four +hemispheres—northern, southern, eastern, western—than any other man, +I suppose, that ever lived on this planet. And Mr. Wallace is firm in +his conviction that the tropics in this respect are a complete fraud. +Bright flowers are there quite conspicuously absent. It is rather in +the cold and less favoured regions of the world that one must look for +fine floral displays and bright masses of colour. Close up to the +snow-line the wealth of flowers is always the greatest. +</p> +<p> +In order to understand this apparent paradox one must remember that the +highest type of flowers, from the point of view of organisation, is not +at the same time by any means the most beautiful. On the contrary, +plants with very little special adaptation to any particular insect, +like the water-lilies and the poppies, are obliged to flaunt forth in +very brilliant hues, and to run to very large sizes in order to attract +the attention of a great number of visitors, one or other of whom may +casually fertilise them; while plants with very special adaptations, +like the sage and mint group, or the little English orchids, are so +cunningly arranged that they can't fail of fertilisation at the very +first visit, which of course enables them to a great extent to dispense +with the aid of big or brilliant petals. So that, where the struggle +for life is fiercest, and adaptation most perfect, the flora will on +the whole be not most, but least, conspicuous in the matter of very +handsome flowers. +</p> +<p> +Now, the struggle for life is fiercest, and the wealth of nature is +greatest, one need hardly say, in tropical climates. There alone do we +find every inch of soil 'encumbered by its waste fertility,' as Comus +puts it; weighed down by luxuriant growth of tree, shrub, herb, +creeper. There alone do lizards lurk in every hole; beetles dwell +manifold in every cranny; butterflies flock thick in every grove; bees, +ants, and flies swarm by myriads on every sun-smitten hillside. +Accordingly, in the tropics, adaptation reaches its highest point; and +tangled richness, not beauty of colour, becomes the dominant note of +the equatorial forests. Now and then, to be sure, as you wander through +Brazilian or Malayan woods, you may light upon some bright tree clad in +scarlet bloom, or some glorious orchid drooping pendant from a bough +with long sprays of beauty: but such sights are infrequent. Green, and +green, and ever green again—that is the general feeling of the +equatorial forest: as different as possible from the rich mosaic of a +high alp in early June, or a Scotch hillside deep in golden gorse and +purple heather in broad August sunshine. +</p> +<p> +In very cold countries, on the other hand, though the conditions are +severe, the struggle for existence is not really so hard, because, in +one word, there are fewer competitors. The field is less occupied; life +is less rich, less varied, less self-strangling. And therefore +specialisation hasn't gone nearly so far in cold latitudes or +altitudes. Lower and simpler types everywhere occupy the soil; mosses, +matted flowers, small beetles, dwarf butterflies. Nature is less +luxuriant, yet in some ways more beautiful. As we rise on the mountains +the forest trees disappear, and with them the forest beasts, from bears +to squirrels; a low, wind-swept vegetation succeeds, very poor in +species, and stunted in growth, but making a floor of rich flowers +almost unknown elsewhere. The humble butterflies and beetles of the +chillier elevation produce in the result more beautiful bloom than the +highly developed honey-seekers of the richer and warmer lowlands. +Luxuriance is atoned for by a Turkey carpet of floral magnificence. +</p> +<p> +How, then, has the world at large fallen into the pardonable error of +believing tropical nature to be so rich in colouring, and circumpolar +nature to be so dingy and unlovable? Simply thus, I believe. The +tropics embrace the largest land areas in the world, and are richer by +a thousand times in species of plants and animals than all the rest of +the earth in a lump put together. That richness necessarily results +from the fierceness of the competition. Now among this enormous mass of +tropical plants it naturally happens that some have finer flowers than +any temperate species; while as to the animals and birds, they are +undoubtedly, on the whole, both larger and handsomer than the fauna of +colder climates. But in the general aspect of tropical nature an +occasional bright flower or brilliant parrot counts for very little +among the mass of lush green which surrounds and conceals it. On the +other hand, in our museums and conservatories we sedulously pick out +the rarest and most beautiful of these rare and beautiful species, and +we isolate them completely from their natural surroundings. The +consequence is that the untravelled mind regards the tropics mentally +as a sort of perpetual replica of the hot-houses at Kew, superimposed +on the best of Mr. Bull's orchid shows. As a matter of fact, people who +know the hot world well can tell you that the average tropical woodland +is much more like the dark shade of Box Hill or the deepest glades of +the Black Forest. For really fine floral display in the mass, all at +once, you must go, not to Ceylon, Sumatra, Jamaica, but to the far +north of Canada, the Bernese Oberland, the moors of Inverness-shire, +the North Cape of Norway. Flowers are loveliest where the climate is +coldest; forests are greenest, most luxuriant, least blossoming, where +the conditions of life are richest, warmest, fiercest. In one word, +High Life is always poor but beautiful. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch07"></a>EIGHT-LEGGED FRIENDS. +</h2> +<p> +A singular opportunity was afforded me last summer for making myself +thoroughly at home with the habits and manners of the common English +geometrical spider. By the pure chance of circumstance, two ladies of +that intelligent and interesting species were kind enough to select for +their temporary residence a large pane of glass just outside my +drawing-room window. Now, it so happened that this particular pane was +constructed not to open, being, in fact, part of a big bow-window, the +alternate sashes of which were alone intended for ventilation. Hence it +came to pass that by diligent care I was enabled to preserve my two +eight-legged acquaintances from the devouring broom of the British +housemaid, and to keep them constantly under observation at all times +and seasons during a whole summer. Of course this result was only +obtained by a distinct exercise of despotic authority, for I know those +poor spiders were a constant eyesore in Ellen's sight—the housemaid of +the moment bore the name of Ellen—but I persisted in my prohibition of +any forcible ejectment, and I carried my point in the end in the very +teeth of that constituted domestic authority. So successful was I, +indeed, that when at last we flitted southwards ourselves with the +swallows on our annual migration to the Mediterranean shores, we left +Lucy and Eliza—those were the names we had given them—in undisturbed +possession of their prescriptive rights in the drawing-room windows. +This year they are gone, and our home is left spiderless. +</p> +<p> +They were curious and uninviting pets, I'm bound to admit, those great +juicy-looking creatures. Nobody could say that any form of spider is +precisely what our Italian friends prettily describe in their liquid +way as <i>simpatico</i>. At times, indeed, the conduct of Lucy and Eliza was +so peculiarly horrible and blood-curdling in its atrocity, that even I, +their best friend, who had so often interceded for their lives and +saved them from the devastating duster of the aggressive +housemaid—even I myself, I say, more than once debated in my own mind +whether I was justified in letting them go on any longer in their +career of crime unchecked, or whether I ought not rather to rush out at +once, avenging rag in hand, and sweep them away at one fell swoop from +the surface of a world they disgraced with their unbridled wickedness. +Eliza, in particular, I'm constrained to allow, was a perfect monster +of vice—a sort of undeveloped arachnid Borgia, quick to slay and +relentless in pursuit; a mass of eight-legged sins, stained with the +colourless gore of ten thousand struggling victims, and absolutely +without a single redeeming point in her hateful character. And yet, +whenever any more than usually horrible massacre of some pretty and +innocent fly almost moved me in my righteous wrath to rush out into the +garden in hot haste and put an end at once to the cruel wretch's +existence with a judicial antimacassar, a number of moral scruples, +such as could only be adequately resolved by the editor of the +<i>Spectator</i>, always occurred spontaneously to my mind and conscience +just in time to ensure that wicked Eliza a fresh spell of life in which +to continue unabashed her atrocious behaviour. +</p> +<p> +Has man, I asked myself at such moments, mere human man, any right to +set himself up in the place of earthly providence, as so much better +and more moral than insentient nature? If the spider cruelly devours +living flies and intelligent or highly sensitive bees, we must at least +remember that she has no choice in the matter, and that, as the poet +justly remarks, ''tis her nature to.' But then, on the other hand, it +might be plausibly argued that 'tis our nature equally to kill the +creature that we see so hatefully fulfilling the law of its own cruel +being. And yet again it might be pleaded by any able counsel who +undertook the defence of Lucy or Eliza on her trial for her life +against her human accusers, that she was impelled to all these evil +deeds by maternal affection, one of the noblest and most unselfish of +animal instincts. Moreover, if the spider didn't prey, it would +obviously die; and it seems rather hard on any creature to condemn it +to death for no better reason than because it happens to have been born +a member of its own kind, and not of any other and less morally +objectionable species. Jedburgh justice o£ that sort rather savours of +the method pursued by the famous countryman who was found cutting a +harmless amphibian into a hundred pieces with his murderous spade, and +saying spitefully as he did so, at every particularly savage cut: 'I'll +larn ye to be a twoad, I will; I'll larn ye to be a twoad!' +</p> +<p> +Nevertheless, in spite of all this my vaunted philosophy, I will +frankly confess that more than once Eliza and Lucy sorely tried my +patience, and that I was often a good deal better than half-minded in +my soul to rush out in a feverish fit of moral indignation and put an +end to their ghastly career of crime without waiting to hear what they +had to say in their own favour, showing cause why sentence of death +should not be executed upon them. And I would have done it, I believe, +had it not been for that peculiar arrangement of the drawing-room +windows, which made it impossible to get at the culprits direct, +without going out into the garden and round the house; which, of +course, is a severe strain in wet or windy weather to put upon +anybody's moral enthusiasm. In the end, therefore, I always gave the +evil-doers the benefit of the doubt; and I only mention my ethical +scruples in the matter here lest scoffers should say, when they come to +read what manner of things Lucy and Eliza did: 'Oh yes, that's just +like those scientific folks; they're always so cold-blooded. He could +stand by and see these poor helpless flies tortured slowly to death, +without a chance for their lives, and never put out a helping hand to +save them!' Well, I would only ask you one question, my sapient friend, +who talk like that: Has it ever occurred to you that, if you kill one +spider, you merely make room in the overflowing economy of nature for +another to pick up a dishonest livelihood? Have you ever reflected that +the prime blame of spiderhood rests with Nature herself (if we may +venture to personify that impersonal entity); and that she has provided +such a constant supply or relay of spiders as will amply suffice to +fill up all the possible vacancies that can ever occur in insect-eating +circles? Unless you have considered all these points carefully, and +have an answer to give about them, you are not in a position to +pronounce upon the subject, and you had better be referred for six +months longer, as the medical examiners gracefully put it, to your +ethical, psychological, and biological studies. The great point about +the position in which Eliza and Lucy had placed themselves was simply +this. They stood full against the light, so that we could see right +through their translucent bodies, which were almost liquid to look +upon, and beautifully dappled with dark spots on a grey ground in a +very pretty and effective pattern. So favourable was the opportunity +for observation, indeed, that we could clearly make out with the naked +eye even the joints of their legs, the hairs on their tarsi—excuse the +phrase—and the very shape of their cruel tigerlike claws, as they +rushed forth upon their prey in a sort of carnivorous frenzy. At all +hours of the day we could notice exactly what they were doing or +suffering; and so familiar did we become with them individually and +personally, that before the end of the season we recognized in detail +all the differences of their characters almost as one might do with +cats or dogs, and spoke of them by their Christian names like old and +well-known acquaintances. +</p> +<p> +As the webs which Lucy and Eliza spun were several times broken or +mutilated during the year, either by accident or the gardener, we had +plenty of chances for seeing how they proceeded in making them. The +lines were in both cases stretched between a white rose-bush that +climbed up one side of the window, and a purple clematis that occupied +and draped the opposite mullion. But Lucy and Eliza didn't live in the +webs—those were only their snares or traps for prey; each of them had +in addition a private home or apartment of her own under shelter of a +rose-leaf at some distance from the treacherous geometrical structure. +The house itself consisted merely of a silken cell, built out from the +rose-leaf, and connected with the snare by a single stout cord of very +solid construction. On this cord the spider kept one foot—I had almost +said one hand—constantly fixed. She poised it lightly by her claws, +and whenever an insect got entangled in the web, a subtle electric +message, so to speak, seemed to run along the line to the ever-watchful +carnivore. In one short second Lucy or Eliza, as the case might be, had +darted out upon her quarry, and was tackling it might main, according +to the particular way its size and strength rendered then and there +advisable. The method of procedure, which I shall describe more fully +by-and-by, differed considerably from case to case, as these very large +and strong spiders have sometimes to deal with mere tiny midges, and +sometimes with extremely big and dangerous creatures, like bumble-bees, +wasps, and even hornets. +</p> +<p> +In building their webs, as in many other small points, Lucy and Eliza +showed from the first no inconsiderable personal differences. Lucy +began hers by spinning a long line from her spinnerets, and letting the +wind carry it wherever it would; while Eliza, more architectural in +character, preferred to take her lines personally from point to point, +and see herself to their proper fastening. In either case, however, the +first thing done was to stretch some eight or ten stout threads from +place to place on the outside of the future web, to act as <i>points +d'appuy</i> for the remainder of the structure. To these outer threads, +which the spiders strengthened so as to bear a considerable strain by +doubling and trebling them, other thinner single threads were then +carried radially at irregular distances, like the spokes of a wheel, +from a point in the centre, where they were all made fast and connected +together. As soon as this radiating framework or scaffolding was +finished, like the woof on a loom, the industrious craftswoman started +at the middle, and began the task of putting in the cross-pieces or +weft which were to complete and bind together the circular pattern. +These she wove round and round in a continuous spiral, setting out at +the centre, and keeping on in ever-widening circlets, till she arrived +at last at the exterior or foundation threads. How she fastened these +cross-pieces to the ray-lines I could never quite make out, though I +often followed the work closely from inside through the pane of glass +with a platyscopic lens; for, strange to say, the spiders were not in +the least disturbed by being watched at their work, and never took the +slightest notice of anything that went on at the other side of the +window. My impression is, however, that she gummed them together, +letting them harden into one as they dried; for the thread itself is +always semi-liquid when first exuded. +</p> +<p> +The cross-pieces, we observed from the very beginning, were invariably +covered by little sparkling drops of something wet and beadlike, which +at first in our ignorance we took for dew; for until I began +systematically observing Lucy and Eliza, I will frankly confess I had +never paid any particular attention to the spider-kind with the +solitary exception of my old winter friends, the trap-door spiders of +the Mediterranean shores. But, after a little experience, we soon found +out that these pearly drops on the web were not dew at all, but a +sticky substance, akin, to that of the web, secreted by the animals +themselves from their own bodies. We also quickly discovered, coming to +the observation as we did with minds unbiased by previous knowledge, +that the viscid liquid in question was of the utmost importance to the +spiders in securing their prey, and that unfortunate insects were not +merely entangled but likewise gummed down or glued by it, like birds in +bird-lime or flies in treacle. So necessary is the sticky stuff, +indeed, to the success of the trap, that Lucy and Eliza used to renew +the entire set of cross-pieces in the web every morning, and thus +ensure from day to day a perfectly fresh supply of viscid fluid; but, +so far as I could see, they only renewed the rays and the +foundation-threads under stress of necessity, when the snare had been +so greatly injured by large insects struggling in it, or by the wind or +the gardener, as to render repairs absolutely unavoidable. The whole +structure, when complete, is so beautiful and wonderful a sight, with +its geometrical regularity and its beaded drops, that if it were +produced by a rare creature from Madagascar or the Cape, in the +insect-house at the Zoo, all the world, I'm convinced, would rush to +look at it as a nine-days' wonder. But since it's only the trap of the +common English garden spider, why, we all pass it by without deigning +even to glance at it. +</p> +<p> +At night my eight-legged friends slept always in their own homes or +nests under shelter of the rose-leaves. But during the day they +alternated between the nest and the centre of the web, which last +seemed to serve them as a convenient station where they waited for +their prey, standing head downward with legs wide spread on the rays, +on the look-out for incidents. Whether at the centre or in the nest, +however, they kept their feet constantly on the watch for any +disturbance on the webs; and the instant any unhappy little fly got +entangled in their meshes, the ever-watchful spider was out like a +flash of lightning, and down at once in full force upon that incautious +intruder. I was convinced after many observations that it is by touch +alone the spider recognizes the presence of prey in its web, and that +it hardly derives any indications worth speaking of from its numerous +little eyes, at least as regards the arrival of booty. If a very big +insect has got into the web, then a relatively large volume of +disturbance is propagated along the telegraphic wire that runs from the +snare to the house, or from the circumference to the centre; if a small +one, then a slight disturbance; and the spider rushes out accordingly, +either with an air of caution or of ferocious triumph. +</p> +<p> +Supposing the booty in hand was a tiny fly, then Lucy or Eliza would +jump upon it at once with that strange access of apparently personal +animosity with seems in some mysterious way a characteristic of all +hunting carnivorous animals. She would then carelessly wind a thread or +two about it, in a perfunctory way, bury her jaws in its body, and in +less than half a minute suck out its juices to the last drop, leaving +the empty shell unhurt, like a dry skeleton or the slough of a +dragon-fly larva. But when wasps or other large and dangerous insects +got entangled in the webs, the hunters proceeded with far greater +caution. Lucy, indeed, who was a decided coward, would stand and look +anxiously at the doubtful intruder for several seconds, feeling the web +with her claws, and running up and down in the most undecided manner, +as if in doubt whether or not to tackle the uncertain customer. But +Eliza, whose spirits always rose like Nelson's before the face of +danger, and whose motto seemed to be '<i>De l'audace, de l'audace, et +toujours de l'audace</i>,' would rush at the huge foe in a perfect +transport of wild fury, and go to work at once to enclose him in her +toils of triple silken cables. I always fancied, indeed, that Eliza was +in a thoroughly housewifely tantrum at seeing her nice new web so +ruthlessly torn and tattered by the unwelcome visitor, and that she +said to herself in her own language: 'Oh well, then, if you <i>will</i> have +it, you <i>shall</i> have it; so here goes for you.' And go for him she did, +with most unladylike ferocity. Indeed, Eliza's best friend, I must fain +admit, could never have said of her that she was a perfect lady. +</p> +<p> +The chawing-up of that wasp was a sight to behold. I have no great +sympathy with wasps—they have done me so many bad turns in my time +that I don't pretend to regard them as deserving of exceptional +pity—but I must say Eliza's way of going at them was unduly barbaric. +She treated them for all the world as if they were entirely devoid of a +nervous system. I wouldn't treat a <i>Saturday Reviewer</i> myself as that +spider treated the wasps when once she was sure of them. She went at +them with a sort of angry, half-contemptuous dash, kept cautiously out +of the way of the protruded sting, began in most business-like fashion +at the head, and rolling the wasp round and round with her legs and +feelers, swathed him rapidly and effectually, with incredible speed, in +a dense network of web poured forth from her spinnerets. In less than +half a minute the astonished wasp, accustomed rather to act on the +offensive than the defensive, found himself helplessly enclosed in a +perfect coil of tangled silk, which confined him from head to sting +without the possibility of movement in any direction. The whole time +this had been going on the victim, struggling and writhing, had been +pushing out its sting and doing the very best it knew to deal the wily +Eliza a poisoned death-blow. But Eliza, taught by ancestral experience, +kept carefully out of the way; and the wasp felt itself finally twirled +round and round in those powerful hands, and tied about as to its wings +by a thousand-fold cable. Sometimes, after the wasp was secured, Eliza +even took the trouble to saw off the wings so as to prevent further +struggling and consequent damage to the precious web; but more often +she merely proceeded to eat it alive without further formality, still +avoiding its sting as long as the creature had a kick left in it, but +otherwise entirely ignoring its character as a sentient being in the +most inhuman fashion. And all the time, till the last drop of his blood +was sucked out, the wasp would continue viciously to stick out his +deadly sting, which the spider would still avoid with hereditary +cunning. It was a horrid sight—a duel <i>à outrance</i> between two equally +hateful and poisonous opponents; a living commentary on the appalling +but o'er-true words of the poet, that 'Nature is one with rapine, a +harm no preacher can heal.' Though these were the occasions when one +sometimes felt as if the cup of Eliza's iniquities was really full, and +one must pass sentence at last, without respite or reprieve, upon that +life-long murderess. +</p> +<p> +One insect there was, however, before which even Eliza herself, +hardened wretch as she seemed, used to cower and shiver; and that was +the great black bumble-bee, the largest and most powerful of the +British bee-kind. When one of these dangerous monsters, a burly, +buzzing bourgeois, got entangled in her web, Eliza, shaking in her +shoes (I allow her those shoes by poetical licence) would retire in +high dudgeon to her inmost bower, and there would sit and sulk, in +visible bad temper, till the clumsy big thing, after many futile +efforts, had torn its way by main force out of the coils that +surrounded it. Then, the moment the telegraphic communication told her +the lines in the web were once more free, Eliza would sally forth again +with a smiling face—oh yes, I assure you, we could tell by her look +when she was smiling—and would repair afresh with cheerful alacrity +the damage done to her snare by the unwelcome visitor. Hummingbird +hawk-moths, on the other hand, though so big and quick, she would kill +immediately. As for Lucy, craven soul, she had so little sense of +proper pride and arachnid honour, that she shrank even from the wasps +which Eliza so bravely and unhesitatingly tackled; and more than once +we caught her in the very act of cutting them out entire, with the +whole piece of web in which they were immeshed, and letting them drop +on to the ground beneath, merely as a short way of getting rid of them +from her premises. I always rather despised Lucy. She hadn't even the +one redeeming virtue of most carnivorous or predatory races—an +insensate and almost automatic courage. +</p> +<p> +I need hardly say, however, that the spider does not kill her prey by a +mere fair-and-square bite alone. She has recourse to the art of the +Palmers and Brinvilliers. All spiders, as far as known, are provided +with poison-fangs in the jaws, which sometimes, as in the tarantula and +many other large tropical kinds, well known to me in Jamaica and +elsewhere, are sufficiently powerful to produce serious effects upon +man himself; while even much smaller spiders, like Eliza and Lucy, have +poison enough in their falces, as the jawlike organs are called, to +kill a good big insect, such as a wasp or a bumble-bee. These +channelled poison-glands, combined with their savage tigerlike claws, +make the spiders as a group extremely formidable and dominant +creatures, the analogues in their own smaller invertebrate world of the +serpents and wolves in the vertebrate creation. +</p> +<p> +Lucy and Eliza's family relations, I am sorry to say, were not, we +found, of a kind to endear them to a critical public already +sufficiently scandalized by their general mode of behaviour to their +inoffensive neighbours. As mothers, indeed, gossip itself had not a +word of blame to whisper against them; but as wives, their conduct was +distinctly open to the severest animadversion. The males of the garden +spider, as in many other instances, are decidedly smaller than their +big round mates; so much so is this the case, indeed, in certain +species that they seem almost like parasites of the immensely larger +sack-bodied females. Now, just as the worker bees kill off the drones +as soon as the queen-bee has been duly fertilized, regarding them as of +no further importance or value to the hive, so do the lady-spiders not +only kill but eat their husbands as soon as they find they have no +further use for them. Nay, if a female spider doesn't care for the +looks of a suitor who is pressing himself too much upon her fond +attention, her way of expressing her disapprobation of his appearance +and manners is to make a murderous spring at him, and, if possible, +devour him. Under these painful circumstances the process of courtship +is necessarily to some extent a difficult and delicate one, fraught +with no small danger to the adventurous swain who has the boldness to +commend himself by personal approach to these very fickle and irascible +fair ones. It was most curious and exciting, accordingly, to watch the +details of the strange courtship, which we could only observe in the +case of the cruel Eliza, the rather gentler Lucy having been already +mated, apparently, before she took up her quarters in our climbing +white rose-bush. One day, however, a timid-looking male spider, with +inquiry and doubt in every movement of his tarsi, strolled tentatively +up on the neat round web where Eliza was hanging, head downward as +usual, all her feet on the thread, on the look-out for house-flies. We +knew he was a male at once by his longer and thinner body, and by his +natural modesty. He walked gingerly on all eights, like an arachnid +Agag, in the direction of the object of his ardent affections, with a +most comic uncertainty in every step he took towards her. His claws +felt the threads as he moved with anxious care; and it was clear he was +ready at a moment's notice to jump away and flee for his life with +headlong speed to his native obscurity if Eliza showed the slightest +disposition, by gesture or movement, to turn and rend him. Now and +again, as he approached, Eliza, half coquettish, moved her feet a short +step, and seemed to debate within her own mind in which spirit she +should meet his flattering advances—whether to accept him or to eat +him. At each such hesitation, the unhappy male, fearing the worst, and +sore afraid, would turn on his heel and fly for dear life as fast as +eight trembling legs would carry him. Then, after a minute or two, he +would evidently come to the conclusion that he had wronged his +lady-love, and that her movement was one of true, true love rather than +of carnivorous and cannibalistic appetite. At last, as I judged, his +constancy was rewarded, though his ominous disappearance very shortly +afterwards made me fear for the worst as to his final adventures. +</p> +<p> +In the end, Eliza laid a large number of eggs in a silken cocoon, in +shape a balloon, and secreted, like the web, by her invaluable +spinnerets. Indeed, the real reason—I won't say excuse—for the +rapacity and Gargantuan appetite of the spider lies, no doubt, in the +immense amount of material she has to supply for her daily-renewed +webs, her home, and her cocoon, all which have actually to be spun out +of the assimilated food-stuffs in her own body; to say nothing of the +additional necessity imposed upon her by nature for laying a trifle of +six or seven hundred eggs in a single summer. And, to tell the truth, +Lucy and Eliza seemed to us to be always eating. No matter at what hour +one looked in upon them, they were pretty constantly engaged in +devouring some inoffensive fly, or weaving hateful labyrinths of hasty +cord round some fiercely-struggling wasp or some unhappy beetle. +</p> +<p> +We weren't fortunate enough, I regret to say, to see Eliza's eggs hatch +out from the cocoon; but in other instances, especially in Southern +Europe, I have noticed the little heap of well-covered ova, glued +together into a mass, and attached to a branch or twig by stout silken +cables. If you open the cocoon when the young spiders are just hatched, +they begin to run about in the most lively fashion, and look like a +living and moving congeries of little balls or seedlets. The common +garden spider lays some seven hundred or more such eggs at a sitting, +and out of those seven hundred only two on an average reach maturity +and once more propagate their kind. For if only four lived and throve, +then clearly, in the next generation, there would be twice as many +spiders as in this; and in the generation after that again, four times +as many; and then eight times; and so on <i>ad infinitum</i>, until the +whole world was just one living and seething mass of common garden +spiders. +</p> +<p> +What keeps them down, then, in the end to their average number? What +prevents the development of the whole seven hundred? The simple answer +is, continuous starvation. As usual, nature works with cruel +lavishness. There are just as many spiders at any given minute as there +are insects enough in the world or in their area to feed upon. Every +spider lays hundreds of eggs, so as to make up for the average infant +mortality by starvation, or by the attacks of ichneumon flies, or by +being eaten themselves in the young stage, or by other casualties. And +so with all other species. Each produces as many young on the average +as will allow for the ordinary infant mortality of their kind, and +leave enough over just to replace the parents in the next generation. +And that's one of the reasons why it's no use punishing Lucy and Eliza +for their misdeeds in this world. Kill them off if you will, and before +next week a dozen more like them will dispute with one another the +vacant place you have thus created in the balanced economy of that +microcosm the garden. +</p> +<p> +Our observations upon Lucy and Eliza, however, had the effect of making +us take an increased interest thenceforth in spiders in general, which +till that time we had treated with scant courtesy, and set us about +learning something as to the extraordinary variety of life and habit to +be found within the range of this single group of arthropods, at first +sight so extremely alike in their shapes, their appearance, their +morals, and their manners. It's perfectly astonishing, though, when one +comes to look into it in detail, how exceedingly diverse spiders are in +their mode of life, their structure, and the variety of uses to which +they put their one extremely distinctive structural organ, the +spinnerets. I will only say here that some spiders use these peculiar +glands to form light webs by whose aid, though wingless, they float +balloon-wise through the air; that others employ them to line the sides +of their underground tunnels, and to make the basis of their +marvellously ingenious earthen trap-doors; that yet others have learnt +how to adapt these same organs to a subaquatic existence, and to fill +cocoons with air, like miniature diving bells; while others, again, +have taught themselves to construct webs thick enough to catch and hold +even creatures so superior to themselves in the scale of being as +humming-birds and sunbirds. This extraordinary variety in the +utilization of a single organ teaches once more the same lesson which +is impressed upon us elsewhere by so many other forms of organic +evolution: whatever enables an animal or plant to gain an advantage +over others in the struggle for life, no matter in what way, is sure to +survive, and to be turned in time to every conceivable use of which its +structure is capable, in the infinite whirligig of ever-varying nature. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch08"></a>MUD. +</h2> +<p> +Even a prejudiced observer will readily admit that the most valuable +mineral on earth is mud. Diamonds and rubies are just nowhere by +comparison. I don't mean weight for weight, of course—mud is 'cheap as +dirt,' to buy in small quantities—but aggregate for aggregate. Quite +literally, and without hocus-pocus of any sort, the money valuation of +the mud in the world must outnumber many thousand times the money +valuation of all the other minerals put together. Only we reckon it +usually not by the ton, but by the acre, though the acre is worth most +where the mud lies deepest. Nay, more, the world's wealth is wholly +based on mud. Corn, not gold, is the true standard of value. Without +mud there would be no human life, no productions of any kind: for food +stuffs of every description are raised on mud; and where no mud exists, +or can be made to exist, there, we say, there is desert or sand-waste. +Land, without mud, has no economic value. To put it briefly, the only +parts of the world that count much for human habitation are the mud +deposits of the great rivers, and notably of the Nile, the Euphrates, +the Ganges, the Indus, the Irrawaddy, the Hoang Ho, the Yang-tse-Kiang; +of the Po, the Rhone, the Danube, the Rhine, the Volga, the Dnieper; of +the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Orinoco, the +Amazons, the La Plata. A corn-field is just a big mass of mud; and the +deeper and purer and freer from stones or other impurities it is the +better. +</p> +<p> +But England, you say, is not a great river-mud field; yet it supports +the densest population in the world. True; but England is an +exceptional product of modern civilization. She can't feed herself: she +is fed from Odessa, Alexandria, Bombay, New York, Montreal, Buenos +Ayres—in other words, from the mud fields of the Russian, the +Egyptian, the Indian, the American, the Canadian, the Argentine rivers. +Orontes, said Juvenal, has flowed into Tiber; Nile, we may say +nowadays, with equal truth, has flowed into Thames. +</p> +<p> +There is nothing to make one realize the importance of mud, indeed, +like a journey up Nile when the inundation is just over. You lounge on +the deck of your dahabieh, and drink in geography almost without +knowing it. The voyage forms a perfect introduction to the study of +mudology, and suggests to the observant mind (meaning you and me) the +real nature of mud as nothing else on earth that I know of can suggest +it. For in Egypt you get your phenomenon isolated, as it were, from all +disturbing elements. You have no rainfall to bother you, no local +streams, no complex denudation: the Nile does all, and the Nile does +everything. On either hand stretches away the bare desert, rising up in +grey rocky hills. Down the midst runs the one long line of alluvial +soil—in other words, Nile mud—which alone allows cultivation and life +in that rainless district. The country bases itself absolutely on mud. +The crops are raised on it; the houses and villages are built of it; +the land is manured with it; the very air is full of it. The crude +brick buildings that dissolve in dust are Nile mud solidified; the red +pottery of Assiout is Nile mud baked hard; the village mosques and +minarets are Nile mud whitewashed. I have even seen a ship's bulwarks +neatly repaired with mud. It pervades the whole land, when wet, as mud +undisguised; when dry, as dust-storm. +</p> +<p> +Egypt, says Herodotus, is a gift of the Nile. A truer or more pregnant +word was never spoken. Of course it is just equally true, in a way, +that Bengal is a gift of the Ganges, and that Louisiana and Arkansas +are gifts of the Mississippi; but with this difference, that in the +case of the Nile the dependence is far more obvious, far freer from +disturbing or distracting details. For that reason, and also because +the Nile is so much more familiar to most English-speaking folk than +the American rivers, I choose Egypt first as my type of a regular +mud-land. But in order to understand it fully you mustn't stop all your +time in Cairo and the Delta; you mustn't view it only from the terrace +of Shepheard's Hotel or the rocky platform of the Great Pyramid at +Ghizeh: you must push up country early, under Mr. Cook's care, to Luxor +and the First Cataract. It is up country that Egypt unrolls itself +visibly before your eyes in the very process of making: it is there +that the full importance of good, rich black mud first forces itself +upon you by undeniable evidence. +</p> +<p> +For remember that, from a point above Berber to the sea, the dwindling +Nile never receives a single tributary, a single drop of fresh water. +For more than fifteen hundred miles the ever-lessening river rolls on +between bare desert hills and spreads fertility over the deep valley in +their midst—just as far as its own mud sheet can cover the barren +rocky bottom, and no farther. For the most part the line of demarcation +between the grey bare desert and the cultivable plain is as clear and +as well-defined as the margin of sea and land: you can stand with one +foot on the barren rock and one on the green soil of the tilled and +irrigated mud-land. For the water rises up to a certain level, and to +that level accordingly it distributes both mud and moisture: above it +comes the arid rock, as destitute of life, as dead and bare and lonely +as the centre of Sahara. In and out, in waving line, up to the base of +the hills, cultivation and greenery follow, with absolute accuracy, the +line of highest flood-level; beyond it the hot rock stretches dreary +and desolate. Here and there islands of sandstone stand out above the +green sea of doura or cotton; here and there a bay of fertility runs +away up some lateral valley, following the course of the mud; but one +inch above the inundation-mark vegetation and life stop short all at +once with absolute abruptness. In Egypt, then, more than anywhere else, +one sees with one's own eyes that mud and moisture are the very +conditions of mundane fertility. +</p> +<p> +Beyond Cairo, as one descends seaward, the mud begins to open out +fan-wise and form a delta. The narrow mountain ranges no longer hem it +in. It has room to expand and spread itself freely over the surrounding +country, won by degrees from the Mediterranean. At the mouths the mud +pours out into the sea and forms fresh deposits constantly on the +bottom, which are gradually silting up still newer lands to seaward. +Slow as is the progress of this land-forming action, there can be no +doubt that the Nile has the intention of filling up by degrees the +whole eastern Mediterranean, and that in process of time—say in no +more than a few million years or so, a mere bagatelle to the +geologist—with the aid of the Po and some other lesser streams, it +will transform the entire basin of the inland sea into a level and +cultivable plain, like Bengal or Mesopotamia, themselves (as we shall +see) the final result of just such silting action. +</p> +<p> +It is so very important, for those who wish to see things "as clear as +mud," to understand this prime principle of the formation of mud-lands, +that I shall make no apology for insisting on it further in some little +detail; for when one comes to look the matter plainly in the face, one +can see in a minute that almost all the big things in human history +have been entirely dependent upon the mud of the great rivers. Thebes +and Memphis, Rameses and Amenhotep, based their civilisation absolutely +upon the mud of Nile. The bricks of Babylon were moulded of Euphrates +mud; the greatness of Nineveh reposed on the silt of the Tigris. Upper +India is the Indus; Agra and Delhi are Ganges and Jumna mud; China is +the Hoang Ho and the Yang-tse-Kiang; Burmah is the paddy field of the +Irrawaddy delta. And so many great plains in either hemisphere consist +really of nothing else but mud-banks of almost incredible extent, +filling up prehistoric Baltics and Mediterraneans, that a glance at the +probable course of future evolution in this respect may help us to +understand and to realize more fully the gigantic scale of some past +accumulations. +</p> +<p> +As a preliminary canter I shall trot out first the valley of the Po, +the existing mud flat best known by personal experience to the feet and +eyes of the tweed-clad English tourist. Everybody who has looked down +upon the wide Lombard plain from the pinnacled roof of Milan Cathedral, +or who has passed by rail through that monotonous level of poplars and +vines between Verona and Venice, knows well what a mud flat due to +inundation and gradual silting up of a valley looks like. What I want +to do now is to inquire into its origin, and to follow up in fancy the +same process, still in action, till it has filled the Adriatic from end +to end with one great cultivable lowland. +</p> +<p> +Once upon a time (I like to be at least as precise as a fairy tale in +the matter of dates) there was no Lombardy. And that time was not, +geologically speaking, so very remote; for the whole valley of the Po, +from Turin to the sea, consists entirely of alluvial deposits—or, in +other words, of Alpine mud—which has all accumulated where it now lies +at a fairly recent period. We know it is recent, because no part of +Italy has ever been submerged since it began to gather there. To put it +more definitely, the entire mass has almost certainly been laid down +since the first appearance of man on our earth: the earliest human +beings who reached the Alps or the Apennines—black savages clad in +skins of extinct wild beasts—must have looked down from their slopes, +with shaded eyes, not on a level plain such as we see to-day, but on a +great arm of the sea which stretched like a gulf far up towards the +base of the hills about Turin and Rivoli. Of this ancient sea the +Adriatic forms the still unsilted portion. In other words, the great +gulf which now stops short at Trieste and Venice once washed the foot +of the Alps and the Apennines to the Superga at Turin, covering the +sites of Padua, Ferrara, Bologna, Ravenna, Mantua, Cremona, Modena, +Parma, Piacenza, Pavia, Milan, and Novara. The industrious reader who +gets out his Baedeker and looks up the shaded map of North Italy which +forms its frontispiece will be rewarded for his pains by a better +comprehension of the district thus demarcated. The idle must be content +to take my word for what follows. I pledge them my honour that I'll do +my best not to deceive their trustful innocence. +</p> +<p> +It may sound at first hearing a strange thing to say so, but the whole +of that vast gulf, from Turin to Venice, has been entirely filled up +within the human period by the mud sheet brought down by mountain +torrents from the Alps and the Apennines. +</p> +<p> +A parallel elsewhere will make this easier of belief. You have looked +down, no doubt, from the garden of the hotel at Glion upon the lake of +Geneva and the valley of the Rhone about Villeneuve and Aigle. If so, +you can understand from personal knowledge the first great stage in the +mud-filling process; for you must have observed for yourself from that +commanding height that the lake once extended a great deal farther up +country towards Bex and St. Maurice than it does at present. You can +still trace at once on either side the old mountainous banks, +descending into the plain as abruptly and unmistakably as they still +descend to the water's edge at Montreux and Vevey. But the silt of the +Rhone, brought down in great sheets of glacier mud (about which more +anon) from the Furca and the Jungfrau and the Monte Rosa chain, has +completely filled in the upper nine miles of the old lake basin with a +level mass of fertile alluvium. There is no doubt about the fact: you +can see it for yourself with half an eye from that specular mount (to +give the Devil his due, I quote Milton's Satan): the mud lies even from +bank to bank, raised only a few inches above the level of the lake, and +as lacustrine in effect as the veriest geologist on earth could wish +it. Indeed, the process of filling up still continues unabated at the +present day where the mud-laden Rhone enters the lake at Bouveret, to +leave it again, clear and blue and beautiful, under the bridge at +Geneva. The little delta which the river forms at its mouth shows the +fresh mud in sheets gathering thick upon the bottom. Every day this new +mud-bank pushes out farther and farther into the water, so that in +process of time the whole basin will be filled in, and a level plain, +like that which now spreads from Bex and Aigle to Villeneuve, will +occupy the entire bed from Montreux to Geneva. +</p> +<p> +Turn mentally to the upper feeders of the Po itself, and you find the +same causes equally in action. You have stopped at Pallanza—Garoni's +is so comfortable. Well, then, you know how every Alpine stream, as it +flows, full-gorged, into the Italian lakes, is busily engaged in +filling them up as fast as ever it can with turbid mud from the +uplands. The basins of Maggiore, Como, Lugano, and Garda are by origin +deep hollows scooped out long since during the Great Ice Age by the +pressure of huge glaciers that then spread far down into what is now +the poplar-clad plain of Lombardy. But ever since the ice cleared away, +and the torrents began to rush headlong down the deep gorges of the Val +Leventina and the Val Maggia, the mud has been hard at work, doing its +level best to fill those great ice-worn bowls up again. Near the mouth +of each main stream it has already succeeded in spreading a fan-shaped +delta. I will not insult you by asking you at the present time of day +whether you have been over the St. Gothard. In this age of <i>trains de +luxe</i> I know to my cost everybody has been everywhere. No chance of +pretending to superior knowledge about Japan or Honolulu; the tourist +knows them. Very well, then; you must remember as you go past +Bellinzona—revolutionary little Bellinzona with its three castled +crags—you look down upon a vast mud flat by the mouth of the Ticino. +Part of this mud flat is already solid land, but part is mere marsh or +shifting quicksand. That is the first stage in the abolition of the +lakes: the mud is annihilating them. +</p> +<p> +Maggiore, indeed, least fortunate of the three main sheets, is being +attacked by the insidious foe at three points simultaneously. At the +upper end, the Ticino, that furious radical river, has filled in a +large arm, which once spread far away up the valley towards Bellinzona. +A little lower down, the Maggia near Locarno carries in a fresh +contribution of mud, which forms another fan-shaped delta, and +stretches its ugly mass half across the lake, compelling the steamers +to make a considerable detour eastward. This delta is rapidly extending +into the open water, and will in time fill in the whole remaining space +from bank to bank, cutting off the upper end of the lake about Locarno +from the main basin by a partition of lowland. This upper end will then +form a separate minor lake, and the Ticino will flow out of it across +the intervening mud flat into the new and smaller Maggiore of our +great-great-grandchildren. If you doubt it, look what the torrent of +the Toce, the third assailing battalion of the persistent mud force, +has already done in the neighbourhood of Pallanza. It has entirely cut +off the upper end of the bay, that turns westward towards the Simplon, +by a partition of mud; and this isolated upper bit forms now in our own +day a separate lake, the Lago di Mergozzo, divided from the main sheet +by an uninteresting mud bank. In process of time, no doubt, the whole +of Maggiore will be similarly filled in by the advancing mud sheet, and +will become a level alluvial plain, surrounded by mountains, and +greatly admired by the astute Piedmontese cultivator. +</p> +<p> +What is going on in Maggiore is going on equally in all the other +sub-Alpine lakes of the Po valley. They are being gradually filled in, +every one of them, by the aggressive mud sheet. The upper end of +Lugano, for example, has already been cut off, as the Lago del Piano, +from the main body; and the <i>piano</i> itself, from which the little +isolated tarn takes its name, is the alluvial mud fiat of a lateral +torrent—the mud flat, in fact, which the railway from Porlezza +traverses for twenty minutes before it begins its steep and picturesque +climb by successive zigzags over the mountains to Menaggio. Similarly +the influx of the Adda at the upper end of Como has cut off the Lago di +Mezzola from the main lake, and has formed the alluvial level that +stretches so drearily all around Colico. Slowly the mud fiend +encroaches everywhere on the lakes; and if you look for him when you +go, there you can see him actually at work every spring under your very +eyes, piling up fresh banks and deltas with alarming industry, and +preparing (in a few hundred thousand years) to ruin the tourist trade +of Cadenabbia and Bellagio. +</p> +<p> +If we turn from the lakes themselves to the Lombard plain at large, +which is an immensely older and larger basin, we see traces of the same +action on a vastly greater scale. A glance at the map will show the +intelligent and ever courteous reader that the 'wandering Po'—I drop +into poetry after Goldsmith—flows much nearer the foot of the +Apennines than of the Alps in the course of its divagations, and seems +purposely to bend away from the greater range of mountains. Why is +this, since everything in nature must needs have a reason? Well, it is +because, when the mud first began to accumulate in the old Lombard bay +of the Adriatic, there was no Po at all, whether wandering or +otherwise: the big river has slowly grown up in time by the union of +the lateral torrents that pour down from either side, as the growth of +the mud flat brought them gradually together. Careful study of a good +map will show how this has happened, especially if it has the plains +and mountains distinctively tinted after the excellent German fashion. +The Ticino, the Adda, the Mincio, if you look at them close, reveal +themselves as tributaries of the Po, which once flowed separately into +the Lombard bay; the Adige, the Piave, the Tagliamento farther along +the coast, reveal themselves equally as tributaries of the future Po, +when once the great river shall have filled up with its mud the space +between Trieste and Venice, though for the moment they empty themselves +and their store of detritus into the open Adriatic. +</p> +<p> +Fix your eyes for a moment on Venetia proper, and you will see how this +has all happened and is still happening. Each mountain torrent that +leaps from the Tyrolese Alps bring down in its lap a rich mass of mud, +which has gradually spread over a strip of sea some forty or fifty +miles wide, from the base of the mountains to the modern coast-line of +the province. Near the sea—or, in other words, at the temporary +outlet—it forms banks and lagoons, of which those about Venice are the +best known to tourists, though the least characteristic. For miles and +miles between Venice and Trieste the shifting north shore of the +Adriatic consists of nothing but such accumulating mud banks. Year +after year they push farther seaward, and year after year fresh islets +and shoals grow out into the waves beyond the temporary deltas. In +time, therefore, the gathering mud banks of these Alpine torrents must +join the greater mud bank that runs rapidly seaward at the delta of the +Po. As soon as they do so the rivers must rush together, and what was +once an independent stream, emptying itself into the Adriatic, must +become a tributary of the Po, helping to swell the waters of that great +united river. The Adige has now just reached this state: its delta is +continuous with the delta of the Po, and their branches interosculate. +The Mincio and the Adda reached it ages since: the Piave and the +Livenia will not reach it for ages. In Roman days Hatria was still on +the sea: it is now some fifteen miles inland. +</p> +<p> +From all this you can gather why the existing Po flows far from the +Alps and nearer the base of the Apennines. The Alpine streams in far +distant days brought down relatively large floods of glacial mud; +formed relatively large deltas in the old Lombard bay; filled up with +relative rapidity their larger half of the basin. The Apennines, less +lofty, and free from glaciers, sent down shorter and smaller torrents, +laden with far less mud, and capable therefore of doing but little +alluvial work for the filling in of the future Lombardy. So the river +was pushed southward by the Alpine deposits of the northern streams, +leaving the great plains of Cisalpine Gaul spread away to the north of +it. +</p> +<p> +And this land-making action is ceaseless and continuous. About Venice, +Chioggia, Maestra, Comacchio, the delta of the Po is still spreading +seaward. In the course of ages—if nothing unforeseen occurs meanwhile +to prevent it—the Alpine mud will have filled in the entire Adriatic; +and the Ionian Isles will spring like isolated mountain ridges from the +Adriatic plain, as the Euganean hills—those 'mountains Euganean' where +Shelley 'stood listening to the pæan with which the legioned rocks did +hail the sun's uprise majestical'—spring in our own time from the dead +level of Lombardy. Once they in turn were the Euganean islands, and +even now to the trained eye of the historical observer they stand up +island-like from the vast green plain that spreads flat around them. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps it seems to you a rather large order to be asked to believe +that Lombardy and Venetia are nothing more than an outspread sheet of +deep Alpine mud. Well, there is nothing so good for incredulity, don't +you know, as capping the climax. If a man will not swallow an inch of +fact, the best remedy is to make him gulp down an ell of it. And, +indeed, the Lombard plain is but an insignificant mud flat compared +with the vast alluvial plains of Asiatic and American rivers. The +alluvium of the Euphrates, of the Mississippi, of the Hoang Ho, of the +Amazons would take in many Lombardies and half-a-dozen Venetias without +noticing the addition. But I will insist upon only one example—the +rivers of India, which have formed the gigantic deep mud flat of the +Ganges and the Jumna, one of the very biggest on earth, and that +because the Himalayas are the highest and newest mountain chain exposed +to denudation. For, as we saw foreshadowed in the case of the Alps and +Apennines, the bigger the mountains on which we can draw the greater +the resulting mass of alluvium. The Rocky Mountains give rise to the +Missouri (which is the real Mississippi); the Andes give rise to +Amazons and the La Plata; the Himalayas give rise to the Ganges and the +Indus. Great mountain, great river, great resulting mud sheet. +</p> +<p> +At a very remote period, so long ago that we cannot reduce it to any +common measure with our modern chronology, the southern table-land of +India—the Deccan, as we call it—formed a great island like Australia, +separated from the continent of Asia by a broad arm of the sea which +occupied what is now the great plain of Bengal, the North-West, and the +Punjaub. This ancient sea washed the foot of the Himalayas, and spread +south thence for 600 miles to the base of the Vindhyas. But the +Himalayas are high and clad with gigantic glaciers. Much ice grinds +much mud on those snow-capped summits. The rivers that flowed from the +Roof of the World carried down vast sheets of alluvium, which formed +fans at their mouths, like the cones still deposited on a far smaller +scale in the Lake of Geneva by little lateral torrents. Gradually the +silt thus brought down accumulated on either side, till the rivers ran +together into two great systems—one westward—the Indus, with its four +great tributaries, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravee, Sutlej; one eastward, the +Ganges, reinforced lower down by the sister streams of the Jumna and +the Brahmapootra. The colossal accumulation of silt thus produced +filled up at last all the great arm of the sea between the two mountain +chains, and joined the Deccan by slow degrees to the continent of Asia. +It is still engaged in filling up the Bay of Bengal on one side by the +detritus of the Ganges, and the Arabian Sea on the other by the +sand-banks of the Indus. +</p> +<p> +In the same way, no doubt, the silt of the Thames, the Humber, the +Rhine, and the Meuse tend slowly (bar accidents) to fill up the North +Sea, and anticipate Sir Edward Watkin by throwing a land bridge across +the English Channel. If ever that should happen, then history will have +repeated itself, for it is just so that the Deccan was joined to the +mainland of Asia. +</p> +<p> +One question more. Whence comes the mud? The answer is, Mainly from the +detritus of the mountains. There it has two origins. Part of it is +glacial, part of it is leaf-mould. In order to feel we have really got +to the very bottom of the mud problem—and we are nothing if not +thorough—we must examine in brief these two separate origins. +</p> +<p> +The glacier mud is of a very simple nature. It is disintegrated rock, +worn small by the enormous millstone of ice that rolls slowly over the +bed, and deposited in part as 'terminal moraine' near the summer +melting-point. It is the quantity of mud thus produced, and borne down +by mountain torrents, that makes the alluvial plains collect so quickly +at their base. The mud flats of the world are in large part the wear +and tear of the eternal hills under the planing action of the eternal +glaciers. +</p> +<p> +But let us be just to our friends. A large part is also due to the +industrious earth-worm, whose place in nature Darwin first taught us to +estimate at its proper worth. For there is much detritus and much +first-rate soil even on hills not covered by glaciers. Some of this +takes its origin, it is true, from disintegration by wind or rain, but +much more is caused by the earth-worm in person. That friend of +humanity, so little recognized in his true light, has a habit of +drawing down leaves into his subterranean nest, and there eating them +up, so as to convert their remains into vegetable mould in the form of +worm-casts. This mould, the most precious of soils, gets dissolved +again by the rain, and carried off in solution by the streams to the +sea or the lowlands, where it helps to form the future cultivable area. +At the same time the earthworms secrete an acid, which acts upon the +bare surface of rock beneath, and helps to disintegrate it in +preparation for plant life in unfavourable places. It is probable that +we owe almost more on the whole to these unknown but conscientious and +industrious annelids than even to those 'mills of God' the glaciers, of +which the American poet justly observes that though they grind slowly, +yet they grind exceedingly small. +</p> +<p> +In the last resort, then, it is mainly on mud that the life of humanity +in all countries bases itself. Every great plain is the alluvial +deposit of a great river, ultimately derived from a great mountain +chain. The substance consists as a rule of the débris of torrents, +which is often infertile, owing to its stoniness and its purely mineral +character; but wherever it has lain long enough to be covered by +earth-worms with a deep black layer of vegetable mould, there the +resulting soil shows the surprising fruitfulness one gets (for example) +in Lombardy, where twelve crops a year are sometimes taken from the +meadows. Everywhere and always the amount and depth of the mud is the +measure of possible fertility; and even where, as in the Great American +Desert, want of water converts alluvial plains into arid stretches of +sand-waste, the wilderness can be made to blossom like the rose in a +very few years by artificial irrigation. The diversion of the Arkansas +River has spread plenty over a vast sage scrub; the finest crops in the +world are now raised over a tract of country which was once the terror +of the traveller across the wild west of America. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch09"></a>THE GREENWOOD TREE. +</h2> +<p> +It is a common, not to say a vulgar error, to believe that trees and +plants grow out of the ground. And of course, having thus begun by +calling it bad names, I will not for a moment insult the intelligence +of my readers by supposing them to share so foolish a delusion. I beg +to state from the outset that I write this article entirely for the +benefit of Other People. You and I, O proverbially Candid and +Intelligent One, it need hardly be said, are better informed. But Other +People fall into such ridiculous blunders that it is just as well to +put them on their guard beforehand against the insidious advance of +false opinions. I have known otherwise good and estimable men, indeed, +who for lack of sound early teaching on this point went to their graves +with a confirmed belief in the terrestrial origin of all earthly +vegetation. They were probably victims of what the Church in its +succinct way describes and denounces as Invincible Ignorance. +</p> +<p> +Now, the reason why these deluded creatures supposed trees to grow out +of the ground, instead of out of the air, is probably only because they +saw their roots there. +</p> +<p> +Of course, when people see a wallflower rooted in the clefts of some +old church tower, they don't jump at once to the inane conclusion that +it is made of rock—that it derives its nourishment direct from the +solid limestone; nor when they observe a barnacle hanging by its sucker +to a ship's hull, do they imagine it to draw up its food incontinently +from the copper bottom. But when they see that familiar pride of our +country, a British oak, with its great underground buttresses spreading +abroad through the soil in every direction, they infer at once that the +buttresses are there, not—as is really the case—to support it and +uphold it, but to drink in nutriment from the earth beneath, which is +just about as capable of producing oak-wood as the copper plate on the +ship's hull is capable of producing the flesh of a barnacle. Sundry +familiar facts about manuring and watering, to which I will return +later on, give a certain colour of reasonableness, it is true, to this +mistaken inference. But how mistaken it really is for all that, a +single and very familiar little experiment will easily show one. +</p> +<p> +Cut down that British oak with your Gladstonian axe; lop him of his +branches; divide him into logs; pile him up into a pyramid; put a match +to his base; in short, make a bonfire of him; and what becomes of +robust majesty? He is reduced to ashes, you say. Ah, yes, but what +proportion of him? Conduct your experiment carefully on a small scale; +dry your wood well, and weigh it before burning; weigh your ash +afterwards, and what will you find? Why, that the solid matter which +remains after the burning is a mere infinitesimal fraction of the total +weight: the greater part has gone off into the air, from whence it +came, as carbonic acid. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes; but air to air, +too, is the rule of nature. +</p> +<p> +It may sound startling—to Other People, I mean—but the simple truth +remains, that trees and plants grow out of the atmosphere, not out of +the ground. They are, in fact, solidified air; or to be more strictly +correct, solidified gas—carbonic acid. +</p> +<p> +Take an ordinary soda-water syphon, with or without a wine-glassful of +brandy, and empty it till only a few drops remain in the bottom. Then +the bottle is full of gas; and that gas, which will rush out with a +spurt when you press the knob, is the stuff that plants eat—the raw +material of life, both animal and vegetable. The tree grows and lives +by taking in the carbonic acid from the air, and solidifying its +carbon; the animal grows and lives by taking the solidified carbon from +the plant, and converting it once more into carbonic acid. That, in its +ideally simple form, is the Iliad in a nutshell, the core and kernel of +biology. The whole cycle of life is one eternal see-saw. First the +plant collects its carbon compounds from the air in the oxidized state; +it deoxidizes and rebuilds them: and then the animal proceeds to burn +them up by slow combustion within his own body, and to turn them loose +upon the air, once more oxidized. After which the plant starts again on +the same round as before, and the animal also recommences <i>da capo</i>. +And so on <i>ad infinitum</i>. +</p> +<p> +But the point which I want particularly to emphasize here is just this: +that trees and plants don't grow out of the ground at all, as most +people do vainly talk, but directly out of the air; and that when they +die or get consumed, they return once more to the atmosphere from which +they were taken. Trees undeniably eat carbon. +</p> +<p> +Of course, therefore, all the ordinary unscientific conceptions of how +plants feed are absolutely erroneous. Vegetable physiology, indeed, got +beyond these conceptions a good hundred years ago. But it usually takes +a hundred years for the world at large to make up its leeway. Trees +don't suck up their nutriment by the roots, they don't derive their +food from the soil, they don't need to be fed, like babies through a +tube, with terrestrial solids. The solitary instance of an orchid hung +up by a string in a conservatory on a piece of bark, ought to be +sufficient at once to dispel for ever this strange illusion—if people +ever thought; but of course they don't think—I mean Other People. The +true mouths and stomachs of plants are not to be found in the roots, +but in the green leaves; their true food is not sucked up from the +soil, but is inhaled through tiny channels from the air; the mass of +their material is carbon, as we can all see visibly to the naked eye +when a log of wood is reduced to charcoal: and that carbon the leaves +themselves drink in, by a thousand small green mouths, from the +atmosphere around them. +</p> +<p> +But how about the juice, the sap, the qualities of the soil, the manure +required? is the incredulous cry of Other People. What is the use of +the roots, and especially of the rootlets, if they are not the mouths +and supply-tubes of the plants? Well, I plainly perceive I can get 'no +forrarder,' like the farmer with his claret, till I've answered that +question, provisionally at least; so I will say here at once, without +further ado—the plant requires drink as well as food, and the roots +are the mouths that supply it with water. They also suck up a few other +things as well, which are necessary indeed, but far from forming the +bulk of the nutriment. Many plants, however, don't need any roots at +all, while none can get on without leaves as mouths and stomachs. That +is to say, no true plantlike plants, for some parasitic plants are +practically, to all intents and purposes, animals. To put it briefly, +every plant has one set of aerial mouths to suck in carbon, and many +plants have another set of subterranean mouths as well, to suck up +water and mineral constituents. +</p> +<p> +Have you ever grown mustard and cress in the window on a piece of +flannel? If so, that's a capital practical example of the comparative +unimportance of soil, except as a means of supplying moisture. You put +your flannel in a soup-plate by the dining-room window; you keep it +well wet, and you lay the seeds of the cress on top of it. The young +plants, being supplied with water by their roots, and with carbon by +the air around, have all the little they need below, and grow and +thrive in these conditions wonderfully. But if you were to cover them +up with an air-tight glass case, so as to exclude fresh air, they'd +shrivel up at once for want of carbon, which is their solid food, as +water is their liquid. +</p> +<p> +The way the plant really eats is little known to gardeners, but very +interesting. All over the lower surface of the green leaf lie scattered +dozens of tiny mouths or apertures, each of them guarded by two small +pursed-up lips which have a ridiculously human appearance when seen +through a simple microscope. When the conditions of air and moisture +are favourable, these lips open visible to admit gases; and then the +tiny mouths suck in carbonic acid in abundance from the air around +then. A series of pipes conveys the gaseous food thus supplied to the +upper surface of the leaf, where the sunlight falls full upon it. Now, +the cells of the leaf contain a peculiar green digestive material, +which I regret to say has no simpler or more cheerful name than +chlorophyll; and where the sunlight plays upon this mysterious +chlorophyll, it severs the oxygen from the carbon in the carbonic acid, +turns the free gas loose upon the atmosphere once more through the tiny +mouths, and retains the severed carbon intact in its own tissues. That +is the whole process of feeding in plants: they eat carbonic acid, +digest it in their leaves, get rid of the oxygen with which it was +formerly combined, and keep the carbon stored up for their own +purposes. +</p> +<p> +Life as a whole depends entirely upon this property of chlorophyll; for +every atom of organic matter in your body or mine was originally so +manufactured by sunlight in the leaves of some plant from which, +directly or indirectly, we derive it. +</p> +<p> +To be sure, in order to make up the various substances which compose +their tissues—to build up their wood, their leaves, their fruits, +their blossoms—plants require hydrogen, nitrogen, and even small +quantities of oxygen as well; but these various materials are +sufficiently supplied in the water which is taken up by the roots, and +they really contribute very little indeed to the bulk of the tree, +which consists for the most part of almost pure carbon. If you were to +take a thoroughly dry piece of wood, and then drive off from it by heat +these extraneous matters, you would find that the remainder, the pure +charcoal, formed the bulk of the weight, the rest being for the most +part very light and gaseous. Briefly put, plants are mostly carbon and +water, and the carbon which forms their solid part is extracted direct +from the air around them. +</p> +<p> +How does it come about then that a careless world in general, and more +especially the happy-go-lucky race of gardeners and farmers in +particular, who have to deal so much with plants in their practical +aspect, always attach so great importance to root, soil, manure, +minerals, and so little to the real gaseous food stuff of which their +crops are, in fact, composed? Why does Hodge, who is so strong on grain +and guano, know absolutely nothing about carbonic acid? That seems at +first sight a difficult question to meet. But I think we can meet it +with a simple analogy. +</p> +<p> +Oxygen is an absolute necessary of human life. Even food itself is +hardly so important an element in our daily existence; for Succi, Dr. +Tanner, the prophet Elijah, and other adventurous souls too numerous to +mention, have abundantly shown us that a man can do without food +altogether for forty days at a stretch, while he can't do without +oxygen for a single minute. Cut off his supply of that life-supporting +gas, choke him, or suffocate him, or place him in an atmosphere of pure +carbonic acid, or hold his head in a bucket of water, and he dies at +once. Yet, except in mines or submarine tunnels, nobody ever takes into +account practically this most important factor in human and animal +life. We toil for bread, but we ignore the supply of oxygen. And why? +Simply because oxygen is universally diffused everywhere. It costs +nothing. Only in the Black Hole of Calcutta or in a broken tunnel shaft +do men ever begin to find themselves practically short of that +life-sustaining gas, and then they know the want of it far sooner and +far more sharply than they know the want of food on a shipwreck raft, +or the want of water in the thirsty desert. Yet antiquity never even +heard of oxygen. A prime necessary of life passed unnoticed for ages in +human history, only because there was abundance of it to be had +everywhere. +</p> +<p> +Now it isn't quite the same, I admit, with the carbonaceous food of +plants. Carbonic acid isn't quite so universally distributed as oxygen, +nor can every plant always get as much as it wants of it. I shall show +by-and-by that a real struggle for food takes place between plants, +exactly as it takes place between animals; and that certain plants, +like Oliver Twist in the workhouse, never practically get enough to +eat. Still, carbonic acid is present in very large quantities in the +air in most situations, and is freely brought by the wind to all the +open spaces which alone man uses for his crops and his gardening. The +most important element in the food of plants is thus in effect almost +everywhere available, especially from the point of view of the mere +practical everyday human agriculturist. The wind that bloweth where it +listeth brings fresh supplies of carbon on its wings with every breeze +to the mouths and throats of the greedy and eager plants that long to +absorb it. +</p> +<p> +It is quite otherwise, however, with the soil and its constituents. +Land, we all know—or if we don't, it isn't the fault of Mr. George and +Mr. A.R. Wallace—land is 'naturally limited in quantity.' Every plant +therefore struggles for a foothold in the soil far more fiercely and +far more tenaciously than it struggles for its share in the free air of +heaven. Your plant is a land-grabber of Rob Roy proclivities; it +believes in a fair fight and no favour. A sufficient supply of food it +almost takes for granted, if only it can once gain a sufficient +ground-space. But other plants are competing with it, tooth and nail +(if plants may be permitted by courtesy those metaphorical adjuncts), +for their share of the soil, like crofters or socialists; every spare +inch of earth is permeated and pervaded with matted fibres; and each is +striving to withdraw from each the small modicum of moisture, mineral +matter, and manure for which all alike are eagerly battling. +</p> +<p> +Now, what the plant wants from the soil is three things. First and +foremost it wants support; like all the rest of us it must have its +<i>pou sto</i>, its <i>pied-à-terre</i>, its <i>locus standi</i>. It can't hang aloft, +like Mahomet's coffin, miraculously suspended on an aerial perch +between earth and heaven. Secondly, it wants water, and this it can +take in, as a rule, only or mainly by means of the rootlets, though +there are some peculiar plants which grow (not parasitically) on the +branches of trees, and absorb all the moisture they need by pores on +their surface. And thirdly, it wants small quantities of nitrogenous +matter—in the simpler language of everyday life called manure—as well +as of mineral matter—in the simpler language of everyday life called +ashes. It is mainly the first of these three, support, that the farmer +thinks of when he calculates crops and acreage; for the second, he +depends upon rainfall or irrigation; but the third, manure, he can +supply artificially; and as manure makes a great deal of incidental +difference to some of his crops, especially corn—which requires +abundant phosphates—he is apt to over-estimate vastly its importance +from a theoretical point of view. +</p> +<p> +Besides, look at it in another light. Over large areas together, the +conditions of air, climate, and rainfall are practically identical. But +soil differs greatly from place to place. Here it's black; there it's +yellow; here it's rich loam; there it's boggy mould or sandy gravel. +And some soils are better adapted to growing certain plants than +others. Rich lowlands and oolites suit the cereals; red marl produces +wonderful grazing grass; bare uplands are best for gorse and heather. +Hence everything favours for the practical man the mistaken idea that +plants and trees grow mainly out of the soil. His own eyes tell him so; +he sees them growing, he sees the visible result undeniable before his +face; while the real act of feeding off the carbon in the air is wholly +unknown to him, being realizable only by the aid of the microscope, +aided by the most delicate and difficult chemical analysis. +</p> +<p> +Nevertheless French chemists have amply proved by actual experiment +that plants can grow and produce excellent results without any aid from +the soil at all. You have only to suspend the seeds freely in the air +by a string, and supply the rootlets of the sprouting seedlings with a +little water, containing in solution small quantities of manure-stuffs, +and the plants will grow as well as on their native heath, or even +better. Indeed, nature has tried the same experiment on a larger scale +in many cases, as with the cliff-side plants that root themselves in +the naked clefts of granite rocks; the tropical orchids that fasten +lightly on the bark of huge forest trees; and the mosses that spread +even over the bare face of hard brick walls, with scarcely a chink or +cranny in which to fasten their minute rootlets. The insect-eating +plants are also interesting examples in their way of the curious means +which nature takes for keeping up the manure supply under trying +circumstances. These uncanny things are all denizens of loose, peaty +soil, where they can root themselves sufficiently for purposes of +foothold and drink, but where the water rapidly washes away all animal +matter. Under such conditions the cunning sundews and the ruthless +pitcher-plants set deceptive honey traps for unsuspecting insects, +which they catch and kill, absorbing and using up the protoplasmic +contents of their bodies, by way of manure, to supply their quota of +nitrogenous material. +</p> +<p> +It is the literal fact, then, that plants really eat and live off +carbon, just as truly as sheep eat grass or lions eat antelopes; and +that the green leaves are the mouths and stomachs with which they eat +and digest it. From this it naturally results that the growth and +spread of the leaves must largely depend upon the supply of carbon, as +the growth and fatness of sheep depends upon the supply of pasturage. +Under most circumstances, to be sure, there is carbon enough and to +spare lying about loose for every one of them; but conditions do now +and again occur where we can clearly see the importance of the carbon +supply. Water, for example, contains practically much less carbonic +acid than atmospheric air, especially when the water is stagnant, and +therefore not supplied fresh to the plant from moment to moment. As a +consequence, almost all water-plants have submerged leaves very narrow +and waving, while floating plants, like the water-lilies, have them +large and round, owing to the absence of competition from other kinds +about, which enables them to spread freely in every direction from the +central stalk. Moreover, these leaves, lolling on the water as they do, +have their mouths on the upper instead of the under surface. But the +most remarkable fact of all is that many water plants have two entirely +different types of leaves, one submerged and hair-like, the other +floating and broad or circular. Our own English water-crowfoot, for +example, has the leaves that spring from its stem, below the surface, +divided into endless long waving filaments, which look about in the +water for the stray particles of carbon; but the moment it reaches the +top of its native pond the foliage expands at once into broad lily-like +lobes, that recline on the water like oriental beauties, and absorb +carbon from the air to their heart's content, The one type may be +likened to gills, that similarly catch the dissolved oxygen diffused in +water; the other type may be likened to lungs, that drink in the free +and open air of heaven. +</p> +<p> +Equally important to the plant, however, with the supply of carbonic +acid, is the supply of sunshine by whose aid to digest it. The carbon +alone is no good to the tree if it can't get something which will +separate it from the oxygen, locked in close embrace with it. That +thing is sunshine. There is nothing, therefore, for which herbs, trees, +and shrubs compete more eagerly than for their fair share of solar +energy. In their anxiety for this they jostle one another down most +mercilessly, in the native condition, grasses struggling up with their +hollow stems above the prone low herbs, shrubs overtopping the grasses +in turn, and trees once more killing out the overshadowed undershrubs. +One must remember that wherever nature has free play, instead of being +controlled by the hand of man, dense forest covers every acre of ground +where the soil is deep enough; gorse, whins, and heather, or their +equivalents grow wherever the forest fails; and herbs can only hold +their own in the rare intervals where these domineering lords of the +vegetable creation can find no foothold. Meadows or prairies occur +nowhere in nature, except in places where the liability to destructive +fires over wide areas together crushes out forest trees, or else where +goats, bison, deer, and other large herbivores browse them ceaselessly +down in the stage of seedlings. Competition for sunlight is thus even +keener perhaps than competition for foodstuffs. Alike on trees, shrubs, +and herbs, accordingly the arrangement of the leaves is always exactly +calculated so as to allow the largest possible horizontal surface, and +the greatest exposure of the blade to the open sunshine. In trees this +arrangement can often be very well observed, all the leaves being +placed at the extremities of the branches, and forming a great +dome-shaped or umbrella-shaped mass, every part of which stands an even +chance of catching its fair share of carbonic acid and solar energy. +</p> +<p> +The shapes of the leaves themselves are also largely due to the same +cause, every leaf being so designed in form and outline as to interfere +as little as possible with the other leaves on the same stem, as +regards supply both of light and of carbonaceous foodstuffs. It is only +in rare cases, like that of the water-lily, that perfectly round leaves +occur, because the conditions are seldom equal all round, and the +incidence of light and the supply of carbon are seldom unlimited. But +wherever leaves rise free and solitary into the air, without mutual +interference, they are always circular, as may be well seen in the +common nasturtium and the English pennywort. On the other hand, among +dense hedgerows and thickets, where the silent, invisible struggle for +life is fierce indeed, and where sunlight and carbonic acid are +intercepted by a thousand competing mouths and arms, the prevailing +types of leaf are extremely cut up and minutely subdivided into small +lace-like fragments. The plant in such cases can't afford material to +fill up the interstices between the veins and ribs which determine its +underlying architectural structure. Often indeed species which grow +under these hard conditions produce leaves which are, as it were, but +skeleton representatives of their large and well filled-out compeers in +the open meadows. +</p> +<p> +It is only by bearing vividly in mind this ceaseless and noiseless +struggle between plants for their gaseous food and the sunshine which +enables them to digest it that we can ever fully understand the varying +forms and habits of the vegetable kingdom. To most people, no doubt, it +sounds like pure metaphor to talk of an internecine struggle between +rooted beings which cannot budge one inch from their places, nor fight +with horns, hoofs, or teeth, nor devour one another bodily, nor tread +one another down with ruthless footsteps. But that is only because we +habitually forget that competition is just as really a struggle for +life as open warfare. The men who try against one another for a +clerkship in the City, or a post in a gang of builder's workmen, are +just as surely taking away bread and butter out of their fellows' +mouths for their own advantage, as if they fought for it openly with +fists or six-shooters. The white man who encloses the hunting grounds +of the Indian, and plants them with corn, is just as surely dooming +that Indian to death as if he scalped or tomahawked him. And so too +with the unconscious warfare of plants. The daisy or the plantain that +spreads its rosette of leaves flat against the ground is just as truly +monopolizing a definite space of land as the noble owner of a Highland +deer forest. No blade of grass can spring beneath the shadow of those +tightly pressed little mats of foliage; no fragment of carbon, no ray +of sunshine can ever penetrate below that close fence of living +greenstuff. +</p> +<p> +Plants, in fact, compete with one another all round for everything they +stand in need of. They compete for their food—carbonic acid. They +compete for their energy—their fair share of sunlight. They compete +for water, and their foothold in the soil. They compete for the favours +of the insects that fertilize their flowers. They compete for the good +services of the birds or mammals that disseminate their seeds in proper +spots for germination. And how real this competition is we can see in a +moment, if we think of the difficulties of human cultivation. There, +weeds are always battling manfully with our crops or our flowers for +mastery over the field or garden. We are obliged to root up with +ceaseless toil these intrusive competitors, if we wish to enjoy the +kindly fruits of the earth in due season. When we leave a garden to +itself for a few short years, we realize at once what effect the +competition of hardy natives has upon our carefully tended and unstable +exotics. In a very brief time the dahlias and phloxes and lilies have +all disappeared, and in their place the coarse-growing docks and +nettles and thistles have raised their heads aloft to monopolize air +and space and sunshine. +</p> +<p> +Exactly the same struggle is always taking place in the fields and +woods and moors around us, and especially in the spots made over to +pure nature. There, the greenwood tree raises its huge umbrella of +foliage to the skies, and allows hardly a ray of sunlight to struggle +through to the low woodland vegetation of orchid or wintergreen +underneath. Where the soil is not deep enough for trees to root +securely, bushes and heathers overgrow the ground, and compete with +their bell-shaped blossoms for the coveted favour of bees and +butterflies. And in open glades, where for some reason or other the +forest fails, tall grasses and other aspiring herbs run up apace +towards the free air of heaven. Elsewhere, creepers struggle up to the +sun over the stems and branches of stronger bushes or trees, which they +often choke and starve by monopolizing at last all the available carbon +and sunlight. And so throughout; the struggle for life goes on just as +ceaselessly and truly among these unconscious combatants as among the +lions and tigers of the tropical jungle, or among the human serfs of +the overstocked market. +</p> +<p> +An ounce of example, they say, is worth a pound of precept. So a single +concrete case of a fierce vegetable campaign now actually in progress +over all Northern Europe may help to make my meaning a trifle clearer. +Till very lately the forests of the north were largely composed in +places of the light and airy silver birches. But with the gradual +amelioration of the climate of our continent, which has been going on +for several centuries, the beech, a more southern type of tree, has +begun to spread slowly though surely northward. Now, beeches are greedy +trees, of very dense and compact foliage; nothing else can grow beneath +their thick shade, where once they have gained a foothold; and the +seedlings of the silver birch stand no chance at all in the struggle +for life against the serried leaves of their formidable rivals. The +beech literally eats them out of house and home; and the consequence is +that the thick and ruthless southern tree is at this very moment +gradually superseding over vast tracts of country its more graceful and +beautiful, but far less voracious competitor. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch10"></a>FISH AS FATHERS. +</h2> +<p> +Comparatively little is known as yet, even in this age of publicity, +about the domestic arrangements and private life of fishes. Not that +the creatures themselves shun the wiles of the interviewer, or are at +all shy and retiring, as a matter of delicacy, about their family +affairs; on the contrary, they display a striking lack of reticence in +their native element, and are so far from pushing parental affection to +a quixotic extreme that many of them, like the common rabbit +immortalised by Mr. Squeers, 'frequently devour their own offspring.' +But nature herself opposes certain obvious obstacles to the pursuit of +knowledge in the great deep, which render it difficult for the ardent +naturalist, however much he may be so disposed, to carry on his +observations with the same facility as in the case of birds and +quadrupeds. You can't drop in upon most fish, casually, in their own +homes; and when you confine them in aquariums, where your opportunities +of watching them through a sheet of plate-glass are considerably +greater, most of the captives get huffy under the narrow restrictions +of their prison life, and obstinately refuse to rear a brood of +hereditary helots for the mere gratification of your scientific +curiosity. +</p> +<p> +Still, by hook and by crook (especially the former), by observation +here and experiment there, naturalists in the end have managed to piece +together a considerable mass of curious and interesting information of +an out-of-the-way sort about the domestic habits and manners of sundry +piscine races. And, indeed, the morals of fish are far more varied and +divergent than the uniform nature of the world they inhabit might lead +an <i>à priori</i> philosopher to imagine. To the eye of the mere casual +observer every fish would seem at first sight to be a mere fish, and to +differ but little in sentiments and ethical culture from all the rest +of his remote cousins. But when one comes to look closer at their +character and antecedents, it becomes evident at once that there is a +deal of unsuspected originality and caprice about sharks and flat-fish. +Instead of conforming throughout to a single plan, as the young, the +gay, the giddy, and the thoughtless are too prone to conclude, fish are +in reality as various and variable in their mode of life as any other +great group in the animal kingdom. Monogamy and polygamy, socialism and +individualism, the patriarchal and matriarchal types of government, the +oviparous and viviparous methods of reproduction, perhaps even the +dissidence of dissent and esoteric Buddhism, all alike are well +represented in one family or another of this extremely eclectic and +philosophically unprejudiced class of animals. +</p> +<p> +If you want a perfect model of domestic virtue, for example, where can +you find it in higher perfection than in that exemplary and devoted +father, the common great pipe-fish of the North Atlantic and the +British Seas? This high-principled lophobranch is so careful of its +callow and helpless young that it carries about the unhatched eggs with +him under his own tail, in what scientific ichthyologists pleasantly +describe as a subcaudal pouch or cutaneous receptacle. There they hatch +out in perfect security, free from the dangers that beset the spawn and +fry of so many other less tender-hearted kinds; and as soon as the +little pipe-fish are big enough to look after themselves the sac +divides spontaneously down the middle, and allows them to escape, to +shift for themselves in the broad Atlantic. Even so, however, the +juniors take care always to keep tolerably near that friendly shelter, +and creep back into it again on any threat of danger, exactly as +baby-kangaroos do into their mother's marsupium. The father-fish, in +fact, has gone to the trouble and expense of developing out of his own +tissues a membranous bag, on purpose to hold the eggs and young during +the first stages of their embryonic evolution. This bag is formed by +two folds of the skin, one of which grows out from each side of the +body, the free margins being firmly glued together in the middle by a +natural exudation, while the eggs are undergoing incubation, but +opening once more in the middle to let the little fish out as soon as +the process of hatching is fairly finished. +</p> +<p> +So curious a provision for the safety of the young in the pipe-fish may +be compared to some extent, as I hinted above, with the pouch in which +kangaroos and other marsupial animals carry their cubs after birth, +till they have attained an age of complete independence. But the +strangest part of it all is the fact that while in the kangaroo it is +the mother who owns the pouch and takes care of the young, in the +pipe-fish it is the father, on the contrary, who thus specially +provides for the safety of his defenceless offspring. And what is odder +still, this topsy-turvy arrangement (as it seems to us) is the common +rule throughout the class of fishes. For the most part it must be +candidly admitted by their warmest admirer, fish make very bad parents +indeed. They lay their eggs anywhere on a suitable spot, and as soon as +they have once deposited them, like the ostrich in Job, they go on +their way rejoicing, and never bestow another passing thought upon +their deserted progeny. But if ever a fish <i>does</i> take any pains in the +education and social upbringing of its young, you're pretty sure to +find on enquiry it's the father—not as one would naturally expect, the +mother—who devotes his time and attention to the congenial task of +hatching or feeding them. It is he who builds the nest, and sits upon +the eggs, and nurses the young, and imparts moral instruction (with a +snap of his jaw or a swish of his tail) to the bold, the truant, the +cheeky, or the imprudent; while his unnatural spouse, well satisfied +with her own part in having merely brought the helpless eggs into this +world of sorrow, goes off on her own account in the giddy whirl of +society, forgetful of the sacred claims of her wriggling offspring upon +a mother's heart. +</p> +<p> +In the pipe-fish family, too, the ardent evolutionist can trace a whole +series of instructive and illustrative gradations in the development of +this instinct and the corresponding pouch-like structure among the male +fish. With the least highly-evolved types, like the long-nosed +pipe-fish of the English Channel, and many allied forms from European +seas, there is no pouch at all, but the father of the family carries +the eggs about with him, glued firmly on to the service of his abdomen +by a natural mucus. In a somewhat more advanced tropical kind, the +ridges of the abdomen are slightly dilated, so as to form an open +groove, which loosely holds the eggs, though its edges do not meet in +the middle as in the great pipe-fish. Then come yet other more +progressive forms, like the great pipe-fish himself, where the folds +meet so as to produce a complete sac, which opens at maturity, to let +out its little inmates. And finally, in the common Mediterranean +sea-horses, which you can pick up by dozens on the Lido at Venice, and +a specimen of which exists in the dried form in every domestic museum, +the pouch is permanently closed by coalescence of the edges, leaving a +narrow opening in front, through which the small hippocampi creep out +one by one as soon as they consider themselves capable of buffeting the +waves of the Adriatic. +</p> +<p> +Fish that take much care of their offspring naturally don't need to +produce eggs in the same reckless abundance as those dissipated kinds +that leave their spawn exposed on the bare sandy bottom, at the mercy +of every comer who chooses to take a bite at it. They can afford to lay +a smaller number, and to make each individual egg much larger and +richer in proportion than their rivals. This plan, of course, enables +the young to begin life far better provided with muscles and fins than +the tiny little fry which come out of the eggs of the improvident +species. For example, the cod-fish lays nine million odd eggs; but +anybody who has ever eaten fried cod's-roe must needs have noticed that +each individual ovum was so very small as to be almost indistinguishable +to the naked eye. Thousands of these infinitesimal specks are devoured +before they hatch out by predaceous fish; thousands more of the young +fry are swallowed alive during their helpless infancy by the enemies of +their species. Imagine the very fractional amount of parental affection +which each of the nine million must needs put up with! On the other +hand, there is a paternally-minded group of cat-fish known as the genus +<i>Arius</i>, of Ceylon, Australia, and other tropical parts, the males of +which carry about the ova loose in their mouths, or rather in an +enlargement of the pharynx, somewhat resembling the pelican's pouch; +and the spouses of these very devoted sires lay accordingly only very +few ova, all told, but each almost as big as a hedge-sparrow's egg—a +wonderful contrast to the tiny mites of the cod-fish. To put it +briefly, the greater the amount of protection afforded the eggs, the +smaller the number and the larger the size. And conversely, the larger +the size of the egg to start with, the better fitted to begin the +battle of life is the young fish when first turned out on a cold world +upon his own resources. +</p> +<p> +This is a general law, indeed, that runs through all nature, from +London slums to the deep sea. Wasteful species produce many young, and +take but little care of them when once produced. Economical species +produce very few young, but start each individual well-equipped for its +place in life and look after them closely till they can take care of +themselves in the struggle for existence. And on the average, however +many or however few the offspring to start with, just enough attain +maturity in the long run to replace their parents in the next +generation. Were it otherwise, the sea would soon become one solid mass +of herring, cod, and mackerel. +</p> +<p> +These cat-fish, however, are not the only good fathers that carry their +young (like woodcock) in their own mouths. A freshwater species of the +Sea of Galilee, <i>Chromis Andreæ</i> by name (dedicated by science to the +memory of that fisherman apostle, St. Andrew, who must often have +netted them), has the same habit of hatching out its young in its own +gullet: and here again it is the male fish upon whom this apparently +maternal duty devolves, just as it is the male cassowary that sits upon +the eggs of his unnatural mate, and the male emu that tends the nest, +while the hen bird looks on superciliously and contents herself with +exercising a general friendly supervision of the nursery department. I +may add parenthetically that in most fish families the eggs are +fertilised after they have been laid, instead of before, which no doubt +accounts for the seeming anomaly. +</p> +<p> +Still, good mothers too may be found among fish, though far from +frequently. One of the Guiana catfishes, known as Aspredo, very much +resembles her countrywoman the Surinam toad in her nursery +arrangements. Of course you know the Surinam toad—whom not to know +argues yourself unknown—that curious creature that carries her eggs in +little pits on her back, where the young hatch out and pass through +their tadpole stage in a slimy fluid, emerging at last from the cells +of this living honeycomb only when they have attained the full +amphibian honours of four-legged maturity. Well, Aspredo among cat-fish +manages her brood in much the same fashion; only she carries her eggs +beneath her body instead of on her back like her amphibious rival. When +spawning time approaches, and Aspredo's fancy lightly turns to thoughts +of love, the lower side of her trunk begins to assume, by anticipation, +a soft and spongy texture, honeycombed with pits, between which are +arranged little spiky protuberances. After laying her eggs, the mother +lies flat upon them on the river bottom, and presses them into the +spongy skin, where they remain safely attached until they hatch out and +begin to manage for themselves in life. It is curious that the only two +creatures on earth which have hit out independently this original mode +of providing for their offspring should both be citizens of Guiana, +where the rivers and marshes must probably harbour some special danger +to be thus avoided, not found in equal intensity in other fresh waters. +</p> +<p> +A prettily marked fish of the Indian Ocean, allied, though not very +closely, to the pipe fishes, has also the distinction of handing over +the young to the care of the mother instead of the father. Its name is +Solenostoma (I regret that no more popular title exists), and it has a +pouch, formed in this case by a pair of long broad fins, within which +the eggs are attached by interlacing threads that push out from the +body. Probably in this instance nutriment is actually provided through +these threads for the use of the embryo, in which case we must regard +the mechanism as very closely analogous indeed to that which obtains +among mammals. +</p> +<p> +Some few fish, indeed, are truly viviparous; among them certain +blennies and carps, in which the eggs hatch out entirely within the +body of the mother. One of the most interesting of these divergent +types is the common Californian and Mexican silver-fish, an inhabitant +of the bays and inlets of sub-tropical America. Its chief peculiarity +and title to fame lies in the extreme bigness of its young at birth. +The full-grown fish runs to about ten inches in length, fisherman's +scale, while the fry measure as much as three inches apiece; so that +they lie, as Professor Seeley somewhat forcibly expresses it, 'packed +in the body of the parent as close as herrings in a barrel.' This +strange habit of retaining the eggs till after they have hatched out is +not peculiar to fish among egg-laying animals, for the common little +brown English lizard is similarly viviparous, though most of its +relatives elsewhere deposit their eggs to be hatched by the heat of the +sun in earth or sandbanks. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Hannibal Chollop, if I recollect aright, once shot an imprudent +stranger for remarking in print that the ancient Athenians, that +inferior race, had got ahead in their time of the modern Loco-foco +ticket. But several kinds of fish have undoubtedly got ahead in this +respect of the common reptilian ticket; for instead of leaving about +their eggs anywhere on the loose to take care of themselves, they build +a regular nest, like birds, and sit upon their eggs till the fry emerge +from them. All the sticklebacks, for instance, are confirmed +nest-builders: but here once more it is the male, not the female, who +weaves the materials together and takes care of the eggs during their +period of incubation. The receptacle itself is made of fibres of +water-weeds or stalks of grass, and is open at both ends to let a +current pass through. As soon as the lordly little polygamist has built +it, he coaxes and allures his chosen mates into the entrance, one by +one, to lay their eggs; and then when the nest is full, he mounts guard +over them bravely, fanning them with his fins, and so keeping up a +continual supply of oxygen which is necessary for the proper +development of the embryo within. It takes a month's sitting before the +young hatch out, and even after they appear, this excellent father +(little Turk though he be, and savage warrior for the stocking of his +harem) goes out attended by all his brood whenever he sallies forth for +a morning constitutional in search of caddis-worms, which shows that +there may be more good than we imagine, after all, in the domestic +institutions even of people who don't agree with us. +</p> +<p> +The bullheads or miller's thumbs, those quaint big-headed beasts which +divide with the sticklebacks the polite attentions of ingenious British +youth, are also nest-builders, and the male fish are said to anxiously +watch and protect their offspring during their undisciplined nonage. +Equally domestic are the habits of those queer shapeless creatures, the +marine lump-suckers, which fasten themselves on to rocks, like limpets, +by their strange sucking disks, and defy all the efforts of enemy or +fishermen to dislodge them by main force from their well-chosen +position. The pretty little tropical walking-fish of the filuroid +tribe—those fish out of water—carry the nest-making instinct a point +further, for they go ashore boldly at the beginning of the rainy season +in their native woods, and scoop out a hole in the beach as a place of +safety, in which they make regular nests of leaves and other +terrestrial materials to hold their eggs. Then father and mother take +turns-about at looking after the hatching, and defend the spawn with +great zeal and courage against all intruders. +</p> +<p> +I regret to say, however, there are other unprincipled fish which +display their affection and care for their young in far more +questionable and unpleasant manners. For instance, there is that +uncanny creature that inserts its parasitic fry as a tiny egg inside +the unsuspecting shells of mussels and cockles. Our fishermen are only +too well acquainted, again, with one unpleasant marine lamprey, the hag +or borer, so called because it lives parasitically upon other fishes, +whose bodies it enters, and then slowly eats them up from within +outward, till nothing at all is left of them but skin, scales, and +skeleton. They are repulsive eel-shaped creatures, blind, soft, and +slimy; their mouth consists of a hideous rasping sucker; and they pour +out from the glands on their sides a copious mucus, which makes them as +disagreeable to handle as they are unsightly to look at. Mackerel and +cod are the hag's principal victims; but often the fisherman draws up a +hag-eaten haddock on the end of his line, of which not a wrack remains +but the hollow shell or bare outer simulacrum. As many as twenty of +these disgusting parasites have sometimes been found within the body of +a single cod-fish. +</p> +<p> +Yet see how carefully nature provides nevertheless for the due +reproduction of even her most loathsome and revolting creations. The +hag not only lays a small number of comparatively large and well-stored +eggs, but also arranges for their success in life by supplying each +with a bundle of threads at either end, every such thread terminating +at last in a triple hook, like those with which we are so familiar in +the case of adhesive fruits and seeds, like burrs or cleavers. By means +of these barbed processes, the eggs attach themselves to living fishes; +and the young borer, as soon as he emerges from his horny covering, +makes his way at once into the body of his unconscious host, whom he +proceeds by slow degrees to devour alive with relentless industry, from +the intestines outward. This beautiful provision of nature enables the +infant hag to start in life at once in very snug quarters upon a +ready-made fish preserve. I understand, however, that cod-fish +philosophers, actuated by purely personal and selfish conceptions of +utility, refuse to admit the beauty or beneficence of this most +satisfactory arrangement for the borer species. +</p> +<p> +Probably the best known of all fishes' eggs, however (with the solitary +exception of the sturgeon's, commonly observed between brown bread and +butter, under the name of caviare), are the queer leathery purse-shaped +ova of the sharks, rays, skates, and dog-fishes. Everybody has picked +them up on the seashore, where children know them as devil's purses and +devil's wheelbarrows. Most of these queer eggs are oblong and +quadrangular, with the four corners produced into a sort of handles or +streamers, often ending in long tendrils, and useful for attaching them +to corallines or seaweeds on the bed of the ocean. But it is worth +noticing that in colour the egg-cases closely resemble the common wrack +to which they are oftenest fastened; and as they wave up and down in +the water with the dark mass around them, they must be almost +indistinguishable from the wrack itself by the keenest-sighted of their +enemies. This protective resemblance, coupled with the toughness and +slipperiness of their leathery envelope or egg-shell, renders them +almost perfectly secure from all evil-minded intruders. As a +consequence, the dog-fish lay but very few eggs each season, and those +few, large and well provided with nutriment for their spotted +offspring. It is these purses, and those of the thornback and the +edible skate, that we oftenest pick up on the English coast. The larger +oceanic sharks are mostly viviparous. +</p> +<p> +In some few cases, indeed, among the shark and ray family, the +mechanism for protection goes a step or two further than in these +simple kinds. That well-known frequenter of Australian harbours, the +Port Jackson shark, lays a pear-shaped egg, with a sort of spiral +staircase of leathery ridges winding round it outside, Chinese pagoda +wise, so that even if you bite it (I speak in the person of a +predaceous fish) it eludes your teeth, and goes dodging off +screw-fashion into the water beyond. There's no getting at this evasive +body anywhere; when you think you have it, it wriggles away sideways, +and refuses to give any hold for jaws or palate. In fact, a more +slippery or guileful egg was never yet devised by nature's unconscious +ingenuity. Then, again, the Antarctic chimæra (so called from its very +unprepossessing personal appearance) relies rather upon pure deception +than upon mechanical means for the security of its eggs. The shell or +case in this instance is prolonged at the edge into a kind of broad +wing on either side, so that it exactly resembles one of the large flat +leaves of the Antarctic fucus in whose midst it lurks. It forms the +high-water mark, I fancy, of protective resemblance amongst eggs, for +not only is the margin leaf-like in shape, but it is even gracefully +waved and fringed with floating hairs, as is the fashion with the +expanded fronds of so many among the gigantic far-southern sea-weeds. +</p> +<p> +A most curious and interesting set of phenomena are those which often +occur when a group of fishes, once marine, take by practice to +inhabiting freshwater rivers; or, <i>vice-versâ,</i> when a freshwater kind, +moved by an aspiration for more expansive surroundings, takes up its +residence in the sea as a naturalised marine. Whenever such a change of +address happens, it usually follows that the young fry cannot stand the +conditions of the new home to which their ancestors were +unaccustomed—we all know the ingrained conservatism of children—and +so the parents are obliged once a year to undertake a pilgrimage to +their original dwelling-place for the breeding season. +</p> +<p> +Extreme cases of terrestrial animals, once aquatic in habits, throw a +flood of lurid light (as the newspapers say) upon the reason why this +should be so. For example, frogs and toads develop from tadpoles, which +in all essentials are true gill-breathing fish. It is, therefore, +obvious that they cannot lay their eggs on dry land, where the tadpoles +would be unable to find anything to breathe; so that even the driest +and most tree-haunting toads must needs repair to the water once a year +to deposit their spawn in its native surroundings. Once more, crabs +pass their earlier larval stages as free-swimming crustaceans, somewhat +shrimp-like in appearance, and as agile as fleas: it is only by gradual +metamorphosis that they acquire their legs and claws and heavy +pedestrian habits. Now there are certain kinds of crab, like the West +Indian land-crabs (those dainty morsels whose image every epicure who +has visited the Antilles still enshrines with regret in a warm corner +of his heart), which have taken in adult life to walking bodily on +shore, and visiting the summits of the highest mountains, like the fish +of Deucalion's deluge in Horace. But once a year, as the land-crabs +bask in the sun on St. Catherine's Peak or the Fern Walk, a strange +instinctive longing comes over them automatically to return for a while +to their native element; and, obedient to that inner monitor of their +race, down they march in thousands, <i>velut agmine facto</i>, to lay their +eggs at their leisure in Port Royal harbour. On the way, the negroes +catch them, all full of rich coral, waiting to be spawned; and Chloe or +Dinah, serves them up hot, with breadcrumbs, in their own red shells, +neatly nestling between the folds of a nice white napkin. The rest run +away, and deposit their eggs in the sea, where the young hatch out, and +pass their larval stage once more as free and active little swimming +crustaceans. +</p> +<p> +Well, crabs, I need hardly explain in this age of enlightenment, are +not fish; but their actions help to throw a side-light on the migratory +instinct in salmon, eels, and so many other true fish which have +changed with time their aboriginal habits. The salmon himself, for +instance, is by descent a trout, and in the parr stage he is even now +almost indistinguishable from many kinds of river-trout that never +migrate seaward at all. But at some remote period, the ancestors of the +true salmon took to going down to the great deep in search of food, and +being large and active fish, found much more to eat in the salt water +than ever they had discovered in their native streams. So they settled +permanently in their new home, as far as their own lives went at least; +though they found the tender young could not stand the brine that did +no harm to the tougher constitutions of the elders. No doubt the change +was made gradually, a bit at a time, through the brackish water, the +species getting further and further seaward down bays and estuaries +with successive generations, but always returning to spawn in its +native river, as all well-behaved salmon do to the present moment. At +last, the habit hardened into an organic instinct, and nowadays the +young salmon hatch out like their fathers as parr in fresh water, then +go to the sea in the grilse stage and grow enormously, and finally +return as full-grown salmon to spawn and breed in their particular +birthplace. +</p> +<p> +Exactly the opposite fate has happened to the eels. The salmonoids as a +family are freshwater fish, and by far the greater number of +kinds—trout, char, whitefish, grayling, pollan, vendace, gwyniad, and +so forth—are inhabitants of lakes, steams, ponds, and rivers, only a +very small number having taken permanently or temporarily to a marine +residence. But the eels, as a family, are a saltwater group, most of +their allies, like the congers and murænas, being exclusively confined +to the sea, and only a very small number of aberrant types having ever +taken to invading inland waters. If the life-history of the salmon, +however, has given rise to as much controversy as the Mar peerage, the +life-history of the eel is a complete mystery. To begin with, nobody +has ever so much as distinguished between male and female eels; except +microscopically, eels have never been seen in the act of spawning, nor +observed anywhere with mature eggs. The ova themselves are wholly +unknown: the mode of their production is a dead secret. All we know is +this: that eels never reproduce in fresh water; that a certain number +of adults descend the rivers to the sea, irregularly, during the winter +months; and that some of these must presumably spawn with the utmost +circumspection in brackish water or in the deep sea, for in the course +of the summer myriads of young eels, commonly called grigs, and +proverbial for their merriment, ascend the rivers in enormous bodies, +and enter every smaller or larger tributary. +</p> +<p> +If we know little about the paternity and maternity of eels, we know a +great deal about their childhood and youth, or, to speak more eelishly, +their grigginess and elverhood. The young grigs, when they do make +their appearance, leave us in no doubt at all about their presence or +their reality. They wriggle up weirs, walls, and floodgates; they force +there way bodily through chinks and apertures; they find out every +drain, pipe, or conduit in a given plane rectilinear figure; and when +all other spots have been fully occupied, they take to dry land, like +veritable snakes, and cut straight across country for the nearest lake, +pond, or ornamental waters. +</p> +<p> +These swarms or migrations are known to farmers as eel-fairs; but the +word ought more properly to be written eel-fares, as the eels then fare +or travel up the streams to their permanent quarters. A great many +eels, however, never migrate seaward at all, and never seem to attain +to years of sexual maturity. They merely bury themselves under stones +in winter, and live and die as celibates in their inland retreats. So +very terrestrial do they become, indeed, that eels have been taken with +rats or field-mice undigested in their stomachs. +</p> +<p> +The sturgeon is another more or less migratory fish, originally (like +the salmon) of freshwater habits, but now partially marine, which +ascends its parent stream for spawning during the summer season. +Incredible quantities are caught for caviare in the great Russian +rivers. At one point on the Volga, a hundred thousand people collect in +spring for the fishery, and work by relays, day and night continuously, +as long as the sturgeons are going up stream. On some of the +tributaries, when fishing is intermitted for a single day, the +sturgeons have been known to completely fill a river 360 feet wide, so +that the backs of the uppermost fish were pushed out of the water. (I +take this statement, not from the 'Arabian Nights,' as the scoffer +might imagine, but from that most respectable authority, Professor +Seeley.) Still, in spite of the enormous quantity killed, there is no +danger of any falling off in the supply for the future, for every fish +lays from two to three million eggs, each of which, as caviare eaters +well know, is quite big enough to be distinctly seen with the naked eye +in the finished product. The best caviare is simply bottled exactly as +found, with the addition merely of a little salt. No man of taste can +pretend to like the nasty sun-dried sort, in which the individual eggs +are reduced to a kind of black pulp, and pressed hard with the feet +into doubtful barrels. +</p> +<p> +In conclusion, let me add one word of warning as to certain popular +errors about the young fry of sundry well-known species. Nothing is +more common than to hear it asserted that sprats are only immature +herring. This is a complete mistake. Believe it not. Sprats are a very +distinct species of the herring genus, and they never grow much bigger +than when they appear, <i>brochés</i>, at table. The largest adult sprat +measures only six inches, while full-grown herring may attain as much +as fifteen. Moreover, herring have teeth on the palate, always wanting +in sprats, by which means the species may be readily distinguished at +all ages. When in doubt, therefore, do not play trumps, but examine the +palate. On the other hand, whitebait, long supposed to be a distinct +species, has now been proved by Dr. Günther, the greatest of +ichthyologists, to consist chiefly of the fry or young of herring. To +complete our discomfiture, the same eminent authority has also shown +that the pilchard and the sardine, which we thought so unlike, are one +and the same fish, called by different names according as he is caught +off the Cornish coast or in Breton, Portuguese, or Mediterranean +waters. Such aliases are by no means uncommon among his class. To say +the plain truth, fish are the most variable and ill-defined of animals; +they differ so much in different habitats, so many hybrids occur +between them, and varieties merge so readily by imperceptible stages +into one another, that only an expert can decide in doubtful cases—and +every expert carefully reverses the last man's opinion. Let us at least +be thankful that whitebait by any other name would eat as nice; that +science has not a single whisper to breathe against their connection +with lemon; and that whether they are really the young of <i>Clupea +harengus</i> or not, the supply at Billingsgate shows no symptom of +falling short of the demand. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch11"></a>AN ENGLISH SHIRE. +</h2> +<p> +For the reasons which have determined the existence of Sussex as a +county of England, and which have given it the exact boundaries that it +now possesses, we must go back to the remote geological history of the +secondary ages. Its limits and its very existence as a separate shire +were predetermined for it by the shape and consistence of the mud or +sand which gathered at the bottom of the great Wealden lake, or filled +up the hollows of the old inland cretaceous sea. Paradoxical as it +sounds to say so, the Celtic kingdom of the Regni, the South Saxon +principality of Ælle the Bretwalda, the modern English county of +Sussex, have all had their destinies moulded by the geological +conformation of the rock upon which they repose. Where human annals see +only the handicraft and interaction of human beings—Euskarian and +Aryan, Celt and Roman, Englishman and Norman—a closer scrutiny of +history may perhaps see the working of still deeper elements—chalk and +clay, volcanic upheaval and glacial denudation, barren upland and +forest-clad plain. The value and importance of these underlying facts +in the comprehension of history has, I believe, been very generally +overlooked; and I propose accordingly here to take the single county of +Sussex in detail, in order to show that when the geological and +geographical factors of the problem are given, all the rest follows as +a matter of course. By such detailed treatment alone can one hope to +establish the truth of the general principle that human history is at +bottom a result of geographical conditions, acting upon the +fundamentally identical constitution of man. +</p> +<p> +In a certain sense, it is quite clear that human life depends mainly +upon soil and conformation, to an extent that nobody denies. You cannot +have a dense population in Sahara; and you can hardly fail to have one +in the fruitful valley of the Nile. The growth of towns in one district +rather than another must be governed largely by the existence of rivers +or harbours, of coal or metals, of agricultural lowlands or defensible +heights. Glasgow could not spring up in inland Leicestershire, nor +Manchester in coalless Norfolk. Insular England must naturally be the +greatest shipping country in Europe; while no large foreign trade is +possible in any Bohemia except Shakespeare's. So much everybody admits. +But it seems to me that these underlying causes have coloured the +entire local history of every district to an extent which few people +adequately recognise, and that until such recognition becomes more +general, our views of history must necessarily be very narrow. We must +see not only that something depends upon geographical configuration, +not even merely that a great deal depends upon it, but that everything +depends upon it. We must unlearn our purely human history, and learn a +history of interaction between nature and man instead. +</p> +<p> +From the great central boss of the chalk system in Salisbury Plain, two +long cretaceous horns or projections run out to eastward towards the +Channel and the German Sea. These two horns, separated by the deep +valley of the Weald, are known as the North and South Downs +respectively. The first great spur or ridge passes through the heart of +Surrey, and then forms the backbone of Kent, expanding into a fan at +its eastward extremity, where it topples over abruptly into the sea in +the sheer bluffs which sweep round in a huge arc from the North +Foreland in the Isle of Thanet, to Shakespeare's Cliff at Dover. The +second or southernmost range, that of the South Downs, parts company +from the main boss in Hampshire, and runs eastward in a narrower but +bolder line, till the Channel cuts short its progress in the water-worn +precipice of Beachy Head. Between these two ranges of Downs lies the +low forest region of the Weald, and between the South Downs and the sea +stretches a long but very narrow strip of lowland, beginning at +Chichester, and ending where the chalk cliffs first meet the shore +beside the new Aquarium and Chain Pier at Brighton. Thus the whole of +Sussex consists of three well-marked parallel belts: the low coast-line +on the south-west, the high chalk Downs in the centre, and the Weald +district on the north and north-west. As these three belts determine +the whole history and very existence of Sussex as an English shire, I +shall make no apology for treating their origin here in some rapid +detail. +</p> +<p> +The oldest geological formation with which we have to deal in Sussex +(to any considerable extent) is the Wealden: so that our inquiry need +not go any farther back in the history of the world than the later +secondary ages. Before that time, and for long æons afterward, the +portion of the earth's crust which now forms Sussex had probably never +emerged from the ocean. Britain was then wholly represented by the +primary regions of Wales, Scotland, and Cornwall, forming a small +archipelago or group of rocky islands separated at some distance by a +wide passage from the nucleus of the young European continent. But by +the Wealden period, the English Channel and the Eastern half of England +had been considerably elevated above the level of the sea. Great rivers +and lakes existed in this new continental region, much like those which +now exist in Sweden, Northern Russia, and Canada; and the deposits of +sand or mud formed at their bottoms or in their estuaries compose the +chief part of the Wealden formation in England. Without going fully +into this question (somewhat complicated by frequent changes of level), +it will suffice for our present purpose to say that the Wealden +consists, in the main, of two great divisions, which form, so to speak, +the floor, or lowest story, of the Sussex formations. The first or +bottom division is chiefly composed of a rather soft and friable +sandstone, which runs through the whole Forest Ridges, and crops out in +the grey cliffs of Hastings and Fairlight. The second or upper division +is chiefly composed of a thick greasy clay, which forms the soil in the +greater part of the Weald, and glides unobtrusively under the sea in +the flat shore on either side of Hastings, giving rise to the lowlands +of Pevensey Bay and the Romney Marshes. Why the sandstone, which is +really the bottom layer, should appear higher than the clay in these +places, we shall see a little later. +</p> +<p> +After the deposition of the gritty or muddy Wealden beds in the lake +and <i>embouchure</i> of the old continental river, there came a second +period of considerable depression, during which the whole of +south-eastern England was once more covered by a shallow sea. This sea +ran, like an early northern Mediterranean, right across the face of +Central Europe; and on its bottom was deposited the soft ooze of +globigerina shells and siliceous sponge skeletons which has now +hardened into chalk and flint. A great cretaceous sheet thus overlay +the Wealden beds and the whole face of Sussex to a depth of at least +600 feet; and if it had not been afterwards worn off in places, as the +nursery rhyme says of old Pillicock, it would be there still. I need +hardly say that the chalk is yet <i>en évidence</i> along the whole range of +South Downs, and forms the tall white cliffs between Brighton and +Beachy Head. +</p> +<p> +Finally, during the Tertiary period, another layer of London clay and +other soft deposits was spread over the top of the chalk, certainly on +the strip between the South Downs and the sea, and probably over the +whole district between the Channel and the Thames valley: though in +this case, later denudation has proceeded so far that very few traces +of the Tertiary formations are preserved anywhere except in the greater +hollows. +</p> +<p> +Such being the original disposition of the strata which compose Sussex, +we have next to ask, What are the causes which have produced its +existing configuration? If the whole mass had merely been uplifted +straight out of the sea, we ought now to find the whole country a flat +and level table-land, covered over its entire surface with a uniform +coat of Tertiary deposits. On digging or boring below these, we ought +to come upon the chalk, and below the chalk again, with its cretaceous +congeners the greensand or the gault, we ought to meet the Weald clay +and the Hastings sand. Wherever a seaward cliff exhibited a section for +our observation, we ought to find these same strata all exposed in +regular order—the sandstone at the bottom, the clay above it, the +broad belt of chalk halfway up, and the Tertiary muds and rubbles at +the top. But in the county as we actually find it, we get a very +different state of things. Here, the surface at sea-level is composed +of London clay; there, a great mound of chalk rises into a swelling +down; and yonder, once more, a steep escarpment leads us down into a +broad lowland of the Weald. The causes which have led to this +arrangement of surface and conformation must now be considered with +necessary brevity. +</p> +<p> +The North and South Downs, with all the country between them, form part +of a great fold or outward bulge of the strata above enumerated, having +its centre about the middle line of the Forest Ridge. Imagine these +strata bent or pushed upward by an internal upheaving force acting +along that line, and you will get a rough picture of the original +circumstances which have led to the existing arrangement of the county. +You would then have, instead of a flat table-land, as supposed above, a +great curved mountain slope, with its centre on top of the Forest +Ridge. This gentle slope would rise from the sea between Chichester and +a point south of Beachy, would swell slowly upward till it reached a +height of two or three thousand feet at the Surrey border, and would +fall again gradually towards the Thames valley at London. On the +southern side of the Downs this is pretty much what we now get, the +Tertiary strata being preserved in the district near Chichester; though +farther east, around Newhaven and Beachy Head, the sea has encroached +upon the chalk so as to cut out the great white cliffs which bound the +view everywhere along the shore from Brighton to Eastbourne. In the +central portion of the boss, however, almost all the highest elevated +part has been denuded by ice or water action. Between the North and +South Downs, where we ought to find the mountain ridge, we find instead +the valley of the Weald. Here the chalk has been quite worn away, +giving rise to the steep escarpment on the northern side of the South +Downs, seen from the Devil's Dyke, so that at the foot of the sudden +descent we get the Weald clay exposed; while in the very centre of the +upheaved tract the clay itself has been cut through, and the Hastings +sand appears upon the surface. Moreover, the sand, being upraised by +the central force, stands higher than the clay on either side, which +forms the trough of the Weald; and thus the forest ridge, which abuts +upon the sea in the cliffs of Hastings Castle, seems to lie above the +clay, under which, however, it really glides on either side. I need +hardly add that this rough diagrammatic description is only meant as a +general indication of the facts, and that it considerably simplifies +the real geological changes probably involved in the sculpture of +Sussex. Nevertheless, I believe it pretty accurately represents the +main formative points in the ante-human history of the county. +</p> +<p> +So much by way of preface or introduction. These facts of structure +form the data for the reconstruction of the Sussex annals during the +human period. Upon them as framework all the subsequent development of +the county hangs. And first let us observe how, before the advent of +man upon the scene, the shire was already strictly demarcated by its +natural boundaries. Along the coast, between Chichester Harbour and +Brighton, stretched a long, narrow, level strip of clay and alluvium, +suitable for the dwelling-place of an agricultural people. Back of this +coastwise belt lay the bare rounded range of the South Downs—good +grazing land for sheep, but naturally incapable of cultivation. Two +rivers, however, flowed in deep valleys through the Downs, and their +basins, with the outlying combes and glens, were also the predestined +seats of agricultural communities. The one was the Ouse, passing +through the fertile country around Lewes, and falling at last into the +English Channel at Seaford, not as now at Newhaven; the other was the +Cuckmere river, which has cut itself a deep glen in the chalk hills +just beneath the high cliffs of Beachy Head. Beyond the Downs again, to +the north, the country descended abruptly to the deep trough of the +Weald, whose cold and sticky clays or porous sandstones are never of +any use for purposes of tillage. Hence, as its very name tells us, the +Weald has always been a wild and wood-clad region. The Romans knew it +as the Silva Anderida, or forest of Pevensey; the early English as the +Andredesweald. Both names are derived from a Celtic root signifying +'The Uninhabited.' Even in our own day, a large part of this tract is +covered by the woodlands of Tolgate Forest, St. Leonard's Forest, and +Ashdown Forest; while the remainder is only very scantily laid down in +pasture-land or hop-fields, with a considerable sprinkling of copses, +woods, commons, and parks. From its very nature, indeed, the Weald can +never be anything else, in its greater portion, than a wild, +uncultivated, and wooded region. +</p> +<p> +Let us note, too, how the really habitable strip of Sussex, from the +point of view of an early people, was quite naturally cut off from all +other parts of England by obvious limits. This habitable strip +consists, of course, of the coastwise belt from Brighton to the +Hampshire border (which belt I shall henceforward take the liberty of +designating as Sussex Proper), together with the seaward valleys and +combes of the South Downs. To the west, the great tidal flats and +swamps about Hayling Island cut off Sussex from Hampshire; and before +drainage and reclamation had done their work, these marshy districts +must have formed a most impassable frontier. From this point, the great +woodland region of the Weald, thickly covered with primæval forest, and +tenanted by wolves, bears, wild boars, and red deer, swept round in a +long curve from the swamps at Bosham and Havant to the corresponding +swamps of the opposite end at Pevensey and Hurstmonceux. The belt of +savage wooded country, thick with the lairs of wild beasts, which thus +ringed round the greater part of the county, shut off the coastwise +strip at once from all possibility of communication with the rest of +England. So Sussex Proper and the combes of the Downs were naturally +predestined to form a single Celtic kingdom, a single Saxon +principality, and a single English shire. +</p> +<p> +It will be observed that this description leaves wholly out of +consideration the strip of country about Hastings, Rye, and Winchelsea. +It does so intentionally. That strip of country does not belong to +Sussex in the same intimate and strictly necessary manner as the rest +of the county. It probably once formed the seat of a small independent +community by itself; and though there were good and obvious reasons why +it should become finally united to Sussex rather than to Kent, it may +be regarded as to some extent a debateable island between them. For an +island it practically was in early times. At Pevensey Bay the Weald ran +down into the sea by a series of swamps and bogs still artificially +drained by dykes and sluices. On the other side, the Romney marshes +formed a similar though wider stretch of tidal flats, reclaimed and +drained at a far later period, partly through the agency of the long +shingle bank thrown up round the low modern spit of Dungeness. Between +them, the Hastings cliffs rose high above marsh and sea. In their rear, +the Weald forest covered the ridge; so that the Hastings district +(still a separate rape or division of the county) formed a sort of +smaller Sussex, divided, like the larger one, from all the rest of +England by a semicircular belt of marsh, forest, and marsh once more. +These are the main elements out of which the history of the county is +made up. +</p> +<p> +How far such conditions may have acted upon the very earliest human +inhabitants of Sussex—the palæolithic savages of the drift—before the +last Glacial epoch, it is impossible to say, because we know that many +of them did not then exist, and that the present configuration of the +county is largely due to subsequent agencies. Britain was then united +to the continent by a broad belt of land, filling up the bed of the +English Channel, and it possessed a climate wholly different from that +of the present day; while the position of the drift and the river +gravels shows that the sculpture of the surface was then in many +respects unlike the existing distribution of hill and valley. We must +confine ourselves, therefore, to the later or recent period (subsequent +to the last glaciation of Britain), during which man has employed +implements of polished stone, of bronze, and of iron. +</p> +<p> +The Euskarian neolithic population of Britain—a dark white race, like +the modern Basques—had settlements in Sussex, at least in the coast +district between the Downs and the sea. Here they could obtain in +abundance the flints for the manufacture of their polished stone +hatchets; while on the alluvial lowlands of Selsea and Shoreham they +could grow those cereals upon which they largely depended for their +daily bread. Neolithic monuments, indeed, are common along the range of +the South Downs, as they are also on the main mass of the chalk in +Salisbury Plain; and at Cissbury Hill, near Worthing, we have remains +of one of the largest neolithic camp refuges in Britain. The evidence +of tumuli and weapons goes to show that the Euskarian people of Sussex +occupied the coast belt and the combes of the Downs from the Chichester +marshland to Pevensey, but that they did not spread at all into the +Weald. In fact, it is most probable that at this early period Sussex +was divided into several little tribes or chieftainships, each of which +had its own clearing in the lowland cut laboriously out of the forest +by the aid of its stone axes; while in the centre stood the compact +village of wooden huts, surrounded by a stockade, and girt without by +the small cultivated plots of the villagers. On the Downs above rose +the camp or refuge of the tribe—an earthwork rudely constructed in +accordance with the natural lines of the hills—to which the whole body +of people, with their women, children, and cattle, retreated in case of +hostile invasion from the villagers on either side. It is not likely +that any foreigners from beyond the great forest belt of the Weald +would ever come on the war-trail across that dangerous and trackless +wilderness; and it is probable, therefore, that the camps or refuges +were constructed as places of retreat for the tribes against their +immediate neighbours, rather than against alien intruders from without. +Hence we may reasonably conclude—as indeed is natural at such an early +stage of civilisation—that the whole district was not yet consolidated +under a single rule, but that each village still remained independent, +and liable to be engaged in hostilities with all others. Even if +extended chieftainships over several villages had already been set up, +as is perhaps implied by the great tumuli of chiefs and the size of the +camps in some parts of Britain, we must suppose them to have been +confined for the most part to a single river valley. If so, there may +have been petty Euskarian principalities, rude supremacies or +chieftainships like those of South Africa, in the Chichester lowlands, +in the dale of Arun, in the valleys of the Adur, the Ouse, and the +Cuckmere River, and perhaps, too, in the insulated Hastings region, +between the Pevensey levels and the Romney marsh. These principalities +would then roughly coincide with the modern rapes of Chichester, +Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey, and Hastings. Each would possess its +own group of villages, and tilled lowland, its own boundary of forest, +and its own camp of refuge on the hill-tops. Cissbury almost +undoubtedly formed such a camp for the fertile valley of the Adur and +the coast strip from Worthing to Brighton. On its summit has been +discovered an actual manufactory of stone implements from the copious +material supplied by the flint veins in the chalk of which it is +composed. +</p> +<p> +Such a society, left to itself in Sussex, could never have got much +further than this. It could not discover or use metals, when it had no +metal in its soil except the small quantity of iron to be found in the +then inaccessible Weald. It had no copper and no tin, and therefore it +could not manufacture bronze. But the geographical position of England +generally, within sight of the European continent, made it certain that +if ever anywhere else bronze should come to be used, the +bronze-weaponed people must ultimately cross over and subjugate the +stone-weaponed aborigines of the island. Moreover, bronze was certain +to be first hit upon in those countries where tin and copper were most +easily workable—that is to say, in Asia. From Asia, the secret of its +manufacture spread to the outlying peninsula of Europe, where it was +quickly adopted by the Aryan Celts, who had already invaded the +outlying continent, armed only with weapons of stone. As soon as they +had learnt the use of bronze, certain great changes and improvements +followed naturally—amongst others, an immense advance in the art of +boat-building. The Celts of the bronze age soon constructed vessels +which enabled them to cross the narrow seas and invade Britain. Their +superior weapons gave them at once an enormous advantage over the +Euskarian natives, armed only with their polished flint hatchets, and +before long they overran the whole island, save only the recesses of +Wales and the north of Scotland. From that moment, the bronze age of +Britain set in—say some 1,000 or 1,500 years before the Christian era. +</p> +<p> +The Celts, however, did not exterminate the whole Euskarian people; +they were too few in number and too far advanced in civilisation for +such a course. They knew it was better to make them slaves than to +destroy them: for the Celts had just reached, but had not yet got +beyond, the slave-making stage of culture. To this day, people of mixed +Euskarian parentage, and marked by the long skull, dark complexion, and +black eyes of the Euskarian type, form a large proportion of the +English peasantry; and they are found even in Sussex, which +subsequently suffered more than most other parts of Britain from the +destructive deluge of Teutonic barbarism in the fifth century. But +though the Celts did not exterminate the Euskarians, they completely +Celticised them, just as the Teuton is now Teutonising the old +population of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In South Wales and +elsewhere, indeed, the aborigines retained their own language and +institutions, as Silures and so forth; but in the conquered districts +of southern and eastern Britain they learned the tongue of their +masters, and came to be counted as Celtic serfs. Thus, at the time when +Britain comes forth into the full historic glare of Roman civilisation, +we find the country inhabited by a Celtic aristocracy of Aryan +type—round-headed, fair-haired, and blue-eyed; together-with a <i>plebs</i> +of Celticised Euskarian or half-caste serfs, retaining, as they still +retain, the long skulls and dark complexions of their aboriginal +ancestors. This was the ethnical composition of the Sussex population +at the date of the first Roman invasions. +</p> +<p> +Under the bronze-weaponed Celts, a very different type of civilisation +became possible. In the first place a more extended chieftainship +resulted from the improved weapons and consequent military power; and +all Britain (at least, towards the close of the Celtic domination) +became amalgamated into considerable kingdoms, some of which seem to +have spread over several modern shires. Sussex, however, enclosed by +its barrier of forest, would naturally remain a single little +principality of itself, held, at least in later times, by a tribe known +to the Romans as Regni. Traces of Celtic occupation are mainly confined +to the Downs and the seaward slope of Sussex Proper; in the broad +expanse of the Weald, they are few and far between. The Celts occupied +the fertile valleys and alluvial slopes, cut down the woods by the +river sides and on the plains, and built their larger and more regular +camps of refuge upon the Downs, for protection against the kindred +Cantii beyond the Weald, or the more distantly-related Belgæ across the +Hayling tidal flats. Of these hill-forts, Hollingbury Castle, near +Brighton, may be taken as a typical example. Bronze weapons and other +implements of the bronze age are found in great numbers about Lewes in +particular (where the isolated height, now crowned by the Norman +Castle, must always have commanded the fertile river vale of the Ouse), +as well as at Chichester, Bognor, and elsewhere. But the great forest, +inhabited by savage beasts and still more terrible fiends, proved a +barrier to their northward extension. Even if they had cleared the +land, they could not have cultivated it with their existing methods; +and so it is only in a few spots near the upper river valleys that we +find any traces of outlying Celtic hamlets in the wilderness of the +Weald. Some kind of trade, however, must have existed between the Regni +and the other tribes of Britain, in order to supply them with the +bronze, whose component elements Sussex does not possess. Woolsonbury, +Westburton Hill, Clayton Hill, Wilmington, Hangleton Down, Plumpton +Plain, and many other places along the coast have yielded large numbers +of bronze implements; while the occurrence of the raw metal in lumps, +together with the finished weapons, at Worthing and Beachy Head, as +well the discovery of a mould for a socketed celt at Wilmington, shows +that the actual foundry work was performed in Sussex itself. A +beautiful torque from Hollingbury Castle attests the workmanship of the +Sussex founders. No doubt the tin was imported from Cornwall, while the +copper was probably brought over from the continent. Glass beads, +doubtless of Southern (perhaps Egyptian) manufacture, have also been +found in Sussex, with implements of the bronze age. +</p> +<p> +In the polished stone age, the county had been self-supporting, because +of its possession of flint. In the bronze age it was dependent upon +other places, through its non-possession of copper or tin. During the +former period it may have exported weapons from Cissbury; during the +latter, it must have imported the material of weapons from Cornwall and +Gaul. +</p> +<p> +Before the Romans came, the Celts of Britain had learned the use of +iron. Whether they ever worked the iron of the Weald, however, is +uncertain. But as the ores lie near the surface, as wood (to be made +into charcoal) for the smelting was abundant, and as these two facts +caused the Weald iron to be extensively employed in later times, it is +probable that small clearings would be made in the most accessible +spots, and that rude ironworks would be established. +</p> +<p> +The same geographical causes which made Britain part of the Roman world +naturally affected Sussex, as one of its component portions. Even under +the Empire, however, the county remained singularly separate. The +Romans built two strong fortresses at Anderida and Regnum, Pevensey and +Chichester, to guard the two Gwents or lowland plains, where the shore +shelves slowly to seaward; and they ran one of their great roads across +the coastwise tract, from Dover to the Portus Magnus (now Porchester), +near Portsmouth; but they left Sussex otherwise very much to its own +devices. We know that the Regni were still permitted to keep their +native chief, who probably exercised over his tribesmen somewhat the +same subordinate authority which a Rájput raja now exercises under the +British government. Here, again, we see the natural result of the +isolation of Sussex. The Romans ruled directly in the open plains of +the Yorkshire Ouse and the Thames, as we ourselves rule in the Bengal +Delta, the Doáb, and the Punjáb; but they left a measure of +independence to the native princes of south Wales, of Sussex, and of +Cornwall, as we ourselves do to the native rulers in the deserts of +Rájputana, the inaccessible mountains of Nipal, and the aboriginal hill +districts of Central India. +</p> +<p> +When the Roman power began to decay, the outlying possessions were the +first to be given up. The Romans had enslaved and demoralised the +provincial population; and when they were gone, the great farms tilled +by slave labour under the direction of Roman mortgagee-proprietors lay +open to the attacks of fresh and warlike barbarians from beyond the +sea. How early the fertile east coasts of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and +East Anglia may have fallen a prey to the Teutonic pirates we cannot +say. The wretched legends, indeed, retailed to us by Gildas, Bæda, and +the English Chronicle, would have us believe that they were colonised +at a later period; but as they lay directly in the path of the +marauders from Sleswick, as they were certainly Teutonised very +thoroughly, and as no real records survive, we may well take it for +granted that the long-boats of the English, sailing down with the +prevalent north-east winds from the wicks of Denmark, came first to +shore on these fertile coasts. After they had been conquered and +colonised, the Saxon and Jutish freebooters began to look for +settlements, on their part, farther south. One horde, led, as the +legend veraciously assures us, by Hengest and Horsa, landed in Thanet; +another, composed entirely of Saxons, and under the command of a +certain dubious Ælle, came to shore on the spit of Selsea. It was from +this last body that the county took its newer name of Suth-Seaxe, Suth +Sexe, or Sussex. Let us first frankly narrate the legend, and then see +how far it may fairly be rationalised. +</p> +<p> +In 477, says the English Chronicle—written down, it must be +remembered, from traditional sources, four centuries later, at the +court of Alfred the West Saxon—in 477, Ælle and his three sons, Cymen, +Wlencing, and Cissa, came to Britain in three ships, and landed at the +stow that is cleped Cymenes-ora. There that ilk day they slew many +Welshmen, and the rest they drave into the wood hight Andredes-leah. In +485, Ælle, fighting the Welsh near Mearcredes Burn, slew many, and the +rest he put to flight. In 491, Ælle, with his son Cissa, beset +Andredes-ceaster, and slew all that therein were, nor was there after +one Welshman left. Such is the whole story, as told in the bald and +simple entries of the West Saxon annalist, A more dubious tradition +further states that Ælle was also Bretwalda, or overlord, of all the +Teutonic tribes in Britain. +</p> +<p> +And now let us see what we can make of this wholly unhistorical and +legendary tale. Whether there ever was a South Saxon king named Ælle we +cannot say; but that the earliest English pirate fleet on this coast +should have landed near Selsea is likely enough. The marauders would +not land near the Romney marshes or the Pevensey flats, where the great +fortresses of Lymne and Anderida would block their passage; and they +could not beach their keels easily anywhere along the cliff-girt coast +between Beachy Head and Brighton; so they would naturally sail along +past the marshland and the chalk cliffs till they reached the open +champaign shore near Chichester. Cymenes-ora, where they are said to +have landed, is now Keynor on the Bill of Selsea; and Selsea itself, as +its name (correctly Selsey) clearly shows us, was then an island in the +tidal flats. This was just the sort of place which the English pirates +loved, for all tradition represents their first settlements as effected +on isolated spots like Thanet, Hurst Castle, Holderness, and +Bamborough. Thence they would march upon Regnum, the square Roman town +at the harbour head, and reduce it by storm, garrisoned as it doubtless +was by a handful of semi-Romanised Welshmen or Britons. The town took +the English name of Cissanceaster, or Chichester. Moreover, all around +the Chichester district, we still find a group of English clan +villages, with the characteristic patronymic termination <i>ing</i>. Such +are East and West Wittering, Donnington, Funtington, Didling, and +others. It is <i>vraisemblable</i> enough that the little strip of very low +coast between Hayling Island and the Arun may have been the first +original South Saxon colony. Nor is it by any means impossible that the +names of Keynor and Chichester Cymenes-ora and Cissanceaster—may still +enshrine the memory of two among the old South Saxon freebooters. +</p> +<p> +The tradition of a battle at Mearcredes Burn, when the Welsh were again +defeated, may refer to an advance by which, a few years later, the +South Saxon pirates pushed eastward along the coast, and occupied the +strip of shore as far as Brighton, together with the fertile valley of +the Lewes Ouse. In the first-named district we find a large group of +English Clan villages, including Patching, Poling, Angmering, Goring, +Worthing, Tarring, Washington, Lullington, Blatchingden, Ovingdean, +Rottingdean, and many others. Amongst them is one which has clearly +given rise to the name of Ælle's third son, and that is Lancing. +Unfortunately for the legend, we must decide that this was really the +settlement of an English clan of Lancingas, as Washington was the <i>tun</i> +or enclosure of the Weasingas, and Beddingham was the <i>ham</i> or home of +the Beddingas. Around Lewes, in like manner, we find Tarring, Malling, +Piddinghoe, Bletchington, and others; while in the valley just to the +east we have ten or eleven such names as Lullington, Wilmington, +Folkington, and Littlington. These districts, I imagine, represent the +second advance of the English conquerors. +</p> +<p> +Finally, fourteen years after the first landing, the South Saxons +crossed the Downs and attacked Anderida. The Roman walls of the great +fortress were thick and strong, as their remains, built over by the +Norman Castle, still show; but they were defended by half-trained +Welsh, who could not withstand the English onset. With the fall of +Anderida, the native power was broken for ever, 'nor was there after +one Welshman left.' The English tribe of the Hastingas settled at +Hastings; and the South Saxons were now supreme from marsh to marsh. +</p> +<p> +But did they really exterminate the native Celt-Euskarian population? I +venture to say, no. Some no doubt, especially the men, they slew; but +the women and children, as even Mr. Freeman admits, were probably +spared in large numbers. Even of the men, many doubtless became slaves +to the Saxon lords; while others maintained themselves in isolated +bands in the Weald. To this day the Euskarian type of humanity is not +uncommon among the Sussex peasantry, and all the rivers still bear the +Celtic names of Arun, Adur, Ouse, and Calder. That there was 'no +Welshmen left' is only another way of saying that the armed Welsh +resistance ceased. The Romanised Britons became English churls and +serfs—nay, the very name for a serf in ordinary conversation was Weala +or Welshman. The population received a new element—the English +Saxons—but it was not completely changed. The Weorthingas and Goringas +simply became masters of the lands formerly held by Roman owners; and +the cabins of their British serfs still clustered around the wooden +hall of the English lords. +</p> +<p> +Nevertheless, Sussex is one of the most thoroughly Teutonised counties +in England. The proportion of Saxon blood is very marked: light hair +and blue eyes, together with the broad and short English skull, are +common even among the peasantry. The number of English Clan names +noticed by Mr. Kemble in the towns and villages of Sussex is 68 as +against 60 in almost equally Teutonic Kent, 48 in Essex, 21 in largely +Celtic Dorset, 6 in Cumberland, 2 in Cornwall, and none in Monmouth. +The size and number of the hundreds into which the county is divided +tells us much the same tale. Each hundred was originally a group of one +hundred free English families, settled on the soil, and holding in +check the native subject population of Anglicised Celt-Euskarian +churls. Now, in Sussex we get 61 hundreds, and in Kent 61, as against +13 in Surrey beyond the Weald (where the clan names also sink to 18), +and 8 in Hertfordshire. Or, to put it another way, which I borrow from +Mr. Isaac Taylor, in Sussex there is one hundred to every 23 square +miles; in Kent to every 24; in Dorset to every 30; in Surrey to every +58; in Herts to every 79; in Gloucester to every 97; in Derby to every +162; in Warwick to every 179; and in Lancashire to every 302. In other +words, while in Kent, Sussex, and the east the free English inhabitants +clustered thickly on the soil, with a relatively small servile +population, in Mercia and the west the English population was much more +sparsely scattered, with a relatively great servile population. So, as +late as the time of Domesday, in Kent and Sussex the slaves mentioned +in the great survey (only a small part, probably, of the total) +numbered only 10 per cent. of the population, while in Devon and +Cornwall they numbered 20 per cent., and in Gloucestershire 33 per +cent. +</p> +<p> +These results are all inevitable. It is obvious that the first attacks +must necessarily be made upon the east and south coasts, and that the +inland districts and the west must only slowly be conquered afterward. +Especially was it easy to found Teutonic kingdoms in the four isolated +regions of Lincolnshire, East Anglia, Kent, and Sussex, each of which +was cut off from the rest of England in early times by impassable fens, +marshes, forests, or rivers. It was easy here to kill off the Welsh +fighting population, to drive the remnants into the Fen Country or the +Weald, to enslave the captives, the women, and the children, and to +secure the Teutonic colony by a mark or border of woodland, swamp, or +hill. On the other hand, Wessex, Northumbria, and Mercia, with a vague +and ill-defined internal border, had harder work to fight their way in +against a united Welsh resistance; and it was only very slowly that +they pushed across the central watershed, to dismember the unconquered +remnant of the Britons at last into the three isolated bodies of +Damnonia (Cornwall and Devon), Wales Proper, and Strathclyde. This is +probably why the earliest settlements were made in these isolated coast +regions, and why the inward progress of the other colonies was so +relatively slow. +</p> +<p> +The South Saxons, then, at first occupied the three fertile bits of the +county—the coast belt of Sussex Proper, the Valley of the Ouse, and +the isolated Hastings district—because these were the best adapted for +their strictly agricultural life. In spite of the legend of Ælle, I do +not suppose that they were all united from the first under a single +principality. It seems far more probable that each little clan +settlement was at first wholly independent; that afterwards three +little chieftainships grew up in the three fertile strips—typified, +perhaps, by the story of Ælle's three sons—and that the whole finally +coalesced into a single kingdom of the South Saxons, which is the state +in which we find the county in Bæda's time. As ever, its boundaries +were marked out for it by nature, for the Weald remained as yet an +almost unbroken forest; and the names of Selsea, Pevensey, Winchelsea, +Romney, and many others, show by their common insular termination +(found in all isles round the British coast, as in Sheppey, Walney, +Bardsea, Anglesea, Fursey, Wallasey, and so forth) that the marshland +was still wholly undrained, and that a few islands alone stood here and +there as masses of dry land out of their desolate and watery expanse. +The Hastings district, too, fell more naturally to Sussex than to Kent, +because the marshes dividing it from the former were far less +formidable than those which severed it from the latter. Most probably +the South Saxons intentionally aided nature in cutting off their +territory from all other parts of Britain; for every English kingdom +loved to surround itself with a distinct mark or border of waste, as a +defence against invasion from outside. The Romans had brought Sussex +within the great network of their road system; but the South Saxons no +doubt took special pains to cut off those parts of the roads which led +across their own frontier. At any rate, it is quite clear that Sussex +did not largely participate in the general life of the new England, and +that intercourse with the rest of the world was extremely limited. +</p> +<p> +The South Saxon kings probably lived for the most part at Chichester, +though no doubt they had <i>hams</i>, after the royal Teutonic fashion +generally, in many other parts of their territory; and they moved about +from one to the other, with their suite of thegns, eating up in each +what food was provided by their serfs for their use, and then moving on +to the next. The isolation of Sussex is strikingly shown by its long +adherence to the primitive paganism. Missionaries from Rome, under the +guidance of Augustine, converted Kent as early as 597. For Kent was the +nearest kingdom to the continent; it contained the chief port of entry +for continental travellers, Richborough—the Dover of those days—and +its king, accustomed to continental connections, had married a +Christian Frankish princess from Paris. Hence Kent was naturally the +first Teutonic principality to receive the faith. Next came +Northumbria, Lindsey, East Anglia, Wessex, and even inland Mercia. But +Sussex still held out for Thor and Woden as late as 679, three-quarters +of a century after the conversion of Kent, and twenty years after +Mercia itself had given way to the new faith. Even when Sussex was +finally converted, the manner in which the change took place was +characteristic. It was not by missionaries from beyond the Weald in +Kent or Surrey, nor from beyond the marsh in Wessex. An Irish monk, +Bæda tells us, coming ashore on the open coast near Chichester, +established a small monastery at Bosham—even then, no doubt, a royal +<i>ham</i>, as we know it was under Harold—'a place,' says the old +historian significantly, 'girt round by sea and forest.' (It lies just +on the mark between Wessex and the South Saxons.) Æthelwealh, the +king—a curious name, for it means 'noble Welshman' (perhaps he was of +mixed blood)—had already been baptized in Mercia, and his wife was the +daughter of a Christian ealdorman of the Worcester-men; but the rest of +the principality was heathen. The Irish monk effected nothing; but +shortly after Wilfrith, the fiery Bishop of York, on one of his usual +flying visits to Rome, got shipwrecked off Selsea. With his accustomed +vigour, he went ashore, and began a crusade in the heathen land. He was +able at once to baptize the 'leaders and soldiers'—that is to say, the +free military English population; while his attendant priests—Eappa, +Padda, Burghelm, and Oiddi (it is pleasant to preserve these little +personal touches)—proceeded to baptize the 'plebs'—that is to say, +the servile Anglicised Celt-Euskarian substratum—up and down the +country villages. +</p> +<p> +It was to Wilfrith, too, that Sussex owed her first cathedral. +Æthelwealh made him a present of Selsea, 'a place surrounded by the sea +on every side save one, where an isthmus about as broad as a +stone's-throw connects it with the mainland,' and there the ardent +bishop founded a regular monastery, in which he himself remained for +five years. On the soil were 250 serfs, whom Wilfrith at once set free. +After the death of Aldhelm, the West Saxon bishop, in 709, Sussex was +made a separate bishopric, with its seat at Selsea; and it was not till +after the Norman Conquest that the cathedral was removed to Chichester. +It may be noted that all these arrangements were in strict accordance +with early English custom. The kings generally gave their bishops a +seat near their own chief town, as Cuthbert had his see at Lindisfarne, +close to the royal Northumbrian capital of Bamborough; so that the +proximity of Selsea to Chichester made it the most natural place for a +bishopstool; and, again, it was usual to make over spots in the fens or +marshes to the monks, who, by draining and cultivating them, performed +a useful secular work. No traces now remain of old Selsea Cathedral, +its site having long been swallowed up by incursions of the sea. Bæda +has the ordinary number of miracles to record in connection with the +monastery. +</p> +<p> +As time went on, however, the isolation of Sussex became less complete. +Æthelwealh had got himself into complications with Wessex by accepting +the sovereignty of the Isle of Wight and the Meonwaras about +Southhampton from the hands of a Mercian conqueror. Perhaps Æthelwealh +then repaired the old Roman roads which led from his own <i>ham</i> at +Chichester to Portsmouth in Wessex, and broke down the mark, so as to +connect his old and his new dominions with one another. At any rate, +shortly after, Cædwalla, the West Saxon, an ætheling at large on the +look-out for a kingdom, attacked him suddenly with his host of thegns +from this unexpected quarter, killed the King himself, and harried the +South Saxons from marsh to marsh. Two South Saxons thegns expelled him +for a time, and made themselves masters of the country. But afterwards, +Cædwalla, becoming King of the West Saxons, recovered Sussex once more, +and handed it on to his successor, Ini. Hence the South Saxons had no +bishopric of their own during this period, but were included in the see +of the West Saxons at Winchester. +</p> +<p> +During the hundred years of the Mercian Supremacy, coincident, roughly +speaking, with the eighth century, we hear little of Sussex; but it +seems to have shaken off the yoke of Wessex, and to have been in +subjection to the great Mercian over-lords alone. It had its own +under-kings and its own bishops. Early in the ninth century, however, +when Ecgberht the West Saxon succeeding in throwing off the Mercian +yoke, the other Saxon States of South Britain willingly joined him +against the Anglian oppressors. 'The men of Kent and Surrey, Sussex and +Essex, gladly submitted to King Ecgberht.' When the royal house of the +South Saxons died out, Sussex still retained a sort of separate +existence within the West Saxon State, as Wales does in the England of +our own day. Æthelwulf made his son under-king of Kent, Essex, Surrey, +and Sussex; and so, during the troublous times of the Danish invasion, +when all southern England became one in its resistance to the heathen, +those old principalities gradually sank into the position of provinces +or shires. +</p> +<p> +From the period of union with the general West Saxon Kingdom (which +grew slowly into the Kingdom of England under Eadgar and Cnut), the +markland of the Weald seems to have been gradually encroached upon from +the south. Most of the names in that district are distinctly +'Anglo-Saxon' in type; by which I mean that they were imposed before +the Norman Conquest, and belong to the stage of the language then in +use. Even during the Roman period, settlements for iron-mining existed +in the Weald, and these clearings would of course be occupied by the +English colonists at a comparatively early time. Just at the foot of +the Downs, too, on the north side, we find a few clan settlements on +the edge of the Weald, which must date from the first period of English +colonisation. Such are Poynings, Didling, Ditchling, Chillington, and +Chiltington. Farther in, however, the clan names grow rarer; and where +we find them they are not <i>hams</i> or <i>tuns</i>, regular communities of +Saxon settlers, but they show, by their forestine terminations of +<i>hurst</i>, <i>ley</i>, <i>den</i>, and <i>field</i>, that they were mere outlying +shelters of hunters or swineherds in the trackless forest. Such are +Billinghurst, Warminghurst, Itchingfield, and Ardingley. On the +Cuckmere river, the villages in the combes bear names like Jevington +and Lullington; but in the upper valley of the little stream, where it +flows through the Weald, we find instead Chiddingley and Hellingley. +Most of the Weald villages, however, bear still more woodland +titles—Midhurst, Farnhurst, Nuthurst, Maplehurst, and Lamberhurst; +Cuckfield, Mayfield, Rotherfield, Hartfield, Heathfield, and +Wivelsfield; Crawley, Cowfold, Loxwood, Linchmere, and Marden. <i>Hams</i> +and <i>tuns</i>, the sure signs of early English colonisation, are almost +wholly lacking; in their place we get abundance of such names as +Coneyhurst Common, Water Down Forest, Hayward's Heath, Milland Marsh, +and Bell's Oak Green. To this day even, the greater part of the Weald +is down in park, copse, heath, forest, common, or marshland. Throughout +the whole expanse of the woodland region in Sussex, with the outlying +portions in Kent, Surrey, and Hants, Mr. Isaac Taylor has collected no +fewer than 299 local names with the significant forest terminations in +<i>hurst</i>, <i>den</i>, <i>ley</i>, <i>holt</i>, and <i>field</i>. These facts show that, +during the later 'Anglo-Saxon' period, the Weald was being slowly +colonised in a few favourable spots. Its use as a mark was now gone, +and it might be safely employed for the peaceful purposes of the archer +and the swineherd. Names referring to pasture and the wild beasts are +therefore common. +</p> +<p> +To the same time must doubtless be assigned the exact delimitation of +the Sussex frontiers. During the early periods, the Kentings, the +Suthrige, and the West Saxons would all extend on their side as far as +the Weald, which would be treated as a sort of neutral zone. But when +the Woodland itself began to be occupied, a demarcation would naturally +be made between the neighbouring provinces. The boundary follows the +most obvious course. It starts on the east from the old mouth of the +Rother (now diverted to Rye New Harbour), known as the Kent Ditch, in +what was then the central and most impassable part of the marshland. It +runs along the Rother to its bifurcation, and then makes for the +heaven-water-parting or dividing back of the Forest Ridge, beside two +or three lesser streams. Then it passes along the crest of the ridge +from Tunbridge Wells, past East Grinstead and Crawley, till it strikes +the Hampshire border. There it follows the line between the two +watersheds to the sea, which it reaches at Emsworth. There is, however, +one long insulated spur of Hampshire running down from Haslemere to +Graffham (in apparent defiance of geographical features), whose origin +and meaning I do not understand. +</p> +<p> +With the Norman Conquest, the history of Sussex, and of England +generally, for the most part ceases abruptly; all the rest is mere +personal gossip about Prince Edward and the battle of Lewes, or about +George IV. and the Brighton Pavilion. Not, of course, that there is not +real national history here as elsewhere; but it is hard to disentangle +from the puerile personalities of historians generally. Nevertheless, +some brief attempt to reconstruct the main facts in the subsequent +history of Sussex must still be undertaken. The part which Sussex bore +passively in the actual Conquest is itself typical of the new +relations. England was getting drawn into the general run of European +civilisation, and the old isolation of Sussex was beginning to be +broken down. Lying so near the Continent, Sussex was naturally the +landing-place for an army coming from Normandy or Ponthieu. William's +fleet came ashore on the low coast at Pevensey. Naturally he turned +towards Hastings, whence a road now led through the Weald to London. On +the tall cliffs he threw up an earthwork, and then marched towards the +great town. Harold's army met him on the heights of Senlac, part of the +solitary ridge between the marshes, by which alone London could be +reached. Harold fell on the spot now marked by the ruined high altar of +Battle Abbey—a national monument at present in the keeping of an +English duke. Once the native army was routed, William marched on +resistlessly to London, and Sussex and England were at his feet. +</p> +<p> +The new feudal organisation of the county is doubtless shadowed forth +in the existing rapes. Of these there are six, called respectively +after Chichester, Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey, and Hastings. It +will be noticed at once that these were the seats of the new bishopric +and of the five great early castles. In one form or another, more or +less modernised, Arundel Castle, Bramber Castle, Lewes Castle, Pevensey +Castle, and Hastings Castle all survive to our own day. In accordance +with their ordinary policy of removing cathedrals from villages to +chief towns, and so concentrating the civil and ecclesiastical +government, the Normans brought the bishopstool from Selsea to +Chichester. The six rapes are fairly coincident—Chichester with the +marsh district; Arundel with the dale of Arun; Bramber with the dale of +Adur; Lewes with the western dale of Ouse; Pevensey with the eastern +dale of Ouse; and Hastings with the insulated region between the +marshes. In other words, Sussex seems to have been cut up into six +natural divisions along the sea-shore; while to each division was +assigned all the Weald back of its own shore strip as far as the +border. Thus the rapes consist of six long longitudinal belts, each +with a short sea front and a long stretch back into the Weald. +</p> +<p> +Increased intercourse with the Continent brought the Cinque Ports into +importance; and, as premier Cinque Port, Hastings grew to be one of the +chief towns in Sussex. The constant French wars made them prominent in +mediæval history. As trade grew up, other commercial harbours gave rise +to considerable mercantile towns. Rye and Winchelsea, at the mouth of +the Rother, were great ports of entry from France as late as the days +of Elizabeth. Seaford, at the mouth of the Ouse, was also an important +harbour till 1570, when a terrible storm changed the course of the +stream to the town called from that fact Newhaven. Lewes was likewise a +port, as the estuary of the Ouse was navigable from the mouth up to the +town. Brighthelmstone was still a village; but old Shoreham on the Adur +was a considerable place. Arundel Haven and Chichester Harbour recalls +the old mercantile importance of their respective neighbourhoods. The +only other places of any note in mediæval Sussex were Steyning, under +the walls of Bramber Castle; Hurstmonceux, which the Conqueror bestowed +upon the lord of Eu; Battle, where he planted his great expiatory +abbey; and Hurst Pierpont, which also dates from William's own time. +The sole important part of the county was still the strip along the +coast between the Weald and the sea. +</p> +<p> +During the Plantagenet period, England became a wool-exporting country, +like Australia at the present day; and therefore the wool-growing parts +of the island rose quickly into great importance. Sussex, with its +large expanse of chalk downs, naturally formed one of the best +wool-producing tracts; and in the reign of Edward III., Chichester was +made one of the 'staples' to which the wool trade was confined by +statute. Sussex Proper and the Lewes valley were now among the most +thickly populated regions of England. +</p> +<p> +The Weald, too, was beginning to have its turn. English iron was +getting to be in request for the cannon, armour, and arms required in +the French wars; and nowhere was iron more easily procured, side by +side with the fuel for smelting it, than in the Sussex Weald. From the +days of the Edwards to the early part of the eighteenth century, the +woods of the Weald were cut down in quantities for the iron works. +During this time, several small towns began to spring up in the old +forest region, of which the chief are Midhurst, Petworth, Billinghurst, +Horsham, Cuckfield, and East Grinstead. Many of the deserted +smelting-places may still be seen, with their invariable accompaniment +of a pond or dam. The wood supply began to fail as early as Elizabeth's +reign, but iron was still smelted in 1760. From that time onward, the +competition of Sheffield and Birmingham—where iron was prepared by the +'new method' with coal—blew out the Sussex furnaces, and the Weald +relapsed once more into a wild heather-clad and wood-covered region, +now thickly interspersed with parks and country seats, of which +Petworth, Cowdry, and Ashburnham are the best known. +</p> +<p> +Modern times, of course, have brought their changes. With the northward +revolution caused by steam and coal, Sussex, like the rest of southern +England, has fallen back to a purely agricultural life. The sea has +blocked up the harbours of Rye, Winchelsea, Seaford, and Lewes. Man's +hand has drained the marshes of the Rother, of Pevensey, and of Selsea +Bill; and railways have broken down the isolation of Sussex from the +remainder of the country. Still, as of old, the natural configuration +continues to produce its necessary effects. Even now there are no towns +of any size in the Weald: few, save Lewes, Arundel, and Chichester, +anywhere but on the coast. The Downs are given up to sheep-farming; the +Weald to game and pleasure-grounds; the shore to holiday-making. The +proximity to London is now the chief cause of Sussex prosperity. In the +old coaching days, Brighton was a foregone conclusion. Sixty miles by +road from town, it was the nearest accessible spot by the seaside. As +soon as people began to think of annual holidays, Brighton must +necessarily attract them. Hence George IV. and the Pavilion. The +railroad has done more. It has made Brighton into a suburb, and raised +its population to over 100,000. At the same time, the South Coast line +has begotten watering-places at Worthing, Bognor, and Littlehampton. In +the other direction, it has created Eastbourne. Those who do not love +chalk (as the Georges did), choose rather the more broken and wooded +country round Hastings and St. Leonards, where the Weald sandstone runs +down to the sea. The difference between the rounded Downs and +saucer-shaped combes of the chalk, and the deep glens traversing the +soft friable strata of the Wealden, is well seen in passing from Beachy +Head to Ecclesbourne and Fairlight. Shoreham is kept half alive by the +Brighton coal trade: Newhaven struggles on as a port for Dieppe. But as +a whole, the county is now one vast seaside resort from end to end, so +that to-day the flat coasts at Selsea, Pevensey, and Rye, are alone +left out in the cold. The iron trade and the wool trade have long since +gone north to the coal districts. Brighton and Hastings sum up in +themselves all that is vital in the Sussex of 1881. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch12"></a>THE BRONZE AXE. +</h2> +<p> +There is always a certain fascination in beginning a subject at the +wrong end and working backward: it has the charm which inevitably +attaches to all evil practices; you know you oughtn't, and so you can't +resist the temptation to outrage the proprieties and do it. I can't +myself resist the temptation of beginning this article where it ought +to break off—with Chinese money, which is not the origin, but the +final outcome and sole remaining modern representative of that antique +and almost prehistoric implement, the Bronze Age hatchet. +</p> +<p> +Improbable and grotesque as this affiliation sounds at first hearing, +it is, nevertheless, about as certain as any other fact in +anthropological science—which isn't, perhaps, saying a great deal. The +familiar little brass cash, with the square hole for stringing them +together on a thread in the centre, well known to the frequenter of +minor provincial museums, are, strange to say, the lineal descendants, +in unbroken order, of the bronze axe of remote Celestial ancestors. +From the regular hatchet to the modern coin one can trace a distinct, +if somewhat broken, succession, so that it is impossible to say where +the one leaves off and the other begins—where the implement merges +into the medium of exchange, and settles down finally into the root of +all evil. +</p> +<p> +Here is how this curious pedigree first worked itself out. In early +times, before coin was invented, barter was usually conducted between +producer and consumer with metal implements, as it still is in Central +Africa at the present day with Venetian glass beads and rolls of red +calico. Payments were all made in kind, and bronze was the commonest +form of specie. A gentleman desirous of effecting purchases in foreign +parts went about the world with a number of bronze axes in his pocket +(or its substitute), which he exchanged for other goods with the native +traffickers in the country where he did his primitive business. At +first, the early Chinese in that unsophisticated age were content to +use real hatchets for this commercial purpose; but, after a time, with +the profound mercantile instinct of their race, it occurred to some of +them that when a man wanted half a hatchet's worth of goods he might as +well pay for them with half a hatchet. Still, as it would be a pity to +spoil a good working implement by cutting it in two, the worthy Ah Sin +ingeniously compromised the matter by making thin hatchets, of the +usual size and shape, but far too slender for practical usage. By so +doing he invented coin: and, what is more, he invented it far earlier +than the rival claimants to that proud distinction, the Lydians, whose +electrum staters were first struck in the seventh century, B.C. But, +according to Professor Terrien de la Couperie, some of the fancy +Chinese hatchets which we still retain date back as far as the year +1000 (a good round number), and are so thin that they could only have +been intended to possess exchange value. And when a distinguished +Sinologist gives us a date for anything Chinese, it behoves the rest of +the unlearned world to open its mouth and shut its eyes, and thankfully +receive whatever the distinguished Sinologist may send it. +</p> +<p> +In the seventh century, then, these mercantile axes, made in the +strictest sense to sell and not to use, were stamped with an official +stamp to mark their amount, and became thereby converted into true +coins—that was the root of the 'root of all evil.' Thence the +declension to the 'cash' is easy; the form grew gradually more and more +regular, while the square hole in the centre, once used for the handle, +was retained by conservatism and practical sense as a convenient means +of stringing them together. +</p> +<p> +So this was the end of the old bronze hatchet, perhaps the most +wonderful civilizing agent ever invented by human ingenuity. Let us +hark back now, and from the opposite side see what was its first +beginning. +</p> +<p> +'But why,' you ask, 'the most wonderful civilizing agency? What did the +bronze axe ever do for humanity?' Well, nearly everything. I believe I +have really not said too much. We are apt to talk big nowadays about +the steam-engine, and that marvellous electricity which is always going +to do wonders for us all—to-morrow; but I don't know whether either +ever produced so great a revolution in human life, or so completely +metamorphosed human existence, as that simple and commonplace bronze +hatchet. +</p> +<p> +For, consider that before the days of bronze man knew no weapon or +implement of any sort save the stone axe, or tomahawk, and the +flint-tipped arrow. Consider, that the highest stage of human culture +he had then reached was hardly higher than that of the scalp-hunting +Red Indian or the seal-spearing Esquimaux. Consider, that in his Stone +Age agriculture and grains were almost unknown—the forest uncleared, +the soil untilled, and hunting and fishing the sole or principal human +activities. It was the bronze axe that first enabled man to make +clearings in the woodland on the large scale, and to sow on those +clearings in good big fields the wheat and barley which determined the +first great upward step in the drama of civilization. All these things +depend in ultimate analysis upon that pioneer of culture, the bronze +hatchet. +</p> +<p> +And how did the first Watt or Edison of metallurgy come to make that +earliest bronze implement? Well, it seems probable that between the +Stone Age and the Bronze Age there intervened everywhere, or nearly +everywhere, a very short and transient age of copper. And the reason +for thus thinking is threefold. In the first place, bronze is an alloy +of tin and copper: and it seems natural to suppose that men would use +the simple metals in isolation to begin with, before they discovered +that they could harden and temper them by mixing the two together. In +the second place, copper occurs in the pure or native state (without +the trouble of smelting) in several countries, and was therefore a very +natural metal for early man to cast his inquiring glance upon. And in +the third place, weapons of unmixed copper, apparently of very antique +types, have been found in various parts of the world, both in Asia and +America. According to Mr. John Evans, the most learned historian of the +Bronze Age, the greatest copper 'find' of the eastern hemisphere was +that at Gungeria, in Central India; and the copper implements there +found consisted entirely of flat celts of a very early and almost +primitive pattern. +</p> +<p> +The copper weapons of America, however, have greater illustrative and +ethnological interest, because the noble red man, at the period when +Columbus first discovered him, and when he first discovered Columbus, +was still in the Stone Age of his very imperfect culture, or, to speak +more correctly, of extreme barbarism. The fact is, the Indians of Lake +Superior were only just beginning to employ copper, and were on the eve +of independently inaugurating a Bronze Age of their own, when the +intrusive white man came and spoiled the fun by the incontinent +introduction of iron, firearms, missionaries, whisky, and all the other +resources of civilization. On the shores of Lake Superior native copper +exists in abundance; and the intelligent Red Indian, finding this +handsome red stone in the cliffs by his side, was pretty sure to try +his hand at chipping a tomahawk out of the rare material. But, as soon +as he did so, Mr. Evans suggests, he would find to his surprise that it +yielded to his blows; in short, that he had got that singular +phenomenon, a malleable stone, to deal with. Hammering away at his new +invention, he must shortly have hammered it into a shapely axe. The new +process took his practical fancy at once: vistas of an untold wealth of +scalps floated gaily before his fevered brain; and he proceeded to +hammer himself various weapons and implements without delay. Amongst +others, he produced for himself very neat spear-heads, with sockets +adapted for the reception of a shaft, made by hammering out the base +flat, and then turning over the edges so as to enclose the wood between +them, like a modern hoe-handle. In Wisconsin alone more than a hundred +of such copper axes, spear-heads, and knives have been unearthed by +antiquaries and duly recorded. +</p> +<p> +All these weapons, however, are simply hammered, not cast or melted. +The Red Indian hadn't yet reached the stage of making a mould when De +Champlain and his <i>voyageurs</i> came down upon Canada and interrupted +this interesting experiment in industrial development by springing the +seventeenth century upon the unsophisticated red man at one fell blow, +with all its inherited wealth of European science. Nevertheless, the +Indians must have known that fire melted copper; for the heat of the +altars was great enough, say Squier and Davis, to fuse the implements +and ornaments laid upon them in sacrificial rites; and so the fact of +its fusibility could hardly have escaped them. A people who had +advanced so far on the road towards the invention of casting could +hardly have been prevented from taking the final step, save by the +sudden intervention of some social cataclysm like the European invasion +of Eastern America. And how awful a calamity that was for the Indians +themselves we at this day can hardly even realize. +</p> +<p> +In some similar way, no doubt, the Asiatic people who first invented +bronze must have learned the fact of the fusibility of metals, and have +applied it in time, at first, perhaps, by accident, to the manufacture +of that hard alloy. I say Asiatic, because there seems good reason to +believe that Asia was the original home of the nascent bronze industry. +For a Bronze Age almost necessarily implies a brief preceding age of +copper; and there is no proof of pure copper implements ever having +been largely used in Europe, while there is ample proof of their having +been used to a very considerable extent in Asia. Hence we may +reasonably infer that the art of bronze-making was developed in Asia by +a copper-using people, and that when metallurgy was first introduced +into Europe the method of mixing the copper with tin had already been +perfected. The abundance of tin in the south-eastern islands of Asia +renders this view probable; while in Europe there are no tin mines +worth mentioning, except in the remotest part of a remote outlying +island—to wit, in Cornwall. +</p> +<p> +Be this as it may, the earliest and simplest forms of bronze axe with +which we are acquainted are profoundly interesting, as casting a flood +of light upon the general process of human evolution all the world +over. Every new human invention is always at first directly modelled +upon the other similar products which have preceded it. There is no +really new thing under the sun. For example, the earliest English +railway carriages were built on the model of the old stage-coach, only +that three stage-coaches, as it were, were telescoped together, side by +side—the very first bore the significant motto, <i>Tria juncta in +uno</i>—and it was this preconception of the English coachbuilder that +has hampered us ever since with our hateful 'compartments,' instead of +the commodious and comfortable open American saloon carriages. So, too, +the earliest firearms were modelled on the stock of the old cross-bow, +and the earliest earthenware pots and pans were shaped like the still +more primitive gourds and calabashes. It need not surprise us, +therefore, to find that the earliest metal axes of which we have any +knowledge were directly moulded on the original shape of the stone +tomahawk. +</p> +<p> +Such a copper hatchet, cast in a mould formed by a polished neolithic +stone celt, was found in an early Etruscan tomb, and is still preserved +in the Museum at Berlin. See how natural this process would be. For, in +the first place, the primitive workman, knowing already only one form +of axe, the stone tomahawk, would naturally reproduce it in the new +material, without thinking what improvements in shape and design the +malleability and fusibility of the metal would render possible or easy. +But, more than that, the idea of coating the polished stone axe with +plastic clay, and thereby making a mould for the molten metal, would be +so very simple that even the neolithic savage, already accustomed to +the manufacture of coarse pottery upon natural shapes, could hardly +fail to think of it. As a matter of fact, he did think of it: for celts +of bronze or copper, cast in moulds made from stone hatchets, have been +found in Cyprus by General di Cesnola, on the site of Troy by Dr. +Schliemann, and in many other assorted localities by less distinguished +but equally trustworthy archæologists. +</p> +<p> +To the neolithic hunter, herdsman, and villager this progress from the +stone to the metal axe probably seemed at first a mere substitution of +an easier for a more difficult material. He little knew whither his +discovery tended. It was pure human laziness that urged the change. How +nice to save yourself all that long trouble of chipping and polishing, +with ceaseless toil, in favour of a stone which you could melt at one +go and pour while hot into a ready-made mould! It must have looked, by +comparison, like weapon-making by magic; for properly to cut and polish +a stone axe is the work of weeks and weeks of elbow-grease. Yet here, +in a moment, a better hatchet could be turned out all finished! But the +implied effects lay deeper far than the neolithic hunter could ever +have imagined. The bronze axe was the beginning of civilization; it +brought the steam-engine, the telephone, woman's rights, and the county +councillor directly in its train. With the eye of faith, had he only +possessed that useful optical organ, the Stone Age artizan might +doubtless have beheld Pears' soap and the deceased wife's sister +looming dimly in the remote future. Till that moment human life had +been almost stationary: thenceforth, it proceeded by leaps and bounds, +like a kangaroo society, on its upward path towards triumphant +democracy and the penny post. The nineteenth century and all its wiles +hung by a thread upon the success of his melting pot. +</p> +<p> +Indeed, the whole history of human civilization has been one of a +constantly accelerated progress. The Older Stone Age, when men knew +only how to chip flint implements, but hadn't yet invented the art of +grinding and polishing them, was one of immense and incalculable +duration, to be reckoned perhaps by tens of thousands of years—some +bold chronologists would even suggest by hundreds of thousands. +Improvement there was, to be sure, during all that long epoch of slow +development; but it was improvement at a snail's pace. The very rude +chipped axes of the naked drift age give way after thousands and +thousands of years to the shapelier chipped lances, javelins, and +arrowheads of the skin-clad cavemen. M. Gabriel de Mortillet, indeed, +most indefatigable of theorists, has even pointed out four stages of +culture, marked by four different types of weapons, into which he +subdivides the Older Stone Age. Yet vast epochs elapsed before some +prehistoric Stephenson or dusky Morse first, half by accident, smote +out the idea of grinding his tomahawk smooth to a sharp cutting edge, +instead of merely chipping it sharp, and so initiated the Neolithic +Period. This Neolithic Period itself, again, was immensely long as +compared with the Bronze Age which followed, though short by comparison +with the Palæolithic epoch which preceded it. Then the Bronze Age saw +enormous changes come faster and faster, till the use of iron still +further accelerated the rate of progress. For each new improvement +becomes, in turn, the parent of yet newer triumphs, so that at last, as +in the present day, a single century sees vaster changes in the world +of man than whole ages before it have done in far longer intervals. +</p> +<p> +But the invention of bronze, or, in other words, the introduction of +hard metal, was really perhaps the very greatest epoch of all, the most +distinct turning-point in the whole history of humanity. True, some +beginnings of civilisation were already found in the Newer Stone Age. +Man did not then live by slaughter alone. Hand-made pottery and rude +tissues of flax are found in neolithic lake dwellings in Switzerland. +Agriculture was already practised in a feeble way on small open +clearings, cautiously cleaved with fire or hewn with the tomahawk in +the native forests. The cow, the sheep, and the goat were more or less +domesticated, though the horse was yet riderless; and the pastoral had +therefore, to some extent, superseded the pure hunting stage. But what +inroad could the stone hatchet make unaided upon the virgin forests of +those remote days? The neolithic clearing must have been a mere stray +oasis in a desert of woodland, like the villages of the New Guinea +savages at the present day, lying few and far between among vast +stretches of primæval forest. +</p> +<p> +With the advent of bronze, everything was different; and the difference +showed itself with extraordinary rapidity. One may compare the +revolution effected by bronze in the early world, indeed, with the +revolution effected by railways in our own time; only the neolithic +world had been so very simple a one that the change was perhaps even +more marvellous in its suddenness and its comprehensiveness. Metal +itself implied metal-working; and metal-working brought about, not only +the arts of smelting and casting, but also endless incidental arts of +design and decoration. The bronze hatchets, for example, to take our +typical implement, begin by being mere copies of the stone originals; +but, as time goes on, they acquire rapidly innumerable improvements. +First, metal is economized in the upper part which fits into the +handle, while the lower or cutting edge is widened out sideways, so as +to form an elegant and gracefully curved outline for the whole +implement. Next come the flanged axes, with projecting ledges on either +side; and then the palstaves with loops and ribs, each marking some new +improvement in the character of the weapon, which the inventor would no +doubt have patented but for the unfortunate fact that patents were as +yet wholly unknown to Bronze Age humanity. Later still come the +socketed hatchets of many patterns, with endless ingenious little +devices for securing some small advantage to the special manufacturer. +I can fancy the Bronze Age smith showing them off with pride to his +interested customers: 'These are our own patterns—the newest thing out +in bronze axes; observe the advantage you gain from the ribs and +pellets, and the peculiar character which the octagonal socket gives to +the hafting!' Indeed, in this single department of bronze celts alone, +Mr. Evans in his great monumental work figures over a hundred and +eighty distinct specimens (out of thousands known), each one presenting +some well-marked advance in type upon its predecessor. There is almost +a Yankee ingenuity of design in many of the dodges thus registered for +our inspection. +</p> +<p> +Many of the celts, I may add, are most beautifully decorated with +geometrical patterns, some of which belong to a very high order of +ornamental art. This is still more the case with the daggers, swords, +and defensive armour, often intended for the use of great chieftains, +and executed with an amount of taste and feeling long since dead among +the degenerate workmen of our iron age. +</p> +<p> +But the indirect effects of the introduction of metal working were far +more interesting and important in their way than the direct effects. +With bronze began the great age of agriculture, of commerce, and of +navigation. +</p> +<p> +Of agriculture first, because the bronze hatchet enabled men to make +such openings in the forest as neolithic man had never ever dreamed of. +For the first time in the history of our race, whole tracts of country +at once began to be cleared and cultivated. Stone Age tillage was the +tillage of tiny plots in the forest's depths; Bronze Age tillage was +the tillage of fields and wide open spaces in the champaign country. +The Stone Age knew no specials implements of agriculture as such; its +tomahawk was indiscriminately applied to all purposes alike of war or +gardening. You scalped your enemy with it, or you cut up your dinner, +or you dug your field, or you planted your seed-corn, according as +taste or circumstances directed. But while the Bronze Age men had axes +to hew down the wood, they had also sickles and reaping-hooks to cut +their crops, and a sort of hoe or scraper to till the soil with. +Specialisation reached a very high pitch. All the remains of the Bronze +Age show us an agricultural people by no means idyllic in their habits +to be sure, and not all disposed to join the Peace Preservation +Society, but cultivating large stretches of wheat or barley, grinding +their meal in regular mills, and possessed of implements of +considerable diversity, some of which I shall proceed to notice later. +</p> +<p> +The evidences of commerce and of navigation are equally obvious. Bronze +itself consists of tin and copper: and there are only two parts of the +world from which tin in any large quantities can be procured—namely, +Cornwall and the Malay Archipelago. The very existence of bronze, +therefore, necessarily implies the existence of a sea-going trade in +tin, for which some corresponding benefits must of course have been +offered by the early purchaser. As a matter of fact, we know with some +probability that it was Cornish tin which first tempted the Phoenicians +out of the inland sea, past the Pillars of Hercules, to brave the +terrors of the open Atlantic. Long before the days of such advanced +navigation, however, the Cornish tin was transported by land across the +whole breadth of Southern Britain and shipped for the Continent from +the Isle of Thanet. A very old trackway runs along the crest of the +Downs from the West Country to Kent, known now as the Pilgrim's Way, +because it was followed in far later times by mediæval wayfarers from +Somerset and Dorset to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. +But Mr. Charles Elton has shown conclusively that the Pilgrim's Way is +many centuries more ancient than the martyr of King Henry's epoch, and +that it was used in the Bronze Age for the transport of tin from the +mines in Cornwall to the port of Sandwich. To this day antique ingots +of the valuable metal are often dug up in hoards or finds along the +line of the ancient track. They were evidently buried there in fear and +trembling, long ages since, in what Indian <i>voyageurs</i> still call a +<i>cache</i>, by caravans hurriedly surprised by the enemy; and owing to the +unfortunate accident of the possessors all getting killed off in the +ensuing fray, the ingots have been left undisturbed for centuries for +the benefit of antiquaries at the present time. 'It's an ill wind that +blows nobody good.' Probably the inhabitants of Herculaneum and Pompeii +had very little notion what valuable relics their bodies and houses +would prove in the end for curious posterity. +</p> +<p> +The converse evidence of a return trade in other goods is no less +striking. Not only are articles in amber found in Bronze Age tombs all +over Europe (though the gum itself belongs to the Baltic and the North +Sea alone), but also gold objects of southern workmanship occur in +British barrows; while sometimes even ivory from Africa is noticed in +the inlaid handles of some Welsh or Brigantian chieftain's sword. Glass +beads were likewise imported into Britain, as were also ornaments of +Egyptian porcelain. In fact, the Bronze Age clearly marks for us the +period when trade routes extended in every direction from the +Mediterranean, north and south, and when the world began to be +commercially solidified by a primitive theory of foreign exchange. It +is a little odd that the basis of all this traffic was tin, and that we +still use the name of that same metal as a brief equivalent for coin in +general: but persons of serious economical or philological intelligence +are particularly requested not to enter into grave correspondence with +the author of this paper on any possible levity which they may detect +lurking in this innocent remark. +</p> +<p> +Some small idea of the rapid advance in civilization which marked the +Bronze Age may perhaps be formed from a brief enumeration of the +principal classes of remains which have come down to us intact from +that first epoch of metal. Besides all the various celts, hatchets, and +adzes, whose name is legion, and whose patterns are manifold, many +other tools or implements occur abundantly in the barrows or <i>caches</i>. +Chisels, either plain, tanged, with lugs, or socketed; gouges, hammers, +anvils, and tongs; punches, awls, drills, and prickers; tweezers, +needles, fish-hooks, and weights; all these are found by dozens in +endless variety of design. Knives are common, and the vanity of Bronze +Age man made him even put up without a murmur with the pangs of shaving +with a bronze razor. Daggers and rapiers naturally abound, many of them +of rare and beautiful workmanship. Halberds turn up less frequently, +but swords are abundant, and are sometimes tastefully decorated with +gold or ivory. Even the scabbards sometimes survive, while the shields, +adorned with concentric rings or with knobs and bosses, would put to +shame the rank and file of cheap modern metal work. Nay, the very +trumpets which sounded the onset often lie buried by the warrior's +side, and the bells which adorned his horse's neck bring back to us +vividly the Homeric pictures of Bronze Age warfare. +</p> +<p> +The private life of Bronze Age man and his correlative wife is +illustrated for us by another great group of more strictly personal +relics. There are pins simple and pins of the infantile safety-pin +order: there are brooches which might be worn by modern ladies, and +ear-rings so huge that even modern ladies would in all probability +object to wearing them, unless, indeed, a princess or an actress made +them the fashion. The torques, or necklets, are among the best known +male decorations, and are still famous in Ireland, where Malachi +(whoever he may have been) wore the collar of gold which he tore from +the proud invader. Many of the bracelets are extremely beautiful; but, +strange to say, as if on purpose to spite the common prejudice about +the degeneracy of modern man, they are all so small in girth as to +betoken a race with arms and legs hardly any bigger than the Finns or +Laplanders. Of the clasps, buttons, and buckles I will say nothing +here. I have enumerated enough to suggest to even the most casual +observer the vastness of the revolution which the Bronze Age wrought in +the mode of life and the civilisation of ancient man. +</p> +<p> +Bronze found our early ancestor, in fact, a half-developed savage: it +left him a semi-civilized Homeric Greek. It came in upon a world of +skin-clad hunters and fishers: it went out upon a world of Phoenician +navigators, Egyptian architects, Achæan poets, and Roman soldiers. And +all this wide difference was wrought in a period of some eight or ten +centuries at the outside, almost entirely by the advent of the simple +bronze axe. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch13"></a>THE ISLE OF RUIM. +</h2> +<p> +Perhaps you have never heard its name before; yet in the earlier ages +of this kingdom of Britain, Ruim Isle, rising dim through the mist of +prehistoric oceans, was once in its own way famous and important. +</p> +<p> +Off the old and obliterated south-eastern promontory of our island, +where the land of Kent shelved almost imperceptibly into the Wantsum +Strait, Ruim Island—the Holm of the Headland—stood out with its white +wall of broken cliffs into the German Sea. The greater part of it +consisted of gorse-clad chalk down, the last subsiding spur of that +great upland range which, starting from the central boss of Salisbury +Plain, runs right across the face of Surrey and Kent, and, bifurcating +near Canterbury, falls sheer into the sea at the end of either fork by +Ramsgate or Dover. But in earlier days Ruim Isle was not joined as now +by flats and marshes to the adjacent mainland; the chalk dipped under +the open Wantsum Strait, much as the chalk of Hampshire dips to-day +under the Solent Sea, and reappeared again on the other side in the +Thanet Downs, as it reappears in the Isle of Wight at the ridge of St. +Boniface and the central hills about Newport and Carisbrooke. For now +the murder indeed is out, and you have discovered already that +Ruim—his dim, mysterious Ruim—is only just the commonplace, +vulgarized Isle of Thanet. +</p> +<p> +Still, it is not without cause that I have ventured to call it by that +strange and now almost forgotten old-world name. There is reason, we +know, in the roasting of eggs, and, if I have gone out of my way to +introduce the ancient isle to you by its title of Ruim, it is in order +that we might start clear of the odour of tea and shrimps, the +artificial niggers, and cheap excursionists, that the name of Thanet +brings up most prominently at the present day before the travelled mind +of the modern Londoner. I want to carry you back to a time when +Ramsgate was still but a green gap in the long line of chalk cliff, and +Margate but the chine of a little trickling streamlet that tumbled +seaward over the undesecrated sands; when a broad arm of the sea still +cut off Westgate from the Reculver cliffs, and when the tide swept +unopposed four times a day over the submerged sands of Minster Level. +You must think of Thanet as then greatly resembling Wight in +geographical features, and the Wantsum as the equivalent of the Solent +Sea. +</p> +<p> +In the very earliest period of our history, before ever the existing +names had been given at all to the towns or villages—nay, when the +towns and villages themselves were not—Ruim was already a noteworthy +island. For there is now very little doubt indeed that Thanet is the +Ictis or 'Channel Island' to which Cornish tin was conveyed across +Britain for shipment to the continent. The great harbour of Britain was +then the Wantsum Sea, known afterwards as the Rutupine Port, and later +still as Sandwich Haven. To that port came Gaulish and Phoenician +vessels, or possibly even at times some belated Phocæan galley from +Massilia. But the trade in tin was one of immense antiquity, long +antedating these almost modern commercial nations: for tin is a +necessary component of bronze, and the bronze age of Europe was +entirely dependent for its supply of that all-important metal upon the +Cornish mines. From a very early date, therefore, we may be sure that +ingots of tin were exported by this route to the continent, and then +transported overland by the Rhone valley to the shores of the +Mediterranean. +</p> +<p> +The tin road, to give it its more proper name, followed the crest of +the Hog's Back and the Guildford downs, crossing the various rivers at +spots whose very names still attest the ancient passages—the Wey at +Shalford, the Mole at Burford, the Medway at Aylesford, and the Wantsum +Strait at Wade, in which last I seem to hear the dim echo to this day +of the Roman Vada. Ruim itself, as less liable to attack than an inland +place, formed the depôt for the tin trade, and the ingots were no doubt +shipped near the site of Richborough. We may regard it, in fact, as a +sort of prehistoric Hong-Kong or Zanzibar, a trading island, where +merchants might traffic at ease with the shy and suspicious islanders. +</p> +<p> +Ruim at that time must have consisted almost entirely of open down, +sloping upward from the tidal Wantsum, and extending a little farther +out to sea than at the present moment. Pegwell Bay was then a wide +sea-mouth; Sandwich flats did not yet exist; and the Stour itself fell +into the Wantsum Strait at the place which still bears the historic +name of Stourmouth. Round the outer coast only a few houseless gaps +marked the spots where 'long lines of cliff, breaking, had left a +chasm'—the gaps that afterwards bore the familiar names of Ramsgate, +that is to say Ruim's Gate, or 'the Door of Thanet;' Margate, that is +to say, Mere Gate, the gap of the mere (Kentish for a brook), +Broadstairs, Kingsgate, Newgate, and Westgate. The present condition of +Dumpton Gap (minus the telegraph) will give some idea of what these +Gates looked like in their earliest days; only, instead of seeing the +cultivated down, we must imagine it wildly clad with primæval +undergrowth of yew and juniper, like the beautiful tangled district +near Guildford, still known as Fairyland. Thanet is now all +sea-front—it turns its face, freckled with summer resorts, towards the +open German Ocean. Ruim had then no sea-front at all, save the bare and +inaccessible white cliffs; it turned, such as it was, not toward the +sea, but toward the navigable Wantsum. Even until late in the middle +ages Minster was the most important place in the whole island; and +after it ranked Monkton, St. Nicholas, and Birchington—villages, all +of them, on the flat western slope. The growth in importance of the +seaward escarpment dates only from the days when Thanet became +practically a London suburb. +</p> +<p> +With the Roman invasion Ruim saw a new epoch begin. A great +organization took hold of Britain. Roads were made and colonies +established. Verulam and Camulodun gave place in part as centres of +life and trade to York and London. Even in the native days, I believe, +the Thames must always have been a great commercial focus, and the Pool +by Tower Hill must always have been what Bede called it many centuries +later, 'a mart of many nations.' But under the Romans London grew into +a considerable city; and as the regular sea highway to the Thames lay +through the Wantsum, in the rear of Thanet, that strip of estuary +became of immense importance. In those days of coasting navigation, +indeed, the habit was to avoid headlands, and take advantage everywhere +of shallow short cuts. Ships from the continent, therefore, avoided the +North Foreland by running through the Wantsum at the back of Thanet; as +they avoided Shellness and Warden Point by running through the Swale, +at the back of Sheppey. +</p> +<p> +To protect this main navigable channel, accordingly, the Romans built +the two great guardian fortresses of the coast, Rutupiæ, or +Richborough, at the southern entrance, and Regulbium, or Reculver, at +the northern exit. Under the walls of these powerful strongholds, whose +grim ruins still frown upon the dry channel at their feet, ships were +safe from piracy, while Ruim itself sheltered them from the heavy sea +that now beats with north-east winds upon the Foreland beyond. In fact, +the Wantsum was an early Spithead: it stood to Rutupiæ as the Solent +stands to Portsmouth and Southampton. But Thanet Isle hardly shared at +all in this increased civilisation; on the contrary, Rutupiæ (the +precursor of Sandwich Haven) seems to have diverted all its early +commerce. For Rutupiæ became clearly the naval capital of our island, +the seat of that <i>vir spectabilis</i>, the Count of Saxon Shore, and the +rendezvous of the fleets of those British 'usurpers' Maximus and +Carausius. It was also the Dover of its own day, the favourite landing +place for continental travellers; while its famous oysters, the true +natives, now driven by the silting up of their ancient beds to +Whitstable, were as much in repute with Roman epicures as their +descendants are to-day with the young Luculluses of the Gaiety and the +Criterion. +</p> +<p> +I have ventured by this time to speak of Ruim as Thanet; and indeed +that was already one of the names by which the island was known to its +own inhabitants. The ordinary history books, to be sure, will tell you +in their glib way that Thanet is 'Saxon' for Ruim; but, when they say +so, believe not the fond thing, vainly imagined. The name is every day +as old as the Roman occupation. Solinus, writing in the third century, +calls it Thanaton, and in the torn British fragment of the Peutinger +Tables—that curious old map of the later empire—it is marked as +Tenet. Indeed, it is a matter of demonstration that every spot which +had a known name in Roman Britain retained that name after the English +conquest. Kent itself is a case in point, and every one of its towns +bears out the law, from Dover and Lymne to Reculver and Richborough, +which last is spelt 'Ratesburg' by Leland, Henry the Eighth's +commissioner. +</p> +<p> +In some ways, however, Thanet, under the Romans, must have shared in +the general advance of the country. Solinus says it was 'glad with +corn-fields'—<i>felix frumentariis campis</i>—but this could only have +been on the tertiary slope facing Kent, as agriculture had not yet +attempted to scale the flanks of the chalk downs. As lying so near +Rutupiæ, too, villas must certainly have occupied the soil in places, +as we know they did in the Isle of Wight; while the immense number of +Roman coins picked up in the island appears to betoken a somewhat dense +provincial population. +</p> +<p> +The advent of the English brings Thanet itself, as distinct from its +ancient port, the Wantsum, into the full glare of legendary history. +According to tradition, it was at Ebb's Fleet, a little side creek near +Minster, that Hengest and Horsa first disembarked in Britain. As a +matter of fact, there is reason to suppose that at a very early time an +English colony did really settle down in peace in Thanet. On Osengal +Hill, not far from Ebb's Fleet, the cemetery of these earliest English +pioneers in England was laid bare by the building of the South Eastern +Railway. The graves are dug very shallow in the chalk, seldom as deep +as four feet; and in them lie the remains of the old heathen pirates, +buried with their arms and personal ornaments, their amber beads and +strings of glass, and the coins that were to pay their way in the other +world. But, what is oddest of all, a few of the graves in this earliest +English cemetery are Roman in character, and in them the interment is +made in the Roman fashion. The inference is almost irresistible that +the first settlement of Thanet by the English was a purely friendly +one, and that Roman and Jute lived on side by side as neighbours and +allies on the Kentish island. +</p> +<p> +I don't doubt, myself, that the whole settlement of Kent was equally +friendly, and that the population of the county contains throughout an +almost balanced mixture of Celtic and Teutonic elements. +</p> +<p> +However, the century and a half that succeeded the English colonization +of south-eastern Britain were, no doubt, a time of great retrogression +towards barbarism, as everywhere else in Romanised Europe. The villas +that must have covered the gentle slopes towards the Wantsum fell into +decay; the fortresses were destroyed; the roads ran wild; and the sea +and river began slowly to slit up the central part of the great +navigable backwater. A hundred and fifty years after Hengest and Horsa, +if those excellent gentlemen ever really existed, another famous +landing took place in Thanet. Augustine and his companions disembarked +at Ebb's Fleet, and held close by (on the hill behind Prospect House) +their first interview with Æthelberht. But though this epoch-making +event happened to occur in Thanet, it has no special connection with +the history of the island, any further than as a component of England +generally. And indeed, even through the garbled version of Bede, it is +plain enough to see that British Christendom was not yet wholly wiped +out in eastern Britain. The conversion of Kent was essentially a +conversion of the king and nobles to the Roman communion; it brought +back once more the part of Britain most in connection with the +continent into the broad fold of continental Christendom. It is quite +clear, in fact, that Rutupiæ and Durovernum, Richborough and +Canterbury, had never ceased to hold close intercourse with the +opposite shore, whose cliffs still shine so distinctly from the hills +about Ramsgate. For Æthelberht himself was married to a Christian +Frankish princess of the house of the Merwings; and coins of the +Frankish kings and of the Byzantine emperors have been found on the +surface or in contemporary Jutish graves in Kent. +</p> +<p> +It is interesting to observe, too, that of the monks whom Gregory chose +to accompany Augustine on his easy mission, one was Lawrence, who +succeeded his leader as second Archbishop of Canterbury, and another +was Peter, the first Abbot of St. Augustine's monastery. Out of +compliment to these pioneer missionaries, or to their Roman house of +St. Andrew's, almost every old church in that part of Kent is dedicated +accordingly, either to St. Augustine, St. Lawrence, St. Peter, St. +Gregory, St. Andrew, or St. Martin (patron of Bertha's first church at +Canterbury). Thus, as we shall see hereafter, St. Lawrence was the +mother church of Ramsgate, and St. Peter's of Broadstairs, while the +entire lathe bears the name of St. Augustine. +</p> +<p> +In Thanet, too, the first evidence of the new order of things was the +foundation in the island of that great civilizing agency of mediæval +England, a monastery. The site chosen for its home was still, however, +characteristic of the old point of view of Thanet. It was the place +that yet bears the name of Minster, situated on a little creek of the +Wantsum sea, where some slight remains of an ancient pier may even now +be traced among the silt of the marshes. The island still looked +towards the narrow seas and the port of Rutupiæ, not, as now, towards +the tall cliffs and the German Ocean. Ecgberht, fourth Christian king +of Kent, by the advice of Theodore, the monk of Tarsus who became +Archbishop of Canterbury, made over to the lady whose name is +conveniently Latinised as Dompneva, first abbess, some forty-eight +plough-lands in the Isle of Thanet. This cultivated district, bounded +by the ancient earthwork known (from the name of the second abbess) as +St. Mildred's Lynch, lay almost entirely within the westward-sloping +and mainly tertiary lands; the higher chalk country was as yet +apparently considered unfit for tillage. The existing remains of +Minster Abbey are, of course, of comparatively late Plantagenet date; +but as parts of a great grange, whose still larger granary was burnt +down only in the last century, they serve well to show the importance +of the monastic system as a civilizing agency in the country districts +of England. +</p> +<p> +Already in Bede's time the Wantsum was beginning to get silted up, +mainly by the muddy deposits brought down by the Stour. It was then +only three furlongs wide, and could be forded at two points, near Sarr +and at Wade. The seaward mouth was also beginning to be encumbered with +sand, and the first indication we get of this important impending +change is the fact that we now hear less of Richborough, and more of +Sandwich, the new port a little nearer the sea, whose very name of the +Wick or haven on the Sand, in itself sufficiently tells the history of +its origin. As the older port got progressively silted up, the newer +one grew into ever greater importance, exactly as Norwich ousted +Caister, or as Portsmouth has taken the place of Porchester. +Nevertheless, the central channel still remained navigable for the +vessels of that age—they can only have drawn a very few feet of +water—and this made the Wantsum in time the great highway for the +Danish pirates on their way to London, and exposed Thanet exceptionally +to their relentless incursions. +</p> +<p> +In fact, the Danes and Northmen were just what they loved to call +themselves, vik-ings or wickings, men of the viks, wicks, bays, or +estuaries. What they loved was a fiord, a strait, a peninsula, an +island. Everywhere round the coast of Britain they seized and fortified +the projecting headlands. But in the neighbourhood of the Thames, the +high road to the great commercial port of London, the mementoes of +their presence are particularly frequent. The whole nomenclature of the +lower Thames navigation, as Canon Isaac Taylor has pointed out, is +Scandinavian to this day. Deptford (the deep fiord), Greenwich (the +green reach), and Woolwich (the hill reach) all bear good Norse names. +So do the Foreness, the Whiteness, Shellness, Sheerness, Shoeburyness, +Foulness, Wrabness, and Orfordness. Walton-on-the-Naze near Harwich in +like manner still recalls the time when a Danish 'wall'—that is to +say, a <i>vallum</i>, or earthwork—ran across the isthmus to defend the +Scandinavian peninsula from its English enemies. +</p> +<p> +At such a time Sandwich, with its shallow fiord, was sure to afford +good shelter to the northern long ships; and isolated Thanet, +overlooking the navigable strait, was a predestined depôt for the +northern pirates, as four centuries earlier it had been for the +followers of those mythical personifications, Hengest and Horsa. Long +before the unification of England under a single West Saxon +overlordship the Danes used to land in the island every year, to +plunder the crops, and in 851, when Æthelwulf was lord of Wessex at +Winchester, 'heathen men,' says the Winchester Chronicle, with its +usual charming conciseness, 'first sat over winter in Tenet.' From that +time forward the 'heathen men' continually returned to the island, +which they used apparently as a base of operations, with their ships +lying in Sandwich Haven; in fact, Thanet must long have been a sort of +irregular Danish colony. Still, St. Mildred's nuns appear to have lived +on somehow at Minster through the dark time, for in 988 the Danes +landed and burnt the abbey, as they did again under Swegen in 1011, +killing at the same time the abbess and all the inmates. On the whole, +it is probable that life and property in Thanet were far from secure +any time in the ninth, tenth, and early eleventh centuries. +</p> +<p> +At least as late as the Norman conquest the Wantsum remained a +navigable channel, and the usual route to London by sea was in at +Sandwich and out at Northmouth. It was thus that King Harold's fleet +sailed on its plundering expedition round the coast of Kent (a small +unexplained incident of the early English type, only to be understood +by the analogies of later Scotch history), and thus too, that many +other expeditions are described in the concise style of our +unsophisticated early historians. But from the eleventh century onward +we hear little of the Wantsum as a navigable channel; it has dwindled +down almost entirely to Sandwich Haven, 'the most famous of English +ports,' says the writer of the life of Emma of Normandy, about 1050. +Sandwich is indeed the oldest of the Cinque Ports, succeeding in this +matter to the honours of Rutupiæ, and all through the middle ages it +remained the great harbour for continental traffic. Edward III. sailed +thence for France or Flanders, and as late as 1446 it is still spoken +of by a foreign ambassador as the resort of ships from all quarters of +Europe. +</p> +<p> +Still, the Wantsum was all this while gradually silting up, a grain at +a time, and the Isle of Ruim was slowly becoming joined to the opposite +mainland. When Leland visited it, in Henry VIII.'s reign, the change +was almost complete. 'At Northmouth,' says the royal commissioner, in +his quaint dry way, 'where the estery of the se was, the salt water +swelleth yet up at a Creeke a myle or more toward a place called Sarre, +which was the commune fery when Thanet was fulle iled.' Sandwich Haven +itself began to be difficult of access about 1500 (Henry VII. being +king), and in 1558 (under Mary) a Flemish engineer, 'a cunning and +expert man in waterworks,' was engaged to remedy the blocking of the +channel. By a century later it was quite closed, and the Isle of Thanet +had ceased to exist, except in name, the Stour now flowing seaward by a +long bend through Minster Level, while hardly a relic of the Wantsum +could be traced in the artificial ditches that intersect the flat and +banked-up surface of the St. Nicholas marshes. +</p> +<p> +Meanwhile, Thanet had been growing once more into an agricultural +country. Minster, untenable by its nuns, had been made over after the +Danish invasions to the monks of St. Augustine at Canterbury, and it +was they who built the great barn and manor house which were the outer +symbol of its new agricultural importance. Monkton, close by, belonged +to the rival house of Christ Church at Canterbury (the cathedral +monastery), as did also St. Nicholas at Wade, remarkable for its large +and handsome Early English church. All these ecclesiastical lands were +excellently tilled. After the Reformation, however, things changed +greatly. The silting up of the Wantsum and the decay of Sandwich Haven +left Thanet quite out of the world, remote from all the main highroads +of the new England. Ships now went past the North Foreland to London, +and knew it only as a dangerous point, not without a sinister +reputation for wrecking. On the other hand, on the land side, the +island lay off the great highways, surrounded by marsh or +half-reclaimed levels; and it seems rapidly to have sunk into a state +resembling that of the more distant parts of Cornwall. The inhabitants +degenerated into good wreckers and bad tillers. They say an Orkney man +is a farmer who owns a boat, while a Shetlander is a fisherman who owns +a farm. In much the same spirit, Camden speaks of the Elizabethan +Thanet folks as 'a sort of amphibious creatures, equally skilled in +holding helm and plough'; while Lewis, early in the last century, tells +us they made 'two voyages a year to the North Seas, and came home soon +enough for the men to go to the wheat season.' With genial tolerance +the Georgian historian adds, 'It's a thousand pities they are so apt to +pilfer stranded ships.' Piracy, which ran in the Thanet blood, seemed +to their good easy local annalist a regrettable peccadillo. +</p> +<p> +In all this, however, we begin to catch the first faintly-resounding +note of modern Thanet. The intelligent reader will no doubt have +observed, with his usual acuteness, that up to date we have heard +practically nothing of Ramsgate, Margate, and Broadstairs, which now +form the real centres of population in the nominal island. Its +relations have all been with Rutupiæ, Sandwich, Canterbury, and the +mainland. But the silting up of the Wantsum turned the new Thanet +seaward, by the chalky cliffs; and the gaps or gates in that natural +sea-wall now began to be of comparative importance as fishing stations +and small havens. Ebb's Fleet was no longer the port of Ruim. The +centre of gravity of the island shifts at this point, accordingly, from +Minster to Ramsgate. The change is well marked by certain interesting +ecclesiastical facts. Neither Ramsgate nor Broadstairs had originally +churches of their own. The first formed part of the parish of St. +Lawrence, which was itself a mere chapelry of Minster till late in the +thirteenth century. The old village lies half a mile inland, and +Ramsgate itself was throughout the middle ages nothing more than a mere +gap and cove where the fishermen of St. Lawrence kept their boats. The +first church in the town proper was not erected till 1791. Similarly, +Broadstairs formed part of the parish of St. Peter's, the village of +which lies back at about the same distance from the sea as St. +Lawrence; and St Peter's, too, was at first a chapelry of Minster. The +cliffs were then nothing; the inward slope was everything. +</p> +<p> +Margate seems to have been the first place in the new Thanet to attain +the honour of a place in history. As in two previous cases, the Mere +Gate was at first but a fisherman's station for the village of St. +John's, which gathered about the old church at the south end of the +existing town. But as the Northmouth closed up, and Sandwich Haven +decayed, the Mere Gate naturally became the little local port for corn +grown on the island and wool raised on the newly-reclaimed Minster +Level. A wooden pier existed at Margate long before the reign of Henry +VIII., when Leland found it "sore decayed," and the village was in +repute for fishery and coasting trade. Throughout the Stuart period +Margate was the ordinary place of departure and arrival for Flushing +and the Low Countries. William of Orange frequently sailed hence, and +Maryborough used it for almost all his expeditions. It was about the +middle of the last century, however, that the real prosperity of +Margate first began. Then it was that citizens of credit and renown in +London first hit upon the glorious discovery of the seaside, and that +watering-places tentatively and timidly raised their unobtrusive heads +along the nearer beaches. The journey from London could be made far +more easily by river than that to Brighton by coach; and so Margate, +the nearest spot to town (by water) on the real sea with any +accommodation for visitors, became in point of fact the earliest London +seaside resort. It was, if not the first place, at least one of the +first places in England to offer to its guests the perilous joy of +bathing machines, which were inaugurated here about 1790. +</p> +<p> +With the introduction of steamers Margate's fortune was made. Floods of +Cockneydom were let loose upon the nascent lodging-houses. Then came +the London, Chatham and Dover, and South Eastern Railways, and with +them an ever-increasing inundation of good-humoured cheap-trippers. The +Hall-by-the-Sea and other modern improvements and attractions followed. +Like the rest of Thanet, Margate has now become a mere suburb of +London, and what it resembles at the present day a delicate regard for +the feelings of the inhabitants forbids me to enlarge upon. I will +merely add that the recognized modern name of Margate is an +etymological blunder, due to the idea immortalized in the borough +motto, "Porta maris, Portus salutis," that it means Door of the Sea. +The true word is still universally preserved on the lips of the local +fisher-folk, who always religiously call it either Meregate or Mergate. +</p> +<p> +Ramsgate, a much more attractive and enjoyable centre, rich in +excursions to points of genuine interest, dates somewhat later. It +first came into note about the beginning of the eighteenth century, +when it did a modest trade with the Levant and the Black Sea, or, as +contemporary English more prettily phrases it, 'with Russia and the +east country.' In 1750 the first pier was built, as a national work, +mainly to serve as a harbour of refuge for ships caught in gales off +the Downs. The engineer was Smeaton, and he succeeded in creating an +artificial harbour of great extent, which has lasted substantially up +to the present time. This new port, rendered safer by the enlargement +in 1788, made Ramsgate at once into an important seafaring town, the +capital of the Kentish herring trade, alive with smacks in the busy +season. The steamers did it less good at first than they did to +Margate; but the completion of the two railways, and the building of +the handsome extensions on the east and west cliffs, turned it at once +into a frequented watering-place. It is the fashion nowadays rather to +laugh at Ramsgate. Marine painters know better. Few harbours are +livelier with red and brown sails; few coasts more enjoyable than the +cliff walk looking across towards the Goodwins, the low shore by +Sandwich, the higher ground about Deal and Dover, and the dim white +line of Cape Blancnez in the distance. +</p> +<p> +Broadstairs, close by the lighthouse on the North Foreland (the Cantium +Promontorium of Roman geography), is still newer as a place of public +resort. But as a fishing village it dates back to the middle ages, when +the little chapel of "Our Lady of Bradstow" stood in the gap of the +cliffs, and was much addressed by anxious sailors rounding the +dangerous point after the silting up of the Wantsum. Ships as they +passed lowered their top-sails to do it reverence. Under Henry VIII. a +small wooden pier was thrown out to protect the fishing boats; and +about the same time, as part of the general scheme of coast defence +inaugurated by the king, a gate and portcullis were erected to close +the gap seaward, in case of invasion. The archway and portcullis groove +remain to this day, with an inscription recording their repair in 1795 +by Sir John Henniker. The railway has turned Broadstairs into a minor +rival of Ramsgate and Margate and 'a favourite resort for gentry,' +where 'those who require quietness, either from ill health or a +retiring disposition,' says a local guide-book, may enjoy 'the united +advantages of tranquillity and seclusion.' Hundreds of retiring souls +indeed may be observed on the beach any day during the season, seeking +tranquillity in a game of cards, repairing their health with the +stimulus of donkey exercise, or soothing their souls in secret hour +with music sweet as love, discoursed to them by gentlemen in loose pink +suits and artificially imitated Æthiopian countenances. +</p> +<p> +Westgate is the very latest-born of these Thanet gates, a brand-new +watering-place, where every house proclaims the futility of the popular +belief that Queen Anne is dead, and where fashionable physicians send +fashionable patients to cure imaginary diseases by a dose of fresh air. +It has no history, for only a few years since it consisted entirely of +a coastguard station and three or four cottages: but it is interesting +as casting light on the nature of the revolution which has turned +Thanet inside out and hind part before, making the open sea take the +place of the Kentish mainland, and the railway to London that of the +silted Wantsum. +</p> +<p> +At the present day Thanet as a whole consists of two parts: the live +sea front, which is one long succession of suburban watering-places; +and the agricultural interior, including the reclaimed estuary, which +ranks among the best-farmed and most productive districts in all +England, Yet till a very recent date the Thanet farmers still retained +the use of the old Kentish plough, the coulter of which is reversed at +the end of every furrow; and many other curious insular customs mark +off the agriculture of the island even now from that which prevails +over the rest of the country. +</p> +<p> +I don't know whether I'm wrong, but it often seems to me the very best +way to gain an idea of the real history of England is thus to take a +single district piecemeal, and trace out for one's self the main +features of its gradual evolution. By so doing we get away from mere +dynastic or political considerations, leave behind the bang of drums or +the blare of trumpets, and reach down to the living facts of common +human activity themselves—the realities of the workaday world of +toilers and spinners. By narrowing our field of view, in fact, we gain +a clearer picture on our smaller focus. We see how the big historical +revolutions actually affected the life of the people; and we trace more +readily the true nature of deep-reaching changes when we follow them +out in detail over a particular area. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch14"></a>A HILL-TOP STRONGHOLD. +</h2> +<p> +'Why, what did they want to build a city right up here for, anyway?' +the pretty American asked, who had come with us to Fiesole, as we +rested, panting, after our long steep climb, on the cathedral platform. +</p> +<p> +Now the question was a pertinent and in its way a truly philosophical +one. Fiesole crests the ridge of a Tuscan hill, and in America they +don't build cities on hill-tops. You may search through the length and +breadth of the United States, from Maine to California, and I venture +to bet a modest dollar you won't find a single town perched anywhere in +a position at all resembling that of many a glowing Etrurian fastness, +that 'Like an eagle's nest Hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine.' +Towns in America stand all on the level: most of them are built by +harbours of sea or inland lake; or by navigable rivers; or at the +junction of railways; or at a point where cataracts (sadly debased) +supply ample water-power for saw-mills and factories; or else in the +immediate neighbourhood of coal, iron, oil wells, or gold and silver +mines. In short, the position of American towns bears always an +immediate and obvious reference to the wants and necessities of our +modern industrial and commercial system. They are towns that have grown +up in a state of profound peace, and that imply advanced means of +communication, with a free interchange of agricultural and manufactured +products. +</p> +<p> +Hence in America it is always quite easy to see at a glance the <i>raison +d'être</i> of every town or village one comes across. New York, Boston, +Philadelphia, Baltimore—New Orleans, Montreal, San Francisco, +Charleston—are all great ports for the exportation of corn, pork, +'lumber,' cotton, or tobacco, and the importation of European +manufactured goods. Chicago is the main collecting and distributing +centre for the wide basin of the upper Great Lakes, as Cincinnati is +for the Ohio Valley, and St. Louis for the Mississippi and Missouri +confluents. Pittsburg bases itself upon its coal and its iron; Buffalo +exists as the point of transfer where elevators raise the corn of +Chicago from lake-going vessels into the long, low barges of the Erie +Canal. In every case, in that newest of worlds, one can see for oneself +at a glance exactly why so large a body of human beings has collected +just at that precise spot, and at no other. +</p> +<p> +But when you have toiled up, hot and breathless, through olive and +pine, from the Viale at Florence to the antique Cyclopean walls of +Etruscan Fæsulæ, you wonder to yourself, like our American friend, as +you pant on the terrace of the Romanesque cathedral, what on earth they +could ever have wanted to build a town up there for, anyway. +</p> +<p> +If we look away from Tuscany to our own England, however, we shall find +on many a deserted down or lonely tor ample evidence of the causes +which led the people of this ancient Etruscan town to build their +citadel at so great a height above the neighbouring valley. Fiesole, +says Dante, in a well-known verse, was the mother of Florence. Even so +in England, Old Sarum was indeed the mother of Salisbury, and Caer +Badon or Sulis was the mother of Bath. And when there was first a +Fæsulæ on the hill here there could be no Florence, as when first there +was an Old Sarum on the Wiltshire downs there could be no Salisbury, +and when first there was a Caer Badon on the heights of Avon there +could be no Bath. +</p> +<p> +In very early times indeed, in the European land area, when men began +first to gather together into towns or villages, two necessities +determined their choice of a place to dwell in: first, food-supply +(including water); and second, defence. Hence every early community +stands, to start with, near its own cultivable territory, usually a +broad river-valley, an alluvial plain, a 'carse' or lowland, for +uplands as yet were incapable of tillage by the primitive agriculture +of those early epochs. But it does not stand actually <i>in</i> the carse; +it occupies as a rule the nearest convenient height or hill-top, most +often the one that juts out farthest into the subjacent plain, by way +of security against the attack of enemies. This is the beginning of +almost every great historical European town; it is an arx or acropolis +overhanging its own tilth or <i>ager</i>; and though in many cases the town +came down at last into the valley, retaining still its old name, yet +the remains of the old earthworks or walls on the hill-top above often +bear witness to our own day to the original site of the antique +settlement upon the high places. +</p> +<p> +One can mark, too, various stages in this gradual process of secular +descent from the wind-swept hills into the valleys below, as freer +communications and greater security made access to water, roads, and +rivers of greater importance than mere defence or elevated position. At +Bath, for example, it was the Pax Romana that brought down the town +from the stockaded height of Caer Badon, and the Hill of Solisbury to +the ford and the hot springs in the valley of the Avon. At Old Sarum, +on the other hand, the hill-top town remained much longer: it lived +from the Celtic first into the Roman and then into the West Saxon +world; it had a cathedral of its own in Norman times; and even long +after Bishop Roger Poore founded the New Sarum, which we now call +Salisbury, at the point where the great west road passed the river +below, the hill-top town continued to be inhabited, and, as everybody +knows, when all its population had finally dwindled away, retained some +vestige of its ancient importance by returning a member of its own for +a single farmhouse to the unreformed Parliament till '32. As for +Fiesole, though Florence has long since superseded it as the capital of +the Arno Valley, the town itself still lives on to our own time in a +dead-alive way, and, like Norman. Old Sarum, retains even now its +beautiful old cathedral, its Palazzo Pretorio, and its acknowledged +claims to ancient boroughship. In England, I know by personal +experience only one such hill-top town of the antique sort still +surviving, and that is Shaftsbury; but I am told that Launceston, with +its strong castle overlooking the Tamar, is even a finer example. This +relatively early disappearance of the hill-top fortress from our own +midst is in part due, no doubt, to the early growth of the industrial +spirit in England, and our long-continued freedom from domestic +warfare. But all over Southern Europe, as everybody must have noticed, +the hill-top town, perched, like Eza, on the very summit of a pointed +pinnacle, still remains everywhere in evidence as a common object of +the country in our own day. +</p> +<p> +I said above that Fiesole was the mother of Florence, and, in spite of +formal objections to the contrary, I venture to defend that now +somewhat obsolete and heretical opinion. For why does Fiesole stand +just where it does? What made them build a city up there, anyway? Well, +a town always exists just where it does exist for some good and amply +sufficient reason. Even if, like Fiesole, it is mainly a survival +(though at Fiesole there are, indeed, olives in plenty and other live +trades to keep a town going), it yet exists there in virtue of facts +which once upon a time were quite sufficient to bring the world to the +spot, and it goes on existing, partly by mere conservative use and +wont, no doubt, but partly also because there are houses, churches, +mills, and roads all ready built there. Now, a town must always, from a +very early period, have existed upon the exact site of Fiesole. And +why? To answer that question you have only to look at the view from the +platform. I do not mean to suggest that the ancient Etruscans came +there to enjoy the prospect as we go nowadays to the hotels on the Rigi +or to the summit of Mount Washington. The ancient Etruscan was a +practical man, and his views about views were probably rudimentary. But +gaze down for a moment from the cathedral platform upon the valley of +the Arno, spread like a glowing picture at your feet, and see how +immediately it resolves the doubt. Not, indeed, the valley of the Arno +as it stands at present, thick set with tower and spire and palace. In +order to arrive at the <i>raison d'être</i> of Fiesole you must blot out +mentally Arnolfo's vast pile, and Brunelleschi's dome, and Giotto's +campanile, and Savonarola's monastery, and the tall and slender tower +of the Palazzo Vecchio, rising like a shaft sheer into the air far, far +below—you must blot out, in short, all that makes the world now +congregate at Florence, and all Florence itself into the bargain. +Nowhere on earth do I know a more peopled plain than that plain of Arno +in our own time, seen on a sunny autumn day, when the light glints +clearly on each white villa and church and hamlet, from this specular +mount of antique Fiesole. But to understand why Fiesole itself stands +there at all you must neglect all this, neglect all the wealth of art +that makes each inch of that valley classic ground, and look only, if +you can for a brief moment, at the bare facts of primitive nature. +</p> +<p> +And what then do you see? Spread far below you, and basking in the +sunshine, a comparatively flat and wide, open valley; olive and stone +pine and mulberry on its slopes; pasture land and flowery vale in its +midst. North and south, in two long ridges, the Apennines stretch their +hard, blue outlines from Carrara to Siena against the afternoon +sky—outlines of a sort that one never gets in northern lands, but +which remind one so exactly of the painted background to a +fifteenth-century Italian picture that nature seems here, to our +topsy-turvy fancy, to be whimsically imitating an effect from art. But +in between those two tossed and tumbled guardian ridges, the valley of +the Arno, as it flows towards Pisa, with the minor basins of its +tributary streams, expands for a while about Florence itself into a +broad and comparatively level plain. In a mountain country so broken +and heaved about as Peninsular Italy, every spare inch of cultivable +plain like that has incalculable value. True, on the terraced slopes of +the hillsides generation after generation of ingenious men have managed +to build up, tier by tier, a wonderful expanse of artificial tilth. But +while oil and wine can be produced upon the terraces, it is on the +river valleys alone that the early inhabitants had to depend for their +corn, their cheese, and their flesh-meat. Hence, in primitive Italy and +in primitive England alike, every such open alluvial plain, fit for +tilth or grazing, had overhanging it a stockaded hill-fort, which grew +with time into a mediæval town or a walled city. It is just so that +Caer Badon at Bath overhangs, with its prehistoric earthworks, the +plain of Avon on which Beau Nash's city now spreads its streets, and it +is just so that Old Sarum in turn overhangs, with its regular Roman +fosses and gigantic glacis, the dale of the namesake river in Wilts, +near its point of confluence with the stream of the Wily. +</p> +<p> +We find it hard, no doubt, to imagine nowadays that once upon a time +England was almost as thickly covered with hill-top villages (though on +minor heights) as Italy is in the present century. Yet such was +undoubtedly the case in prehistoric times. I know no better instance of +the way these stockaded villages were built than the magnificent group +of antique earthworks in Dorset and Devon which rings round with a +double row of fortresses the beautiful valley of the Axminster Axe. +There, on one side, a long line of strongholds built by the Durotriges +caps every jutting down and hill-top on the southern and eastern bank +of the river, while facing them, on the opposite northern and western +side, rises a similar series of Damnonian fortresses, crowning the +corresponding Devonshire heights. Lambert's Castle, Musberry Castle, +Hawksdown Castle, and so forth, the local nomenclature still calls +them, but they are castles, or <i>castra</i>, only in the now obsolete Roman +sense; prehistoric earthworks, with dyke and trench, once stockaded +with wooden palings on top, and enclosing the huts and homes of the +inhabitants. The river ran between the hostile territories; each +village held its own strip of land below its fortress-height, and drove +up its cattle, its women, and its children, in times of foray, to the +safety of the kraal or hill-top encampment. +</p> +<p> +In such a condition of society, of course, every community was +absolutely dependent upon its own territory for the means of +subsistence. And wherever the means of subsistence existed, a village +was sure to spring up in time upon the nearest hill-top. That is how +the oldest Fiesole of all first came to be perched there. It was a +hill-top refuge for the tillers and grazers of the fertile Arno vale at +its feet. +</p> +<p> +But why did the people of the Arno Valley fix upon the particular site +of Fiesole? Surely on the southern side of the river, about the Viale +dei Colli, the hills approach much nearer to the plain. From San +Miniato and the Bello Sguardo one looks down far more directly upon the +domes and palaces and campaniles of Florence spread right at one's +feet. Why didn't the primitive inhabitants of the valley fix rather on +a spur of that nearer range—say the one where Galileo's tower +stands—for the site of their village? +</p> +<p> +If you know Florence and have asked that question within yourself in +all seriousness as you read, I see you haven't yet begun to throw +yourself into the position of affairs in prehistoric Tuscany. You can't +shuffle off your own century. For between the broad plain and the range +of hills where the Viale dei Colli now winds serpentine on its +beautiful way round the glens and ravines, the Arno runs, a broad +torrent flood in times of freshet: the Arno, unbridged as yet (in the +days I speak of) by the Ponte Vecchio, an impassable frontier between +the wide territory of prehistoric Fiesole and the narrow fields of some +minor village, long since forgotten, on the opposite bank. The great +alluvial plain lies north of the river; the three streams whose silt +contributes to form it flow into the main channel from Pistoja and +Prato. To live across the river on the south bank would have been +absolutely impossible for the owners of the plain. But Fiesole occupies +a central spur of the northern heights, overlooking the valley to east +and west, and must therefore have been always the natural place from +which to command the plain of Arno. A little above and a little below +Florence gorges once more hem the river in. So that the plain of +Florence (as we call it nowadays), the plain of Fiesole, as it once +was, formed at the beginning a little natural principality by itself, +of which Fiesole was the obvious capital and stronghold. +</p> +<p> +For in order to understand Fiesole aright, we must always manage in our +own minds to get rid entirely of that beautiful mushroom growth, +Florence, and to think only of the most ancient epoch. While we are in +Florence itself, to be sure, it seems to us always, by comparison with +our modern English towns, that Florence is a place of immemorial +antiquity. It was civilized when Britain was a den of thieves. While in +feudal England Edward I. was summoning his barons to repress the rising +of William Wallace, in Florence, already a great commercial town, +Arnolfo di Cambio had received the sublime orders of the Signoria to +construct for the Duomo 'the most sumptuous edifice that human +invention could desire or human labour execute,' and had carried out +those orders with consummate skill. While Edward III. was dreaming of +his lawless filibustering expeditions into France, Ciotto was +encrusting the face of his glorious belfry with that magnificent +decoration of many-coloured marbles which makes northern churches look +so cold and grey and barbaric by comparison. While Englishmen were +burning Joan of Arc at Rouen, Fra Angelico was adorning the walls of +San Marco with those rapt saints and those spotless Madonnas. Even the +very back streets of Florence recall at every step its mediæval +magnificence. But when from Florence itself one turns to Fiesole, the +city by the Arno sinks at once by a sudden revulsion into a mere thing +of yesterday by the side of the city on the Etruscan hill-top. Fiesole +was a town of immemorial antiquity while Florence was still, what +perhaps its poetical name imports, a field of flowers. +</p> +<p> +But why this particular height rather than any other of the dozen that +jut out into the plain? Well, there we get at another fundamental point +in hill-top town history. Fiesole had water. A spring at such a height +is comparatively rare, but it is a necessary accompaniment, or rather a +condition precedent, of all high-place villages. In the Borgo Unto you +will still find this spring—a natural fountain, the Fonte Sotterra—in +an underground passage, now approached (so greatly did the Fiesolans +appreciate its importance) by a Gothic archway. The water supplies the +whole neighbourhood; and that accounts for the position of the town on +the low <i>col</i> just below the acropolis. +</p> +<p> +Who first chose the site it would be impossible to say; the earliest +stockaded fort at Fiesole (enclosing the town and arx above) must go +back to the very dawn of neolithic history, long before the Etruscans +had ever issued forth from their Rhætian fastnesses to occupy the blue +and silver-grey hills of modern Tuscany. Nor do we know who built the +great Cyclopean walls, whose huge rough blocks still overhang the +modern carriage road that leads past Boccaccio's Valley of the Ladies +and Fra Angelico's earliest convent from the town in the Valley. They +are attributed to the Etruscans, of course, on much the same grounds as +Stonehenge is attributed to the Druids—because in the minds of the +people who made the attribution Etruscans and Druids were each in their +own place the <i>ne plus ultra</i> of aboriginal antiquity. But at any rate, +at some very early time, the people who held the valley of the Arno +erected these vast megalithic walls round their city and citadel as a +protection, probably, against the people who held the Ligurian +sea-board. Throughout the early historical period at least we know that +Fæsulæ was an Etruscan border-town against the Ligurian freebooters, +and we can see that the arx or acropolis of Fæsulæ must have occupied +the hill-top now occupied by the Franciscan monastery on the height +above the town, while the houses must have spread, as they still do +within shrunken limits, about the spring and over the <i>col</i> at its +base. +</p> +<p> +Fæsulæ was not one of the great Etrurian cities, not one of the twelve +cities of the Etruscan League. Volterra occupies the site of the large +Tuscan town which lorded it over this part of the Lower Apennines. But +Fæsulæ must still have been a considerable place, to judge by the +magnitude and importance of its fortifications, and it must have +gathered into itself the entire population of all the little Arno +plain. As long as <i>fortis Etruria crevit</i>, Fæsulæ must always have held +its own as a frontier post against the Ligurian foe. But when <i>fortis +Etruria</i> began to decline, and Rome to become the summit of all things, +the glory of Fæsulæ received a severe shock. Not indeed by +conquest—that counts for little—but the Roman peace introduced into +Italy a new order of things, fatal to the hill-tops. Sulla, who humbled +Fæsulæ, did far worse than that: he planted a Roman colony in the +valley at its foot—the colony of Florentia—at the point where the +road crossed the Arno—the colony that was afterwards to become the +most famous commercial and artistic town of the mediæval world as +Florence. +</p> +<p> +The position of the new town marks the change that had come over the +conditions of life in Upper Italy. Florence was a Fiesole descended to +the plain. And it descended for just the selfsame reason that made +Bishop Poore thirteen centuries later bring down Sarum from its lofty +hill-top to the new white minster by the ford of Avon. Roads, +communications, internal trade were henceforth to exist and to count +for much; what was needed now was a post and trading town on the river +to guard the passage from north to south against possible aggression. +Fiesole had been but a mountain stronghold; Florence was marked from +the very beginning by its mere position as a great commercial and +manufacturing town. +</p> +<p> +Nevertheless, just as in mediæval England the upper town on the hill, +the castled town of the barons, often existed for many years side by +side with the lower town on the river, the high-road town of the +merchant guilds—just as Old Sarum, for example, continued to exist +side by side with Salisbury—so Fæsulæ continued to exist side by side +with Florentia. As a military post, commanding the plain, it was +needful to retain it; and so, though Sulla destroyed in part its +population, he reinstated it before long as one of his own Roman +colonies. And for a long time, during the ages of doubtful peace that +succeeded the first glorious flush of the military empire, Fæsulæ must +have kept up its importance unchanged. The remains of the Roman theatre +on the slope behind the cathedral—great stone semicircles carved on a +scale to seat a large audience—betoken a considerable Roman town. And +from a very early period it seems to have possessed a Christian church, +whose first bishop, according to a tradition as good as most, was a +convert of St. Peter's, and was martyred, says his legend, in the +Neronian persecution. The existing cathedral, its later representative, +is still an early and very simple Tuscan basilica, with picturesque +crypt and raised choir, of a very plain Romanesque type. It looks like +a fitting church for the mother-town of Florence; it seems to recall in +its own cold and austere fabric the more ancient claims of the sombre +Etruscan hill-top city. +</p> +<p> +It was the middle ages, however, that finally brought down Fiesole in +earnest to the plain. Pisa had been the earliest Tuscan town to attain +importance and maritime supremacy after the dark days of barbarian +incursion; but as soon as land-transit once more assumed general +importance, Florence, seated on the great route from the north to Rome +by Siena, and commanding the passage of the Arno and the gate of the +Apennines, naturally began to surpass in time its distanced rival. As +early as the Roman days a bridge is said to have spanned the Arno on +the site of the existing Ponte Vecchio. The mediæval walls enclosed the +southern <i>tête du pont</i> within their picturesque circuit, thus securing +the passage of the river and giving Florence its little Janiculus, the +Oltrarno, with its southern exit by the Porta Romana. The real 'makers +of Florence' were the humble workmen who thus extended the firm hold of +the growing republic to the southern bank. By so doing, they gave their +city undoubted command of the imperial route from Germany Romeward, and +brought in their train Dante and Giotto, Brunelleschi and Donatello, +Fra Angelico and Savonarola, the Medici and the Pitti, Michael Angelo +and Raffaele, and all the glories of the Renaissance epoch. For as at +Athens, so in Florence, art and literature followed plainly in the wake +of commerce. But the rise of Florence was the fall of Fiesole. Already +in the eleventh century the undutiful daughter had conquered and +annexed her venerable mother; and in proportion as the mercantile +importance of the city in the plain waxed greater and greater, that of +the city on the hill-top must slowly have waned to less and less. At +the present day Fiesole has degenerated into a mere suburb of Florence, +which, indeed, it had almost become when Lorenzo the Magnificent held +his country court at the Villa Mozzi, or even earlier, when Boccaccio's +lively narrators fled from the plague to the gardens of the Palmieri, +though it still retains the dignity of its ancient cathedral, its +municipal palace, its gigantic seminary, and its great overgrown +Franciscan monastery, that replaces the citadel on the height above the +town. Nay, more, with its local museum, its bishop's palace, and its +quaint churches, it keeps up, to some extent, all the airs and graces +of a real living town. But in reality these few big buildings, and the +graceful campanile which makes so fair a show in all the neighbouring +views, are the best of the little city. Fiesole looks biggest seen from +afar. All that is vital in it is the ecclesiastical establishment, +which still clings, with true ecclesiastical conservatism, to the +hill-top city, and the trade of the straw plaiters, who make Leghorn +straw goods and pester the visitor with their flimsy wares, taking no +answer to all their importunities save one in solid coin of good King +Umberto. +</p> +<p> +One last question. How does it come that in these southern climates the +hill-top town has survived so much more generally to our own day than +in Northern Europe? The obvious answer seems at first sight to be that +in the warmer climates life can be carried on comfortably, and +agriculture can yield good results, at a greater height than in a cold +climate. Olives, vines, chestnuts, maize will grow far up on Italian +hill sides, and that, no doubt, counts for something; but I do not +believe it covers all the ground. Two other points seem to me at least +equally important, especially when we remember that the hill-top town +was once as common in the north as in the south, and that what we have +really to account for in Italy is not its existence merely, but rather +its late survival into newer epochs. One point is that in Southern +Europe the state of perpetual internal warfare lasted much longer than +in the feudal north. The other point is that each little patch of +country in the south is still far more self-supporting, has had its +economic conditions far less disturbed by modern rearrangements and +commercial necessities, than in Northern Europe. In England every town +and village stands upon some high road; the larger stand almost +invariably upon some railway or some navigable river. In Italy it is +still quite possible, where agricultural conditions are favourable, to +have a comparatively flourishing town perched upon some out-of-the-way +mountain height. Even a carriage road is scarcely a necessity; a mule +path will do well enough for wine and oil and the other simple +commodities of southern life. The hill-top town, in short, belongs to +an earlier type of civilisation than ours; it survives, unaltered, on +its own pinnacle wherever that type of civilisation is still possible. +</p> +<p> +And I sincerely hope our pretty American friend will pardon me for +having thus publicly answered, at so great length, her natural +question. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch15"></a>A PERSISTENT NATIONALITY. +</h2> +<p> +Standing to-day before the dim outline of Orcagna's "Hell" in the +Church of Santa Maria Novella, at Florence, and mentally comparing +those mediæval demons and monsters and torturers on the frescoed wall +in front of me with the more antique Etruscan devils and tormentors +pictured centuries earlier on the ancient tombs of Etrurian princes, +the thought, which had often occurred to me before, how essentially +similar were the Tuscan intellect and Tuscan art in all ages, forced +itself upon me once more at a flash with an irresistible burst of +internal conviction. The identity of old and new seemed to stand +confessed. Etruria throughout has been one and the same; and it is +almost impossible for any one to over-estimate the influence of the +powerful, but gloomy, Etruscan character upon the whole tone, not only +of popular Christianity, but of that modern civilisation which is its +offspring and outcome. +</p> +<p> +I suppose it is hardly necessary, "in this age of enlightenment" (as +people used to say in the last century), to insist any longer upon the +obvious fact that conquest and absorption do not in any way mean +extermination. Most people still vaguely fancy to themselves, to be +sure, that, when Rome conquered and absorbed Etruria, the ancient +Etruscan ceased at once to exist—was swallowed, as it were, and became +forthwith, in some mysterious way, first a Roman, and then a modern +Italian. And, in a certain sense, this is, no doubt, more or less true; +but that sense is decidedly not the genealogical one. Manners change, +but blood persists. The Tuscan people went on living and marrying under +consul and emperor just as they had done under <i>lar</i> and <i>lucumo</i>; +Latin and Gaul, Lombard and Goth, mingled with them in time, but did +not efface them; and I do not doubt that the vast mass of the +population of Tuscany at the present day is still of preponderatingly +Etruscan blood, though qualified, of course (and perhaps improved), by +many Italic, Celtic, and Teutonic elements. +</p> +<p> +Again, when we remember that Florence, Pisa, Siena, Perugia are all +practically in Tuscany, and that Florence alone has really given to the +world Dante and Boccaccio, Galileo and Savonarola, Cimabue and Giotto, +Botticelli and Fra Angelico, Donatello and Ghiberti, Michael Angelo and +Raffael, Leonardo da Vinci and Macchiavelli and Alfieri, and a host of +other almost equally great names, it will be obvious to every one that +the problem of the origin of this Tuscan nationality must be one that +profoundly interests the whole world. Nay, more, we must remember, too, +that Etruria had other and earlier claims than these; that it spread up +to the very walls of Rome; that the Etruscan element in Rome itself was +immensely strong; that the Roman religion owed, confessedly, much to +Tuscan ideas; that Latin Christianity, the Christianity of all the +Western world, took its shape in semi-Tuscan Rome; that the Roman +Empire was largely modelled by the Etruscan Mæcenas; that the Italian +renaissance was largely influenced by the Florentine Medici; that Leo +the Tenth was himself a member of that great house; and that the +artists whom he summoned to the metropolis to erect St. Peter's and to +beautify the Vatican were, almost all of them, Florentines by birth, +training, or domicile. I think, when we have run over mentally these +and ten thousand other like facts, we will readily admit to ourselves +the magnitude of the world's debt to Tuscany—social, artistic, +intellectual, religious—both in ancient, mediæval, and modern times. +</p> +<p> +And what, now, was this strong Tuscan nationality, which persists so +thoroughly through all external historical changes, and which has +contributed so large and so marvellous a part to the world's thought +and the world's culture? It is a curious consideration for those who +talk so glibly, about the enormous natural superiority of the Aryan +race, that the ancient Etruscans were the one people of the antique +European world, who, by common consent, did <i>not</i> belong to the Aryan +family. They were strangers in the land, or, rather, perhaps they were +its oldest possessors. Their language, their physique, their creed, +their art, all point to a wholly different origin from the Aryans. I am +not going, in a brief essay like this, to settle dogmatically, +off-hand, the vexed question of the origin and affinities of the +Etruscan type; more nonsense, I suppose, has been talked and written +upon that occult subject by learned men than even learned men have ever +poured forth upon any other sublunary topic; but one thing at least, I +take it, is absolutely certain amid the conflicting theories of +ingenious theorists about the Etruscan race, and that one thing is that +the Rasennæ stand in Europe absolutely alone, the sole representatives +of some ancient and elsewhere exterminated stock, surviving only in +Tuscany itself, and in the Rhætian Alps of the Canton Grisons. +</p> +<p> +At the moment when the Etruscans first appear in history, however, they +appear as a race capable of acquiring and assimilating culture with +great ease, rapidity, and certainty. No sooner do they come into +contact with the Greek world than they absorb and reproduce all that +was best and truest in Greek civilization. 'Merely receptive—European +Chinese,' says, in effect, Mommsen, the great Roman historian: to me, +that judgment, though true in some small degree, seems harsh indeed on +a wider view, when applied to a people who begot at last the 'Divina +Commedia,' the campanile of Florence, the dome of St. Peter's, and the +glories of the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace. It is quite true that the +Etruscans themselves, like the Japanese in our own time, did at first +accept most imitatively the Hellenic culture; but they gradually +remoulded it by their own effort into something new, growing and +changing from age to age, until at last, in the Italian renaissance, +they burst out with a wonderful and novel message to all the rest of +dormant Europe. +</p> +<p> +One of the most persistent key-notes of this underlying Etruscan +character is the solemn, weird, and gloomy nature of so much of the +true Etruscan workmanship. From the very beginning they are strong, but +sullen. Solidity and power, rather than beauty and grace, are what they +aim at; and in this, Michael Angelo was a true Tuscan. If we look at +the massive old Etruscan buildings, the Cyclopean walls of Fæsulæ and +Volterræ, with their gigantic unhewn blocks, or the gloomy tombs of +Clusium, with their heavy portals, and then at the frowning façade of +the Strozzi or the Pitti Palace, we shall see in these, their earliest +and latest terms, the special marks of Tuscan architecture. 'Piled by +the hands of giants for mighty kings of old,' says Macaulay, well, of +the Cyclopean walls. 'It somewhat resembles a prison or castle, and is +remarkable for its bold simplicity of style, the unadorned huge blocks +of stone being hewn smooth at the joints only,' says a modern writer, +of Brunelleschi's palatial masterpiece. Every visitor to Florence must +have noticed on every side the marks of this sullen and rugged Etruscan +character. Compare for a moment the dark bosses of the Palazzo Strozzi, +the '<i>âpre énergie</i>' of the Palazzo Vecchio, the '<i>beauté sombre et +sévère</i>' of the mediæval Bargello, with the open, airy brightness of +the Doge's Palace, or the glorious Byzantine gold-and-blue of St. +Mark's at Venice, and you get at once an admirable measure of this +persistent trait in the Etruscan idiosyncrasy. Tuscan architecture is +massive and morose where Venetian architecture is sunny and smiling. +</p> +<p> +Now, Tuscan religion has in all times been specially influenced by the +peculiarly gloomy tinge of the Tuscan character. It has always been a +religion of fear rather than of love; a religion that strove harder to +terrorize than to attract; a religion full of devils, flames, tortures, +and horrors; in short, a sort of horrible Chinese religion of dragons +and monstrosities, and flames and goblins. In the painted tombs of +ancient Etruria you may see the familiar devil with his three-pronged +fork thrusting souls back into the seething flood of a heathen hell, as +Orcagna's here thrust them back similarly into that of its more modern +Christian successor. All Etruscan art is full throughout of such +horrors. You find their traces abundantly in the antique Etruscan +museum at Florence; you find them on the mediæval Campo Santo at Pisa; +you find them with greater skill, but equal repulsiveness, in the work +of the great Renaissance artists. The 'ghastly glories of saints' the +Tuscan revels in. The most famous portion of the most famous Tuscan +poem is the 'Inferno'—the part that gloats with minute and truly +Tuscan realism over the torments of the damned in every department of +the mediæval hell. And, as if still further to mark the continuity of +thought, here in Orcagna's frescoes at Santa Maria Novella you have +every horror of the heathen religion incongruously mingled with every +horror of the Christian—gorgons and harpies and chimæras dire are +tormenting the wicked under the eyes of the Madonna; centaurs are +shooting and prodding them before the God of Love from the torrid banks +of fiery lakes; furies with snaky heads are directing their +punishments; Minos and Æacus are superintending their tasks; and, in +the centre of all, a huge Moloch demon is devouring them bodily in his +fiery jaws, with hideous tusks as of a Japanese monster. +</p> +<p> +It would be a curious question to inquire how far these old and +ingrained Etruscan ideas may have helped to modify and colour the +gentler conceptions of primitive Christianity. Certainly, one must +never for a moment forget that Rome was at bottom nearly one-half +Etruscan in character; that during the imperial period it became, in +fact, the capital of Etruria; that myriads of Etruscans flocked to +Rome; and that many of them, like Sejanus, had much to do with moulding +and building up the imperial system. I do not doubt, myself, that +Etruscan notions large interwove themselves, from the very outset, with +Roman Christianity; and whenever in the churches or galleries of Italy +I see St. Lawrence frying on his gridiron, or St. Sebastian pierced +through with many arrows, or the Innocents being massacred in +unpleasant detail, or hell being represented with Dantesque minuteness +and particularity of delineation, I say to myself, with an internal +smile, 'Etruscan influence.' +</p> +<p> +How interesting it is, too, to observe the constant outcrop, under all +forms and faiths, of this strange, underlying, non-Aryan type! The +Etruscans are and always were remarkable for their intellect, their +ingenuity, their artistic faculty; and even to this day, after so many +vicissitudes, they stand out as a wholly superior people to the rough +Genoese and the indolent Neapolitans. They have had many crosses of +blood meanwhile, of course; and it seems probable that the crosses have +done them good: for in ancient times it was Rome, the Etrurianised +border city of the Latins, that rose to greatness, not Etruria itself; +and at a later date, it was after the Germans had mingled their race +with Italy that Florence almost took the place of Rome. Nay, it is +known as a fact that under Otto the Great a large Teutonic colony +settled in Florence, thus adding to the native Etrurian race +(especially to the nobility) that other element which the Tuscan seems +to need in order that he may be spurred to the realisation of his best +characteristics. But allow as we may for foreign admixture, two points +are abundantly clear to the impartial observer of Tuscan history: one, +that this non-Aryan race has always been one of the finest and +strongest in Italy; and the other, that from the very dawn of history +its main characteristics, for good or for evil, have persisted most +uninterruptedly till the present day. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="ch16"></a>CASTERS AND CHESTERS. +</h2> +<p> +Everybody knows, of course, that up and down over the face of England a +whole crop of places may be found with such terminations as Lancaster, +Doncaster, Manchester, Leicester, Gloucester, or Exeter; and everybody +also knows that these words are various corruptions or alterations of +the Latin <i>castra</i>, or perhaps we ought rather to say of the singular +form, <i>castrum</i>. So much we have all been told from our childhood +upward; and for the most part we have been quite ready to acquiesce in +the statement without any further troublesome inquiry on our own +account. But in reality the explanation thus vouchsafed us does not +help us much towards explaining the real origin and nature of these +ancient names. It is true enough as far as it goes, but it does not go +nearly far enough. It reminds one a little of Charles Kingsley's +accomplished pupil-teacher, with his glib derivation of amphibious, +'from two Greek words, <i>amphi</i>, the land, and <i>bios</i>, the water.' A +detailed history of the root 'Chester' in its various British usages +may serve to show how far such a rough-and-ready solution as the +pupil-teacher's falls short of complete accuracy and comprehensiveness. +</p> +<p> +In the first place, without troubling ourselves for the time being with +the diverse forms of the word as now existing, a difficulty meets us at +the very outset as to how it ever got into the English language at all. +'It was left behind by the Romans,' says the pupil teacher +unhesitatingly. No doubt; but if so, the only language in which it +could be left would be Welsh; for when the Romans quitted Britain there +were probably as yet no English settlements on any part of the eastern +coast. Now the Welsh form of the word, even as given us in the very +ancient Latin Welsh tract ascribed to Nennius, is 'Caer' or 'Kair;' and +there is every reason to believe that the Celtic <i>cathir</i> or the Latin +<i>castrum</i> had been already worn down into this corrupt form at least as +early as the days of the first English colonisation of Britain. Indeed +I shall show ground hereafter for believing that that form survives +even now in one or two parts of Teutonic England. But if this be so, it +is quite clear that the earliest English conquerors could not have +acquired the use of the word from the vanquished Welsh whom they spared +as slaves or tributaries. The newcomers could not have learned to speak +of a Ceaster or Chester from Welshmen who called it a Caer; nor could +they have adopted the names of Leicester or Gloucester from Welshmen +who knew those towns only as Kair Legion or Kair Gloui. It is clear +that this easy off-hand theory shirks all the real difficulties of the +question, and that we must look a little closer into the matter in +order to understand the true history of these interesting philological +fossils. +</p> +<p> +Already we have got one clear and distinct principle to begin with, +which is too often overlooked by amateur philologists. The Latin +language, as spoken by Romans in Britain during their occupation of the +island, has left and can have left absolutely no directs marks upon our +English tongue, for the simple reason that English (or Anglo-Saxon as +we call it in its earlier stages) did not begin to be spoken in any +part of Britain for twenty or thirty years after the Romans retired. +Whatever Latin words have come down to us in unbroken succession from +the Roman times—and they are but a few—must have come down from Welsh +sources. The Britons may have learnt them from their Italian masters, +and may then have imparted them, after the brief period of precarious +independence, to their Teutonic masters; but of direct intercourse +between Roman and Englishman there was probably little or none. +</p> +<p> +Three ways out of this difficulty might possibly be suggested by any +humble imitator of Mr. Gladstone. First, the early English pirates may +have learnt the word <i>castrum</i> (they always used it as a singular) +years before they ever came to Britain as settlers at all. For during +the long decay of the empire, the corsairs of the flat banks and islets +of Sleswick and Friesland made many a light-hearted plundering +expedition upon the unlucky coasts of the maritime Roman provinces; and +it was to repel their dreaded attacks that the Count of the Saxon Shore +was appointed to the charge of the long exposed tract from the fenland +of the Wash to the estuary of the Rother in Sussex. On one occasion +they even sacked London itself, already the chief trading town of the +whole island. During some such excursions, the pirates would be certain +to pick up a few Latin words, especially such as related to new +objects, unseen in the rude society of their own native heather-clad +wastes; and amongst these we may be sure that the great Roman +fortresses would rank first and highest in their barbaric eyes. Indeed, +modern comparative philologists have shown beyond doubt that a few +southern forms of speech had already penetrated to the primitive +English marshland by the shores of the Baltic and the mouth of the Elbe +before the great exodus of the fifth century; and we know that Roman or +Byzantine coins, and other objects belonging to the Mediterranean +civilisation, are found abundantly in barrows of the first Christian +centuries in Sleswick—the primitive England of the colonists who +conquered Britain. But if the word <i>castrum</i> did not get into early +English by some such means, then we must fall back either upon our +second alternative explanation, that the townspeople of the +south-eastern plains in England had become thoroughly Latinised in +speech during the Roman occupation; or upon our third, that they spoke +a Celtic dialect more akin to Gaulish than the modern Welsh of Wales, +which may be descended from the ruder and older tongue of the western +aborigines. This last opinion would fit in very well with the views of +Mr. Rhys, the Celtic professor at Oxford, who thinks that all +south-eastern Britain was conquered and colonised by the Gauls before +the Roman invasion. If so, it maybe only the western Welsh who said +Caer; the eastern may have said <i>castrum</i>, as the Romans did. In either +of the latter two cases, we must suppose that the early English learnt +the word from the conquered Britons of the districts they overran. But +I myself have very little doubt that they had borrowed it long before +their settlement in our island at all. +</p> +<p> +However this may be—and I confess I have been a little puritanically +minute upon the subject—the English settlers learned to use the word +from the first moment they landed in Britain. In its earliest English +dress it appears as Ceaster, pronounced like Keaster, for the soft +sound of the initial in modern English is due to later Norman +influences. The new comers—Anglo-Saxons, if you choose to call them +so—applied the word to every Roman town or ruin they found in Britain. +Indeed, all the Latin words of the first crop in English—those used +during the heathen age, before Augustine and his monks introduced the +Roman civilisation—belong to such material relics of the older +provincial culture as the Sleswick pirates had never before known: +<i>way</i> from <i>via</i>, <i>wall</i> from <i>vallum</i>, <i>street</i> from <i>strata</i>, and +<i>port</i> from <i>portus</i>. In this first crop of foreign words Ceaster also +must be reckoned, and it was originally employed in English as a common +rather than as a proper name. Thus we read in the brief <i>Chronicle</i> of +the West Saxon kings, under the year 577, 'Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought +against the Welsh, and offslew three kings, Conmail and Condidan and +Farinmail, and took three ceasters, Gleawan ceaster and Ciren ceaster +and Bathan ceaster.' We might modernise a little, so as to show the +real sense, by saying 'Glevum city and Corinium city and Bath city.' +Here it is noticeable that in two of the cases—Gloucester and +Cirencester—the descriptive termination has become at last part of the +name; but in the third case—that of Bath—it has never succeeded in +doing so. Ages after, in the reign of King Alfred, we still find the +word used as a common noun; for the <i>Chronicle</i> mentions that a body of +Danish freebooters 'fared to a waste ceaster in Wirral; it is hight +Lega ceaster;' that is to say, Legionis castra, now Chester. The grand +old English epic of Beowulf, which is perhaps older than the +colonisation of Britain, speaks of townsfolk as 'the dwellers in +ceasters.' +</p> +<p> +As a rule, each particular Roman town retained its full name, in a more +or less clipped form, for official uses; but in the ordinary colloquial +language of the neighbourhood they all seem to have been described as +'the Ceaster' simply, just as we ourselves habitually speak of 'town,' +meaning the particular town near which we live, or, in a more general +sense, London. Thus, in the north, Ceaster usually means York, the +Roman capital of the province; as when the <i>Chronicle</i> tells us that +'John succeeded to the bishopric of Ceaster'; that 'Wilfrith was +hallowed as bishop at Ceaster'; or that 'Æthelberht the archbishop died +at Ceaster.' In the south it is employed to mean Winchester, the +capital of the West Saxon kings and overlords of all Britain; as when +the <i>Chronicle</i> says that 'King Edgar drove out the priests at Ceaster +from the Old Minster and the New Minster, and set them with monks.' So, +as late as the days of Charles II., 'to go to town' meant in Shropshire +to go to Shrewsbury, and in Norfolk to go to Norwich. In only one +instance has this colloquial usage survived down to our own days in a +large town, and that is at Chester, where the short form has quite +ousted the full name of Lega ceaster. But in the case of small towns or +unimportant Roman stations, which would seldom need to be mentioned +outside their own immediate neighbourhood, the simple form is quite +common, as at Caistor in Norfolk, Castor in Hunts, and elsewhere. At +times, too, we get an added English termination, as at Casterton, +Chesterton, and Chesterholme; or a slight distinguishing mark, as at +Great Chesters, Little Chester, Bridge Casterton, and Chester-le-Street. +All these have now quite lost their old distinctive names, though they +have acquired new ones to distinguish them from <i>the</i> Chester, or from +one another. For example, Chester-le-Street was Conderco in Roman +times, and Cunega ceaster in the early English period. Both names are +derived from the little river Cone, which flows through the village. +</p> +<p> +Before we pass on to the consideration of those <i>castra</i> which, like +Manchester and Lancaster, have preserved to the present day their +original Roman or Celtic prefixes in more or less altered shapes, we +must glance briefly at a general principle running through the +modernised forms now in use. The reader, with his usual acuteness, will +have noticed that the word Ceaster reappears under many separate +disguises in the names of different modern towns. Sometimes it is +<i>caster</i>, sometimes <i>chester</i>, sometimes <i>cester</i>, and sometimes even +it gets worn down to a mere fugitive relic, as <i>ceter</i> or <i>eter</i>. But +these different corruptions do not occur irregularly up and down the +country, one here and one there; they follow a distinct law and are due +to certain definite underlying facts of race or language. Each set of +names lies in a regular stratum; and the different strata succeed one +another like waves over the face of England, from north-east to +south-westward. In the extreme north and east, where the English or +Anglian blood is purest, or is mixed only with Danes and Northmen to +any large extent, such forms as Lancaster, Doncaster, Caistor, and +Casterton abound. In the mixed midlands and the Saxon south, the sound +softens into Chesterfield, Chester, Winchester, and Dorchester. In the +inner midlands and the Severn vale, where the proportion of Celtic +blood becomes much stronger, the termination grows still softer in +Leicester, Bicester, Cirencester, Gloucester, and Worcester, while at +the same time a marked tendency towards elision occurs; for these words +are really pronounced as if written Lester, Bister, Cisseter, Gloster, +and Wooster. Finally, on the very borders of Wales, and of that +Damnonian country which was once known to our fathers as West Wales, we +get the very abbreviated forms Wroxeter, Uttoxeter, and Exeter, of +which the second is colloquially still further shortened into Uxeter. +Sometimes these tracts approach very closely to one another, as on the +banks of the Nene, where the two halves of the Roman Durobrivæ have +become castor on one side of the river, and Chesterton on the other; +but the line can be marked distinctly on the map, with a slight outward +bulge, with as great regularity as the geological strata. It will be +most convenient here, therefore, to begin with the <i>casters</i>, which +have undergone the least amount of rubbing down, and from them to pass +on regularly to the successively weaker forms in <i>chester</i>, <i>cester</i>, +<i>ceter</i>, and <i>eter</i>. +</p> +<p> +Nothing, indeed, can be more deceptive than the common fashion, of +quoting a Roman name from the often blundering lists of the +Itineraries, and then passing on at once to the modern English form, +without any hint of the intermediate stages. To say that Glevum is now +Gloucester is to tell only half the truth; until we know that the two +were linked together by the gradual steps of Glevum castrum, Gleawan +ceaster, Gleawe cester, Gloucester, and Gloster, we have not really +explained the words at all. By beginning with the least corrupt forms +we shall best be able to see the slow nature of the change, and we +shall also find at the same time that a good deal of incidental light +is shed upon the importance and extent of the English settlement. +</p> +<p> +Doncaster is an excellent example of the simplest form of +modernisation. It appears in the Antonine Itinerary and in the <i>Notitia +Imperii</i> as Danum. This, with the ordinary termination affixed, becomes +at once Dona ceaster or Doncaster. The name is of course originally +derived in either form from the river Don, which flows beside it; and +the Northumbrian invaders must have learnt the names of both river and +station from their Brigantian British serfs. It shows the fluctuating +nature of the early local nomenclature, however, when we find that Bæda +('the Venerable Bede') describes the place in his Latinised vocabulary +as Campodonum—that is to say, the Field of Don, or, more +idiomatically, Donfield, a name exactly analogous to those of +Chesterfield Macclesfield, Mansfield, Sheffield, and Huddersfield in +the neighbouring region. The comparison of Doncaster and Chesterfield +is thus most interesting: for here we have two Roman Stations, each of +which must once have had two alternative names; but in the one case the +old Roman name has ultimately prevailed, and in the other case the +modern English one. +</p> +<p> +The second best example of a Caster, perhaps, is Lancaster. In all +probability this is the station which appears in the <i>Notitia Imperii</i> +as Longovico, an oblique case which it might be hazardous to put in the +nominative, seeing that it seems rather to mean the town on the Lune or +Loan than the Long Village. Here, as in many other cases, the formative +element, vicus, is exchanged for Ceaster, and we get something like +Lon-ceaster or finally Lancaster. Other remarkable Casters are +Brancaster in Norfolk, once Branadunum (where the British termination +<i>dun</i> has been similarly dropped); Ancaster in Lincolnshire, whose +Roman name is not certainly known; and Caistor, near Norwich, once +Venta Icenorum, a case which may best be considered under the head of +Winchester. On the other hand, Tadcaster gives us an instance where the +Roman prefix has apparently been entirely altered, for it appears in +the Antonine Itinerary (according to the best identification) as +Calcaria, so that we might reasonably expect it to be modernised as +Calcaster. Even here, however, we might well suspect an earlier +alternative title, of which we shall get plenty when we come to examine +the Chesters; and in fact, in Bæda, it still bears its old name in a +slightly disguised form as Kaelca ceaster. +</p> +<p> +First among the softer forms, let us examine the interesting group to +which Chester itself belongs. Its Roman name was, beyond doubt, Diva, +the station on the Dee—as Doncaster is the station on the Don, and +Lancaster the station on the Lune. Its proper modern form ought, +therefore, to be Deechester. But it would seem that in certain places +the neighbouring rustics knew the great Roman town of their district, +not by its official title, but as the legion's Camp—Castra Legionis. +At least three such cases undoubtedly occur—one at Deva or Chester; +one at Ratæ or Leicester; and one at Isca Silurum or Caerleon-upon-Usk. +In each case the modernisation has taken a very different form. Diva +was captured by the heathen English king, Æthelfrith of Northumbria, in +a battle rendered famous by Bæda, who calls the place 'The City of +Legions.' The Latin compilation by some Welsh writer, ascribed to +Nennius, calls it Cair Legion, which is also its name in the Irish +annals. In the <i>English Chronicle</i> it appears as Lege ceaster, Læge +ceaster, and Leg ceaster; but after the Norman Conquest it becomes +Ceaster alone. On midland lips the sound soon grew into the familiar +Chester. About the second case, that of Leicester, there is a slight +difficulty, for it assumes in the <i>Chronicle</i> the form of Lægra +ceaster, with an apparently intrusive letter; and the later Welsh +writers seized upon the form to fit in with their own ancient legend of +King Lear. Nennius calls it Cair Lerion; and that unblushing romancer, +Geoffrey of Monmouth, makes it at once into Cair Leir, the city of +Leir. More probably the name is a mixture of Legionis and Ratæ, Leg-rat +ceaster, the camp of the Legion at Ratæ. This, again, grew into Legra +ceaster, Leg ceaster, and Lei ceaster, while the word, though written +Leicester, is now shortened by south midland voices to Lester. The +third Legionis Castra remained always Welsh, and so hardened on Cymric +lips into Kair Leon or Caerleon. Nennius applies the very similar name +of Cair Legeion to Exeter, still in his time a Damnonian or West Welsh +fortress. +</p> +<p> +Equally interesting have been the fortunes of the three towns of which +Winchester is the type. In the old Welsh tongue, Gwent means a +champaign country, or level alluvial plain. The Romans borrowed the +word as Venta, and applied it to the three local centres of Venta +Icenorum in Norfolk, Venta Belgarum in Hampshire, and Venta Silurum in +Monmouth. When the first West Saxon pirates, under their real or +mythical leader, Cerdic, swarmed up Southampton Water and occupied the +Gwent of the Belgæ, they called their new conquest Wintan ceaster, +though the still closer form Wæntan once occurs. Thence to Winte +ceaster and Winchester is no far cry. Gwent of the Iceni had a +different history. No doubt it also was known at first as Wintan +ceaster; but, as at Winchester, the shorter form Ceaster would +naturally be employed in local colloquial usage; and when the chief +centre of East Anglian population was removed a few miles north to +Norwich, the north wick—then a port on the navigable estuary of the +Yare—the older station sank into insignificance, and was only locally +remembered as Caistor. Lastly, Gwent of the Silurians has left its name +alone to Caer-Went in Monmouthshire, where hardly any relics now remain +of the Roman occupation. +</p> +<p> +Manchester belongs to exactly the same class as Winchester. Its Roman +name was Mancunium, which would easily glide into Mancunceaster. In the +<i>English Chronicle</i> it is only once mentioned, and then as +Mameceaster—a form explained by the alternative Mamucium in the +Itinerary, which would naturally become Mamue ceaster. Colchester of +course represents Colonia, corrupted first into Coln ceaster, and so +through Col ceaster into its present form. Porchester in Hants is +Portus Magnus; Dorchester is Durnovaria, and then Dorn ceaster. +Grantchester, Godmanchester, Chesterfield, Woodchester, and many others +help us to trace the line across the map of England, to the most +western limit of all at Ilchester, anciently Ischalis, though the +intermediate form of Givel ceaster is certainly an odd one. +</p> +<p> +Besides these Chesters of the regular order, there are several curious +outlying instances in Durham and Northumberland, and along the Roman +Wall, islanded, as it were, beyond the intermediate belt of Casters. +Such are Lanchester in Durham, which maybe compared with the more +familiar Lancaster; Great Chesters in Northumberland, Ebchester on the +northern Watling Street, and a dozen more. How to account for these is +rather a puzzle. Perhaps the Casters may be mainly due to Danish +influence (which is the common explanation), and it is known that the +Danes spread but sparingly to the north of the Tees. However, this +rough solution of the problem proves too much: for how then can we have +a still softer form in Danish Leicester itself? Probably we shall be +nearer the truth if we say that these are late names; for +Northumberland was a desert long after the great harrying by William +the Conqueror; and by the time it was repeopled, Chester had become the +recognised English form, so that it would naturally be employed by the +new occupants of the districts about the Wall. +</p> +<p> +No name in Britain, however, is more interesting than that of +Rochester, which admirably shows us how so many other Roman names have +acquired a delusively English form, or have been mistaken for memorials +of the English conquest. The Roman town was known as Durobrivæ, which +does not in the least resemble Rochester; and what is more, Bæda +distinctly tells us that Justus, the first bishop of the West Kentish +see, was consecrated 'in the city of Dorubrevi, which the English call +Hrofæs ceaster, from one of its former masters, by name Hrof.' If this +were all we knew about it, we should be told that Bæda clearly +described the town as being called Hrof's Chester, from an English +conqueror Hrof, and that to contradict this clear statement of an early +writer was presumptuous or absurd. Fortunately, however, we have the +clearest possible proof that Hrof never existed, and that he was a pure +creation of Bæda's own simple etymological guesswork. King Alfred +clearly knew better, for he omitted this wild derivation from his +English translation. The valuable fragment of a map of Roman Britain +preserved for us in the mediæval transcript known as the <i>Peutinger +Tables</i>, sets down Rochester as Rotibis. Hence it is pretty certain +that it must have had two alternative names, of which the other was +Durobrivæ. Rotibis would easily pass (on the regular analogies) into +Rotifi ceaster, and that again into Hrofi ceaster and Rochester; just +as Rhutupiæ or Ritupæ passed into Rituf burh, and so finally into +Richborough. Moreover, in a charter of King Ethelberht of Kent, older a +good deal than Bæda's time, we find the town described under the mixed +form of Hrofi-brevi. After such a certain instance of philological +blundering as this, I for one am not inclined to place great faith in +such statements as that made by the <i>English Chronicle</i> about +Chichester, which it attributes to the mythical South Saxon king Cissa. +Whatever Cissanceaster may mean, it seems to me much more likely that +it represents another case of double naming; for though the Roman town +was commonly known as Regnum, that is clearly a mere administrative +form, derived from the tribal name of the Regni. Considering that the +same veracious <i>Chronicle</i> derives Portsmouth, the Roman Portus, from +an imaginary Teutonic invader, Port, and commits itself to other wild +statements of the same sort, I don't think we need greatly hesitate +about rejecting its authority in these earlier and conjectural +portions. +</p> +<p> +Silchester is another much disputed name. As a rule, the site has been +identified with that of Calleva Atrebatum; but the proofs are scanty, +and the identification must be regarded as a doubtful one. I have +already ventured to suggest that the word may contain the root Silva, +as the town is situated close upon the ancient borders of Pamber +Forest. The absence of early forms, however, makes this somewhat of a +random shot. Indeed, it is difficult to arrive at any definite +conclusions in these cases, except by patiently following up the name +from first to last, through all its variations, corruptions, and +mis-spellings. +</p> +<p> +The <i>Cesters</i> are even more degraded (philologically speaking) than the +<i>Chesters</i>, but are not less interesting and illustrative in their way. +Their farthest northeasterly extension, I believe, is to be found at +Leicester and Towcester. The former we have already considered: the +latter appears in the <i>Chronicle</i> as Tofe ceaster, and derives its name +from the little river Towe, on which it is situated. Anciently, no +doubt, the river was called Tofe or Tofi, like the Tavy in Devonshire; +for all these river-words recur over and over again, both in England +and on the Continent. In this case, there seems no immediate connection +with the Roman name, if the site be rightly identified with that of +Lactodorum; but at any rate the river name is Celtic, so that Towcester +cannot be claimed as a Teutonic settlement. +</p> +<p> +Cirencester, the meeting-place of all the great Roman roads, is the +Latin Corinium, sometimes given as Durocornovium, which well +illustrates the fluctuating state of Roman nomenclature in Britain. As +this great strategical centre—the key of the west—had formerly been +the capital of the Dobuni, whose name it sometimes bears, it might +easily have come down to us as Durchester, or Dobchester, instead of +under its existing guise. The city was captured by the West Saxons in +577, and is then called Ciren ceaster in the brief record of the +conquerors. A few years later, the <i>Chronicle</i> gives it as Cirn +ceaster; and since the river is called Chirn, this is the form it might +fairly have been expected to retain, as in the case of Cerney close by. +But the city was too far west not to have its name largely rubbed down +in use; so it softened both its initials into Cirencester, while Cissan +ceaster only got (through Cisse ceaster) as far as Chichester. At that +point the spelling of the western town has stopped short, but the +tongues of the natives have run on till nothing now remains but +Cisseter. If we had only that written form on the one hand, and +Durocornovium on the other, even the boldest etymologist would hardly +venture to suggest that they had any connection with one another. Of +course the common prefix Duro, is only the Welsh Dwr, water, and its +occurrence in a name merely implies a ford or river. The alternative +forms may be Anglicised as Churn, and Churnwater, just like Grasmere, +and Grasmere Lake. +</p> +<p> +I wish I could avoid saying anything about Worcester, for it is an +obscure and difficult subject; but I fear the attempt to shirk it would +be useless in the long run. I know from sad experience that if I omit +it every inhabitant of Worcestershire who reads this article will hunt +me out somehow, and run me to earth at last, with a letter demanding a +full and explicit explanation of this silent insult to his native +county. So I must try to put the best possible face upon a troublesome +matter. The earliest existing form of the name, after the English +Conquest, seems to be that given in a Latin Charter of the eighth +century as <i>Weogorna civitas</i>. (Here it is difficult to disentangle the +English from its Latin dress.) A little later it appears in a +vernacular shape (also in a charter) as Wigran ceaster. In the later +part of the <i>English Chronicle</i> it becomes Wigera ceaster, and Wigra +ceaster; but by the twelfth century it has grown into Wigor ceaster, +from which the change to Wire ceaster and Worcester (fully pronounced) +is not violent. This is all plain sailing enough. But what is the +meaning of Wigorna ceaster or Wigran ceaster? And what Roman or English +name does it represent? The old English settlers of the neighbourhood +formed a little independent principality of Hwiccas (afterwards subdued +by the Mercians), and some have accordingly suggested that the original +word may have been Hwiccwara ceaster, the Chester of the Hwicca men, +which would be analogous to Cant-wara burh (Canterbury), the Bury of +the Kent men, or to Wiht-gara burh (Carisbrooke), the Bury of the Wight +men. Others, again, connect it with the Braunogenium of the Ravenna +geographer, and the Cair Guoranegon or Guiragon of Nennius, which +latter is probably itself a corrupted version of the English name. +Altogether, it must be allowed that Worcester presents a genuine +difficulty, and that the facts about its early forms are themselves +decidedly confused, if not contradictory. The only other notable +<i>Ceasters</i>, are Alcester, once Alneceaster, in Worcestershire, the +Roman Alauna; Gloucester or Glevum, already sufficiently explained; and +Mancester in Staffordshire, supposed to occupy the site of +Manduessedum. +</p> +<p> +Among the most corrupted forms of all, Exeter may rank first. Its Latin +equivalent was Isca Damnoniorum, Usk of the Devonians; Isca being the +Latinised form of that prevalent Celtic river name which crops up again +in the Usk, Esk, Exe, and Axe, besides forming the first element of +Uxbridge and Oxford; while the tribal qualification was added to +distinguish it from its namesake, Isca Silurum, Usk of the Silurians, +now Caerleon-upon-Usk. In the west country, to this day, <i>ask</i> always +becomes <i>ax</i>, or rather remains so, for that provincial form was the +King's English at the court of Alfred; and so Isca became on Devonian +lips Exan ceaster, after the West Saxon conquest. Thence it passed +rapidly through the stages of Exe ceaster and Exe cester till it +finally settled down into Exeter. At the same time, the river itself +became the Exe; and the Exan-mutha of the <i>Chronicle</i> dropped into +Exmouth. We must never forget, however, that Exeter, was a Welsh town +up to the reign of Athelstan, and that Cornish Welsh was still spoken +in parts of Devonshire till the days of Queen Elizabeth. +</p> +<p> +Wroxeter is another immensely interesting fossil word. It lies just at +the foot of the Wrekin, and the hill which takes that name in English +must have been pronounced by the old Celtic inhabitants much like +Uricon: for of course the awkward initial letter has only become silent +in these later lazy centuries. The Romans turned it into Uriconium; but +after their departure, it was captured and burnt to the ground by a +party of raiding West Saxons, and its fall is graphically described in +the wild old Welsh elegy of Llywarch the Aged. The ruins are still +charred and blackened by the West Saxon fires. The English colonists of +the neighbourhood called themselves the Wroken-sætas, or Settlers by +the Wrekin—a word analogous to that of Wilsætas, or Settlers by the +Wyly; Dorsætas, or Settlers among the Durotriges; and Sumorsætas, or +Settlers among the Sumor-folk,—which survive in the modern counties of +Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset. Similar forms elsewhere are the Pecsætas +of the Derbyshire Peak, the Elmedsætas in the Forest of Elmet, and the +Cilternsætas in the Chiltern Hills. No doubt the Wroken-sætas called +the ruined Roman fort by the analogous name of Wroken ceaster; and this +would slowly become Wrok ceaster, Wrok-cester, and Wroxeter, by the +ordinary abbreviating tendency of the Welsh borderlands. Wrexham +doubtless preserves the same original root. +</p> +<p> +Having thus carried the <i>Castra</i> to the very confines of Wales, it +would be unkind to a generous and amiable people not to carry them +across the border and on to the Western sea. The Welsh corruption, +whether of the Latin word or of a native equivalent <i>cathir</i>, assumes +the guise of Caer. Thus the old Roman station of Segontium, near the +Menai Straits, is now called Caer Seiont; but the neighbouring modern +town which has gathered around Edward's new castle on the actual shore, +the later metropolis of the land of Arfon, became known to Welshmen as +Caer-yn-Arfon, now corrupted into Caernarvon or even into Carnarvon. +Gray's familiar line about the murdered bards—'On Arvon's dreary shore +they lie'—keeps up in some dim fashion the memory of the true +etymology. Caermarthen is in like manner the Roman Muridunum or +Moridunum—the fort by the sea—though a duplicate Moridunum in South +Devon has been simply translated into English as Seaton. Innumerable +other Caers, mostly representing Roman sites, may be found scattered up +and down over the face of Wales, such as Caersws, Caerleon, Caergwrle, +Caerhun, and Caerwys, all of which still contain traces of Roman +occupation. On the other hand, Cardigan, which looks delusively like a +shortened Caer, has really nothing to do with this group of ancient +names, being a mere corruption of Ceredigion. +</p> +<p> +But outside Wales itself, in the more Celtic parts of England proper, a +good many relics of the old Welsh Caers still bespeak the +incompleteness of the early Teutonic conquest. If we might trust the +mendacious Nennius, indeed, all our Casters and Chesters were once good +Cymric Caers; for he gives a doubtful list of the chief towns in +Britain, where Gloucester appears as Cair Gloui, Colchester as Cair +Colun, and York as Cair Ebrauc. These, if true, would be invaluable +forms; but unfortunately there is every reason to believe that Nennius +invented them himself, by a simple transposition of the English names. +Henry of Huntingdon is nearly as bad, if not worse; for when he calls +Dorchester 'Kair Dauri,' and Chichester 'Kair Kei,' he was almost +certainly evolving what he supposed to be appropriate old British names +from the depths of his own consciousness. His guesswork was on a par +with that of the schoolboys who introduce 'Stirlingia' or 'Liverpolia' +into their Ovidian elegiacs. That abandoned story-teller, Geoffrey of +Monmouth, goes a step further, and concocts a Caer Lud for London and a +Caer Osc for Exeter, whenever the fancy seizes him. The only examples +amongst these pretended old Welsh forms which seem to me to have any +real historical value are an unknown Kair Eden, mentioned by Gildas, +and a Cair Wise, mentioned by Simeon of Durham, undoubtedly the true +native name of Exeter. +</p> +<p> +Still we have a few indubitable Caers in England itself surviving to +our own day. Most of them are not far from the Welsh border, as in the +case of the two Caer Caradocs, in Shropshire, crowned by ancient +British fortifications. Others, however, lie further within the true +English pale, though always in districts which long preserved the Welsh +speech, at least among the lower classes of the population. The +earthwork overhanging Bath bears to this day its ancient British title +of Caer Badon. An old history written in the monastery of Malmesbury +describes that town as Caer Bladon, and speaks of a Caer Dur in the +immediate neighbourhood. There still remains a Caer Riden on the line +of the Roman wall in the Lothians. Near Aspatria, in Cumberland, stands +a mouldering Roman camp known even now as Caer Moto. In Carvoran, +Northumberland, the first syllable has undergone a slight contraction, +but may still be readily recognised. The Carr-dyke in Norfolk seems to +me to be referable to a similar origin. +</p> +<p> +Most curious of all the English Caers, however, is Carlisle. The +Antonine Itinerary gives the town as Luguvallium. Bæda, in his +barbarised Latin fashion calls it Lugubalia. 'The Saxons,' says +<i>Murray's Guide</i>, with charming <i>naïveté</i>, 'abbreviated the name into +Luel, and afterwards called it Caer Luel.' This astounding hotchpotch +forms an admirable example of the way in which local etymology is still +generally treated in highly respectable publications. So far as we +know, there never was at any time a single Saxon in Cumberland; and why +the Saxons, or any other tribe of Englishmen, should have called a town +by a purely Welsh name, it would be difficult to decide. If they had +given it any name at all, that name would probably have been Lul +ceaster, which might have been modernised into Lulcaster or Lulchester. +The real facts are these. Cumberland, as its name imports, was long a +land of the Cymry—a northern Welsh principality, dependent upon the +great kingdom of Strathclyde, which held out for ages against the +Northumbrian English invaders among the braes and fells of Ayrshire and +the Lake District. These Cumbrian Welshmen called their chief town Caer +Luel, or something of the sort; and there is some reason for believing +that it was the capital of the historical Arthur, if any Arthur ever +existed, though later ages transferred the legend of the British hero +to Caerleon-upon-Usk, after men had begun to forget that the region +between the Clyde and the Mersey had once been true Welsh soil. The +English overran Cumberland very slowly; and when they did finally +conquer it, they probably left the original inhabitants in possession +of the country, and only imposed their own overlordship upon the +conquered race. The story is too long a one to repeat in full here: it +must suffice to say that, though the Northumbrian kings had made the +'Strathclyde Welsh' their tributaries, the district was never +thoroughly subdued till the days of Edmund the West Saxon, who harried +the land, and handed it over to the King of Scots. Thus it happens that +Carlisle, alone among large English towns, still keeps unchanged its +Cymric name, instead of having sunk into an Anglicised Chester. The +present spelling is a mere etymological blunder, exactly similar to +that which has turned the old English word <i>igland</i> into <i>island</i>, +through the false analogy of <i>isle</i>, which of course comes from the old +French <i>isle</i>, derived through some form akin to the Italian <i>isola</i>, +from the original Latin <i>insula</i>. Kair Leil is the spelling in +Geoffrey; Cardeol (by a clerical error for Carleol, I suspect) that in +the <i>English Chronicle</i>, which only once mentions the town; and Carleol +that of the ordinary mediæval historians. The surnames Carlyle and +Carlile still preserve the better orthography. +</p> +<p> +To complete the subject, it will be well to say a few words about those +towns which were once <i>Ceasters</i>, but which have never become Casters +or Chesters. Numerous as are the places now so called, a number more +may be reckoned in the illimitable chapter of the might-have-beens; and +it is interesting to speculate on the forms which they would have +taken, 'si qua fata aspera rupissent.' Among these still-born Chesters, +Newcastle-upon-Tyne may fairly rank first. It stands on the Roman site, +called, from its bridge across the Tyne, Pons Aelii, and known later +on, from its position on the great wall, as Ad Murum. Under the early +English, after their conversion to Christianity, the monks became the +accepted inheritors of Roman ruins; and the small monastery which was +established here procured it the English name of Muneca-ceaster, or, as +we should now say, Monk-chester, though no doubt the local +modernisation would have taken the form of Muncaster. William of +Normandy utterly destroyed the town during his great harrying of +Northumberland; and when his son, Robert Curthose, built a fortress on +the site, the place came to be called Newcastle—a word whose very form +shows its comparatively modern origin. <i>Castra</i> and <i>Ceasters</i> were now +out of date, and castles had taken their place. Still, we stick even +here to the old root: for of course castle is only the diminutive +<i>castellum</i>—a scion of the same Roman stock, which, like so many other +members of aristocratic families, 'came over with William the +Conqueror.' The word <i>castel</i> is never used, I believe, in any English +document before the Conquest; but in the very year of William's +invasion, the <i>Chronicle</i> tells us, 'Willelm earl came from Normandy +into Pevensey, and wrought a castel at Hastings port.' So, while in +France itself the word has declined through <i>chastel</i> into <i>château</i>, +we in England have kept it in comparative purity as castle. +</p> +<p> +York is another town which had a narrow escape of becoming Yorchester. +Its Roman name was Eburacum, which the English queerly rendered as +Eoforwic, by a very interesting piece of folks-etymology. <i>Eofor</i> is +old English for a boar, and <i>wic</i> for a town; so our rude ancestors +metamorphosed the Latinised Celtic name into this familiar and +significant form, much as our own sailors turn the Bellerophon into the +Billy Ruffun, and the Anse des Cousins into the Nancy Cozens. In the +same way, I have known an illiterate Englishman speak of +Aix-la-Chapelle as Hexley Chapel. To the name, thus distorted, our +forefathers of course added the generic word for a Roman town, and so +made the cumbrous title of Eoforwic-ceaster, which is the almost +universal form in the earlier parts of the <i>English Chronicle</i>. This +was too much of a mouthful even for the hardy Anglo-Saxon, so we soon +find a disposition to shorten it into Ceaster on the one hand, or +Eoforwic on the other. Should the final name be Chester or York?—that +was the question. Usage declared in favour of the more distinctive +title. The town became Eoforwic alone, and thence gradually declined +through Evorwic, Euorwic, Eurewic, and Yorick into the modern York. It +is curious to note that some of these intermediate forms very closely +approach the original Eburac, which must have been the root of the +Roman name. Was the change partly due to the preservation of the older +sound on the lips of Celtic serfs? It is not impossible, for marks of +British blood are strong in Yorkshire; and Nennius confirms the idea by +calling the town Kair Ebrauc. +</p> +<p> +Among the other <i>Ceasters</i> which have never developed into full-blown +Chesters, I may mention Bath, given as Akemannes ceaster and Bathan +ceaster in our old documents, so that it might have become +Achemanchester or Bathceter in the course of ordinary changes. +Canterbury, again, the Roman Durovernum, dropped through Dorobernia +into Dorwit ceaster, which would no doubt have turned into a third +Dorchester, to puzzle our heads by its likeness to Dorne ceaster in +Dorsetshire, and to Dorce ceaster near Oxford; while Chesterton in +Huntingdonshire, which was once Dorme ceaster, narrowly escaped +burdening a distracted world with a fourth. Happily, the colloquial +form Cantwara burh, or Kentmen's bury, gained the day, and so every +trace of Durovernum is now quite lost in Canterbury. North Shields was +once Scythles-ceaster, but here the Chester has simply dropped out. +Verulam, or St. Albans, is another curious case. Its Romano-British +name was Verulamium, and Bæda calls it Verlama ceaster. But the early +English in Sleswick believed in a race of mythical giants, the +Wætlingas or Watlings, from whom they called the Milky Way 'Watling +Street.' When the rude pirates from those trackless marshes came over +to Britain and first beheld the great Roman paved causeway which ran +across the face of the country from London to Caernarvon, they seemed +to have imagined that such a mighty work could not have been the +handicraft of men; and just as the Arabs ascribe the rock-hewn houses +of Petra to the architectural fancy of the Devil, so our old English +ancestors ascribed the Roman road to the Titanic Watlings. Even in our +own day, it is known along its whole course as Watling Street. Verulam +stands right in its track, and long contained some of the greatest +Roman remains in England; so the town, too, came to be considered as +another example of the work of the Watlings. Bæda, in his Latinised +Northumbrian, calls it Vætlinga ceaster, as an alternative title with +Verlama ceaster; so that it might nowadays have been familiar to us all +either as Watlingchester or Verlamchester. This is one of the numerous +cases where a Roman and English name lived on during the dark period +side by side. In some of Mr. Kemble's charters it appears as Walinga +ceaster. But when Offa of Mercia founded his great abbey on the very +spot where the Welsh martyr Alban had suffered during the persecution +of Diocletian, Roman and English names were alike forgotten, and the +place was remembered only after the British Christian as St. Albans. +</p> +<p> +There are other instances where the very memory of a Roman city seems +now to have failed altogether. For example, Bæda mentions a certain +town called Tiowulfinga ceaster—that is to say, the Chester of the +Tiowulfings, or sons of Tiowulf. Here an English clan would seem to +have taken up its abode in a ruined Roman station, and to have called +the place by the clan-name—a rare or almost unparalleled case. But its +precise site is now unknown. However, Bæda's description clearly points +to some town in Nottinghamshire, situated on the Trent; for St. +Paulinus of York baptized large numbers of converts in that river at +Tiowulfinga ceaster; and the site may therefore be confidently +identified with Southwell, where St. Mary's Minster has always +traditionally claimed Paulinus as its founder. Bæda also mentions a +place called Tunna ceaster, so named from an abbot Tunna, who exists +merely for the sake of a legend, and is clearly as unhistorical as his +piratical compeer Hrof—a wild guess of the eponymic sort with which we +are all so familiar in Greek literature. Simeon of Durham speaks of an +equally unknown Delvercester. Syddena ceaster or Sidna cester—the +earliest see of the Lincolnshire diocese—has likewise dropped out of +human memory; though Mr. Pearson suggests that it may be identical with +Ancaster—a notion which appears to me extremely unlikely. Wude cester +is no doubt Outchester, and other doubtful instances might easily be +recognised by local antiquaries, though they may readily escape the +general archæologist. In one case at least—that of Othonæ in +Essex—town, site, and name have all disappeared together. Bæda calls +it Ythan ceaster, and in his time it was the seat of a monastery +founded by St. Cedd; but the whole place has long since been swept away +by an inundation of the Blackwater. Anderida, which is called +Andredes-ceaster in the <i>Chronicle</i>, becomes Pefenesea, or Pevensey, +before the date of the Norman Conquest. +</p> +<p> +It must not be supposed that the list given here is by any means +exhaustive of all the Casters and Chesters, past and present, +throughout the whole length and breadth of Britain. On the contrary, +many more might easily be added, such as Ribbel ceaster, now +Ribchester; Berne ceaster, now Bicester; and Blædbyrig ceaster, now +simply Bladbury. In Northumberland alone there are a large number of +instances which I might have quoted, such as Rutchester, Halton +Chesters, and Little Chesters on the Roman Wall, together with +Hetchester, Holy Chesters, and Rochester elsewhere—the county +containing no less than four places of the last name. Indeed, one can +track the Roman roads across England by the Chesters which accompany +their route. But enough instances have probably been adduced to +exemplify fully the general principles at issue. I think it will be +clear that the English conquerors did not usually change the names of +Roman or Welsh towns, but simply mispronounced them about as much as we +habitually mispronounce Llangollen or Llandudno. Sometimes they called +the place by its Romanised title alone, with the addition of Ceaster; +sometimes they employed the servile British form; sometimes they even +invented an English alternative; but in no case can it be shown that +they at once disused the original name, and introduced a totally new +one of their own manufacture. In this, as in all other matters, the +continuity between Romano-British and English times is far greater than +it is generally represented to be. The English invasion was a cruel and +a desolating one, no doubt; but it could not and it did not sweep away +wholly the old order of things, or blot out all the past annals of +Britain, so as to prepare a <i>tabula rasa</i> on which Mr. Green might +begin his <i>History of the English People</i> with the landing of Hengest +and Horsa in the Isle of Thanet. The English people of to-day is far +more deeply rooted in the soil than that: our ancestors have lived +here, not for a thousand years alone, but for ten thousand or a hundred +thousand, in certain lines at least. And the very names of our towns, +our rivers, and our hills, go back in many cases, not merely to the +Roman corruptions, but to the aboriginal Celtic, and the still more +aboriginal Euskarian tongue. +</p> +<h3> +THE END.</h3> +<h4> +HENDERSON & SPALDING, LTD., 3 & 5, MARYLEBONE LANE, W.</h4> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Science in Arcady, by Grant Allen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENCE IN ARCADY *** + +***** This file should be named 16325-h.htm or 16325-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/3/2/16325/ + +Produced by Clare Boothby, Peter Yearsley and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Science in Arcady + +Author: Grant Allen + +Release Date: July 18, 2005 [EBook #16325] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENCE IN ARCADY *** + + + + +Produced by Clare Boothby, Peter Yearsley and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + SCIENCE IN ARCADY + + BY + + GRANT ALLEN + + + + + LONDON: + LAWRENCE & BULLEN, + 16, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 1892. + + + + To GRANT RICHARDS, + _IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MANY KIND OFFICES._ + + Avuncular Greeting. + + + + + + CONTENTS. + + PAGE + + MY ISLANDS 1 + + TROPICAL EDUCATION 21 + + ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND 40 + + A DESERT FRUIT 56 + + PRETTY POLL 71 + + HIGH LIFE 90 + + EIGHT-LEGGED FRIENDS 105 + + MUD 123 + + THE GREENWOOD TREE 140 + + FISH AS FATHERS 157 + + AN ENGLISH SHIRE 177 + + THE BRONZE AXE 212 + + THE ISLE OF RUIM 231 + + A HILL-TOP STRONGHOLD 250 + + A PERSISTENT NATIONALITY 266 + + CASTERS AND CHESTERS 274 + + + + + PREFACE. + +These essays deal for the most part with Science in Arcady. 'Tis my +native country: for I am not of those who 'praise the busy town.' On +the contrary, in the words of the great poet who has just departed to +join Milton and Shelley in a place of high collateral glory, I 'love to +rail against it still,' with a naturalist's bitterness. For the town is +always dead and lifeless. There are who admire it, they say--poor +purblind creatures--because, forsooth, 'there is so much life there.' +So much life, indeed! No grass in the streets; no flowers in the lanes; +no beetles or butterflies on the dull stone pavements! Brick and mortar +have killed out all life over square miles of Middlesex. For myself, I +love better the densely-peopled fields than this human desert, this +beflagged and macadamised man-made solitude. The country teems with +life on every hand; a thousand different plants and flowers in the +spangled meadows; a thousand varied denizens of pond, and air, and +heath, and copses. Their ways are endless. They attract me far more +with their infinite diversity than the grey and gloomy haunts of the +cab-horse and the stock-broker. + +But my Arcady, as you will see, is none the less tolerably broad and +eclectic in its limits. These various essays have been suggested to my +pen by rambles far and wide between its elastic confines. The little +tractate on _Mud_, for example, recalls to mind some pleasant weeks +among the Italian lakes and on the plain of Lombardy. _A Desert Fruit_ +owes its origin to a morning at Luxor. _High Life_ had its key-note +struck by a fortnight in the Tyrol. _Tropical Education_ is a dim +reminiscence of old Jamaican experiences. Our _Eight-Legged Friends_ +were observed at leisure on the window-panes of our own little nook at +Dorking. _A Hill-Top Stronghold_ was sketched _in situ_ at Florence by +a window that looked across the valley to Fiesole. Excursions into +books or into the remoter past have given occasion for the +archaeological essays relegated here to the end of the volume. + +My thanks are due to Messrs. Longmans for permission to reprint from +their magazine _My Islands_, _A Hill-Top Stronghold_, _A Desert Fruit_, +_The Isle of Ruim_, _Eight-Legged Friends_, and _Tropical Education_. I +have also to acknowledge a similar courtesy on the part of Messrs. +Smith & Elder with regard to _Mud_, _The Bronze Axe_, _High Life_, +_Pretty Poll_, _The Greenwood Tree_, _On the Wings of the Wind_, +_Casters and Chesters_, and _Fish as Fathers_, all of which originally +appeared in the _Cornhill_. Messrs. Chatto & Windus have been equally +kind as regards the paper on _An English Shire_ contributed to the +_Gentleman's_. _A Persistent Nationality_ made its first bow in the +_North American Review_, and has still to be introduced to an English +audience. + +G.A. + +Hind Head, Surrey, _Oct._, 1892. + + + + + SCIENCE IN ARCADY. + + + + + MY ISLANDS. + +About the middle of the Miocene period, as well as I can now remember +(for I made no note of the precise date at the moment), my islands +first appeared above the stormy sheet of the North-West Atlantic as a +little rising group of mountain tops, capping a broad boss of submarine +volcanoes. My attention was originally called to the new archipelago by +a brother investigator of my own aerial race, who pointed out to me on +the wing that at a spot some 900 miles to the west of the Portuguese +coast, just opposite the place where your mushroom city of Lisbon now +stands, the water of the ocean, as seen in a bird's-eye view from some +three thousand feet above, formed a distinct greenish patch such as +always betokens shoals or rising ground at the bottom. Flying out at +once to the point he indicated, and poising myself above it on my broad +pinions at a giddy altitude, I saw at a glance that my friend was quite +right. Land making was in progress. A volcanic upheaval was taking +place on the bed of the sea. A new island group was being forced right +up by lateral pressure or internal energies from a depth of at least +two thousand fathoms. + +I had always had a great liking for the study of material plants and +animals, and I was so much interested in the occurrence of this novel +phenomenon--the growth and development of an oceanic island before my +very eyes--that I determined to devote the next few thousand centuries +or so of my aeonian existence to watching the course of its gradual +evolution. + +If I trusted to unaided memory, however, for my dates and facts, I +might perhaps at this distance of time be uncertain whether the moment +was really what I have roughly given, within a geological age or two, +the period of the Mid-Miocene. But existing remains on one of the +islands constituting my group (now called in your new-fangled +terminology Santa Maria) help me to fix with comparative certainty the +precise epoch of their original upheaval. For these remains, still in +evidence on the spot, consist of a few small marine deposits of Upper +Miocene age; and I recollect distinctly that after the main group had +been for some time raised above the surface of the ocean, and after +sand and streams had formed a small sedimentary deposit containing +Upper Miocene fossils beneath the shoal water surrounding the main +group, a slight change of level occurred, during which this minor +island was pushed up with the Miocene deposits on its shoulders, as a +sort of natural memorandum to assist my random scientific +recollections. With that solitary exception, however, the entire group +remains essentially volcanic in its composition, exactly as it was when +I first saw its youthful craters and its red-hot ash-cones pushed +gradually up, century after century, from the deep blue waters of the +Mid-Miocene ocean. + +All round my islands the Atlantic then, as now, had a depth, as I said +before, of two thousand fathoms; indeed, in some parts between the +group and Portugal the plummet of your human navigators finds no +bottom, I have often heard them say, till it reaches 2,500; and out of +this profound sea-bed the volcanic energies pushed up my islands as a +small submarine mountain range, whose topmost summits alone stood out +bit by bit above the level of the surrounding sea. One of them, the +most abrupt and cone-like, by name now Pico, rises to this day, a +magnificent sight, sheer seven thousand feet into the sky from the +placid sheet that girds it round on every side. You creatures of +to-day, approaching it in one of your clumsy new-fashioned fire-driven +canoes that you call steamers, must admire immensely its conical peak, +as it stands out silhouetted against the glowing horizon in the deep +red glare of a sub-tropical Atlantic sunset. + +But when I, from my solitary aerial perch, saw my islands rise bare and +massive first from the water's edge, the earliest idea that occurred to +me as an investigator of nature was simply this: how will they ever get +clad with soil and herbage and living creatures? So naked and barren +were their black crags and rocks of volcanic slag, that I could hardly +conceive how they could ever come to resemble the other smiling oceanic +islands which I looked down upon in my flight from day to day over so +many wide and scattered oceans. I set myself to watch, accordingly, +whence they would derive the first seeds of life, and what changes +would take place under dint of time upon their desolate surface. + +For a long epoch, while the mountains were still rising in their active +volcanic state, I saw but little evidence of a marked sort of the +growth of living creatures upon their loose piles of pumice. Gradually, +however, I observed that spores of lichens, blown towards them by the +wind, were beginning to sprout upon the more settled rocks, and to +discolour the surface in places with grey and yellow patches. Bit by +bit, as rain fell upon the new-born hills, it brought down from their +weathered summits sand and mud, which the torrents ground small and +deposited in little hollows in the valleys; and at last something like +earth was found at certain spots, on which seeds, if there had been +any, might doubtless have rooted and flourished exceedingly. + +My primitive idea, as I watched my islands in this their almost +lifeless condition, was that the Gulf Stream and the trade winds from +America would bring the earliest higher plants and animals to our +shores. But in this I soon found I was quite mistaken. The distance to +be traversed was so great, and the current so slow, that the few seeds +or germs of American species cast up upon the shore from time to time +were mostly far too old and water-logged to show signs of life in such +ungenial conditions. It was from the nearer coasts of Europe, on the +contrary, that our earliest colonists seemed to come. Though the +prevalent winds set from the west, more violent storms reached us +occasionally from the eastward direction; and these, blowing from +Europe, which lay so much closer to our group, were far more likely to +bring with them by waves or wind some waifs and strays of the European +fauna and flora. + +I well remember the first of these great storms that produced any +distinct impression on my islands. The plants that followed in its wake +were a few small ferns, whose light spores were more readily carried on +the breeze than any regular seeds of flowering plants. For a month or +two nothing very marked occurred in the way of change, but slowly the +spores rooted, and soon produced a small crop of ferns, which, finding +the ground unoccupied, spread when once fairly started with +extraordinary rapidity, till they covered all the suitable positions +throughout the islands. + +For the most part, however, additions to the flora, and still more to +the fauna, were very gradually made; so much so that most of the +species now found in the group did not arrive there till after the end +of the Glacial epoch, and belong essentially to the modern European +assemblage of plants and animals. This was partly because the islands +themselves were surrounded by pack-ice during that chilly period, which +interrupted for a time the course of my experiment. It was interesting, +too, after the ice cleared away, to note what kinds could manage by +stray accidents to cross the ocean with a fair chance of sprouting or +hatching out on the new soil, and which were totally unable by original +constitution to survive the ordeal of immersion in the sea. For +instance, I looked anxiously at first for the arrival of some casual +acorn or some floating filbert, which might stock my islands with +waving greenery of oaks and hazel bushes. But I gradually discovered, +in the course of a few centuries, that these heavy nuts never floated +securely so far as the outskirts of my little archipelago; and that +consequently no chestnuts, apple trees, beeches, alders, larches, or +pines ever came to diversify my island valleys. The seeds that did +really reach us from time to time belonged rather to one or other of +four special classes. Either they were very small and light, like the +spores of ferns, fungi, and club-mosses; or they were winged and +feathery, like dandelion and thistle-down; or they were the stones of +fruits that are eaten by birds, like rose-hips and hawthorn; or they +were chaffy grains, enclosed in papery scales, like grasses and sedges, +of a kind well adapted to be readily borne on the surface of the water. +In all these ways new plants did really get wafted by slow degrees to +the islands; and if they were of kinds adapted to the climate they grew +and flourished, living down the first growth of ferns and flowerless +herbs in the rich valleys. + +The time which it took to people my archipelago with these various +plants was, of course, when judged by your human standards, immensely +long, as often the group received only a single new addition in the +lapse of two or three centuries. But I noticed one very curious result +of this haphazard and lengthy mode of stocking the country: some of the +plants which arrived the earliest, having the coast all clear to +themselves, free from the fierce competition to which they had always +been exposed on the mainland of Europe, began to sport a great deal in +various directions, and being acted upon here by new conditions, soon +assumed under stress of natural selection totally distinct specific +forms. (You see, I have quite mastered your best modern scientific +vocabulary.) For instance, there were at first no insects of any sort +on the islands; and so those plants which in Europe depended for their +fertilisation upon bees or butterflies had here either to adapt +themselves somehow to the wind as a carrier of their pollen or else to +die out for want of crossing. Again, the number of enemies being +reduced to a minimum, these early plants tended to lose various +defences or protections they had acquired on the mainland against slugs +or ants, and so to become different in a corresponding degree from +their European ancestors. The consequence was that by the time you men +first discovered the archipelago no fewer than forty kinds of plants +had so far diverged from the parent forms in Europe or elsewhere that +your savants considered them at once as distinct species, and set them +down at first as indigenous creations. It amused me immensely. + +For out of these forty plants thirty-four were to my certain knowledge +of European origin. I had seen their seeds brought over by the wind or +waves, and I had watched them gradually altering under stress of the +new conditions into fresh varieties, which in process of time became +distinct species. Two of the oldest were flowers of the dandelion and +daisy group, provided with feathery seeds which enable them to fly far +before the carrying breeze; and these two underwent such profound +modifications in their insular home that the systematic botanists who +at last examined them insisted upon putting each into a new genus, all +by itself, invented for the special purpose of their reception. One +almost equally ancient inhabitant, a sort of harebell, also became in +process of time extremely unlike any other harebell I had ever seen in +any part of my airy wanderings. But the remaining thirty new species or +so evolved in the islands by the special circumstances of the group had +varied so comparatively little from their primitive European ancestors, +that they hardly deserved to be called anything more than very distinct +and divergent varieties. + +Some five or six plants, however, I noted arrive in my archipelago, not +from Europe, but from the Canaries or Madeira, whose distant blue peaks +lay dim on the horizon far to the south-west of us, as I poised in +mid-air high above the topmost pinnacle of my wild craggy Pico. These +kinds, belonging to a much warmer region, soon, as I noticed, underwent +considerable modification in our cooler climate, and were all of them +adjudged distinct species by the learned gentlemen who finally reported +upon my island realm to British science. + +As far as I can recollect, then, the total number of flowering plants I +noted in the islands before the arrival of man was about 200; and of +these, as I said before, only forty had so far altered in type as to be +considered at present peculiar to the archipelago. The remainder were +either comparatively recent arrivals or else had found the conditions +of their new home so like those of the old one from which they +migrated, that comparatively little change took place in their forms or +habits. Of course, just in proportion as the islands got stocked I +noticed that the changes were less and less marked; for each new plant, +insect, or bird that established itself successfully tended to make the +balance of nature more similar to the one that obtained in the mainland +opposite, and so decreased the chances of novelty of variation. + +Hence, it struck me that the oldest arrivals were the ones which +altered most in adaptation to the circumstances, while the newest, +finding themselves in comparatively familiar surroundings, had less +occasion to be selected for strange and curious freaks or sports of +form or colour. + +The peopling of the islands with birds and animals, however, was to me +even a more interesting and engrossing study in natural evolution than +its peopling by plants, shrubs, and trees. I may as well begin, +therefore, by telling you at once that no furry or hairy quadruped of +any sort--no mammal, as I understand your men of science call them--was +ever stranded alive upon the shores of my islands. For twenty or thirty +centuries indeed, I waited patiently, examining every piece of +driftwood cast up upon our beaches, in the faint hope that perhaps some +tiny mouse or shrew or water-vole might lurk half drowned in some +cranny or crevice of the bark or trunk. But it was all in vain. I ought +to have known beforehand that terrestrial animals of the higher types +never by any chance reach an oceanic island in any part of this planet. +The only three specimens of mammals I ever saw tossed up on the beach +were two drowned mice and an unhappy squirrel, all as dead as +doornails, and horribly mauled by the sea and the breakers. Nor did we +ever get a snake, a lizard, a frog, or a fresh-water fish, whose eggs I +at first fondly supposed might occasionally be transported to us on +bits of floating trees or matted turf, torn by floods from those +prehistoric Lusitanian or African forests. No such luck was ours. Not a +single terrestrial vertebrate of any sort appeared upon our shores +before the advent of man with his domestic animals, who played havoc at +once with my interesting experiment. + +It was quite otherwise with the unobtrusive small deer of life--the +snails, and beetles, and flies, and earthworms--and especially with the +winged things: birds, bats, and butterflies. In the very earliest days +of my islands' existence, indeed, a few stray feathered fowls of the +air were driven ashore here by violent storms, at a time when +vegetation had not yet begun to clothe the naked pumice and volcanic +rock; but these, of course, perished for want of food, as did also a +few later arrivals, who came under stress of weather at the period when +only ferns, lichens, and mosses had as yet obtained a foothold on the +young archipelago. Sea-birds, of course, soon found out our rocks; but +as they live off fish only, they contributed little more than rich beds +of guano to the permanent colonising of the islands. As well as I can +remember, the land-snails were the earliest truly terrestrial casuals +that managed to pick up a stray livelihood in these first colonial days +of the archipelago. They came oftenest in the egg, sometimes clinging +to water-logged leaves cast up by storms, sometimes hidden in the bark +of floating driftwood, and sometimes swimming free on the open ocean. +In one case, as I recall to myself well, a swallow, driven off from the +Portuguese coast, a little before the Glacial period had begun to +whiten the distant mountains of central and northern Europe, fell +exhausted at last upon the shore of Terceira. There were no insects +then for the poor bird to feed upon, so it died of starvation and +weariness before the day was out; but a little earth that clung in a +pellet to one of its feet contained the egg of a land-shell, while the +prickly seed of a common Spanish plant was entangled among the winged +feathers by its hooked awns. The egg hatched out, and became the parent +of a large brood of minute snails, which, outliving the cold spell of +the Ice Age, had developed into a very distinct type in the long period +that intervened before the advent of man in the islands; while the seed +sprang up on the natural manure heap afforded by the swallow's decaying +body, and clinging to the valleys during the Glacial Age on the +hill-tops, gave birth in due season to one of the most markedly +indigenous of our Terceira plants. + +Occasionally, too, very minute land-snails would arrive alive on the +island after their long sea-voyage on bits of broken forest-trees--a +circumstance which I would perhaps hesitate to mention in mere human +society were it not that I have been credibly informed your own great +naturalist, Darwin, tried the experiment himself with one of the +biggest European land-molluscs, the great edible Roman snail, and found +that it still lived on in vigorous style after immersion in sea-water +for twenty days. Now, I myself observed that several of these bits of +broken trees, torn down by floods in heavy storm time from the banks of +Spanish or Portuguese rivers, reached my island in eight or ten days +after leaving the mainland, and sometimes contained eggs of small +land-snails. But as very long periods often passed without a single new +species being introduced into the group, any kind that once managed to +establish itself on any of the islands usually remained for ages +undisturbed by new arrivals, and so had plenty of opportunity to adapt +itself perfectly by natural selection to the new conditions. The +consequence was, that out of some seventy land-snails now known in the +islands, thirty-two had assumed distinct specific features before the +advent of man, while thirty-seven (many of which, I think, I never +noticed till the introduction of cultivated plants) are common to my +group with Europe or with the other Atlantic islands. Most of these, I +believe, came in with man and his disconcerting agriculture. + +As to the pond and river snails, so far as I could observe, they mostly +reached us later, being conveyed in the egg on the feet of stray waders +or water-birds, which gradually peopled the island after the Glacial +epoch. + +Birds and all other flying creatures are now very abundant in all the +islands; but I could tell you some curious and interesting facts, too, +as to the mode of their arrival and the vicissitudes of their +settlement. For example, during the age of the Forest Beds in Europe, a +stray bullfinch was driven out to sea by a violent storm, and perched +at last on a bush at Fayal. I wondered at first whether he would effect +a settlement. But at that time no seeds or fruits fit for bullfinches +to eat existed on the islands. Still, as it turned out, this particular +bullfinch happened to have in his crop several undigested seeds of +European plants exactly suited to the bullfinch taste; so when he died +on the spot, these seeds, germinating abundantly, gave rise to a whole +valleyful of appropriate plants for bullfinches to feed upon. Now, +however, there was no bullfinch to eat them. For a long time, indeed, +no other bullfinches arrived at my archipelago. Once, to be sure, a few +hundred years later, a single cock bird did reach the island alone, +much exhausted with his journey, and managed to pick up a living for +himself off the seeds introduced by his unhappy predecessor. But as he +had no mate, he died at last, as your lawyers would say, without issue. + +It was a couple of hundred years or so more before I saw a third +bullfinch--which didn't surprise me, for bullfinches are very woodland +birds, and non-migratory into the bargain--so that they didn't often +get blown seaward over the broad Atlantic. At the end of that time, +however, I observed one morning a pair of finches, after a heavy storm, +drying their poor battered wings upon a shrub in one of the islands. +From this solitary pair a new race sprang up, which developed after a +time, as I imagined they must, into a distinct species. These local +bullfinches now form the only birds peculiar to the islands; and the +reason is one well divined by one of your own great naturalists (to +whom I mean before I end to make the _amende honorable_). In almost all +other cases the birds kept getting reinforced from time to time by +others of their kind blown out to sea accidentally--for only such +species were likely to arrive there--and this kept up the purity of the +original race, by ensuring a cross every now and again with the +European community. But the bullfinches, being the merest casuals, +never again to my knowledge were reinforced from the mainland, and so +they have produced at last a special island type, exactly adapted to +the peculiarities of their new habitat. + +You see, there was hardly ever a big storm on land that didn't bring at +least one or two new birds of some sort or other to the islands. +Naturally, too, the newcomers landed always on the first shore they +could sight; and so at the present day the greatest number of species +is found on the two easternmost islands nearest the mainland, which +have forty kinds of land-birds, while the central islands have but +thirty-six, and the western only twenty-nine. It would have been quite +different, of course, if the birds came mainly from America with the +trade winds and the Gulf Stream, as I at first anticipated. In that +case, there would have been most kinds in the westernmost islands, and +fewest stragglers in the far eastern. But your own naturalists have +rightly seen that the existing distribution necessarily implies the +opposite explanation. + +Birds, I early noticed, are always great carriers of fruit-seeds, +because they eat the berries, but don't digest the hard little stones +within. It was in that way, I fancy, that the Portugal laurel first +came to my islands, because it has an edible fruit with a very hard +seed; and the same reason must account for the presence of the myrtle, +with its small blue berry; the laurustinus with its currant-like fruit; +the elder-tree, the canary laurel, the local sweet-gale, and the +peculiar juniper. Before these shrubs were introduced thus +unconsciously by our feathered guests, there were no fruits on which +berry-eating birds could live; but now they are the only native trees +or large bushes on the islands--I mean the only ones not directly +planted by you mischief-making men, who have entirely spoilt my nice +little experiment. + +It was much the same with the history of some among the birds +themselves. Not a few birds of prey, for example, were driven to my +little archipelago by stress of weather in its very early days; but +they all perished for want of sufficient small quarry to make a living +out of. As soon, however, as the islands had got well stocked with +robins, black-caps, wrens, and wagtails, of European types--as soon as +the chaffinches had established themselves on the seaward plains, and +the canary had learnt to nest without fear among the Portugal +laurels--then buzzards, long-eared owls, and common barn-owls, driven +westward by tempests, began to pick up a decent living on all the +islands, and have ever since been permanent residents, to the immense +terror and discomfort of our smaller song-birds. Thus the older the +archipelago got the less chance was there of local variation taking +place to any large degree, because the balance of life each day grew +more closely to resemble that which each species had left behind it in +its native European or African mainland. + +I said a little while ago we had no mammal in the islands. In that I +was not quite strictly correct. I ought to have said, no terrestrial +mammal. A little Spanish bat got blown to us once by a rough +nor'easter, and took up its abode at once among the caves of our +archipelago, where it hawks to this day after our flies and beetles. +This seemed to me to show very conspicuously the advantage which winged +animals have in the matter of cosmopolitan dispersion; for while it was +quite impossible for rats, mice, or squirrels to cross the intervening +belt of three hundred leagues of sea, their little winged relation, the +flitter-mouse, made the journey across quite safely on his own leathery +vans, and with no greater difficulty than a swallow or a wood-pigeon. + +The insects of my archipelago tell very much the same story as the +birds and the plants. Here, too, winged species have stood at a great +advantage. To be sure, the earliest butterflies and bees that arrived +in the fern-clad period were starved for want of honey; but as soon as +the valleys began to be thickly tangled with composites, harebells, and +sweet-scented myrtle bushes, these nectar-eating insects established +themselves successfully, and kept their breed true by occasional +crosses with fresh arrivals blown to sea afterwards. The development of +the beetles I watched with far greater interest, as they assumed fresh +forms much more rapidly under their new conditions of restricted food +and limited enemies. Many kinds I observed which came originally from +Europe, sometimes in the larval state, sometimes in the egg, and +sometimes flying as full-grown insects before the blast of the angry +tempest. Several of these changed their features rapidly after their +arrival in the islands, producing at first divergent varieties, and +finally, by dint of selection, acting in various ways, through climate, +food, or enemies, on these nascent forms, evolving into stable and +well-adapted species. But I noticed three cases where bits of driftwood +thrown up from South America on the western coasts contained the eggs +or larvae of American beetles, while several others were driven ashore +from the Canaries or Madeira; and in one instance even a small insect, +belonging to a type now confined to Madagascar, found its way safely by +sea to this remote spot, where, being a female with eggs, it succeeded +in establishing a flourishing colony. I believe, however, that at the +time of its arrival it still existed on the African continent, but +becoming extinct there under stress of competition with higher forms, +it now survives only in these two widely separated insular areas. + +It was an endless amusement to me during those long centuries, while I +devoted myself entirely to the task of watching my fauna and flora +develop itself, to look out from day to day for any chance arrival by +wind or waves, and to follow the course of its subsequent vicissitudes +and evolution. In a great many cases, especially at first, the +new-comer found no niche ready for it in the established order of +things on the islands, and was fain at last, after a hard struggle, to +retire for ever from the unequal contest. But often enough, too, he +made a gallant fight for it, and, adapting himself rapidly to his new +environment, changed his form and habits with surprising facility. For +natural selection, I found, is a hard schoolmaster. If you happen to +fit your place in the world, you live and thrive, but if you don't +happen to fit it, to the wall with you without quarter. Thus sometimes +I would see a small canary beetle quickly take to new food and new +modes of life on my islands under my very eyes, so that in a century or +so I judged him myself worthy of the distinction of a separate species; +while in another case, I remember, a south European weevil evolved +before long into something so wholly different from his former self +that a systematic entomologist would have been forced to enrol him in a +distinct genus. I often wish now that I had kept a regular collection +of all the intermediate forms, to present as an illustrative series to +one of your human museums; but in those days, of course, we none of us +imagined anybody but ourselves would ever take an interest in these +problems of the development of life, and we let the chance slide till +it was too late to recover it. + +Naturally, during all these ages changes of other sorts were going on +in my islands--elevations and subsidences, separations and reunions, +which helped to modify the life of the group considerably. Indeed, +volcanic action was constantly at work altering the shapes and sizes of +the different rocky mountain-tops, and bringing now one, now another, +into closer relations than before with its neighbours. Why, as recently +as 1811 (a date which is so fresh in my memory that I could hardly +forget it) a new island was suddenly formed by submarine eruption off +the coast of St. Michael's, to which the name of Sabrina was +momentarily given by your human geographers. It was about a mile around +and 300 feet high; but, consisting as it did of loose cinders only, it +was soon washed away by the force of the waves in that stormy region. I +merely mention it here to show how recently volcanic changes have taken +place in my islands, and how continuously the internal energy has been +at work modifying and re-arranging them. + +Up to the moment of the arrival of man in the archipelago the whole +population, animal and vegetable, consisted entirely of these waifs and +strays, blown out to sea from Europe or Africa, and modified more or +less on the spot in accordance with the varying needs of their new +home. But the advent of the obtrusive human species spoilt the game at +once for an independent observer. Man immediately introduced oranges, +bananas, sweet potatoes, grapes, plums, almonds, and many other trees +or shrubs, in which, for selfish reasons, he was personally interested. +At the same time he quite unconsciously and unintentionally stocked the +islands with a fine vigorous crop of European weeds, so that the number +of kinds of flowering plants included in the modern flora of my little +archipelago exceeds, I think, by fully one-half that which I remember +before the date of the Portuguese occupation. In the same way, besides +his domestic animals, this spoil-sport colonist man brought in his +train accidentally rabbits, weasels, mice, and rats, which now abound +in many parts of the group, so that the islands have now in effect a +wild mammalian fauna. What is more odd, a small lizard has also got +about in the walls--not as you would imagine, a native-born Portuguese +subject, but of a kind found only in Madeira and Teneriffe, and, as far +as I could make out at the time, it seemed to me to come over with +cuttings of Madeira vines for planting at St. Michael's. It was about +the same time, I imagine, that eels and gold-fish first got loose from +glass globes into the ponds and water-courses. + +I have forgotten to mention, what you will no doubt yourself long since +have inferred, that my archipelago is known among human beings in +modern times as the Azores; and also that traces of all these curious +facts of introduction and modification, which I have detailed here in +their historical order, may still be detected by an acute observer and +reasoner in the existing condition of the fauna and flora. Indeed, one +of your own countrymen, Mr. Goodman, has collected all the most salient +of these facts in his 'Natural History of the Azores,' and another of +your distinguished men of science, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, has given +essentially the same explanations beforehand as those which I have here +ventured to lay, from another point of view, before a critical human +audience. But while Mr. Wallace has arrived at them by a process of +arguing backward from existing facts to prior causes and probable +antecedents, it occurred to me, who had enjoyed such exceptional +opportunities of watching the whole process unfold itself from the very +beginning, that a strictly historical account of how I had seen it come +about, step after step, might possess for some of you a greater direct +interest than Mr. Wallace's inferential solution of the self-same +problem. If, through lapse of memory or inattention to detail at so +remote a period, I have set down aught amiss, I sincerely trust you +will be kind enough to forgive me. But this little epic of the peopling +of a single oceanic archipelago by casual strays, which I alone have +had the good fortune to follow through all its episodes, seemed to me +too unique and valuable a chapter in the annals of life to be withheld +entirely from the scientific world of your eager, ephemeral, nineteenth +century humanity. + + + + + TROPICAL EDUCATION. + +If any one were to ask me (which is highly unlikely) 'In what +university would an intelligent young man do best to study?' I think I +should be very much inclined indeed to answer offhand, 'In the +Tropics.' + +No doubt this advice sounds on first hearing just a trifle paradoxical; +and no doubt, too, the proposed university has certain serious +drawbacks (like many others) on the various grounds of health, expense, +faith, and morals. Senior Proctors are unknown at Honolulu; Select +Preachers don't range as far as the West Coast. But it has always +seemed to me, nevertheless, that certain elements of a liberal +education are to be acquired tropically which can never be acquired in +a temperate, still less in an arctic or antarctic academy. This is more +especially true, I allow, in the particular cases of the biologist and +the sociologist; but it is also true in a somewhat less degree of the +mere common arts course, and the mere average seeker after liberal +culture. Vast aspects of nature and human life exist which can never +adequately be understood aright except in tropical countries; vivid +side-lights are cast upon our own history and the history of our globe +which can never adequately be appreciated except beneath the searching +and all too garish rays of a tropical sun. + +Whenever I meet a cultivated man who knows his Tropics--and more +particularly one who has known his Tropics during the formative period +of mental development, say from eighteen to thirty--I feel +instinctively that he possesses certain keys of man and nature, certain +clues to the problems of the world we live in, not possessed in +anything like the same degree by the mere average annual output of +Oxford or of Heidelberg. I feel that we talk like Freemasons +together--we of the Higher Brotherhood who have worshipped the sun, +_praesentiorem deum_, in his own nearer temples. + +Let me begin by positing an extreme parallel. How obviously inadequate +is the conception of life enjoyed by the ordinary Laplander or the most +intelligent Fuegian! Suppose even he has attended the mission school of +his native village, and become learned there in all the learning of the +Egyptians, up to the extreme level of the sixth standard, yet how +feeble must be his idea of the planet on which he moves! How much must +his horizon be cabined, cribbed, confined by the frost and snow, the +gloom and poverty, of the bare land around him! He lives in a dark cold +world of scrubby vegetation and scant animal life: a world where human +existence is necessarily preserved only by ceaseless labour and at +severe odds; a world out of which all the noblest and most beautiful +living creatures have been ruthlessly pressed; a world where nothing +great has been or can be; a world doomed by its mere physical +conditions to eternal poverty, discomfort, and squalor. For green +fields he has snow and reindeer moss: for singing birds and flowers, +the ptarmigan and the tundra. How can he ever form any fitting +conception of the glory of life--of the means by which animal and +vegetable organisms first grew and flourished? How can he frame to +himself any reasonable picture of civilised society, or of the origin +and development of human faculty and human organisation? + +Somewhat the same, though of course in a highly mitigated degree, are +the disadvantages under which the pure temperate education labours, +when compared with the education unconsciously drunk in at every pore +by an intelligent mind in tropical climates. And fully to understand +this pregnant educational importance of the Tropics we must consider +with ourselves how large a part tropical conditions have borne in the +development of life in general, and of human life and society in +particular. + +The Tropics, we must carefully remember, are the norma of nature: the +way things mostly are and always have been. They represent to us the +common condition of the whole world during by far the greater part of +its entire existence. Not only are they still in the strictest sense +the biological head-quarters: they are also the standard or central +type by which we must explain all the rest of nature, both in man and +beast, in plant and animal. + +The temperate and arctic worlds, on the other hand, are a mere passing +accident in the history of our planet: a hole-and-corner development; a +special result of the great Glacial epoch, and of that vast slow +secular cooling which preceded and led up to it, from the beginning of +the Miocene or Mid-Tertiary period. Our European ideas, poor, harsh, +and narrow, are mainly formed among a chilled and stunted fauna and +flora, under inclement skies, and in gloomy days, all of which can give +us but a very cramped and faint conception of the joyous exuberance, +the teeming vitality, the fierce hand-to-hand conflict, and the +victorious exultation of tropical life in its full free development. + +All through the Primary and Secondary epochs of geology, it is now +pretty certain, hothouse conditions practically prevailed almost +without a break over the whole world from pole to pole. It may be true, +indeed, as Dr. Croli believes (and his reasoning on the point I confess +is fairly convincing), that from time to time glacial periods in one or +other hemisphere broke in for a while upon the genial warmth that +characterised the greater part of those vast and immeasurable primaeval +aeons. But even if that were so--if at long intervals the world for some +hours in its cosmical year was chilled and frozen in an insignificant +cap at either extremity--these casual episodes in a long story do not +interfere with the general truth of the principle that life as a whole +during the greater portion of its antique existence has been carried on +under essentially tropical conditions. No matter what geological +formation we examine, we find everywhere the same tale unfolded in +plain inscriptions before our eyes. Take, for example, the giant +club-mosses and luxuriant tree-ferns nature-printed on shales of the +coal age in Britain: and we see in the wild undergrowth of those +palaeozoic forests ample evidence of a warm and almost West Indian +climate among the low basking islets of our northern carboniferous +seas. Or take once more the oolitic epoch in England, lithographed on +its own mud, with its puzzle-monkeys and its sago-palms, its crocodiles +and its deinosaurs, its winged pterodactyls and its whale-like lizards. +All these huge creatures and these broad-leaved trees plainly indicate +the existence of a temperature over the whole of Northern Europe almost +as warm as that of the Malay Archipelago in our own day. The weather +report for all the earlier ages stands almost uninterruptedly at Set +Fair. + +Roughly speaking, indeed, one may say that through the long series of +Primary and Secondary formations hardly a trace can be found of ice or +snow, autumn or winter, leafless boughs or pinched and starved +deciduous vegetation. Everything is powerful, luxuriant, vivid. Life, +as Comus feared, was strangled with its waste fertility. Once, indeed, +in the Permian Age, all over the temperate regions, north and south, we +get passing indications of what seems very like a glacial epoch, +partially comparable to that great glaciation on whose last fringe we +still abide to-day. But the Ice Age of the Permian, if such there were, +passed away entirely, leaving the world once more warm and fruitful up +to the very poles under conditions which we would now describe as +essentially tropical. + +It was with the Tertiary period--perhaps, indeed, only with the middle +subdivision of that period--that the gradual cooling of the polar and +intermediate regions began. We know from the deposits of the chalk +epoch in Greenland that late in Secondary times ferns, magnolias, +myrtles, and sago-palms--an Indian or Mexican flora--flourished +exceedingly in what is now the dreariest and most ice-clad region of +the northern hemisphere. Later still, in the Eocene days, though the +plants of Greenland had grown slightly more temperate in type, we still +find among the fossils, not only oaks, planes, vines, and walnuts, but +also wellingtonias like the big trees of California, Spanish chestnuts, +quaint southern salisburias, broad-leaved liquidambars, and American +sassafras. Nay, even in glacier-clad Spitzbergen itself, where the +character of the flora already begins to show signs of incipient +chilling, we nevertheless see among the Eocene types such plants as the +swamp-cyprus of the Carolinas and the wellingtonias of the Far West, +together with a rich forest vegetation of poplars, birches, oaks, +planes, hazels, walnuts, water-lilies, and irises. As a whole, this +vegetation still bespeaks a climate considerably more genial, mild, and +equable than that of modern England. + +It was in this basking world of the chalk and the Eocene that the great +mammalian fauna first took its rise; it was in this easy world of +fruits and sunshine that the primitive ancestors of man first began to +work upwards toward the distinctively human level of the palaeolithic +period. + +But then, in the mid-career of that third day of the geological drama, +came a frost--a nipping-frost; and slowly but surely the whole arctic +and antarctic worlds were chilled and cramped, degree after degree, by +the gradual on-coming of the Great Ice Age. I am not going to deal here +with either the causes or the extent of that colossal cataclysm; I +shall take all those for granted at present: what we are concerned with +now are the results it left behind--the changes which it wrought on +fauna and flora and on human society. Especially is it of importance in +this connection to point out that the Glacial epoch is not yet entirely +finished--if, indeed, it is ever destined to be finished. We are living +still on the fringe of the Ice Age, in a cold and cheerless era, the +legacy of the accumulated glaciers of the northern and southern +snow-fields. + +If once that ice were melted off--ah, well, there is much virtue in an +_if_. Still, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace seems to suggest somewhere that +the sun is gradually making inroads even now on those great +glacier-sheets of the northern cap, just as we know he is doing on the +smaller glacier-sheets of Switzerland (most of which are receding), and +that in time perhaps (say in a hundred thousand years or so) warm ocean +currents may once more penetrate to the very poles themselves. That, +however, is neither here nor there. The fact remains that we of +Northern Europe live to-day in a cramped, chilled, contracted world; a +world from which all the larger, fiercer, and grander types have either +been killed off or driven south; a world which stands to the full and +vigorous world of the Eocene and Miocene periods in somewhat the same +relation as Lapland stands to-day to Italy or the Riviera. + +This being so, it naturally results that if we want really to +understand the history of life, its origin and its episodes, we must +turn nowadays to that part of our planet which still most nearly +preserves the original conditions--that is to say, the Tropics. And it +has always seemed to me, both _a priori_ and _a posteriori_, that the +Tropics on this account do really possess for every one of us a vast +and for the most part unrecognised educational importance. + +I say 'for every one of us,' of deliberate design. I don't mean merely +for the biologist, though to him, no doubt, their value in this respect +is greatest of all. Indeed, I doubt whether the very ideas of the +struggle for life, natural selection, the survival of the fittest, +would ever have occurred at all to the stay-at-home naturalists of the +Linnaean epoch. It was in the depths of Brazilian forests, or under the +broad shade of East Indian palms, that those fertile conceptions first +flashed independently upon two southern explorers. It is very +noteworthy indeed that all the biologists who have done most to +revolutionise the science of life in our own day--Darwin, Huxley, +Wallace, Bates, Fritz Mueller, and Belt--have without exception formed +their notions of the plant and animal world during tropical travels in +early life. No one can read the 'Voyage of the _Beagle_,' the +'Naturalist on the Amazons,' or the 'Malay Archipelago' without feeling +at every page how profoundly the facts of tropical nature had +penetrated and modified their authors' minds. On the other hand, it is +well worth while to notice that the formal opposition to the new and +more expansive evolutionary views came mainly from the museum and +laboratory type of naturalists in London and Paris, the official +exponents of dry bones, who knew nature only through books and +preserved specimens, or through her impoverished and far less plastic +developments in northern lands. The battle of organic evolution has +been waged by the Darwins, the Huxleys, and the Muellers on the one +hand, against the Cuviers, the Owens, and the Virchows on the other. + +Still, it is not only in biology, as I said just now, that a taste of +the Tropics in early life exerts a marked widening and philosophic +influence upon a man's whole mental horizon. In ten thousand ways, in +that great tropical university, men feel themselves in closer touch +than elsewhere with the ultimate facts and truths of nature. I don't +know whether it is all fancy and preconceived opinion, but I often +imagine when I talk with new-met men that I can detect a certain +difference in tone and feeling at first sight between those who have +and those who have not passed the Tropical Tripos. In the Tropics, in +short, we seem to get down to the very roots of things. Thousands of +questions, social, political, economical, ethical, present themselves +at once in new and more engagingly simple aspects. Difficulties vanish, +distinctions disappear, conventions fade, clothes are reduced to their +least common measure, man stands forth in his native nakedness. Things +that in the North we had come to regard as inevitable--garments, +firing, income tax, morality--evaporate or simplify themselves with +instructive ease and phantasmagoric readiness. Malthus and the food +question assume fresh forms, as in dissolving views, before our very +eyes. How are slums conceivable or East Ends possible where every man +can plant his own yam and cocoa-nut, and reap their fruit +four-hundred-fold? How can Mrs. Grundy thrive where every woman may +rear her own ten children on her ten-rood plot without aid or +assistance from their indeterminate fathers? What need of carpentry +where a few bamboos, cut down at random, can be fastened together with +thongs into a comfortable chair? What use of pottery where calabashes +hang on every tree, and cocoa-nuts, with the water fresh and pure +within, supply at once the cup, and the filter, and the Apollinaris +within? + +Of course I don't mean to assert, either, that this tropical university +will in itself suffice for all the needs of educated or rather of +educable men. It must be taken, _bien entendu_, as a supplementary +course to the Literae Humaniores. There are things which can only be +learnt in the crowded haunts and cities of men--in London, Paris, New +York, Vienna. There are things which can only be learnt in the centres +of culture or of artistic handicraft--in Oxford, Munich, Florence, +Venice, Rome. There is only one Grand Canal and only one Pitti Palace. +We must have Shakespeare, Homer, Catullus, Dante; we must have Phidias, +Fra Angelico, Rafael, Mendelssohn; we must have Aristotle, Newton, +Laplace, Spencer. But after all these, and before all these, there is +something more left to learn. Having first read them, we must read +ourselves out of them. We must forget all this formal modern life; we +must break away from this cramped, cold, northern world; we must find +ourselves face to face at last, in Pacific isles or African forests, +with the underlying truths of simple naked nature. For that, in its +perfection, we must go to the Tropics; and there, we shall learn and +unlearn much, coming back, no doubt, with shattered faiths and broken +gods, and strangely disconcerted European prejudices, but looking out +upon life with a new outlook, an outlook undimmed by ten thousand +preconceptions which hem in the vision and obstruct the view of the +mere temperately educated. + +Nor is it only on the _elite_ of the world that this tropical training +has in its own way a widening influence. It is good, of course, for our +Galtons to have seen South Africa; good for our Tylors to have studied +Mexico; good for our Hookers to have numbered the rhododendrons and +deodars of the Himalayas. I sometimes fancy, even, that in the works of +our very greatest stay-at-home thinkers on anthropological or +sociological subjects, I detect here and there a certain formalist and +schematic note which betrays the want of first-hand acquaintance with +the plastic and expansive nature of tropical society. The beliefs and +relations of the actual savage have not quite that definiteness of form +and expression which our University Professors would fain assign to +them. But apart from the widening influence of the Tropics on these +picked minds, there is a widening influence exerted insensibly on the +very planters or merchants, the rank and file of European settlers, +which can hardly fail to impress all those who have lived amongst them. +The cramping effect of the winter cold and the artificial life is all +removed. Men live in a freer, wider, warmer air; their doors and +windows stand open day and night; the scent of flowers and the hum of +insects blow in upon them with every breeze; their brother man and +sister woman are more patent in every action to their eyes; the world +shows itself more frankly; it has fewer secrets, and readier +sympathies. I don't mean to say the result is all gain. Far from it. +There are evils inherent in tropical life which, as a noble lord +remarks of nature generally, "no preacher can heal." But viewed as +education, like Saint-Simon's thieving, it is all valuable. I should +think most men who have once passed through a tropical experience would +no more wish that full chapter blotted out of their lives than they +would consent to lose their university culture, their Continental +travel, or their literary, scientific, or artistic education. + +And what are the elements of this tropical curriculum which give it +such immense educational value? I think they are manifold. A few only +may be selected as of typical importance. + +In the first place, because first in order of realisation, there is its +value as a mental _bouleversement_, a revolution in ideas, a sort of +moral and intellectual cold shower-bath, a nervous shock to the system +generally. The patient or pupil gets so thoroughly upset in all his +preconceived ideas; he finds all round him a life so different from the +life to which he has been accustomed in colder regions, that he wakes +up suddenly, rubs his eyes hard, and begins to look about him for some +general explanation of the world he lives in. It is good for the +ordinary man to get thus unceremoniously upset. Take the average young +intelligence of the London streets, with its glib ideas already formed +from supply and demand in a civilised country, where soil is +appropriated, and classes distinct, and commodities drop as it were +from the clouds upon the middle-class breakfast-table--take such an +intelligence, self-satisfied and empty, and place its possessor all at +once in a new environment, where everything material, mental, and moral +seems topsy-turvy, where life is real and morals are rudimentary--and +unless he is a very particular fool indeed, what a lot you must really +give that blithe new-comer to turn over and think about! The sun that +shifts now north, now south of him; the seasons that go by fours +instead of twos; the trees that blossom and bear fruit from January to +December, with no apparent regard for the calendar months as by law +established; the black, brown, or yellow people, who know not his creed +or his social code; the castes and cross-divisions that puzzle and +surprise him; the pride and the scruples, deeper than those of +civilised life, but that nevertheless run counter to his own; the +economic conditions that defy his preconceptions; the virtues and the +vices that equally rub him up the wrong way--all these things are +highly conducive to the production of that first substratum of +philosophic thinking, a Socratic attitude of supreme ignorance, a pure +Cartesian frame of universal doubt. + +Then again there is the marvellous exuberance and novelty of the fauna +and flora. And this once more has something better for us all than mere +specialist interest. Sugar and ginger grow for all alike. For we must +remember that not only do the Tropics represent the vastly greater +portion of the world's past: they also represent the vastly greater +portion of the world's present. By far the larger part of the land +surface of the earth is tropical or subtropical; the temperate and +arctic regions make up but a minor and unimportant fraction of the soil +of our planet. And if we include the sea as well, this truth becomes +even more strikingly evident: the Tropics are even now the rule of +life; the colder regions are but an abnormal and outlying eccentricity +of nature. Yet it is from this starved and dwarfed and impoverished +northern area that most of us have formed our views of life, to the +total exclusion of the wider, richer, more varied world that calls for +our admiration in tropical latitudes. + +Insensibly this richness and vividness of nature all around one, on a +first visit to the Tropics, sinks into one's mind, and produces +profound, though at first unconscious, modifications in one's whole +mode of regarding man and his universe. Especially is this the case in +early life, when the character is still plastic and the eye still keen: +pictures are formed in that brilliant sunshine and under those dim +arches of hot grey sky that photograph themselves for ever on the +lasting tablets of the human memory. John Stuart Mill in his +Autobiography dwells lovingly, I remember, on the profound effect +produced on himself by his childish visits to Jeremy Bentham at Ford +Abbey in Dorsetshire, on the delightful sense of space and freedom and +generous expansion given to his mind by the mere act of living and +moving in those stately halls and wide airy gardens. Every university +man must look back with pleasure of somewhat the same sort to the free +breezy memories of the quadrangles and common rooms of Christ Church or +of Trinity. But in the tropical university everybody passes his time in +arcades of Greek or Pompeian airiness: the palm-trees wave and whisper +around his head as he sits for coolness on his wide verandah; the +humming-birds dart from flower to flower on the delicate bouquets that +crowd his drawing-room. I knew a lady who made a capital collection of +butterflies and moths at her own dinner-table by simply impounding in +paper boxes the insects that flitted about the lamp at dessert. Why, if +it comes to that, the very bread itself comprises generally a whole +entomological cabinet, and contains in fragments the _disjecta membra_ +of specimens enough to stock entire glass cases at severe South +Kensington. How's that for an inducement to study life where it is +richest and most abundant in its native starting-place? + +But above all in educational importance I rank the advantage of seeing +human nature in its primitive surroundings, far from the squalid and +chilly influences of the tail-end of the Glacial epoch. I admit at once +that cold has done much, exceeding much, for human development--has +been the mother of civilisation in somewhat the same sense that +necessity has been the mother of invention. To it, no doubt, we owe to +a great extent, in varying stages, clothing, the house, fire, the +steam-engine. Yet none the less is it true that the first levels of +society must needs have been passed under essentially tropical +conditions, and that nascent civilisation spread but slowly northward, +from Egypt and Asia, through Greece and Italy, to the cloudy regions +where its chief centres are at present domiciled under canopies of coal +smoke. And even to-day the sight of the tropics, green and luxuriant, +brings us into touch at once with earlier ideas and habits of the +race--makes us more able not only to understand, but also to sympathise +with, our ancient ancestors of the naked-and-not-ashamed era of +culture. Views formed exclusively in the North tend too much to imitate +the reduced gentlewoman's outlook upon life; views formed in the +Tropics correct this refractive influence by a certain genial and +tolerant virile expansion, not to be learned at the Common, Clapham. + +To one whose economic pendulum has hitherto oscillated between selfish +luxury in Mayfair and squalid poverty in Seven Dials, there is indeed a +world of novelty in the first view of the tropical poverty that is not +squalid but contentedly luxurious--of the dusky father with his wife or +wives (the mere number is a detail) sprawling at full length, half +clad, in the eye of the sun, before the palm-thatched hut, while the +fat black babies and the fat black little pigs wallow together almost +indistinguishably in the dust at his side, just out of reach of the +muscular foot that might otherwise of pure wantonness molest them. What +a flood of light it all casts upon the future possibilities of society, +that leisured, cultureless household, on whose garden-plot yam or +bread-fruit or bananas or sweet potatoes can be grown in sufficient +quantity to support the family without more labour than in England +would pay for its kitchen coals; where the hut is but a shelter from +rain, or a bed-curtain for night, and where the untaxed sun supplies +the place of a drawing-room fire all the year round, and warms the +water for the baby's bath at nothing the gallon! If there is any man +who doesn't sympathise with his dusky brother when he sees him thus at +home in his airy palace--any man who doesn't fraternise closely with +his kind when thus brought face to face with our primitive existence, I +don't envy him his stern and wild Caledonian ethics. The beach-comber +instinct should be strong in all sane minds. Or if that blunt way of +putting it perchance offend the weaker brethren, let us say rather, the +spirit of the Lotus-eaters. For the man who doesn't want to eat of the +Lotus just once in his life has become too civilised: the iron of the +Gradgrind era of universal competition and payment by results has +entered to deeply into his sordid soul. He wants a course of Egypt and +Tahiti. + +Oh, yes; I know what you are going to object, and I grant it at once: +the influence of the Tropics is by no means an ascetic one. They, tend +rather to encourage a certain genial and friendly tolerance of all +possible human forms of society--even the lowest. They are essentially +democratic, not to say socialistic and revolutionary in tone. By +bringing us all down to the underlying verities of life, apart from its +conventions, they beget perhaps a somewhat hasty impatience of Court +dress and the Lord Chamberlain's regulations. But, _per contra_, they +teach us to feel that every man, whether black, brown, or white, is +very human, and every woman and child, if possible, even a trifle more +so. Wicked as it all is, there is yet in tropical political economy +more of the Gospel according to St. John, and less of Adam Smith, +Ricardo, and Malthus, than in any orthodox political economy prescribed +by examiners for the University of London. It is something to see a +world where ceaseless toil is not the necessary and inevitable lot of +all who don't pay income tax on a thousand a year, even if Board +schools are unknown and quadratic equations a vanishing quantity. It is +something to see a stick of sugar-cane protruding from the mouth of +every child, and oranges retailed at twelve for a ha'penny. It is +something to know how the vast majority of the human race still live +and move and have their being, and to feel that after all their mode of +life, though lacking in Greek iambics, wallpapers, and the _Saturday +Review_, yet appeals in its own beach-comberish way to some of one's +inmost and deepest yearnings. The hibiscus that flames before the +wattled hut, the parrot that chatters from the green and golden +mango-tree, the lithe, healthy figures of the children in the stream, +are some compensation for the lack of London mud, London fog, and +London illustrations of practical Christianity in the Isle of Dogs and +the Bermondsey purlieus. I don't know whether I am knocking the last +nail into the completed coffin of my own contention, but I believe +every right-minded man returns from the Tropics a good deal more of a +Communist than when he went there. + +One word of explanation to prevent mistake. I am not myself, like +Kingsley or Wallace, an enthusiastic tropicist. On the contrary, viewed +as a place of permanent residence, I don't at all like the Tropics to +live in. I am pleading here only for their educational value, in small +doses. Spending two or three years there in the heyday of life is very +much like reading Herodotus--a thing one is glad one had once to do, +but one would never willingly do again for any money. We northern +creatures are remote products of the Great Ice Age, and by this time, +like Polar bears, we have grown adapted to our glacial environment. All +the more, therefore, is it a useful shaking-up for us to get +transported bodily from our cramped and poverty-stricken northern +slums, just once in our life, to the palms and temples of the South, +the lands where the human body is a hardy plant, not a frail exotic. We +come back to our chilly home among the fogs and bogs with wider +projects for the thawing down of the social ice-heap, and the +introduction of the bread-fruit-tree and the currant-bun-bush into the +remotest wilds of the borough of Hackney. I am not even quite sure that +tropical experience doesn't predispose us somewhat in favour of +planting the sweet potato instead of grazing battering-rams in the +uplands of Connemara. But hush; I hear an editorial frown. No more of +this heresy. + + + + + ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. + +Of course, you know my friend the squirting cucumber. If you don't, +that can be only because you've never looked in the right place to find +him. On all waste ground outside most southern cities--Nice, Cannes, +Florence: Rome, Algiers, Granada: Athens, Palermo, Tunis, where you +will--the soil is thickly covered by dark trailing vines which bear on +their branches a queer hairy green fruit, much like a common cucumber +at that early stage of its existence when we know it best in the +commercial form of pickled gherkins. As long as you don't interfere +with them, these hairy green fruits do nothing out of the common in the +way of personal aggressiveness. Like the model young lady of the books +on etiquette, they don't speak unless they're spoken to. But if +peradventure you chance to brush up against the plant accidentally, or +you irritate it of set purpose with your foot or your cane, then, as +Mr. Rider Haggard would say, 'a strange thing happens': off jumps the +little green fruit with a startling bounce, and scatters its juice and +pulp and seeds explosively through a hole in the end where the stem +joined on to it. The entire central part of the cucumber, in short +(answering to the seeds and pulp of a ripe melon), squirts out +elastically through the breach in the outer wall, leaving the hollow +shell behind as a mere empty windbag. + +Naturally, the squirting cucumber knows its own business best, and is +not without sufficient reasons of its own for this strange and, to some +extent, unmannerly behaviour. By its queer trick of squirting, it +manages to kill at least two birds with one stone. For, in the first +place, the sudden elastic jump of the fruit frightens away browsing +animals, such as goats and cattle. Those meditative ruminants are +little accustomed to finding shrubs or plants take the aggressive +against them; and when they see a fruit that quite literally flies in +their faces of its own accord, they hesitate to attack the uncanny vine +which bristles with such magical and almost miraculous defences. +Moreover, the juice of the squirting cucumber is bitter and nauseous, +and if it gets into the eyes or nostrils of man or beast, it impresses +itself on the memory by stinging like red pepper. So the trick of +squirting serves in a double way as a protection to the plant against +the attacks of herbivorous animals and other enemies. + +But that's not all. Even when no enemy is near, the ripe fruits at last +drop off of themselves, and scatter their seeds elastically in every +direction. This they do simply in order to disseminate their kind in +new and unoccupied spots, where the seedlings will root and find an +opening in life for themselves. Observe, indeed, that the very word +'disseminate' implies a general vague recognition of this principle of +plant-life on the part of humanity. It means, etymologically, to +scatter seed; and it points to the fact that everywhere in nature seeds +are scattered broadcast, infinite pains being taken by the mother-plant +for their general diffusion over wide areas of woodland, plain, or +prairie. + +Let us take as examples a single little set of instances, familiar to +everybody, but far commoner in the world at large than the inhabitants +of towns are at all aware of: I mean, the winged seeds, that fly about +freely in the air by means of feathery hairs or gossamer, like +thistle-down and dandelion. Of these winged types we have many hundred +varieties in England alone. All the willow-herbs, for example, have +such feathery seeds (or rather fruits) to help them on their way +through life; and one kind, the beautiful pink rose-bay, flies about so +readily, and over such wide spaces of open country, that the plant is +known to farmers in America as fireweed, because it always springs up +at once over whole square miles of charred and smoking soil after every +devastating forest fire. It travels fast, for it travels like Ariel. In +much the same way, the coltsfoot grows on all new English railway +banks, because its winged seeds are wafted everywhere in myriads on the +winds of March. All the willows and poplars have also winged seeds: so +have the whole vast tribe of hawkweeds, groundsels, ragworts, thistles, +fleabanes, cat's-ears, dandelions, and lettuces. Indeed, one may say +roughly, there are very few plants of any size or importance in the +economy of nature which don't deliberately provide, in one way or +another, for the dispersal and dissemination of their fruits or +seedlings. + +Why is this? Why isn't the plant content just to let its grains or +berries drop quietly on to the soil beneath, and there shift for +themselves as best they may on their own resources? + +The answer is a more profound one than you would at first imagine. +Plants discovered the grand principle of the rotation of crops long +before man did. The farmer now knows that if he sows wheat or turnips +too many years running on the same plot, he 'exhausts the soil,' as we +say--deprives it of certain special mineral or animal constituents +needful for that particular crop, and makes the growth of the plant, +therefore, feeble or even impossible. To avoid this misfortune, he lets +the land lie fallow, or varies his crops from year to year according to +a regular and deliberate cycle. Well, natural selection forced the same +discovery upon the plants themselves long before the farmer had dreamed +of its existence. For plants, being, in the strictest sense, 'rooted to +the spot,' absolutely require that all their needs should be supplied +quite locally. Hence, from the very beginning, those plants which +scattered their seeds widest throve the best; while those which merely +dropped them on the ground under their own shadow, and on soil +exhausted by their own previous demands upon it, fared ill in the +struggle for life against their more discursive competitors. The result +has been that in the long run few species have survived, except those +which in one way or another arranged beforehand for the dispersal of +their seeds and fruits over fresh and unoccupied areas of plain or +hillside. + +I don't, of course, by any means intend to assert that seeds always do +it by the simple device of wings or feathery projections. Every variety +of plan or dodge or expedient has been adopted in turn to secure the +self-same end; and provided only it succeeds in securing it, any +variety of them all is equally satisfactory. One might parallel it with +the case of hatching birds' eggs. Most birds sit upon their eggs +themselves, and supply the necessary warmth from their own bodies. But +any alternative plan that attains the same end does just as well. The +felonious cuckoo drops her foundlings unawares in another bird's nest: +the ostrich trusts her unhatched offspring to the heat of the burning +desert sand: and the Australian brush-turkeys, with vicarious maternal +instinct, collect great mounds of decaying and fermenting leaves and +rubbish, in which they deposit their eggs to be artificially incubated, +as it were, by the slow heat generated in the process of putrefaction. +Just in the same way, we shall see in the case of seeds that any method +of dispersion will serve the plant's purpose equally well, provided +only it succeeds in carrying a few of the young seedlings to a proper +place in which they may start fair at last in the struggle for +existence. + +As in the case of the fertilization of flowers, so in that of the +dispersal of seeds, there are two main ways in which the work is +effected--by animals and by wind-power. I will not insult the +intelligence of the reader at the present time of day by telling him +that pollen is usually transferred from blossom to blossom in one or +other of these two chief ways--it is carried on the heads or bodies of +bees and other honey-seeking insects, or else it is wafted on the wings +of the wind to the sensitive surface of a sister-flower. So, too, seeds +are for the most part either dispersed by animals or blown about by the +breezes of heaven to new situations. These are the two most obvious +means of locomotion provided by nature; and it is curious to see that +they have both been utilized almost equally by plants, alike for their +pollen and their seeds, just as they have been utilized by man for his +own purposes on sea or land, in ship, or windmill, or pack-horse, or +carriage. + +There are two ways in which animals may be employed to disperse +seeds--voluntarily and involuntarily. They may be compelled to carry +them against their wills: or they may be bribed and cajoled and +flattered into doing the plant's work for it in return for some +substantial advantage or benefit the plant confers upon them. The first +plan is the one adopted by burrs and cleavers. These adhesive fruits +are like the man who buttonholes you and won't be shaken off: they are +provided with little curved hooks or bent and barbed hairs which catch +upon the wool of sheep, the coat of cattle, or the nether integuments +of wayfaring humanity, and can't be got rid of without some little +difficulty. Most of them, you will find on examination, belonged to +confirmed hedgerow or woodside plants: they grow among bushes or low +scrub, and thickets of gorse or bramble. Now, to such plants as these, +it is obviously useful to have adhesive fruits and seeds: for when +sheep or other animals get them caught in their coats, they carry them +away to other bushy spots, and there, to get rid of the annoyance +caused by the foreign body, scratch them off at once against some +holly-bush or blackthorn. You may often find seeds of this type +sticking on thorns as the nucleus of a little matted mass of wool, so +left by the sheep in the very spots best adapted for the free growth of +their vigorous seedlings. + +Even among plants which trust to the involuntary services of animals in +dispersing their seeds, a great many varieties of detail may be +observed on close inspection. For example, in hound's-tongue and +goose-grass, two of the best-known instances among our common English +weeds, each little nut is covered with many small hooks, which make it +catch on firmly by several points of attachment to passing animals. +These are the kinds we human beings of either sex oftenest find +clinging to our skirts or trousers after a walk in a rabbit-warren. But +in herb-bennet and avens each nut has a single long awn, crooked near +the middle with a very peculiar S-shaped joint, which effectually +catches on to the wool or hair, but drops at the elbow after a short +period of withering. Sometimes, too, the whole fruit is provided with +prehensile hooks, while sometimes it is rather the individual seeds +themselves that are so accommodated. Oddest of all is the plan followed +by the common burdock. Here, an involucre or common cup-shaped +receptacle of hooked bracts surrounds an entire head of purple tubular +flowers, and each of these flowers produces in time a distinct fruit; +but the hooked involucre contains the whole compound mass, and, being +pulled off bodily by a stray sheep or dog, effects the transference of +the composite lot at once to some fitting place for their germination. + +Those plants, on the other hand, which depend rather, like London +hospitals, upon the voluntary system, produce that very familiar form +of edible capsule which we commonly call in the restricted sense a +fruit or berry. In such cases, the seed-vessel is usually swollen and +pulpy: it is stored with sweet juices to attract the birds or other +animal allies, and it is brightly coloured so as to advertise to their +eyes the presence of the alluring sugary foodstuff. These instances, +however, are now so familiar to everybody that I won't dwell upon them +at any length. Even the degenerate schoolboy of the present day, much +as he has declined from the high standard set forth by Macaulay, knows +all about the way the actual seed itself is covered (as in the plum or +the cherry) by a hard stony coat which 'resists the action of the +gastric juice' (so physiologists put it, with their usual frankness), +and thus passes undigested through the body of its swallower. All I +will do here, therefore, is to note very briefly that some edible +fruits, like the two just mentioned, as well as the apricot, the peach, +the nectarine, and the mango, consist of a single seed with its outer +covering; in others, as in the raspberry, the blackberry, the +cloudberry, and the dew-berry, many seeds are massed together, each +with a separate edible pulp; in yet others, as in the gooseberry, the +currant, the grape, and the whortleberry, several seeds are embedded +within the fruit in a common pulpy mass; and in others again, as in the +apple, pear, quince, and medlar, they are surrounded by a quantity of +spongy edible flesh. Indeed, the variety that prevails among fruits in +this respect almost defies classification: for sometimes, as in the +mulberry, the separate little fruits of several distinct flowers grow +together at last into a common berry: sometimes, as in a fig, the +general flower-stalk of several tiny one-seeded blossoms forms the +edible part: and sometimes, as in the strawberry, the true little nuts +or fruits appear as mere specks or dots on the bloated surface of the +swollen and overgrown stem, which forms the luscious morsel dear to the +human palate. + +Yet in every case it is interesting to observe that, while the seeds +which depend for dispersion upon the breeze are easily detached from +the parent plant and blown about by every wind of doctrine, the seeds +or fruits which depend for their dispersion upon birds or animals +always, on the contrary, hang on to their native boughs to the very +last, till some unconscious friend pecks them off and devours them. +Haws, rose-hips, and holly-berries will wither and wilt on the tree in +mild winters, because they can't drop off of themselves without the aid +of birds, while the birds are too well supplied with other food to care +for them. One of the strangest cases of all, however, is that of the +mistletoe, which, living parasitically upon the forest-boughs and +apple-trees, would of course be utterly lost if its berries dropped +their seeds on to the ground beneath it. To avoid such a misfortune, +the mistletoe berries are filled with an exceedingly viscid and sticky +pulp, surrounding the hard little nut-like seeds: and this pulp makes +the seeds cling to the bills and feet of various birds which feed upon +the fruit, but most particularly of the missel thrush, who derives his +common English name from his devotion to the mistletoe. The birds then +carry them away unwittingly to some neighbouring tree, and rub them +off, when they get uncomfortable, against a forked branch--the exact +spots that best suits the young mistletoe for sprouting in. Man, in +turn, makes use of the sticky pulp for the manufacture of bird-lime, +and so employs against the birds the very qualities which the plant +intended as a bribe for their kindly services. + +Among seeds that trust for their disposal to the wind, the commonest, +simplest, and least evolved type is that of the ordinary capsule, as in +the poppies and campions. At first sight, to be sure, a casual observer +might suppose there existed in these cases no recognisable device at +all for the dissemination of the seedlings. But you and I, most +excellent and discreet reader, are emphatically _not_, of course, mere +casual observers. _We_ look close, and go to the very root of things. +And when we do so, we see for ourselves at once that almost all +capsules open--where? why, at the top, so that the seeds can only be +shaken out when there is a high enough wind blowing to sway the stems +to and fro with some violence, and scatter the small black grains +inside to a considerable distance. Furthermore, in many instances, of +which the common poppy-head is an excellent example, the capsule opens +by lateral pores at the top of a flat head--a further precaution which +allows the seeds to get out only by a few at a time, after a distinct +jerk, and so scatters them pretty evenly, with different winds, over a +wide circular space around the mother plant. Experiment will show how +this simple dodge works. Try to shake out the poppy-seed from a ripe +poppy-head on the plant as it grows, without breaking the stem or +bending it unnaturally, and you will easily see how much force of wind +is required in order to put this unobtrusive but very effective +mechanism into working order. + +The devices of this character employed by various plants for the +dispersal of seeds even in ordinary dry capsules are far too numerous +for me to describe in full detail, though they form a delightful +subject for individual study in any small suburban garden. I will only +give one more illustrative case, just to show the sort of point an +amateur should always be on the look-out for. There is an extremely +common, though inconspicuous, English weed, the mouse-ear chickweed, +found everywhere in flower-beds or grass-plots, however small, and +noticeable for its quaint little horn-shaped capsules. These have a +very odd sort of twist or cock-up in the middle, just above the part +where the seeds lie; and they open at the top by ten small teeth, +pointed obliquely outward for no apparent reason. Yet every point has a +meaning of its own for all that. The plant is one that lies rather +close upon the ground; and the effect of this twist in the capsule is +that the seeds, which are relatively heavy, and well stored with +nutriment, can never get out at all, unless a very strong wind is +blowing, which sweeps over the herbage in long quick waves, and carries +everything it shakes out for great distances before it. So much design +have even the smallest weeds put into the mechanism for the dispersion +of their precious seeds, the hope of their race and the earnest of +their future! + +Artillery marks a higher stage than the sling and the stone. Just so, +in many plants, a step higher in the evolutionary scale as regards the +method of dispersion, the capsule itself bursts open explosively, and +scatters its contents to the four winds of heaven. Such plants may be +said to discharge their grains on the principle of the bow and arrow. +The balsam is a familiar example of this startling mode of moving to +fresh fields and pastures new: its capsule consists of five long +straight valves, which break asunder elastically the moment they are +touched, when fully ripe, and shed their seeds on all sides, like so +many small bombshells. Our friend the squirting cucumber, which served +as the prime text for this present discourse, falls into somewhat the +same category, though in other ways it rather resembles the true +succulent fruits, and belongs, indeed, to the same family as the melon, +the gourd, the pumpkin, and the vegetable-marrow, almost all of which +are edible and in every way fruit-like. Among English weeds, the little +bittercress that grows on dry walls and hedge-banks forms an excellent +example of the same device. Village children love to touch the long, +ripe, brown capsules on the top with one timid finger, and then jump +away, half laughing, half terrified, when the mild-looking little plant +goes off suddenly with a small bang and shoots its grains like a +catapult point-blank in their faces. + +It is in the tropics, however, that these elastic fruits reach their +highest development. There they have to fight, not merely against such +small fry as robins, squirrels, and harvest-mice, but against the +aggressive parrot, the hard-billed toucan, the persistent lemur, and +the inquisitive monkey. Moreover, the elastic fruits of the tropics +grow often on spreading forest trees, and must therefore shed their +seeds to immense distances if they are to reach comparatively virgin +soil, unexhausted by the deep-set roots of the mother trunk. Under such +exceptional circumstances, the tropical examples of these elastic +capsules are by no means mere toys to be lightly played with by babes +and sucklings. The sand-box tree of the West Indies has large round +fruits, containing seeds about as big as an English horsebean; and the +capsule explodes, when ripe, with a detonation like a pistol, +scattering its contents with as much violence as a shot from an +air-gun. It is dangerous to go too near these natural batteries during +the shooting season. A blow in the eye from one would blind a man +instantly. I well remember the very first night I spent in my own house +in Jamaica, where I went to live shortly after the repression of +'Governor Eyre's rebellion,' as everybody calls it locally. All night +long I heard somebody, as I thought, practising with a revolver in my +own back garden: a sound which somewhat alarmed me under those very +unstable social conditions. An earthquake about midnight, it is true, +diverted my attention temporarily from the recurring shots, but didn't +produce the slightest effect upon the supposed rebel's devotion to the +improvement of his marksmanship. When morning dawned, however, I found +it was only a sand-box tree, and that the shots were nothing more than +the explosions of the capsules. As to the wonderful tales told about +the Brazilian cannon-ball tree, I cannot personally endorse them from +original observation, and will not stain this veracious page with any +second-hand quotations from the strange stories of modern scientific +Munchausens. + +Still higher in the evolutionary scale than the elastic fruits are +those airy species which have taken to themselves wings like the eagle, +and soar forth upon the free breeze in search of what the Americans +describe as 'fresh locations.' Of this class the simplest type may be +seen in those forest-trees, like the maple and the sycamore, whose +fruits are flattened out into long expansions or parachutes, +technically known as 'keys,' by whose aid they flutter down obliquely +to the ground at a considerable distance. The keys of the sycamore, to +take a single instance, when detached from the tree in autumn, fall +spirally through the air owing to the twist of the winged arm, and are +carried so far that, as every gardener knows, young sycamore trees rank +among the commonest weeds among our plots and flower-beds. A curious +variant upon this type is presented by the lime, or linden, whose +fruits are in themselves small wingless nuts; but they are born in +clusters upon a common stalk, which is winged on either side by a large +membranous bract. When the nuts are ripe, the whole cluster detaches +itself in a body from the branch, and flutters away before the breeze +by means of the common parachute, to some spot a hundred yards or more, +where the wind chances to land it. + +The topmost place of all in the hierarchy of seed life, it seems to me, +is taken by the feathery fruits and seeds which float freely hither and +thither wherever the wind may bear them. An immense number of the very +highest plants--the aristocrats of the vegetable kingdom, such as the +lordly composites, those ultimate products of plant evolution--possess +such floating feathery seeds; though here, again, the varieties of +detail are too infinite for rapid or popular classification. Indeed, +among the composites alone--the thistle and dandelion tribe with downy +fruits--I can reckon up more than a hundred and fifty distinct +variations of plan among the winged seeds known to me in various parts +of Europe. But if I am strong, I am merciful: I will let the public off +with a hundred and forty-eight of them. My two exceptions shall be +John-go-to-bed-at-noon and the hairy hawkweed, both of them common +English meadow-plants. The first, and more quaintly named, of the two +has little ribbed fruits that end in a long and narrow beak, supporting +a radial rib-work of spokes like the frame of an umbrella; and from rib +to rib of this framework stretch feathery cross-pieces, continuous all +round, so as to make of the whole mechanism a perfect circular +parachute, resembling somewhat the web of a geometrical spider. But the +hairy hawkweed is still more cunning in its generation; for that clever +and cautious weed produces its seeds or fruits in clustered heads, of +which the central ones are winged, while the outer are heavy, squat, +and wingless. Thus does the plant make the best of all chances that may +happen to open before it: if one lot goes far and fares but ill, the +other is pretty sure to score a bull's-eye. + +These are only a few selected examples of the infinite dodges employed +by enlightened herbs and shrubs to propagate their scions in foreign +parts. Many more, equally interesting, must be left undescribed. Only +for a single case more can I still find room--that of the subterranean +clover, which has been driven by its numerous enemies to take refuge at +last in a very remarkable and almost unique mode, of protecting its +offspring. This particular kind of clover affects smooth and +close-cropped hillsides, where the sheep nibble down the grass and +other herbage almost as fast as it springs up again. Now, clover seeds +resemble their allies of the pea and bean tribe in being exceedingly +rich in starch and other valuable foodstuffs. Hence, they are much +sought after by the inquiring sheep, which eat them off wherever found, +as exceptionally nutritious and dainty morsels. Under these +circumstances, the subterranean clover has learnt to produce small +heads of bloom, pressed close to the ground, in which only the outer +flowers are perfect and fertile, while the inner ones are transformed +into tiny wriggling corkscrews. As soon as the fertile flowers have +begun to set their seed, by the kind aid of the bees, the whole stem +bends downward, automatically, of its own accord; the little corkscrews +then worm their way into the turf beneath; and the pods ripen and +mature in the actual soil itself, where no prying ewe can poke an +inquisitive nose to grub them up and devour them. Cases like this point +in certain ways to the absolute high-water-mark of vegetable ingenuity: +they go nearest of all in the plant-world to the similitude of +conscious animal intelligence. + + + + + A DESERT FRUIT. + +Who knows the Mediterranean, knows the prickly pear. Not that that +quaint and uncanny-looking cactus, with its yellow blossoms and +bristling fruits that seem to grow paradoxically out of the edge of +thick fleshy leaves, is really a native of Italy, Spain, and North +Africa, where it now abounds on every sun-smitten hillside. Like Mr. +Henry James and Mr. Marion Crawford, the Barbary fig, as the French +call it, is, in point of fact, an American citizen, domiciled and half +naturalised on this side of the Atlantic, but redolent still at heart +of its Columbian origin. Nothing is more common, indeed, than to see +classical pictures of the Alma-Tadema school--not, of course, from the +brush of the master himself, who is impeccable in such details, but +fair works of decent imitators--in which Caia or Marcia leans +gracefully in her white stole on one pensive elbow against a marble +lintel, beside a courtyard decorated with a Pompeian basin, and +overgrown with prickly pear or "American aloes." I need hardly say +that, as a matter of plain historical fact, neither cactuses nor agaves +were known in Europe till long after Christopher Columbus had steered +his wandering bark to the sandy shores of Cat's Island in the Bahamas. +(I have seen Cat's Island with these very eyes, and can honestly assure +you that its shores _are_ sandy.) But this is only one among the many +pardonable little inaccuracies of painters, who thrust scarlet +geraniums from the Cape of Good Hope into the fingers of Aspasia, or +supply King Solomon in all his glory with Japanese lilies of the most +recent introduction. + +At the present day, it is true, both the prickly-pear cactus and the +American agave (which the world at large insists upon confounding with +the aloe, a member of a totally distinct family) have spread themselves +in an apparently wild condition over all the rocky coasts both of +Southern Europe and of Northern Africa. The alien desert weeds have +fixed their roots firmly in the sunbaked clefts of Ligurian Apennines; +the tall candelabrum of the western agave has reared its great spike of +branching blossoms (which flower, not once in a century, as legend +avers, but once in some fifteen years or so) on all the basking +hillsides of the Mauritanian Atlas. But for the origin, and therefore +for the evolutionary history, of either plant, we must look away from +the shore of the inland sea to the arid expanse of the Mexican desert. +It was there, among the sweltering rocks of the Tierras Calientes, that +these ungainly cactuses first learned to clothe themselves in prickly +mail, to store in their loose tissues an abundant supply of sticky +moisture, and to set at defiance the persistent attacks of all external +enemies. The prickly pear, in fact, is a typical instance of a desert +plant, as the camel is a typical instance of a desert animal. Each lays +itself out to endure the long droughts of its almost rainless habitat +by drinking as much as it can when opportunity offers, hoarding up the +superfluous water for future use, and economising evaporation by every +means in its power. + +If you ask that convenient fiction, the Man in the Street, what sort of +plant a cactus is, he will probably tell you it is all leaf and no +stem, and each of the leaves grows out of the last one. Whenever we set +up the Man in the Street, however, you must have noticed we do it in +order to knock him down again like a nine-pin next moment: and this +particular instance is no exception to the rule; for the truth is that +a cactus is practically all stem and no leaves, what looks like a leaf +being really a branch sticking out at an angle. The true leaves, if +there are any, are reduced to mere spines or prickles on the surface, +while the branches, in the prickly-pear and many of the ornamental +hot-house cactuses, are flattened out like a leaf to perform foliar +functions. In most plants, to put it simply, the leaves are the mouths +and stomachs of the organism; their thin and flattened blades are +spread out horizontally in a wide expanse, covered with tiny throats +and lips which suck in carbonic acid from the surrounding air, and +disintegrate it in their own cells under the influence of sunlight. In +the prickly pears, on the contrary, it is the flattened stem and +branches which undertake this essential operation in the life of the +plant--the sucking-in of carbon and giving-out of oxygen, which is to +the vegetable exactly what the eating and digesting of food is to the +animal organism. In their old age, however, the stems of the prickly +pear display their true character by becoming woody in texture and +losing their articulated leaf-like appearance. + +Everything on this earth can best be understood by investigating the +history of its origin and development, and in order to understand this +curious reversal of the ordinary rule in the cactus tribe we must look +at the circumstances under which the race was evolved in the howling +waste of American deserts. (All deserts have a prescriptive right to +howl, and I wouldn't for worlds deprive them of the privilege.) Some +familiar analogies will help us to see the utility of this arrangement. +Everybody knows our common English stone-crops--or if he doesn't he +ought to, for they are pretty and ubiquitous. Now stone-crops grow for +the most part in chinks of the rock or thirsty sandy soil; they are +essentially plants of very dry positions. Hence they have thick and +succulent little stems and leaves, which merge into one another by +imperceptible gradations. All parts of the plant alike are stumpy, +green, and cylindrical. If you squash them with your finger and thumb +you find that though the outer skin or epidermis is thick and firm, the +inside is sticky, moist, and jelly-like. The reason for all this is +plain; the stone-crops drink greedily by their roots whenever they get +a chance, and store up the water so obtained to keep them from +withering under the hot and pitiless sun that beats down upon them for +hours in the baked clefts of their granite matrix. It's the camel trick +over again. So leaves and stem grow thick and round and juicy within; +but outside they are enclosed in a stout layer of epidermis, which +consists of empty glassy cells, and which can be peeled off or flayed +with a knife like the skin of an animal. This outer layer prevents +evaporation, and is a marked feature of all succulent plants which grow +exposed to the sun on arid rocks or in sandy deserts. + +The tendency to produce rounded stems and leaves, little +distinguishable from one another, is equally noticeable in many seaside +plants which frequent the strip of thirsty sand beyond the reach of the +tides. That belt of dry beach that stretches between high-water mark +and the zone of vegetable mould, is to all intents and purpose a +miniature desert. True, it is watered by rain from time to time; but +the drops sink in so fast that in half an hour, as we know, the entire +strip is as dry as Sahara again. Now there are many shore weeds of this +intermediate sand-belt which mimic to a surprising degree the chief +external features of the cactuses. One such weed, the common +salicornia, which grows in sandy bottoms or hollows of the beach, has a +jointed stem, branched and succulent, after the true cactus pattern, +and entirely without leaves or their equivalents in any way. Still more +cactus-like in general effect is another familiar English seaside weed, +the kali or glasswort, so called because it was formerly burnt to +extract the soda. The glasswort has leaves, it is true, but they are +thick and fleshy, continuous with the stem, and each one terminating in +a sharp, needle-like spine, which effectually protects the weed against +all browsing aggressors. + +Now, wherever you get very dry and sandy conditions of soil, you get +this same type of cactus-like vegetation--_plantes grasses_, as the +French well call them. The species which exhibit it are not necessary +related to one another in any way; often they belong to most widely +distinct families; it is an adaptive resemblance alone, due to +similarity of external circumstances only. The plants have to fight +against the same difficulties, and they adopt for the most part the +same tactics to fight them with. In other words, any plant of whatever +family, which wishes to thrive in desert conditions, must almost, as a +matter of course, become thick and succulent, so as to store up water, +and must be protected by a stout epidermis to prevent its evaporation +under the fierce heat of the sunlight. They do not necessarily lose +their leaves in the process; but the jointed stem usually answers the +purpose of leaves under such conditions far better than any thin and +exposed blade could do in the arid air of a baking desert. And +therefore, as a rule, desert plants are leafless. + +In India, for example, there are no cactuses. But I wouldn't advise you +to dispute the point with a peppery, fire-eating Anglo-Indian colonel. +I did so once, myself, at the risk of my life, at a _table d'hote_ on +the Continent; and the wonder is that I'm still alive to tell the +story. I had nothing but facts on my side, while the colonel had fists, +and probably pistols. And when I say no cactuses, I mean, of course, no +indigenous species; for prickly pears and epiphyllums may naturally be +planted by the hand of man anywhere. But what people take for thickets +of cactus in the Indian jungle are really thickets of cactus-like +spurges. In the dry soil of India, many spurges grow thick and +succulent, learn to suppress their leaves, and assume the bizarre forms +and quaint jointed appearance of the true cactuses. In flower and +fruit, however, they are euphorbias to the end; it is only in the thick +and fleshy stem that they resemble their nobler and more beautiful +Western rivals. No true cactus grows truly wild anywhere on earth +except in America. The family was developed there, and, till man +transplanted it, never succeeded in gaining a foothold elsewhere. +Essentially tropical in type, it was provided with no means of +dispersing its seeds across the enormous expanse of intervening ocean +which separated its habitat from the sister continents. + +But why are cactuses so almost universally prickly? From the grotesque +little melon-cactuses of our English hothouses to the huge and ungainly +monsters which form miles of hedgerows on Jamaican hillsides, the +members of this desert family are mostly distinguished by their +abundant spines and thorns, or by the irritating hairs which break off +in your skin if you happen to brush incautiously against them. Cactuses +are the hedgehogs of the vegetable world; their motto is _Nemo me +impune lacessit_. Many a time in the West Indies I have pushed my hand +for a second into a bit of tangled 'bush,' as the negroes call it, to +seize some rare flower or some beautiful insect, and been punished for +twenty-four hours afterwards by the stings of the almost invisible and +glass-like little cactus-needles. When you rub them they only break in +pieces, and every piece inflicts a fresh wound on the flesh where it +rankles. Some of the species have large, stout prickles; some have +clusters of irritating hairs at measured distances; and some rejoice in +both means of defence at once, scattered impartially over their entire +surface. In the prickly pear, the bundles of prickles are arranged +geometrically with great regularity in a perfect quincunx. But that is +a small consolation indeed to the reflective mind when you've stung +yourself badly with them. + +The reason for this bellicose disposition on the part of the cactuses +is a tolerably easy one to guess. Fodder is rare in the desert. The +starving herbivores that find themselves from time to time belated on +the confines of such thirsty regions would seize with avidity upon any +succulent plant which offered them food and drink at once in their last +extremity. Fancy the joy with which a lost caravan, dying of hunger and +thirst in the byways of Sahara, would hail a great bed of melons, +cucumbers, and lettuces! Needless to say, however, under such +circumstances melon, cucumber, and lettuce would soon be exterminated: +they would be promptly eaten up at discretion without leaving a +descendant to represent them in the second generation. In the ceaseless +war between herbivore and plant, which is waged every day and all day +long the whole world over with far greater persistence than the war +between carnivore and prey, only those species of plant can survive in +such exposed situations which happen to develop spines, thorns, or +prickles as a means of defence against the mouths of hungry and +desperate assailants. + +Nor is this so difficult a bit of evolution as it looks at first sight. +Almost all plants are more or less covered with hairs, and it needs but +a slight thickening at the base, a slight woody deposit at the point, +to turn them forthwith into the stout prickles of the rose or the +bramble. Most leaves are more or less pointed at the end or at the +summits of the lobes; and it needs but a slight intensification of this +pointed tendency to produce forthwith the sharp defensive foliage of +gorse, thistles, and holly. Often one can see all the intermediate +stages still surviving under one's very eyes. The thistles, themselves, +for example, vary from soft and unarmed species which haunt +out-of-the-way spots beyond the reach of browsing herbivores, to such +trebly-mailed types as that enemy of the agricultural interest, the +creeping thistle, in which the leaves continue themselves as prickly +wings down every side of the stem, so that the whole plant is amply +clad from head to foot in a defensive coat of fierce and bristling +spearheads. There is a common little English meadow weed, the +rest-harrow, which in rich and uncropped fields produces no defensive +armour of any sort; but on the much-browsed-over suburban commons and +in similar exposed spots, where only gorse and blackthorn stand a +chance for their lives against the cows and donkeys, it has developed a +protected variety in which some of the branches grow abortive, and end +abruptly in stout spines like a hawthorn's. Only those rest-harrows +have there survived in the sharp struggle for existence which happened +most to baffle their relentless pursuers. + +Desert plants naturally carry this tendency to its highest point of +development. Nowhere else is the struggle for life so fierce; nowhere +else is the enemy so goaded by hunger and thirst to desperate measures. +It is a place for internecine warfare Hence, all desert plants are +quite absurdly prickly. The starving herbivores will attack and devour +under such circumstances even thorny weeds, which tear or sting their +tender tongues and palates, but which supply them at least with a +little food and moisture: so the plants are compelled in turn to take +almost extravagant precautions. Sometimes the leaves end in a stout +dagger-like point, as with the agave, or so-called American aloe; +sometimes they are reduced to mere prickles or bundles of needle-like +spikes; sometimes they are suppressed altogether, and the work of +defence is undertaken in their stead by irritating hairs intermixed +with caltrops of spines pointing outward from a common centre in every +direction. When one remembers how delicately sensitive are the tender +noses of most browsing herbivores, one can realize what an excellent +mode of defence these irritating hairs must naturally constitute. I +have seen cows in Jamaica almost maddened by their stings, and even +savage bulls will think twice in their rage before they attempt to make +their way through the serried spears of a dense cactus hedge. To put it +briefly, plants have survived under very arid or sandy conditions +precisely in proportion as they displayed this tendency towards the +production of thorns, spines, bristles, and prickles. + +It is a marked characteristic of the cactus tribe to be very tenacious +of life, and when hacked to pieces, to spring afresh in full vigour +from every scrap or fragment. True vegetable hydras, when you cut down +one, ten spring in its place: every separate morsel of the thick and +succulent stem has the power of growing anew into a separate cactus. +Surprising as this peculiarity seems at first sight, it is only a +special desert modification of a faculty possessed in a less degree by +almost all plants and by many animals. If you cut off the end of a rose +branch and stick it in the ground under suitable conditions, it grows +into a rose tree. If you take cuttings of scarlet geraniums or common +verbenas, and pot them in moist soil, they bud out apace into new +plants like their parents. Certain special types can even be propagated +from fragments of the leaf; for example, there is a particularly +vivacious begonia off which you may snap a corner of one blade, and +hang it up by a string from a peg or the ceiling, when, hi, presto! +little begonia plants begin to bud out incontinently on every side from +its edges. A certain German professor went even further than that; he +chopped up a liverwort very fine into vegetable mincemeat, which he +then spread thin over a saucerful of moist sand, and lo! in a few days +the whole surface of the mess was covered with a perfect forest of +sprouting little liverworts. Roughly speaking, one may say that every +fragment of every organism has in it the power to rebuild in its +entirety another organism like the one of which it once formed a +component element. + +Similarly with animals. Cut off a lizard's tail, and straightway a new +tail grows in its place with surprising promptitude. Cut off a +lobster's claw, and in a very few weeks that lobster is walking about +airily on his native rocks, with two claws as usual. True, in these +cases the tail and the claw don't bud out in turn into a new lizard or +a new lobster. But that is a penalty the higher organisms have to pay +for their extreme complexity. They have lost that plasticity, that +freedom of growth, which characterizes the simpler and more primitive +forms of life; in their case the power of producing fresh organisms +entire from a single fragment, once diffused equally over the whole +body, is now confined to certain specialized cells which, in their +developed form, we know as seeds or eggs. Yet, even among animals, at a +low stage of development, this original power of reproducing the whole +from a single part remains inherent in the organism; for you may chop +up a fresh-water hydra into a hundred little bits, and every bit will +be capable of growing afresh into a complete hydra. + +Now, desert plants would naturally retain this primitive tendency in a +very high degree; for they are specially organized to resist +drought--being the survivors of generations of drought-proof +ancestors--and, like the camel, they have often to struggle on through +long periods of time without a drop of water. Exactly the same thing +happens at home to many of our pretty little European stone-crops. I +have a rockery near my house overgrown with the little white sedum of +our gardens. The birds often peck off a tiny leaf or branch; it drops +on the dry soil, and remains there for days without giving a sign of +life. But its thick epidermis effectually saves it from withering; and +as soon as rain falls, wee white rootlets sprout out from the under +side of the fragment as it lies, and it grows before long into a fresh +small sedum plant. Thus, what seem like destructive agencies +themselves, are turned in the end by mere tenacity of life into a +secondary means of propagation. + +That is why the prickly pear is so common in all countries where the +climate suits it, and where it has once managed to gain a foothold. The +more you cut it down, the thicker it springs; each murdered bit becomes +the parent in due time of a numerous offspring. Man, however, with his +usual ingenuity, has managed to best the plant, on this its own ground, +and turn it into a useful fodder for his beasts of burden. The prickly +pear is planted abundantly on bare rocks in Algeria, where nothing else +would grow, and is cut down when adult, divested of its thorns by a +rough process of hacking, and used as food for camels and cattle. It +thus provides fresh moist fodder in the African summer when the grass +is dried up and all other pasture crops have failed entirely. + +The flowers of the prickly pear, as of many other cactuses, grow +apparently on the edge of the leaves, which alone might give the +observant mind a hint as to the true nature of those thick and +flattened expansions. For whenever what look like leaves bear flowers +or fruit on their edge or midrib, as in the familiar instance of +butcher's broom, you may be sure at a glance they are really branches +in disguise masquerading as foliage. The blossoms in the prickly pear +are large, handsome, and yellow; at least, they would be handsome if +one could ever see them, but they are generally covered so thick in +dust that it is difficult properly to appreciate their beauty. They +have a great many petals in numerous rows, and a great many stamens in +a rosette in the centre; and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, +as lawyers put it, they are fertilized for the most part by tropical +butterflies; but on this point, having observed them but little in +their native habitats, I speak under correction. + +The fruit itself, to which the plant owes its popular name, is +botanically a berry, though a very big one, and it exhibits in a highly +specialized degree the general tactics of all its family. As far as +their leaf-like stems go, the main object in life of the cactuses +is--not to get eaten. But when it comes to the fruit, this object in +life is exactly reversed; the plant desires its fruit to be devoured by +some friendly bird or adapted animal, in order that the hard little +seeds buried in the pulp within may be dispersed for germination under +suitable conditions. At the same time, true to its central idea, it +covers even the pear itself with deterrent and prickly hairs, meant to +act as a defence against useless thieves or petty depredators, who +would eat the soft pulp on the plant as it stands (much as wasps do +peaches) without benefiting the species in return by dispersing its +seedlings. This practice is fully in accordance with the general habit +of tropical or sub-tropical fruits, which lay themselves out to deserve +the kind offices of monkeys, parrots, toucans, hornbills, and other +such large and powerful fruit-feeders. Fruits which arrange themselves +for a _clientele_, of this character have usually thick or nauseous +rinds, prickly husks, or other deterrent integuments; but they are full +within of juicy pulp, embedding stony or nutlike seeds, which pass +undigested through the gizzards of their swallowers. + +For a similar reason, the actual prickly pears themselves are +attractively coloured. I need hardly point out, I suppose, at the +present time of day, that such tints in the vegetable world act like +the gaudy posters of our London advertisers. Fruits and flowers which +desire to attract the attention of beasts, birds, or insects, are +tricked out in flaunting hues of crimson, purple, blue, and yellow; +fruits and flowers which could only be injured by the notice of animals +are small and green, or dingy and inconspicuous. + + + + + PRETTY POLL. + +It is an error of youth to despise parrots for their much talking. +Loquacity isn't always a sign of empty-headedness, nor is silence a +sure proof of weight and wisdom. Biologists, for their part, know +better than that. By common consent, they rank the parrot group as the +very head and crown of bird creation. Not, of course, because pretty +Poll can talk (in a state of nature, parrots only chatter somewhat +meaninglessly to one another), but because the group display on the +whole, all round, a greater amount of intelligence, of cleverness, and +of adaptability to circumstances than any other birds, including even +their cunning and secretive rivals, the ravens, the jackdaws, the +crows, and the magpies. + +What are the efficient causes of this exceptionally high intelligence +in parrots? Well, Mr. Herbert Spencer, I believe, was the first to +point out the intimate connection that exists throughout the animal +world between mental development and the power of grasping an object +all round so as to know exactly its shape and its tactile properties. +The possession of an effective prehensile organ--a hand or its +equivalent--seems to be the first great requisite for the evolution of +a high order of intellect. Man and the monkeys, for example, have a +pair of hands; and in their case one can see at a glance how dependent +is their intelligence upon these grasping organs. All human arts base +themselves ultimately upon the human hand; and even the apes approach +nearest to humanity in virtue of their ever-active and busy little +fingers. The elephant, again, has his flexible trunk, which, as we have +all heard over and over again, _usque ad nauseam_, is equally well +adapted to pick up a pin or to break the great boughs of tropical +forest trees. (That pin, in particular, is now a well-worn classic.) +The squirrel, once more, celebrated for his unusual intelligence when +judged by a rodent standard, uses his pretty little paws as veritable +hands, by which he can grasp a nut or fruit all round, and so gain in +his small mind a clear conception of its true shape and properties. +Throughout the animal kingdom generally, indeed, this correspondence, +or rather this chain of causation, makes itself everywhere felt; no +high intelligence without a highly developed prehensile and grasping +organ. + +Perhaps the opossum is the very best and most crucial instance that +could possibly be adduced of the intimate connection which exists +between touch and intellect. For the opossum is a marsupial; it belongs +to the same group of lowly-organized, antiquated, and pouch-bearing +animals as the kangaroo, the wombat, and the other belated Australian +mammals. Now everybody knows the marsupials as a class are nothing +short of preternaturally stupid. They are just about the very dullest +and silliest of all existing quadrupeds. And this is reasonable enough, +when one comes to think of it, for they represent a very antique and +early type, the first rough sketch of the mammalian idea, if I may so +describe them, with wits unsharpened as yet by contact with the world +in the fierce competition of the struggle for life as it displays +itself on the crowded stage of the great continents. They stand, in +short, to the lions and tigers, the elephants and horses, the monkeys +and squirrels, of Europe and America, as the Australian blackfellow +stands to the Englishman or the Yankee. They are the last relic of the +original secondary quadrupeds, stranded for ages in a remote southern +island, and still keeping up among Australian forests the antique type +of life that went out of fashion in Europe, Asia, and America before +the chalk was laid down or the London Clay deposited on the bed of our +northern oceans. Hence they have still very narrow brains, and are so +extremely stupid that a kangaroo, it is said--though I don't vouch for +it myself--when struck a smart blow, will turn and bite the stick that +hurts him instead of expending his anger on the hand that holds it. + +Now, every Girton girl is well aware that the opossum, though it is a +marsupial too, differs inexpressibly in psychological development from +the kangaroo and the wombat. Your opossum, in short, is active, sly, +and extremely intelligent. He knows his way about the world he lives +in. 'A 'possum up a gum-tree' is accepted by the observant American +mind as the very incarnation of animal cleverness, cunning, and +duplicity. In negro folk-lore the resourceful 'possum takes the place +of Reynard the Fox in European stories: he is the Macchiavelli of wild +beasts: there is no ruse on earth of which he isn't amply capable, no +artful trick which he can't design and execute, no wily manoeuvre which +he can't contrive and carry to an end successfully. All guile and +intrigue, the 'possum can circumvent even Uncle Remus himself by his +crafty diplomacy. And what is it that makes all the difference between +this 'cute Yankee marsupial and his backward and belated Australian +cousins? Why, nothing but the possession of a prehensile hand and tail. +Therein lies the whole secret. The opossum's hind foot has a genuine +opposable thumb; and he also uses his tail in climbing as a +supernumerary hand, almost as much as do any of the monkeys. He often +suspends himself by it, like an acrobat, swings his body to and fro to +get up steam, then lets go suddenly, and flies away to a distant +branch, which he clutches by means of his hand-like hind feet. If the +toes play him false, he can 'recover his tip,' as circus-folk put it, +with his prehensile tail. The consequence is that the opossum, being +able to form for himself clear and accurate conceptions of the real +shapes and relations of things by these two distinct grasping organs, +has acquired an unusual amount of general intelligence. And further, in +the keen competition of the American continent, he has been forced to +develop an amount of cleverness and low cunning which leaves his +Australian poor relations far behind in the Middle Ages of evolution. + +At the risk of seeming to run off at a tangent and forsake our +ostensible subject, pretty Poll, altogether, I must just pause for one +moment more to answer an objection which I know has been trembling on +the tip of your tongue any time the last five minutes. You've been +waiting till you could get a word in edgeways to give me a friendly +nudge and remark very wisely, 'But look here, I say; how about the dog +and the horse in your argument? _They've_ got no prehensile organ that +ever I heard of, and yet they're universally allowed to be the +cleverest and most intelligent of all earthly quadrupeds.' True, O most +sapient and courteous objector. I grant it you at once. But observe the +difference. The cleverness of the horse and the dog is acquired, not +original. It has probably arisen in the course of their long hereditary +intercourse and companionship with man, the cleverest and most +serviceable individuals being deliberately selected from generation to +generation, as dams and sires to breed from. We can't fairly compare +these artificial human products, therefore, with wild races whose +intelligence is all native and self-evolved. Moreover, the horse at +least _has_ to some slight extent a prehensile organ in his very mobile +and sensitive lip, which he uses like an undeveloped or rudimentary +proboscis to feel things all over with. So that the dog alone remains +as a contradictory instance; and even the dog derives his cleverness +indirectly from man, whose hand and thumb in the last resort are really +at the bottom of his vicarious wisdom. + +We may conclude, then, I believe, that touch, as Mr. Herbert Spencer +admirably words it, is 'the mother-tongue of the senses;' and that in +proportion as animals have or have not highly developed and serviceable +tactile organs will they rank high or low in the intellectual hierarchy +of nature. Now, how does this bear upon the family of parrots? Well, in +the first place, everybody who has ever kept a cockatoo or a macaw in +domestic slavery is well aware that in no other birds do the claws so +closely resemble a human or simian hand, not indeed in outer form or +appearance, but in opposability of the thumbs and in perfection of +grasping power. The toes on each foot are arranged in opposite +pairs--two turning in front and two backward, which gives all parrots +their peculiar firmness in clinging on a perch or on the branch of a +tree with one foot only, while they extend the other to grasp a fruit +or to clutch at any object they desire to take possession of. True, +this peculiarity isn't entirely confined to the parrots alone, as such. +They share the division of the foot into two thumbs and two fingers +with a whole large group of allied birds, called, in the charmingly +concise and poetical language of technical ornithology, the Scansorial +Picarians, and more generally, known to the unlearned herd (meaning you +and me) by their several names of woodpeckers, cuckoos, toucans, and +plantain-eaters. All the members of this great group, of which the +parrots proper are only the most advanced and developed family, possess +the same arrangement of the digits into front-toes and back-toes. But +in none is the arrangement so perfect as in the parrots, and in none is +the power of grasping an object all round so completely developed and +so pregnant in moral and intellectual consequences. + +All the Scansorial Picarians, however (if the reader with his +proverbial courtesy will kindly pardon me the inevitable use of such +very bad words), are essentially tree-haunters; and the tree-haunting +and climbing habit, as is well beknown, seems particularly favourable +to the growth of intelligence. Thus schoolboys climb trees--but I +forgot: this is a scientific article, and such levity is inconsistent +with the dignity of science. Let us be serious! Well, at any rate, +monkeys, squirrels, opossums, wild cats, are all of them climbers, and +all of them, in the act of clinging, jumping, and balancing themselves +on boughs, gain such an accurate idea of geometrical figure, +perspective, distance, and the true nature of space-relations, as could +hardly be acquired in any other manner. In one word, they thoroughly +understand space of three dimensions, and the tactual realities that +answer to and underlie each visible appearance. This is the very +substratum of all intelligence; and the monkeys, possessing it more +profoundly than any other animals, have accordingly taken the top of +the form in the competitive examination perpetually conducted by +survival of the fittest. + +So, too, among birds, the parrots and their allies climb trees and +rocks with exceptional ease and agility. Even in their own department +they are the great feathered acrobats. Anybody who watches a +woodpecker, for example, grasping the bark of a tree with its crooked +and powerful toes, while it steadies itself behind by digging its stiff +tail-feathers into the crannies of the outer rind, will readily +understand how clear a notion the bird must gain into the practical +action of the laws of gravity. But the true parrots go a step further +in the same direction than the woodpeckers or the toucans; for, in +addition to prehensile feet, they have also a highly-developed +prehensile bill, and within it a tongue which acts in reality as an +organ of touch. They use their crooked beaks to help them in climbing +from branch to branch; and being thus provided alike with wings, legs, +hands, fingers, bill and tongue, they are in fact the most truly +arboreal of all known animals, and present in the fullest and highest +degree all the peculiar features of the tree-haunting existence. + +Nor is that all. Alone among birds or mammals, the parrots have the +curious peculiarity of being able to move the upper as well as the +lower jaw. It is this strange mobility of both the mandibles together, +combined with the crafty effect of the sideways glance from those +artful eyes, that gives the characteristic air of intelligence and +wisdom to the parrot's face. We naturally expect so clever a bird to +speak. And when it turns upon us suddenly with a copy-book maxim, we +are in no way astonished at its surpassing smartness. + +Parrots are vegetarians; with a single degraded exception to whom I +shall recur hereafter, Sir Henry Thompson himself couldn't find fault +with their regimen. They live chiefly upon a light but nutritious diet +of fruit and seeds, or upon the abundant nectar of rich tropical +flowers. And it is mainly for the sake of getting at their chosen food +that they have developed the large and powerful bills which +characterise the family. You may have perhaps noted that most tropical +fruit-eaters, like the hornbills and the toucans, are remarkable for +the size and strength of their beaks: if you haven't, I dare say you +will generously take my word for it. And, _per contra_, it may also +have struck you that most tropical fruits have thick or hard or +nauseous rinds, which need to be torn off before the monkeys or birds +for whose use they are intended, can get at them and eat them. Our +little northern strawberries, and raspberries, and currants, and +whortleberries, developed with a single eye to the petty robins and +finches of temperate climates, can be popped into, the mouth whole and +eaten as they stand: they are meant for small birds to devour, and to +disperse the tiny undigested nut-like seeds in return for the bribe of +the soft pulp that surrounds them. But it is quite otherwise with +oranges, shaddocks, bananas, plantains, mangoes, and pine-apples: those +great tropical fruits can only be eaten properly with a knife and fork, +after stripping off the hard and often acrid rind that guards and +preserves them. They lay themselves out for dispersion by monkeys, +toucans, and other relatively large and powerful fruit-eaters; and the +rind is put there as a barrier against small thieves who would rob the +sweet pulp, but be absolutely incapable of carrying away and dispersing +the large and richly-stored seeds it covers. + +Parrots and toucans, however, have no knives and forks to cut off the +rind with; but as monkeys use their fingers, so the birds use for the +same purpose their sharp and powerful bills. No better nut-crackers and +fruit-parers could possibly be found. The parrot, in particular, has +developed for the purpose his curved and inflated beak--a wonderful +weapon, keen as a tailor's scissors, and moved by powerful muscles on +either side of the face which bring together the cutting edges with +extraordinary energy. The way the bird holds the fruit gingerly in one +claw, while he strips off the rind dexterously with his under-hung +lower mandible, and keeps a sharp look-out meanwhile on either side +with those sly and stealthy eyes of his for a possible intruder, +suggests to the observing mind the whole living drama of his native +forest. One sees in that vivid world the watchful monkey ever ready to +swoop down upon the tempting tail-feathers of his hereditary foe: one +sees the canny parrot ever prepared for his rapid attack, and ever +eager to make him pay with five joints of his tail for his impertinent +interference with an unoffending fellow-citizen of the arboreal +community. + +Still, there are parrots and parrots, of course. Not all this vast +family are in all things of like passions one with another. The great +black cockatoo, for example, the largest of the tribe, lives almost +entirely off the central shoot or 'cabbage' of palm-trees: an expensive +kind of food, for when once the 'cabbage' is eaten the tree dies +forthwith, so that each black cockatoo must have killed in his time +whole groves of cabbage-palms. Others, again, feed off fruits and +seeds; and not a few are entirely adapted for flower-haunting and +honey-sucking. + +As a group, the parrots are comparatively modern birds. Indeed, they +could have no place in the world till the big tropical fruits and nuts +were beginning to be developed. And it is now pretty certain that +fruits and nuts are for the most part of very recent and special +evolution. To put it briefly, the monkeys and parrots developed the +fruits and nuts, while the fruits and nuts returned the compliment by +developing conversely the monkeys and parrots. In other words, both +types grew up side by side in mutual dependence, and evolved themselves +_pari passu_ for one another's benefit. Without the fruits there could +be no fruit-eaters; and without the fruit-eaters to disperse their +seeds, there could just to the same extent be no fruits to speak of. + +Most of the parrots very much resemble the monkeys and other tropical +fruit-feeders in their habits and manners. They are gregarious, +mischievous, noisy, and irresponsible. They have no moral sense, and +are fond of practical jokes and other schoolboy horseplay. They move +about in flocks, screeching aloud as they go, and alight together on +some tree well covered with berries. No doubt, they herd together for +the sake of protection and screech both to keep the flock in a body and +to strike alarm and consternation into the breasts of their enemies. +When danger threatens, the first bird that perceives it sounds a note +of warning; and in a moment the whole troop is on the wing at once, +vociferous and eager, roaring forth a song in their own tongue which +may be roughly interpreted as stating in English that they don't want +to fight, but by Jingo, if they do, they'll tear their enemy to shreds +and drink his blood up too. + +The common grey parrot, the best known in confinement of all his kind, +and unrivalled as an orator for his graces of speech, is a native of +West Africa; so that he shares with other West Africans that perfect +command of language which has always been a marked characteristic of +the negro race. He feeds in a general way upon palm-nuts, bananas, +mangoes, and guavas, but he is by no means averse, if opportunity +offers, to the Indian corn of the industrious native. His wife +accompanies him in his solitary rambles, for they are not gregarious. +In her native haunts, indeed, Polly is an unsociable bird. It is only +in confinement that her finer qualities come out, and that she develops +into a speech-maker of distinguished attainments. + +A very peculiar and exceptional offshoot of the parrot group is the +brush-tongued lory, several species of which are common in Australia, +India, and the Molucca Islands. These pretty and interesting creatures +are in point of fact parrots which have practically made themselves +into humming-birds by long continuance in the poetical habit of +visiting flowers for food. Like Mr. Oscar Wilde in his aesthetic days, +they breakfast off a lily. Flitting about from tree to tree with great +rapidity, they thrust their long extensible tongues, pencilled with +honey-gathering hairs, into the tubes of many big tropical blossoms. +The lories, indeed, live entirely on nectar, and they are so common in +the region they have made their own that all the larger flowers there +have been developed with a special view to their tastes and habits, as +well as to the structure of their peculiar brush-like honey-collector. +In most parrots the mouth is dry and the tongue horny; but in the +lories it is moist and much more like the same organ in the +humming-birds and sun-birds. The prevalence of very large and +brilliantly coloured flowers in the Malayan region must be set down for +the most part to the selective action of these aesthetic and +colour-loving little brush-tongued parrots. + +Australia and New Zealand, as everybody knows, are the countries where +everything goes by contraries. And it is here that the parrot group has +developed some of its strangest and most abnormal offshoots. One would +imagine beforehand that no two birds could be more unlike in every +respect than the gaudy, noisy, gregarious cockatoos and the sombre, +nocturnal, solitary owls. Yet the New Zealand owl-parrot is, to put it +plainly, a lory which has assumed all the outer appearance and habits +of an owl. A lurker in the twilight or under the shades of night, +burrowing for its nest in holes in the ground, it has dingy brown +plumage like the owls, with an undertone of green to bespeak its parrot +origin: while its face is entirely made up of two great disks, +surrounding the eyes, which succeed in giving it a most marked and +unmistakable owl-like appearance. + +Now, why should a parrot so strangely disguise itself and belie its +ancestry? The reason is plain. It found a place for it ready made in +nature. New Zealand is a remote and sparsely-stocked island, peopled by +mere casual waifs and strays of life from adjacent but still very +distant continents. There are no dangerous enemies there. Here, then, +was a clear chance for a nightly prowler. The owl-parrot with true +business instinct saw the opening thus clearly laid before it, and took +to a nocturnal and burrowing life, with the natural consequence that it +acquired in time the dingy plumage, crepuscular eyes, and broad +disk-like reflectors of other prowling night-fliers. Unlike the owls, +however, the owl-parrot, true to the vegetarian instincts of the whole +lory race, lives almost entirely upon sprigs of mosses and other +creeping plants. It is thus essentially a ground bird; and as it feeds +at night in a country possessing no native beasts of prey, it has +almost lost the power of flight, and uses its wings only as a sort of +parachute to break its fall in descending from a rock or tree to its +accustomed feeding-ground. To get up again, it climbs, parrot-like, +with its hooked claws, up the surface of the trunk or the face of a +precipice. + +Even more aberrant in its ways, however, than the burrowing owl-parrot, +is that other strange and hated New Zealand lory, the kea, which, alone +among its kind, has abjured the gentle ancestral vegetarianism of the +cockatoos and macaws, in favour of a carnivorous diet of singular +ferocity. And what is odder still, this evil habit has been developed +in the kea since the colonization of New Zealand by the English, those +most demoralizing of new-comers. The settlers have taught the Maori to +wear tall hats and to drink strong liquors: and they have thrown +temptation in the way of even the once innocent native parrot. Before +the white man came, in fact, the kea was a mild-mannered fruit-eating +or honey-sucking bird. But as soon as sheep-stations were established +in the island these degenerate parrots began to acquire a distinct +taste for raw mutton. At first, to be sure, they ate only the sheep's +heads and offal that were thrown out from the slaughter-houses picking +the bones as clean of meat as a dog or a jackal. But in process of +time, as the taste for blood grew upon them, a still viler idea entered +into their wicked heads. The first step on the downward path suggested +the second. If dead sheep are good to eat, why not also living ones? +The kea, pondering deeply on this abstruse problem, solved it at once +with an emphatic affirmative. And he straightway proceeded to act upon +his convictions, and invent a really hideous mode of procedure. +Perching on the backs of the living sheep he has now learnt the exact +spot where the kidneys are to be found; and he tears open the flesh to +get at these dainty morsels, which he pulls out and devours, leaving +the unhappy animal to die in miserable agony. As many as two hundred +ewes have thus been killed in a night at a single station. I need +hardly add that the sheep-farmer naturally resents this irregular +proceeding, so opposed to all ideals of good grazing, and that the days +of the kea are now numbered in New Zealand. But from the purely +psychological point of view the case is an interesting one, as being +the best recorded instance of the growth of a new and complex instinct +actually under the eyes of human observers. + +One word as to the general colouring of the parrot group as a whole. +Tropical forestine birds have usually a ground tone of green because +that colour enables them best to escape notice among the monotonous +verdure of equatorial woodland scenery. In the north, to be sure, green +is a very conspicuous colour; but that is only because for half the +year our trees are bare, and even during the other half they lack that +'breadth of tropic shade' which characterises the forests of all hot +countries. Therefore, in temperate climates, the common ground-tone of +birds is brown, to harmonise with the bare boughs and leafless twigs, +the clods of earth and dead turf or stubble. But in the evergreen +tropics green is the right hue for concealment or defence. Therefore +the parrots, the most purely tropical family of birds on earth, are +mostly greenish; and among the smaller and more defenceless sorts, like +the familiar little love-birds, where the need for protection is +greatest, the green of the plumage is almost unbroken. Of the tiny +Pigmy Parrots of New Guinea, for instance, Mr. Bowdler Sharpe says: +'Owing to their small size and the resemblance of their green colouring +to the forests they inhabit, they are not easily seen, and until recent +years were very hard to procure.' And of the green parrot of Jamaica, +Mr. Gosse remarks: 'Often we hear their voices proceeding from a +certain tree, or else have marked the descent of a flock on it; but on +proceeding to the spot, though the eye has not wandered from it, we +cannot discover an individual. We go close to the tree, but all is +silent and still as death. We institute a careful survey of every part +with the eye, to detect the slightest motion, or the form of a bird +among the leaves, but all in vain. We begin to think they have stolen +off unperceived; but on throwing a stone into the tree, a dozen throats +burst forth into a cry, and as many green birds rush forth upon the +wing. Green may thus be regarded as the normal or basal parrot tint, +from which all other colours are special decorative variations. + +But fruit-eating and flower-feeding creatures, like butterflies and +humming-birds--seeking their food ever among the bright berries and +brilliant flowers, almost invariably acquire in the long run an +aesthetic taste for pure and varied colouring, and by the aid of sexual +selection this taste stereotypes itself at last in their own wings and +plumage. They choose their mates for colour as they choose their +foodstuffs. Hence all the larger and more gregarious parrots, in which +the need for concealment is less, tend to diversify the fundamental +green of their coats with crimson, yellow, or blue, which in some cases +take possession of the entire body. The largest kinds of all, like the +great blue and yellow or crimson macaws, are as gorgeous as Solomon in +all his glory: and they are also the species least afraid of enemies; +for in Brazil you may often see them wending their way homeward openly +in pairs every evening, with as little attempt at concealment as rooks +in England. In the Moluccas and New Guinea, says Mr. Wallace, white +cockatoos and gorgeous lories in crimson and blue are the very +commonest objects in the local fauna. Even the New Zealand owl-parrot, +however, still retains many traces of his original greenness, mixed +with the dirty brown and dingy yellow of his acquired nocturnal and +burrowing nature. + +If fruit-eaters are fine, flower-haunters are magnificent. And the +brush-tongued lories, that search for nectar among the bells of Malayan +blossoms, are the brightest-coloured of all the parrot tribes. Indeed, +no group of birds, according to Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace (who ought to +know, if anybody does), exhibits within the same limited number of +types so extraordinary a diversity and richness of colouring as the +parrots. 'As a rule,' he says, 'parrots may be termed green birds, the +majority of the species having this colour as the basis of their +plumage, relieved by caps, gorgets, bands and wing-spots of other and +brighter hues. Yet this general green tint sometimes changes into light +or deep blue, as in some macaws; into pure yellow or rich orange, as in +some of the American macaw-parrots; into purple, grey or dove-colour, +as in some American, African, and Indian species; into the purest +crimson, as in some of the lories; into rosy-white and pure white, as +in the cockatoos; and into a deep purple, ashy or black, as in several +Papuan, Australian, and Mascarene species. There is in fact hardly a +single distinct and definable colour that cannot be fairly matched +among the 390 species of known parrots. Their habits, too, are such as +to bring them prominently before the eye. They usually feed in flocks; +they are noisy, and so attract attention; they love gardens, orchards, +and open sunny places; they wander about far in search of food, and +towards sunset return homeward in noisy flocks, or in constant pairs. +Their forms and motions are often beautiful and attractive. The +immensely long tails of the macaws and the more slender tails of the +Indian parroquets, the fine crest of the cockatoos, the swift flight of +many of the smaller species, and the graceful motions of the little +love-birds and allied forms, together with their affectionate natures, +aptitude for domestication, and power of mimicry, combine to render +them at once the most conspicuous and the most attractive of all the +specially tropical forms of bird life.' + +I have purposely left to the last the one point about parrots which +most often attracts the attention of the young, the gay, the giddy, and +the thoughtless: I mean their power of mimicry in human language. And I +believe I am justified in passing it over lightly. For in fact this +power is but a very incidental result of the general intelligence of +parrots, combined with the other peculiarities of their social life and +forestine character. Dominant woodland animals, indeed, like monkeys, +parrots, toucans, and hornbills, at least if vegetarian in their +habits, are almost always gregarious, noisy, mischievous, and +imitative. And the imitation results directly from the unusual +intelligence; for, after all, what is the power of learning itself--at +least, in all save its very highest phases--but the faculty of +accurately imitating another? Monkeys for the most part imitate action +only, because they haven't very varied or flexible voices. Parrots and +many other birds, on the contrary--like the starling and still more +markedly the American mocking-bird--being endowed with considerable +flexibility of voice, imitate either songs or spoken words with great +distinctness. In the parrot the power of attention is also very +considerable, for the bird will often try over with itself repeatedly +the lesson it has set itself to learn. But people too generally forget +that at best the parrot knows only the general application of a +sentence, not the separate meanings of its component words. It knows, +for example, that 'Polly wants a lump of sugar' is a phrase often +followed by a present of food. But to believe it can understand an +abstract expression, like the famous 'By Jove! what a beastly lot of +parrots!' is to confound learning by rote with genuine comprehension. A +careful review of all the evidence makes almost every scientific +observer conclude that at most a parrot knows a word of command as a +horse knows 'Whoa!' or a dog knows the order to hunt for rats in the +wainscot. + + + + + HIGH LIFE. + +Everybody knows mountain flowers are beautiful. As one rises up any +minor height in the Alps or the Pyrenees below snow-level, one notices +at once the extraordinary brilliancy and richness of the blossoms one +meets there. All nature is dressed in its brightest robes. Great belts +of blue gentian hang like a zone on the mountain slopes; masses of +yellow globe-flower star the upland pastures; nodding heads of +soldanella lurk low among the rugged boulders by the glacier's side. No +lowland blossoms have such vividness of colouring, or grow in such +conspicuous patches. To strike the eye from afar, to attract and allure +at a distance, is the great aim and end in life of the Alpine flora. + +Now, why are Alpine plants so anxious to be seen of men and angels? Why +do they flaunt their golden glories so openly before the world, instead +of shrinking in modest reserve beneath their own green leaves, like the +Puritan primrose and the retiring violet? The answer is, Because of the +extreme rarity of the mountain air. It's the barometer that does it. At +first sight, I will readily admit, this explanation seems as fanciful +as the traditional connection between Goodwin Sands and Tenterden +Steeple. But, like the amateur stories in country papers, it is +'founded on fact,' for all that. (Imagine, by the way, a tale founded +entirely on fiction! How charmingly aerial!) By a roundabout road, +through varying chains of cause and effect, the rarity of the air does +really account in the long run for the beauty and conspicuousness of +the mountain flowers. + +For bees, the common go-betweens of the loves of the plants, cease to +range about a thousand or fifteen hundred feet below snow-level. And +why? Because it's too cold for them? Oh, dear, no: on sunny days in +early English spring, when the thermometer doesn't rise above freezing +in the shade, you will see both the honey-bees and the great black +bumble as busy as their conventional character demands of them among +the golden cups of the first timid crocuses. Give the bee sunshine, +indeed, with a temperature just about freezing-point, and he'll flit +about joyously on his communistic errand. But bees, one must remember, +have heavy bodies and relatively small wings: in the rarefied air of +mountain heights they can't manage to support themselves in the most +literal sense. Hence their place in these high stations of the world is +taken by the gay and airy butterflies, which have lighter bodies and a +much bigger expanse of wing-area to buoy them up. In the valleys and +plains the bee competes at an advantage with the butterflies for all +the sweets of life: but in this broad sub-glacial belt on the +mountain-sides the butterflies in turn have things all their own way. +They flit about like monarchs of all they survey, without a rival in +the world to dispute their supremacy. + +And how does the preponderance of butterflies in the upper regions of +the air affect the colour and brilliancy of the flowers? Simply thus. +Bees, as we are all aware on the authority of the great Dr. Watts, are +industrious creatures which employ each shining hour (well-chosen +epithet, 'shining') for the good of the community, and to the best +purpose. The bee, in fact, is the _bon bourgeois_ of the insect world: +he attends strictly to business, loses no time in wild or reckless +excursions, and flies by the straightest path from flower to flower of +the same species with mathematical precision. Moreover, he is careful, +cautious, observant, and steady-going--a model business man, in fact, +of sound middle-class morals and sober middle-class intelligence. No +flitting for him, no coquetting, no fickleness. Therefore, the flowers +that have adapted themselves to his needs, and that depend upon him +mainly or solely for fertilisation, waste no unnecessary material on +those big flaunting coloured posters which we human observers know as +petals. They have, for the most part, simple blue or purple flowers, +tubular in shape and, individually, inconspicuous in hue; and they are +oftenest arranged in long spikes of blossom to avoid wasting the time +of their winged Mr. Bultitudes. So long as they are just bright enough +to catch the bee's eye a few yards away, they are certain to receive a +visit in due season from that industrious and persistent commercial +traveller. Having a circle of good customers upon whom they can depend +with certainty for fertilisation, they have no need to waste any large +proportion of their substance upon expensive advertisements or gaudy +petals. + +It is just the opposite with butterflies. Those gay and irrepressible +creatures, the fashionable and frivolous element in the insect world, +gad about from flower to flower over great distances at once, and think +much more of sunning themselves and of attracting their fellows than of +attention to business. And the reason is obvious, if one considers for +a moment the difference in the political and domestic economy of the +two opposed groups. For the honey-bees are neuters, sexless purveyors +of the hive, with no interest on earth save the storing of honey for +the common benefit of the phalanstery to which they belong. But the +butterflies are full-fledged males and females, on the hunt through the +world for suitable partners: they think far less of feeding than of +displaying their charms: a little honey to support them during their +flight is all they need:--'For the bee, a long round of ceaseless toil; +for me,' says the gay butterfly, 'a short life and a merry one.' Mr. +Harold Skimpole needed only 'music, sunshine, a few grapes.' The +butterflies are of his kind. The high mountain zone is for them a true +ball-room: the flowers are light refreshments laid out in the +vestibule. Their real business in life is not to gorge and lay by, but +to coquette and display themselves and find fitting partners. + +So while the bees with their honey-bags, like the financier with his +money-bags, are storing up profit for the composite community, the +butterfly, on the contrary, lays himself out for an agreeable flutter, +and sips nectar where he will, over large areas of country. He flies +rather high, flaunting his wings in the sun, because he wants to show +himself off in all his airy beauty: and when he spies a bed of bright +flowers afar off on the sun-smitten slopes, he sails off towards them +lazily, like a grand signior who amuses himself. No regular plodding +through a monotonous spike of plain little bells for him: what he wants +is brilliant colour, bold advertisement, good honey, and plenty of it. +He doesn't care to search. Who wants his favours must make himself +conspicuous. + +Now, plants are good shopkeepers; they lay themselves out strictly to +attract their customers. Hence the character of the flowers on this +beeless belt of mountain side is entirely determined by the character +of the butterfly fertilisers. Only those plants which laid themselves +out from time immemorial to suit the butterflies, in other words, have +succeeded in the long run in the struggle for existence. So the +butterfly-plants of the butterfly-zone are all strictly adapted to +butterfly tastes and butterfly fancies. They are, for the most part, +individually large and brilliantly coloured: they have lots of honey, +often stored at the base of a deep and open bell which the long +proboscis of the insect can easily penetrate: and they habitually grow +close together in broad belts or patches, so that the colour of each +reinforces and aids the colour of the others. It is this cumulative +habit that accounts for the marked flowerbed or jam-tart character +which everybody must have noticed in the high Alpine flora. + +Aristocracies usually pride themselves on their antiquity: and the high +life of the mountains is undeniably ancient. The plants and animals of +the butterfly-zone belong to a special group which appears everywhere +in Europe and America about the limit of snow, whether northward or +upward. For example, I was pleased to note near the summit of Mount +Washington (the highest peak in New Hampshire) that a large number of +the flowers belonged to species well known on the open plains of +Lapland and Finland. The plants of the High Alps are found also, as a +rule, not only on the High Pyrenees, the Carpathians, the Scotch +Grampians, and the Norwegian fjelds, but also round the Arctic Circle +in Europe and America. They reappear at long distances where suitable +conditions recur: they follow the snow-line as the snow-line recedes +ever in summer higher north toward the pole or higher vertically toward +the mountain summits. And this bespeaks in one way to the reasoning +mind a very ancient ancestry. It shows they date back to a very old and +cold epoch. + +Let me give a single instance which strikingly illustrates the general +principle. Near the top of Mount Washington, as aforesaid, lives to +this day a little colony of very cold-loving and mountainous +butterflies, which never descend below a couple of thousand feet from +the wind-swept summit. Except just there, there are no more of there +sort anywhere about: and as far as the butterflies themselves are +aware, no others of their species exist on earth: they never have seen +a single one of their kind, save of their own little colony. One might +compare them with the Pitcairn Islanders in the South Seas--an isolated +group of English origin, cut off by a vast distance from all their +congeners in Europe or America. But if you go north some eight or nine +hundred miles from New Hampshire to Labrador, at a certain point the +same butterfly reappears, and spreads northward toward the pole in +great abundance. Now, how did this little colony of chilly insects get +separated from the main body, and islanded, as it were, on a remote +mountain-top in far warmer New Hampshire? + +The answer is, they were stranded there at the end of the Glacial +epoch. + +A couple of hundred thousand years ago or thereabouts--don't let us +haggle, I beg of you, over a few casual centuries--the whole of +northern Europe and America was covered from end to end, as everybody +knows, by a sheet of solid ice, like the one which Frithiof Nansen +crossed from sea to sea on his own account in Greenland. For many +thousand years, with occasional warmer spells, that vast ice-sheet +brooded, silent and grim, over the face of the two continents. Life was +extinct as far south as the latitude of New York and London. No plant +or animal survived the general freezing. Not a creature broke the +monotony of that endless glacial desert. At last, as the celestial +cycle came round in due season, fresh conditions supervened. Warmer +weather set in, and the ice began to melt. Then the plants and animals +of the sub-glacial district were pushed slowly northward by the warmth +after the retreating ice-cap. As time went on, the climate of the +plains got too hot to hold them. The summer was too much for the +glacial types to endure. They remained only on the highest mountain +peaks or close to the southern limit of eternal snow. In this way, +every isolated range in either continent has its own little colony of +arctic or glacial plants and animals, which still survive by +themselves, unaffected by intercourse with their unknown and +unsuspected fellow-creatures elsewhere. + +Not only has the Glacial epoch left these organic traces of its +existence, however; in some parts of New Hampshire, where the glaciers +were unusually thick and deep, fragments of the primaeval ice itself +still remain on the spots where they were originally stranded. Among +the shady glens of the white mountains there occur here and there great +masses of ancient ice, the unmelted remnant of primaeval glaciers; and +one of these is so large that an artificial cave has been cleverly +excavated in it, as an attraction for tourists, by the canny Yankee +proprietor. Elsewhere the old ice-blocks are buried under the _debris_ +of moraine-stuff and alluvium, and are only accidentally discovered by +the sinking of what are locally known as ice-wells. No existing +conditions can account for the formation of such solid rocks of ice at +such a depth in the soil. They are essentially glacier-like in origin +and character: they result from the pressure of snow into a crystalline +mass in a mountain valley: and they must have remained there unmelted +ever since the close of the Glacial epoch, which, by Dr. Croll's +calculations, must most probably have ceased to plague our earth some +eighty thousand years ago. Modern America, however, has no respect for +antiquity: and it is at present engaged in using up this palaeocrystic +deposit--this belated storehouse of prehistoric ice--in the manufacture +of gin slings and brandy cocktails. + +As one scales a mountain of moderate height--say seven or eight +thousand feet--in a temperate climate, one is sure to be struck by the +gradual diminution as one goes in the size of the trees, till at last +they tail off into mere shrubs and bushes. This diminution--an old +commonplace of tourists--is a marked characteristic of mountain plants, +and it depends, of course, in the main upon the effect of cold, and of +the wind in winter. Cold, however, is by far the more potent factor of +the two, though it is the least often insisted upon: and this can be +seen in a moment by anyone who remembers that trees shade off in just +the self-same manner near the southern limit of permanent snow in the +Arctic regions. And the way the cold acts is simply this: it nips off +the young buds in spring in exposed situations, as the chilly +sea-breeze does with coast plants, which, as we commonly but +incorrectly say, are "blown sideways" from seaward. + +Of course, the lower down one gets, and the nearer to the soil, the +warmer the layer of air becomes, both because there is greater +radiation, and because one can secure a little more shelter. So, very +far north, and very near the snow-line on mountains, you always find +the vegetation runs low and stunted. It takes advantage of every crack, +every cranny in the rocks, every sunny little nook, every jutting point +or wee promontory of shelter. And as the mountain plants have been +accustomed for ages to the strenuous conditions of such cold and +wind-swept situations, they have ended, of course, by adapting +themselves to that station in life to which it has pleased the powers +that be to call them. They grow quite naturally low and stumpy and +rosette-shaped: they are compact of form and very hard of fibre: they +present no surface of resistance to the wind in any way; rounded and +boss-like, they seldom rise above the level of the rooks and stones, +whose interstices they occupy. It is this combination of characters +that makes mountain plants such favourites with florists: for they +possess of themselves that close-grown habit and that rich profusion of +clustered flowers which it is the grand object of the gardener by +artificial selection to produce and encourage. + +When one talks of the 'the limit of trees' on a mountain side, however, +it must be remembered that the phrase is used in a strictly human or +Pickwickian sense, and that it is only the size, not the type, of the +vegetation that is really in question. For trees exist even on the +highest hill-tops: only they have accommodated themselves to the +exigencies of the situation. Smaller and ever smaller species have been +developed by natural selection to suit the peculiarities of these +inclement spots. Take, for example, the willow and poplar group. Nobody +would deny that a weeping willow by an English river, or a Lombardy +poplar in an Italian avenue, was as much of a true tree as an oak or a +chestnut. But as one mounts towards the bare and wind-swept mountain +heights one finds that the willows begin to grow downward gradually. +The 'netted willow' of the Alps and Pyrenees, which shelters itself +under the lee of little jutting rocks, attains the height of only a few +inches; while the 'herbaceous willow,' common on all very high +mountains in Western Europe, is a tiny creeping weed, which nobody +would ever take for a forest tree by origin at all, unless he happened +to see it in the catkin-bearing stage, when its true nature and history +would become at once apparent to him. + +Yet this little herb-like willow, one of the most northerly and hardy +of European plants, is a true tree at heart none the less for all that. +Soft and succulent as it looks in branch and leaf, you may yet count on +it sometimes as many rings of annual growth as on a lordly Scotch +fir-tree. But where? Why, underground. For see how cunning it is, this +little stunted descendant of proud forest lords: hard-pressed by +nature, it has learnt to make the best of its difficult and precarious +position. It has a woody trunk at core, like all other trees; but this +trunk never appears above the level of the soil: it creeps and roots +underground in tortuous zigzags between the crags and boulders that lie +strewn through its thin sheet of upland leaf-mould. By this simple plan +the willow manages to get protection in winter, on the same principle +as when we human gardeners lay down the stems of vines: only the willow +remains laid down all the year and always. But in summer it sends up +its short-lived herbaceous branches, covered with tiny green leaves, +and ending at last in a single silky catkin. Yet between the great +weeping willow and this last degraded mountain representative of the +same primitive type, you can trace in Europe alone at least a dozen +distinct intermediate forms, all well marked in their differences, and +all progressively dwarfed by long stress of unfavourable conditions. + +From the combination of such unfavourable conditions in Arctic +countries and under the snow-line of mountains there results a curious +fact, already hinted at above, that the coldest floras are also, from +the purely human point of view, the most beautiful. Not, of course, the +most luxuriant: for lush richness of foliage and 'breadth of tropic +shade' (to quote a noble lord) one must go, as everyone knows, to the +equatorial regions. But, contrary to the common opinion, the tropics, +hoary shams, are not remarkable for the abundance or beauty of their +flowers. Quite otherwise, indeed: an unrelieved green strikes the +keynote of equatorial forests. This is my own experience, and it is +borne out (which is far more important) by Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, +who has seen a wider range of the untouched tropics, in all four +hemispheres--northern, southern, eastern, western--than any other man, +I suppose, that ever lived on this planet. And Mr. Wallace is firm in +his conviction that the tropics in this respect are a complete fraud. +Bright flowers are there quite conspicuously absent. It is rather in +the cold and less favoured regions of the world that one must look for +fine floral displays and bright masses of colour. Close up to the +snow-line the wealth of flowers is always the greatest. + +In order to understand this apparent paradox one must remember that the +highest type of flowers, from the point of view of organisation, is not +at the same time by any means the most beautiful. On the contrary, +plants with very little special adaptation to any particular insect, +like the water-lilies and the poppies, are obliged to flaunt forth in +very brilliant hues, and to run to very large sizes in order to attract +the attention of a great number of visitors, one or other of whom may +casually fertilise them; while plants with very special adaptations, +like the sage and mint group, or the little English orchids, are so +cunningly arranged that they can't fail of fertilisation at the very +first visit, which of course enables them to a great extent to dispense +with the aid of big or brilliant petals. So that, where the struggle +for life is fiercest, and adaptation most perfect, the flora will on +the whole be not most, but least, conspicuous in the matter of very +handsome flowers. + +Now, the struggle for life is fiercest, and the wealth of nature is +greatest, one need hardly say, in tropical climates. There alone do we +find every inch of soil 'encumbered by its waste fertility,' as Comus +puts it; weighed down by luxuriant growth of tree, shrub, herb, +creeper. There alone do lizards lurk in every hole; beetles dwell +manifold in every cranny; butterflies flock thick in every grove; bees, +ants, and flies swarm by myriads on every sun-smitten hillside. +Accordingly, in the tropics, adaptation reaches its highest point; and +tangled richness, not beauty of colour, becomes the dominant note of +the equatorial forests. Now and then, to be sure, as you wander through +Brazilian or Malayan woods, you may light upon some bright tree clad in +scarlet bloom, or some glorious orchid drooping pendant from a bough +with long sprays of beauty: but such sights are infrequent. Green, and +green, and ever green again--that is the general feeling of the +equatorial forest: as different as possible from the rich mosaic of a +high alp in early June, or a Scotch hillside deep in golden gorse and +purple heather in broad August sunshine. + +In very cold countries, on the other hand, though the conditions are +severe, the struggle for existence is not really so hard, because, in +one word, there are fewer competitors. The field is less occupied; life +is less rich, less varied, less self-strangling. And therefore +specialisation hasn't gone nearly so far in cold latitudes or +altitudes. Lower and simpler types everywhere occupy the soil; mosses, +matted flowers, small beetles, dwarf butterflies. Nature is less +luxuriant, yet in some ways more beautiful. As we rise on the mountains +the forest trees disappear, and with them the forest beasts, from bears +to squirrels; a low, wind-swept vegetation succeeds, very poor in +species, and stunted in growth, but making a floor of rich flowers +almost unknown elsewhere. The humble butterflies and beetles of the +chillier elevation produce in the result more beautiful bloom than the +highly developed honey-seekers of the richer and warmer lowlands. +Luxuriance is atoned for by a Turkey carpet of floral magnificence. + +How, then, has the world at large fallen into the pardonable error of +believing tropical nature to be so rich in colouring, and circumpolar +nature to be so dingy and unlovable? Simply thus, I believe. The +tropics embrace the largest land areas in the world, and are richer by +a thousand times in species of plants and animals than all the rest of +the earth in a lump put together. That richness necessarily results +from the fierceness of the competition. Now among this enormous mass of +tropical plants it naturally happens that some have finer flowers than +any temperate species; while as to the animals and birds, they are +undoubtedly, on the whole, both larger and handsomer than the fauna of +colder climates. But in the general aspect of tropical nature an +occasional bright flower or brilliant parrot counts for very little +among the mass of lush green which surrounds and conceals it. On the +other hand, in our museums and conservatories we sedulously pick out +the rarest and most beautiful of these rare and beautiful species, and +we isolate them completely from their natural surroundings. The +consequence is that the untravelled mind regards the tropics mentally +as a sort of perpetual replica of the hot-houses at Kew, superimposed +on the best of Mr. Bull's orchid shows. As a matter of fact, people who +know the hot world well can tell you that the average tropical woodland +is much more like the dark shade of Box Hill or the deepest glades of +the Black Forest. For really fine floral display in the mass, all at +once, you must go, not to Ceylon, Sumatra, Jamaica, but to the far +north of Canada, the Bernese Oberland, the moors of Inverness-shire, +the North Cape of Norway. Flowers are loveliest where the climate is +coldest; forests are greenest, most luxuriant, least blossoming, where +the conditions of life are richest, warmest, fiercest. In one word, +High Life is always poor but beautiful. + + + + + EIGHT-LEGGED FRIENDS. + +A singular opportunity was afforded me last summer for making myself +thoroughly at home with the habits and manners of the common English +geometrical spider. By the pure chance of circumstance, two ladies of +that intelligent and interesting species were kind enough to select for +their temporary residence a large pane of glass just outside my +drawing-room window. Now, it so happened that this particular pane was +constructed not to open, being, in fact, part of a big bow-window, the +alternate sashes of which were alone intended for ventilation. Hence it +came to pass that by diligent care I was enabled to preserve my two +eight-legged acquaintances from the devouring broom of the British +housemaid, and to keep them constantly under observation at all times +and seasons during a whole summer. Of course this result was only +obtained by a distinct exercise of despotic authority, for I know those +poor spiders were a constant eyesore in Ellen's sight--the housemaid of +the moment bore the name of Ellen--but I persisted in my prohibition of +any forcible ejectment, and I carried my point in the end in the very +teeth of that constituted domestic authority. So successful was I, +indeed, that when at last we flitted southwards ourselves with the +swallows on our annual migration to the Mediterranean shores, we left +Lucy and Eliza--those were the names we had given them--in undisturbed +possession of their prescriptive rights in the drawing-room windows. +This year they are gone, and our home is left spiderless. + +They were curious and uninviting pets, I'm bound to admit, those great +juicy-looking creatures. Nobody could say that any form of spider is +precisely what our Italian friends prettily describe in their liquid +way as _simpatico_. At times, indeed, the conduct of Lucy and Eliza was +so peculiarly horrible and blood-curdling in its atrocity, that even I, +their best friend, who had so often interceded for their lives and +saved them from the devastating duster of the aggressive +housemaid--even I myself, I say, more than once debated in my own mind +whether I was justified in letting them go on any longer in their +career of crime unchecked, or whether I ought not rather to rush out at +once, avenging rag in hand, and sweep them away at one fell swoop from +the surface of a world they disgraced with their unbridled wickedness. +Eliza, in particular, I'm constrained to allow, was a perfect monster +of vice--a sort of undeveloped arachnid Borgia, quick to slay and +relentless in pursuit; a mass of eight-legged sins, stained with the +colourless gore of ten thousand struggling victims, and absolutely +without a single redeeming point in her hateful character. And yet, +whenever any more than usually horrible massacre of some pretty and +innocent fly almost moved me in my righteous wrath to rush out into the +garden in hot haste and put an end at once to the cruel wretch's +existence with a judicial antimacassar, a number of moral scruples, +such as could only be adequately resolved by the editor of the +_Spectator_, always occurred spontaneously to my mind and conscience +just in time to ensure that wicked Eliza a fresh spell of life in which +to continue unabashed her atrocious behaviour. + +Has man, I asked myself at such moments, mere human man, any right to +set himself up in the place of earthly providence, as so much better +and more moral than insentient nature? If the spider cruelly devours +living flies and intelligent or highly sensitive bees, we must at least +remember that she has no choice in the matter, and that, as the poet +justly remarks, ''tis her nature to.' But then, on the other hand, it +might be plausibly argued that 'tis our nature equally to kill the +creature that we see so hatefully fulfilling the law of its own cruel +being. And yet again it might be pleaded by any able counsel who +undertook the defence of Lucy or Eliza on her trial for her life +against her human accusers, that she was impelled to all these evil +deeds by maternal affection, one of the noblest and most unselfish of +animal instincts. Moreover, if the spider didn't prey, it would +obviously die; and it seems rather hard on any creature to condemn it +to death for no better reason than because it happens to have been born +a member of its own kind, and not of any other and less morally +objectionable species. Jedburgh justice oL that sort rather savours of +the method pursued by the famous countryman who was found cutting a +harmless amphibian into a hundred pieces with his murderous spade, and +saying spitefully as he did so, at every particularly savage cut: 'I'll +larn ye to be a twoad, I will; I'll larn ye to be a twoad!' + +Nevertheless, in spite of all this my vaunted philosophy, I will +frankly confess that more than once Eliza and Lucy sorely tried my +patience, and that I was often a good deal better than half-minded in +my soul to rush out in a feverish fit of moral indignation and put an +end to their ghastly career of crime without waiting to hear what they +had to say in their own favour, showing cause why sentence of death +should not be executed upon them. And I would have done it, I believe, +had it not been for that peculiar arrangement of the drawing-room +windows, which made it impossible to get at the culprits direct, +without going out into the garden and round the house; which, of +course, is a severe strain in wet or windy weather to put upon +anybody's moral enthusiasm. In the end, therefore, I always gave the +evil-doers the benefit of the doubt; and I only mention my ethical +scruples in the matter here lest scoffers should say, when they come to +read what manner of things Lucy and Eliza did: 'Oh yes, that's just +like those scientific folks; they're always so cold-blooded. He could +stand by and see these poor helpless flies tortured slowly to death, +without a chance for their lives, and never put out a helping hand to +save them!' Well, I would only ask you one question, my sapient friend, +who talk like that: Has it ever occurred to you that, if you kill one +spider, you merely make room in the overflowing economy of nature for +another to pick up a dishonest livelihood? Have you ever reflected that +the prime blame of spiderhood rests with Nature herself (if we may +venture to personify that impersonal entity); and that she has provided +such a constant supply or relay of spiders as will amply suffice to +fill up all the possible vacancies that can ever occur in insect-eating +circles? Unless you have considered all these points carefully, and +have an answer to give about them, you are not in a position to +pronounce upon the subject, and you had better be referred for six +months longer, as the medical examiners gracefully put it, to your +ethical, psychological, and biological studies. The great point about +the position in which Eliza and Lucy had placed themselves was simply +this. They stood full against the light, so that we could see right +through their translucent bodies, which were almost liquid to look +upon, and beautifully dappled with dark spots on a grey ground in a +very pretty and effective pattern. So favourable was the opportunity +for observation, indeed, that we could clearly make out with the naked +eye even the joints of their legs, the hairs on their tarsi--excuse the +phrase--and the very shape of their cruel tigerlike claws, as they +rushed forth upon their prey in a sort of carnivorous frenzy. At all +hours of the day we could notice exactly what they were doing or +suffering; and so familiar did we become with them individually and +personally, that before the end of the season we recognized in detail +all the differences of their characters almost as one might do with +cats or dogs, and spoke of them by their Christian names like old and +well-known acquaintances. + +As the webs which Lucy and Eliza spun were several times broken or +mutilated during the year, either by accident or the gardener, we had +plenty of chances for seeing how they proceeded in making them. The +lines were in both cases stretched between a white rose-bush that +climbed up one side of the window, and a purple clematis that occupied +and draped the opposite mullion. But Lucy and Eliza didn't live in the +webs--those were only their snares or traps for prey; each of them had +in addition a private home or apartment of her own under shelter of a +rose-leaf at some distance from the treacherous geometrical structure. +The house itself consisted merely of a silken cell, built out from the +rose-leaf, and connected with the snare by a single stout cord of very +solid construction. On this cord the spider kept one foot--I had almost +said one hand--constantly fixed. She poised it lightly by her claws, +and whenever an insect got entangled in the web, a subtle electric +message, so to speak, seemed to run along the line to the ever-watchful +carnivore. In one short second Lucy or Eliza, as the case might be, had +darted out upon her quarry, and was tackling it might main, according +to the particular way its size and strength rendered then and there +advisable. The method of procedure, which I shall describe more fully +by-and-by, differed considerably from case to case, as these very large +and strong spiders have sometimes to deal with mere tiny midges, and +sometimes with extremely big and dangerous creatures, like bumble-bees, +wasps, and even hornets. + +In building their webs, as in many other small points, Lucy and Eliza +showed from the first no inconsiderable personal differences. Lucy +began hers by spinning a long line from her spinnerets, and letting the +wind carry it wherever it would; while Eliza, more architectural in +character, preferred to take her lines personally from point to point, +and see herself to their proper fastening. In either case, however, the +first thing done was to stretch some eight or ten stout threads from +place to place on the outside of the future web, to act as _points +d'appuy_ for the remainder of the structure. To these outer threads, +which the spiders strengthened so as to bear a considerable strain by +doubling and trebling them, other thinner single threads were then +carried radially at irregular distances, like the spokes of a wheel, +from a point in the centre, where they were all made fast and connected +together. As soon as this radiating framework or scaffolding was +finished, like the woof on a loom, the industrious craftswoman started +at the middle, and began the task of putting in the cross-pieces or +weft which were to complete and bind together the circular pattern. +These she wove round and round in a continuous spiral, setting out at +the centre, and keeping on in ever-widening circlets, till she arrived +at last at the exterior or foundation threads. How she fastened these +cross-pieces to the ray-lines I could never quite make out, though I +often followed the work closely from inside through the pane of glass +with a platyscopic lens; for, strange to say, the spiders were not in +the least disturbed by being watched at their work, and never took the +slightest notice of anything that went on at the other side of the +window. My impression is, however, that she gummed them together, +letting them harden into one as they dried; for the thread itself is +always semi-liquid when first exuded. + +The cross-pieces, we observed from the very beginning, were invariably +covered by little sparkling drops of something wet and beadlike, which +at first in our ignorance we took for dew; for until I began +systematically observing Lucy and Eliza, I will frankly confess I had +never paid any particular attention to the spider-kind with the +solitary exception of my old winter friends, the trap-door spiders of +the Mediterranean shores. But, after a little experience, we soon found +out that these pearly drops on the web were not dew at all, but a +sticky substance, akin, to that of the web, secreted by the animals +themselves from their own bodies. We also quickly discovered, coming to +the observation as we did with minds unbiased by previous knowledge, +that the viscid liquid in question was of the utmost importance to the +spiders in securing their prey, and that unfortunate insects were not +merely entangled but likewise gummed down or glued by it, like birds in +bird-lime or flies in treacle. So necessary is the sticky stuff, +indeed, to the success of the trap, that Lucy and Eliza used to renew +the entire set of cross-pieces in the web every morning, and thus +ensure from day to day a perfectly fresh supply of viscid fluid; but, +so far as I could see, they only renewed the rays and the +foundation-threads under stress of necessity, when the snare had been +so greatly injured by large insects struggling in it, or by the wind or +the gardener, as to render repairs absolutely unavoidable. The whole +structure, when complete, is so beautiful and wonderful a sight, with +its geometrical regularity and its beaded drops, that if it were +produced by a rare creature from Madagascar or the Cape, in the +insect-house at the Zoo, all the world, I'm convinced, would rush to +look at it as a nine-days' wonder. But since it's only the trap of the +common English garden spider, why, we all pass it by without deigning +even to glance at it. + +At night my eight-legged friends slept always in their own homes or +nests under shelter of the rose-leaves. But during the day they +alternated between the nest and the centre of the web, which last +seemed to serve them as a convenient station where they waited for +their prey, standing head downward with legs wide spread on the rays, +on the look-out for incidents. Whether at the centre or in the nest, +however, they kept their feet constantly on the watch for any +disturbance on the webs; and the instant any unhappy little fly got +entangled in their meshes, the ever-watchful spider was out like a +flash of lightning, and down at once in full force upon that incautious +intruder. I was convinced after many observations that it is by touch +alone the spider recognizes the presence of prey in its web, and that +it hardly derives any indications worth speaking of from its numerous +little eyes, at least as regards the arrival of booty. If a very big +insect has got into the web, then a relatively large volume of +disturbance is propagated along the telegraphic wire that runs from the +snare to the house, or from the circumference to the centre; if a small +one, then a slight disturbance; and the spider rushes out accordingly, +either with an air of caution or of ferocious triumph. + +Supposing the booty in hand was a tiny fly, then Lucy or Eliza would +jump upon it at once with that strange access of apparently personal +animosity with seems in some mysterious way a characteristic of all +hunting carnivorous animals. She would then carelessly wind a thread or +two about it, in a perfunctory way, bury her jaws in its body, and in +less than half a minute suck out its juices to the last drop, leaving +the empty shell unhurt, like a dry skeleton or the slough of a +dragon-fly larva. But when wasps or other large and dangerous insects +got entangled in the webs, the hunters proceeded with far greater +caution. Lucy, indeed, who was a decided coward, would stand and look +anxiously at the doubtful intruder for several seconds, feeling the web +with her claws, and running up and down in the most undecided manner, +as if in doubt whether or not to tackle the uncertain customer. But +Eliza, whose spirits always rose like Nelson's before the face of +danger, and whose motto seemed to be '_De l'audace, de l'audace, et +toujours de l'audace_,' would rush at the huge foe in a perfect +transport of wild fury, and go to work at once to enclose him in her +toils of triple silken cables. I always fancied, indeed, that Eliza was +in a thoroughly housewifely tantrum at seeing her nice new web so +ruthlessly torn and tattered by the unwelcome visitor, and that she +said to herself in her own language: 'Oh well, then, if you _will_ have +it, you _shall_ have it; so here goes for you.' And go for him she did, +with most unladylike ferocity. Indeed, Eliza's best friend, I must fain +admit, could never have said of her that she was a perfect lady. + +The chawing-up of that wasp was a sight to behold. I have no great +sympathy with wasps--they have done me so many bad turns in my time +that I don't pretend to regard them as deserving of exceptional +pity--but I must say Eliza's way of going at them was unduly barbaric. +She treated them for all the world as if they were entirely devoid of a +nervous system. I wouldn't treat a _Saturday Reviewer_ myself as that +spider treated the wasps when once she was sure of them. She went at +them with a sort of angry, half-contemptuous dash, kept cautiously out +of the way of the protruded sting, began in most business-like fashion +at the head, and rolling the wasp round and round with her legs and +feelers, swathed him rapidly and effectually, with incredible speed, in +a dense network of web poured forth from her spinnerets. In less than +half a minute the astonished wasp, accustomed rather to act on the +offensive than the defensive, found himself helplessly enclosed in a +perfect coil of tangled silk, which confined him from head to sting +without the possibility of movement in any direction. The whole time +this had been going on the victim, struggling and writhing, had been +pushing out its sting and doing the very best it knew to deal the wily +Eliza a poisoned death-blow. But Eliza, taught by ancestral experience, +kept carefully out of the way; and the wasp felt itself finally twirled +round and round in those powerful hands, and tied about as to its wings +by a thousand-fold cable. Sometimes, after the wasp was secured, Eliza +even took the trouble to saw off the wings so as to prevent further +struggling and consequent damage to the precious web; but more often +she merely proceeded to eat it alive without further formality, still +avoiding its sting as long as the creature had a kick left in it, but +otherwise entirely ignoring its character as a sentient being in the +most inhuman fashion. And all the time, till the last drop of his blood +was sucked out, the wasp would continue viciously to stick out his +deadly sting, which the spider would still avoid with hereditary +cunning. It was a horrid sight--a duel _a outrance_ between two equally +hateful and poisonous opponents; a living commentary on the appalling +but o'er-true words of the poet, that 'Nature is one with rapine, a +harm no preacher can heal.' Though these were the occasions when one +sometimes felt as if the cup of Eliza's iniquities was really full, and +one must pass sentence at last, without respite or reprieve, upon that +life-long murderess. + +One insect there was, however, before which even Eliza herself, +hardened wretch as she seemed, used to cower and shiver; and that was +the great black bumble-bee, the largest and most powerful of the +British bee-kind. When one of these dangerous monsters, a burly, +buzzing bourgeois, got entangled in her web, Eliza, shaking in her +shoes (I allow her those shoes by poetical licence) would retire in +high dudgeon to her inmost bower, and there would sit and sulk, in +visible bad temper, till the clumsy big thing, after many futile +efforts, had torn its way by main force out of the coils that +surrounded it. Then, the moment the telegraphic communication told her +the lines in the web were once more free, Eliza would sally forth again +with a smiling face--oh yes, I assure you, we could tell by her look +when she was smiling--and would repair afresh with cheerful alacrity +the damage done to her snare by the unwelcome visitor. Hummingbird +hawk-moths, on the other hand, though so big and quick, she would kill +immediately. As for Lucy, craven soul, she had so little sense of +proper pride and arachnid honour, that she shrank even from the wasps +which Eliza so bravely and unhesitatingly tackled; and more than once +we caught her in the very act of cutting them out entire, with the +whole piece of web in which they were immeshed, and letting them drop +on to the ground beneath, merely as a short way of getting rid of them +from her premises. I always rather despised Lucy. She hadn't even the +one redeeming virtue of most carnivorous or predatory races--an +insensate and almost automatic courage. + +I need hardly say, however, that the spider does not kill her prey by a +mere fair-and-square bite alone. She has recourse to the art of the +Palmers and Brinvilliers. All spiders, as far as known, are provided +with poison-fangs in the jaws, which sometimes, as in the tarantula and +many other large tropical kinds, well known to me in Jamaica and +elsewhere, are sufficiently powerful to produce serious effects upon +man himself; while even much smaller spiders, like Eliza and Lucy, have +poison enough in their falces, as the jawlike organs are called, to +kill a good big insect, such as a wasp or a bumble-bee. These +channelled poison-glands, combined with their savage tigerlike claws, +make the spiders as a group extremely formidable and dominant +creatures, the analogues in their own smaller invertebrate world of the +serpents and wolves in the vertebrate creation. + +Lucy and Eliza's family relations, I am sorry to say, were not, we +found, of a kind to endear them to a critical public already +sufficiently scandalized by their general mode of behaviour to their +inoffensive neighbours. As mothers, indeed, gossip itself had not a +word of blame to whisper against them; but as wives, their conduct was +distinctly open to the severest animadversion. The males of the garden +spider, as in many other instances, are decidedly smaller than their +big round mates; so much so is this the case, indeed, in certain +species that they seem almost like parasites of the immensely larger +sack-bodied females. Now, just as the worker bees kill off the drones +as soon as the queen-bee has been duly fertilized, regarding them as of +no further importance or value to the hive, so do the lady-spiders not +only kill but eat their husbands as soon as they find they have no +further use for them. Nay, if a female spider doesn't care for the +looks of a suitor who is pressing himself too much upon her fond +attention, her way of expressing her disapprobation of his appearance +and manners is to make a murderous spring at him, and, if possible, +devour him. Under these painful circumstances the process of courtship +is necessarily to some extent a difficult and delicate one, fraught +with no small danger to the adventurous swain who has the boldness to +commend himself by personal approach to these very fickle and irascible +fair ones. It was most curious and exciting, accordingly, to watch the +details of the strange courtship, which we could only observe in the +case of the cruel Eliza, the rather gentler Lucy having been already +mated, apparently, before she took up her quarters in our climbing +white rose-bush. One day, however, a timid-looking male spider, with +inquiry and doubt in every movement of his tarsi, strolled tentatively +up on the neat round web where Eliza was hanging, head downward as +usual, all her feet on the thread, on the look-out for house-flies. We +knew he was a male at once by his longer and thinner body, and by his +natural modesty. He walked gingerly on all eights, like an arachnid +Agag, in the direction of the object of his ardent affections, with a +most comic uncertainty in every step he took towards her. His claws +felt the threads as he moved with anxious care; and it was clear he was +ready at a moment's notice to jump away and flee for his life with +headlong speed to his native obscurity if Eliza showed the slightest +disposition, by gesture or movement, to turn and rend him. Now and +again, as he approached, Eliza, half coquettish, moved her feet a short +step, and seemed to debate within her own mind in which spirit she +should meet his flattering advances--whether to accept him or to eat +him. At each such hesitation, the unhappy male, fearing the worst, and +sore afraid, would turn on his heel and fly for dear life as fast as +eight trembling legs would carry him. Then, after a minute or two, he +would evidently come to the conclusion that he had wronged his +lady-love, and that her movement was one of true, true love rather than +of carnivorous and cannibalistic appetite. At last, as I judged, his +constancy was rewarded, though his ominous disappearance very shortly +afterwards made me fear for the worst as to his final adventures. + +In the end, Eliza laid a large number of eggs in a silken cocoon, in +shape a balloon, and secreted, like the web, by her invaluable +spinnerets. Indeed, the real reason--I won't say excuse--for the +rapacity and Gargantuan appetite of the spider lies, no doubt, in the +immense amount of material she has to supply for her daily-renewed +webs, her home, and her cocoon, all which have actually to be spun out +of the assimilated food-stuffs in her own body; to say nothing of the +additional necessity imposed upon her by nature for laying a trifle of +six or seven hundred eggs in a single summer. And, to tell the truth, +Lucy and Eliza seemed to us to be always eating. No matter at what hour +one looked in upon them, they were pretty constantly engaged in +devouring some inoffensive fly, or weaving hateful labyrinths of hasty +cord round some fiercely-struggling wasp or some unhappy beetle. + +We weren't fortunate enough, I regret to say, to see Eliza's eggs hatch +out from the cocoon; but in other instances, especially in Southern +Europe, I have noticed the little heap of well-covered ova, glued +together into a mass, and attached to a branch or twig by stout silken +cables. If you open the cocoon when the young spiders are just hatched, +they begin to run about in the most lively fashion, and look like a +living and moving congeries of little balls or seedlets. The common +garden spider lays some seven hundred or more such eggs at a sitting, +and out of those seven hundred only two on an average reach maturity +and once more propagate their kind. For if only four lived and throve, +then clearly, in the next generation, there would be twice as many +spiders as in this; and in the generation after that again, four times +as many; and then eight times; and so on _ad infinitum_, until the +whole world was just one living and seething mass of common garden +spiders. + +What keeps them down, then, in the end to their average number? What +prevents the development of the whole seven hundred? The simple answer +is, continuous starvation. As usual, nature works with cruel +lavishness. There are just as many spiders at any given minute as there +are insects enough in the world or in their area to feed upon. Every +spider lays hundreds of eggs, so as to make up for the average infant +mortality by starvation, or by the attacks of ichneumon flies, or by +being eaten themselves in the young stage, or by other casualties. And +so with all other species. Each produces as many young on the average +as will allow for the ordinary infant mortality of their kind, and +leave enough over just to replace the parents in the next generation. +And that's one of the reasons why it's no use punishing Lucy and Eliza +for their misdeeds in this world. Kill them off if you will, and before +next week a dozen more like them will dispute with one another the +vacant place you have thus created in the balanced economy of that +microcosm the garden. + +Our observations upon Lucy and Eliza, however, had the effect of making +us take an increased interest thenceforth in spiders in general, which +till that time we had treated with scant courtesy, and set us about +learning something as to the extraordinary variety of life and habit to +be found within the range of this single group of arthropods, at first +sight so extremely alike in their shapes, their appearance, their +morals, and their manners. It's perfectly astonishing, though, when one +comes to look into it in detail, how exceedingly diverse spiders are in +their mode of life, their structure, and the variety of uses to which +they put their one extremely distinctive structural organ, the +spinnerets. I will only say here that some spiders use these peculiar +glands to form light webs by whose aid, though wingless, they float +balloon-wise through the air; that others employ them to line the sides +of their underground tunnels, and to make the basis of their +marvellously ingenious earthen trap-doors; that yet others have learnt +how to adapt these same organs to a subaquatic existence, and to fill +cocoons with air, like miniature diving bells; while others, again, +have taught themselves to construct webs thick enough to catch and hold +even creatures so superior to themselves in the scale of being as +humming-birds and sunbirds. This extraordinary variety in the +utilization of a single organ teaches once more the same lesson which +is impressed upon us elsewhere by so many other forms of organic +evolution: whatever enables an animal or plant to gain an advantage +over others in the struggle for life, no matter in what way, is sure to +survive, and to be turned in time to every conceivable use of which its +structure is capable, in the infinite whirligig of ever-varying nature. + + + + + MUD. + +Even a prejudiced observer will readily admit that the most valuable +mineral on earth is mud. Diamonds and rubies are just nowhere by +comparison. I don't mean weight for weight, of course--mud is 'cheap as +dirt,' to buy in small quantities--but aggregate for aggregate. Quite +literally, and without hocus-pocus of any sort, the money valuation of +the mud in the world must outnumber many thousand times the money +valuation of all the other minerals put together. Only we reckon it +usually not by the ton, but by the acre, though the acre is worth most +where the mud lies deepest. Nay, more, the world's wealth is wholly +based on mud. Corn, not gold, is the true standard of value. Without +mud there would be no human life, no productions of any kind: for food +stuffs of every description are raised on mud; and where no mud exists, +or can be made to exist, there, we say, there is desert or sand-waste. +Land, without mud, has no economic value. To put it briefly, the only +parts of the world that count much for human habitation are the mud +deposits of the great rivers, and notably of the Nile, the Euphrates, +the Ganges, the Indus, the Irrawaddy, the Hoang Ho, the Yang-tse-Kiang; +of the Po, the Rhone, the Danube, the Rhine, the Volga, the Dnieper; of +the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Orinoco, the +Amazons, the La Plata. A corn-field is just a big mass of mud; and the +deeper and purer and freer from stones or other impurities it is the +better. + +But England, you say, is not a great river-mud field; yet it supports +the densest population in the world. True; but England is an +exceptional product of modern civilization. She can't feed herself: she +is fed from Odessa, Alexandria, Bombay, New York, Montreal, Buenos +Ayres--in other words, from the mud fields of the Russian, the +Egyptian, the Indian, the American, the Canadian, the Argentine rivers. +Orontes, said Juvenal, has flowed into Tiber; Nile, we may say +nowadays, with equal truth, has flowed into Thames. + +There is nothing to make one realize the importance of mud, indeed, +like a journey up Nile when the inundation is just over. You lounge on +the deck of your dahabieh, and drink in geography almost without +knowing it. The voyage forms a perfect introduction to the study of +mudology, and suggests to the observant mind (meaning you and me) the +real nature of mud as nothing else on earth that I know of can suggest +it. For in Egypt you get your phenomenon isolated, as it were, from all +disturbing elements. You have no rainfall to bother you, no local +streams, no complex denudation: the Nile does all, and the Nile does +everything. On either hand stretches away the bare desert, rising up in +grey rocky hills. Down the midst runs the one long line of alluvial +soil--in other words, Nile mud--which alone allows cultivation and life +in that rainless district. The country bases itself absolutely on mud. +The crops are raised on it; the houses and villages are built of it; +the land is manured with it; the very air is full of it. The crude +brick buildings that dissolve in dust are Nile mud solidified; the red +pottery of Assiout is Nile mud baked hard; the village mosques and +minarets are Nile mud whitewashed. I have even seen a ship's bulwarks +neatly repaired with mud. It pervades the whole land, when wet, as mud +undisguised; when dry, as dust-storm. + +Egypt, says Herodotus, is a gift of the Nile. A truer or more pregnant +word was never spoken. Of course it is just equally true, in a way, +that Bengal is a gift of the Ganges, and that Louisiana and Arkansas +are gifts of the Mississippi; but with this difference, that in the +case of the Nile the dependence is far more obvious, far freer from +disturbing or distracting details. For that reason, and also because +the Nile is so much more familiar to most English-speaking folk than +the American rivers, I choose Egypt first as my type of a regular +mud-land. But in order to understand it fully you mustn't stop all your +time in Cairo and the Delta; you mustn't view it only from the terrace +of Shepheard's Hotel or the rocky platform of the Great Pyramid at +Ghizeh: you must push up country early, under Mr. Cook's care, to Luxor +and the First Cataract. It is up country that Egypt unrolls itself +visibly before your eyes in the very process of making: it is there +that the full importance of good, rich black mud first forces itself +upon you by undeniable evidence. + +For remember that, from a point above Berber to the sea, the dwindling +Nile never receives a single tributary, a single drop of fresh water. +For more than fifteen hundred miles the ever-lessening river rolls on +between bare desert hills and spreads fertility over the deep valley in +their midst--just as far as its own mud sheet can cover the barren +rocky bottom, and no farther. For the most part the line of demarcation +between the grey bare desert and the cultivable plain is as clear and +as well-defined as the margin of sea and land: you can stand with one +foot on the barren rock and one on the green soil of the tilled and +irrigated mud-land. For the water rises up to a certain level, and to +that level accordingly it distributes both mud and moisture: above it +comes the arid rock, as destitute of life, as dead and bare and lonely +as the centre of Sahara. In and out, in waving line, up to the base of +the hills, cultivation and greenery follow, with absolute accuracy, the +line of highest flood-level; beyond it the hot rock stretches dreary +and desolate. Here and there islands of sandstone stand out above the +green sea of doura or cotton; here and there a bay of fertility runs +away up some lateral valley, following the course of the mud; but one +inch above the inundation-mark vegetation and life stop short all at +once with absolute abruptness. In Egypt, then, more than anywhere else, +one sees with one's own eyes that mud and moisture are the very +conditions of mundane fertility. + +Beyond Cairo, as one descends seaward, the mud begins to open out +fan-wise and form a delta. The narrow mountain ranges no longer hem it +in. It has room to expand and spread itself freely over the surrounding +country, won by degrees from the Mediterranean. At the mouths the mud +pours out into the sea and forms fresh deposits constantly on the +bottom, which are gradually silting up still newer lands to seaward. +Slow as is the progress of this land-forming action, there can be no +doubt that the Nile has the intention of filling up by degrees the +whole eastern Mediterranean, and that in process of time--say in no +more than a few million years or so, a mere bagatelle to the +geologist--with the aid of the Po and some other lesser streams, it +will transform the entire basin of the inland sea into a level and +cultivable plain, like Bengal or Mesopotamia, themselves (as we shall +see) the final result of just such silting action. + +It is so very important, for those who wish to see things "as clear as +mud," to understand this prime principle of the formation of mud-lands, +that I shall make no apology for insisting on it further in some little +detail; for when one comes to look the matter plainly in the face, one +can see in a minute that almost all the big things in human history +have been entirely dependent upon the mud of the great rivers. Thebes +and Memphis, Rameses and Amenhotep, based their civilisation absolutely +upon the mud of Nile. The bricks of Babylon were moulded of Euphrates +mud; the greatness of Nineveh reposed on the silt of the Tigris. Upper +India is the Indus; Agra and Delhi are Ganges and Jumna mud; China is +the Hoang Ho and the Yang-tse-Kiang; Burmah is the paddy field of the +Irrawaddy delta. And so many great plains in either hemisphere consist +really of nothing else but mud-banks of almost incredible extent, +filling up prehistoric Baltics and Mediterraneans, that a glance at the +probable course of future evolution in this respect may help us to +understand and to realize more fully the gigantic scale of some past +accumulations. + +As a preliminary canter I shall trot out first the valley of the Po, +the existing mud flat best known by personal experience to the feet and +eyes of the tweed-clad English tourist. Everybody who has looked down +upon the wide Lombard plain from the pinnacled roof of Milan Cathedral, +or who has passed by rail through that monotonous level of poplars and +vines between Verona and Venice, knows well what a mud flat due to +inundation and gradual silting up of a valley looks like. What I want +to do now is to inquire into its origin, and to follow up in fancy the +same process, still in action, till it has filled the Adriatic from end +to end with one great cultivable lowland. + +Once upon a time (I like to be at least as precise as a fairy tale in +the matter of dates) there was no Lombardy. And that time was not, +geologically speaking, so very remote; for the whole valley of the Po, +from Turin to the sea, consists entirely of alluvial deposits--or, in +other words, of Alpine mud--which has all accumulated where it now lies +at a fairly recent period. We know it is recent, because no part of +Italy has ever been submerged since it began to gather there. To put it +more definitely, the entire mass has almost certainly been laid down +since the first appearance of man on our earth: the earliest human +beings who reached the Alps or the Apennines--black savages clad in +skins of extinct wild beasts--must have looked down from their slopes, +with shaded eyes, not on a level plain such as we see to-day, but on a +great arm of the sea which stretched like a gulf far up towards the +base of the hills about Turin and Rivoli. Of this ancient sea the +Adriatic forms the still unsilted portion. In other words, the great +gulf which now stops short at Trieste and Venice once washed the foot +of the Alps and the Apennines to the Superga at Turin, covering the +sites of Padua, Ferrara, Bologna, Ravenna, Mantua, Cremona, Modena, +Parma, Piacenza, Pavia, Milan, and Novara. The industrious reader who +gets out his Baedeker and looks up the shaded map of North Italy which +forms its frontispiece will be rewarded for his pains by a better +comprehension of the district thus demarcated. The idle must be content +to take my word for what follows. I pledge them my honour that I'll do +my best not to deceive their trustful innocence. + +It may sound at first hearing a strange thing to say so, but the whole +of that vast gulf, from Turin to Venice, has been entirely filled up +within the human period by the mud sheet brought down by mountain +torrents from the Alps and the Apennines. + +A parallel elsewhere will make this easier of belief. You have looked +down, no doubt, from the garden of the hotel at Glion upon the lake of +Geneva and the valley of the Rhone about Villeneuve and Aigle. If so, +you can understand from personal knowledge the first great stage in the +mud-filling process; for you must have observed for yourself from that +commanding height that the lake once extended a great deal farther up +country towards Bex and St. Maurice than it does at present. You can +still trace at once on either side the old mountainous banks, +descending into the plain as abruptly and unmistakably as they still +descend to the water's edge at Montreux and Vevey. But the silt of the +Rhone, brought down in great sheets of glacier mud (about which more +anon) from the Furca and the Jungfrau and the Monte Rosa chain, has +completely filled in the upper nine miles of the old lake basin with a +level mass of fertile alluvium. There is no doubt about the fact: you +can see it for yourself with half an eye from that specular mount (to +give the Devil his due, I quote Milton's Satan): the mud lies even from +bank to bank, raised only a few inches above the level of the lake, and +as lacustrine in effect as the veriest geologist on earth could wish +it. Indeed, the process of filling up still continues unabated at the +present day where the mud-laden Rhone enters the lake at Bouveret, to +leave it again, clear and blue and beautiful, under the bridge at +Geneva. The little delta which the river forms at its mouth shows the +fresh mud in sheets gathering thick upon the bottom. Every day this new +mud-bank pushes out farther and farther into the water, so that in +process of time the whole basin will be filled in, and a level plain, +like that which now spreads from Bex and Aigle to Villeneuve, will +occupy the entire bed from Montreux to Geneva. + +Turn mentally to the upper feeders of the Po itself, and you find the +same causes equally in action. You have stopped at Pallanza--Garoni's +is so comfortable. Well, then, you know how every Alpine stream, as it +flows, full-gorged, into the Italian lakes, is busily engaged in +filling them up as fast as ever it can with turbid mud from the +uplands. The basins of Maggiore, Como, Lugano, and Garda are by origin +deep hollows scooped out long since during the Great Ice Age by the +pressure of huge glaciers that then spread far down into what is now +the poplar-clad plain of Lombardy. But ever since the ice cleared away, +and the torrents began to rush headlong down the deep gorges of the Val +Leventina and the Val Maggia, the mud has been hard at work, doing its +level best to fill those great ice-worn bowls up again. Near the mouth +of each main stream it has already succeeded in spreading a fan-shaped +delta. I will not insult you by asking you at the present time of day +whether you have been over the St. Gothard. In this age of _trains de +luxe_ I know to my cost everybody has been everywhere. No chance of +pretending to superior knowledge about Japan or Honolulu; the tourist +knows them. Very well, then; you must remember as you go past +Bellinzona--revolutionary little Bellinzona with its three castled +crags--you look down upon a vast mud flat by the mouth of the Ticino. +Part of this mud flat is already solid land, but part is mere marsh or +shifting quicksand. That is the first stage in the abolition of the +lakes: the mud is annihilating them. + +Maggiore, indeed, least fortunate of the three main sheets, is being +attacked by the insidious foe at three points simultaneously. At the +upper end, the Ticino, that furious radical river, has filled in a +large arm, which once spread far away up the valley towards Bellinzona. +A little lower down, the Maggia near Locarno carries in a fresh +contribution of mud, which forms another fan-shaped delta, and +stretches its ugly mass half across the lake, compelling the steamers +to make a considerable detour eastward. This delta is rapidly extending +into the open water, and will in time fill in the whole remaining space +from bank to bank, cutting off the upper end of the lake about Locarno +from the main basin by a partition of lowland. This upper end will then +form a separate minor lake, and the Ticino will flow out of it across +the intervening mud flat into the new and smaller Maggiore of our +great-great-grandchildren. If you doubt it, look what the torrent of +the Toce, the third assailing battalion of the persistent mud force, +has already done in the neighbourhood of Pallanza. It has entirely cut +off the upper end of the bay, that turns westward towards the Simplon, +by a partition of mud; and this isolated upper bit forms now in our own +day a separate lake, the Lago di Mergozzo, divided from the main sheet +by an uninteresting mud bank. In process of time, no doubt, the whole +of Maggiore will be similarly filled in by the advancing mud sheet, and +will become a level alluvial plain, surrounded by mountains, and +greatly admired by the astute Piedmontese cultivator. + +What is going on in Maggiore is going on equally in all the other +sub-Alpine lakes of the Po valley. They are being gradually filled in, +every one of them, by the aggressive mud sheet. The upper end of +Lugano, for example, has already been cut off, as the Lago del Piano, +from the main body; and the _piano_ itself, from which the little +isolated tarn takes its name, is the alluvial mud fiat of a lateral +torrent--the mud flat, in fact, which the railway from Porlezza +traverses for twenty minutes before it begins its steep and picturesque +climb by successive zigzags over the mountains to Menaggio. Similarly +the influx of the Adda at the upper end of Como has cut off the Lago di +Mezzola from the main lake, and has formed the alluvial level that +stretches so drearily all around Colico. Slowly the mud fiend +encroaches everywhere on the lakes; and if you look for him when you +go, there you can see him actually at work every spring under your very +eyes, piling up fresh banks and deltas with alarming industry, and +preparing (in a few hundred thousand years) to ruin the tourist trade +of Cadenabbia and Bellagio. + +If we turn from the lakes themselves to the Lombard plain at large, +which is an immensely older and larger basin, we see traces of the same +action on a vastly greater scale. A glance at the map will show the +intelligent and ever courteous reader that the 'wandering Po'--I drop +into poetry after Goldsmith--flows much nearer the foot of the +Apennines than of the Alps in the course of its divagations, and seems +purposely to bend away from the greater range of mountains. Why is +this, since everything in nature must needs have a reason? Well, it is +because, when the mud first began to accumulate in the old Lombard bay +of the Adriatic, there was no Po at all, whether wandering or +otherwise: the big river has slowly grown up in time by the union of +the lateral torrents that pour down from either side, as the growth of +the mud flat brought them gradually together. Careful study of a good +map will show how this has happened, especially if it has the plains +and mountains distinctively tinted after the excellent German fashion. +The Ticino, the Adda, the Mincio, if you look at them close, reveal +themselves as tributaries of the Po, which once flowed separately into +the Lombard bay; the Adige, the Piave, the Tagliamento farther along +the coast, reveal themselves equally as tributaries of the future Po, +when once the great river shall have filled up with its mud the space +between Trieste and Venice, though for the moment they empty themselves +and their store of detritus into the open Adriatic. + +Fix your eyes for a moment on Venetia proper, and you will see how this +has all happened and is still happening. Each mountain torrent that +leaps from the Tyrolese Alps bring down in its lap a rich mass of mud, +which has gradually spread over a strip of sea some forty or fifty +miles wide, from the base of the mountains to the modern coast-line of +the province. Near the sea--or, in other words, at the temporary +outlet--it forms banks and lagoons, of which those about Venice are the +best known to tourists, though the least characteristic. For miles and +miles between Venice and Trieste the shifting north shore of the +Adriatic consists of nothing but such accumulating mud banks. Year +after year they push farther seaward, and year after year fresh islets +and shoals grow out into the waves beyond the temporary deltas. In +time, therefore, the gathering mud banks of these Alpine torrents must +join the greater mud bank that runs rapidly seaward at the delta of the +Po. As soon as they do so the rivers must rush together, and what was +once an independent stream, emptying itself into the Adriatic, must +become a tributary of the Po, helping to swell the waters of that great +united river. The Adige has now just reached this state: its delta is +continuous with the delta of the Po, and their branches interosculate. +The Mincio and the Adda reached it ages since: the Piave and the +Livenia will not reach it for ages. In Roman days Hatria was still on +the sea: it is now some fifteen miles inland. + +From all this you can gather why the existing Po flows far from the +Alps and nearer the base of the Apennines. The Alpine streams in far +distant days brought down relatively large floods of glacial mud; +formed relatively large deltas in the old Lombard bay; filled up with +relative rapidity their larger half of the basin. The Apennines, less +lofty, and free from glaciers, sent down shorter and smaller torrents, +laden with far less mud, and capable therefore of doing but little +alluvial work for the filling in of the future Lombardy. So the river +was pushed southward by the Alpine deposits of the northern streams, +leaving the great plains of Cisalpine Gaul spread away to the north of +it. + +And this land-making action is ceaseless and continuous. About Venice, +Chioggia, Maestra, Comacchio, the delta of the Po is still spreading +seaward. In the course of ages--if nothing unforeseen occurs meanwhile +to prevent it--the Alpine mud will have filled in the entire Adriatic; +and the Ionian Isles will spring like isolated mountain ridges from the +Adriatic plain, as the Euganean hills--those 'mountains Euganean' where +Shelley 'stood listening to the paean with which the legioned rocks did +hail the sun's uprise majestical'--spring in our own time from the dead +level of Lombardy. Once they in turn were the Euganean islands, and +even now to the trained eye of the historical observer they stand up +island-like from the vast green plain that spreads flat around them. + +Perhaps it seems to you a rather large order to be asked to believe +that Lombardy and Venetia are nothing more than an outspread sheet of +deep Alpine mud. Well, there is nothing so good for incredulity, don't +you know, as capping the climax. If a man will not swallow an inch of +fact, the best remedy is to make him gulp down an ell of it. And, +indeed, the Lombard plain is but an insignificant mud flat compared +with the vast alluvial plains of Asiatic and American rivers. The +alluvium of the Euphrates, of the Mississippi, of the Hoang Ho, of the +Amazons would take in many Lombardies and half-a-dozen Venetias without +noticing the addition. But I will insist upon only one example--the +rivers of India, which have formed the gigantic deep mud flat of the +Ganges and the Jumna, one of the very biggest on earth, and that +because the Himalayas are the highest and newest mountain chain exposed +to denudation. For, as we saw foreshadowed in the case of the Alps and +Apennines, the bigger the mountains on which we can draw the greater +the resulting mass of alluvium. The Rocky Mountains give rise to the +Missouri (which is the real Mississippi); the Andes give rise to +Amazons and the La Plata; the Himalayas give rise to the Ganges and the +Indus. Great mountain, great river, great resulting mud sheet. + +At a very remote period, so long ago that we cannot reduce it to any +common measure with our modern chronology, the southern table-land of +India--the Deccan, as we call it--formed a great island like Australia, +separated from the continent of Asia by a broad arm of the sea which +occupied what is now the great plain of Bengal, the North-West, and the +Punjaub. This ancient sea washed the foot of the Himalayas, and spread +south thence for 600 miles to the base of the Vindhyas. But the +Himalayas are high and clad with gigantic glaciers. Much ice grinds +much mud on those snow-capped summits. The rivers that flowed from the +Roof of the World carried down vast sheets of alluvium, which formed +fans at their mouths, like the cones still deposited on a far smaller +scale in the Lake of Geneva by little lateral torrents. Gradually the +silt thus brought down accumulated on either side, till the rivers ran +together into two great systems--one westward--the Indus, with its four +great tributaries, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravee, Sutlej; one eastward, the +Ganges, reinforced lower down by the sister streams of the Jumna and +the Brahmapootra. The colossal accumulation of silt thus produced +filled up at last all the great arm of the sea between the two mountain +chains, and joined the Deccan by slow degrees to the continent of Asia. +It is still engaged in filling up the Bay of Bengal on one side by the +detritus of the Ganges, and the Arabian Sea on the other by the +sand-banks of the Indus. + +In the same way, no doubt, the silt of the Thames, the Humber, the +Rhine, and the Meuse tend slowly (bar accidents) to fill up the North +Sea, and anticipate Sir Edward Watkin by throwing a land bridge across +the English Channel. If ever that should happen, then history will have +repeated itself, for it is just so that the Deccan was joined to the +mainland of Asia. + +One question more. Whence comes the mud? The answer is, Mainly from the +detritus of the mountains. There it has two origins. Part of it is +glacial, part of it is leaf-mould. In order to feel we have really got +to the very bottom of the mud problem--and we are nothing if not +thorough--we must examine in brief these two separate origins. + +The glacier mud is of a very simple nature. It is disintegrated rock, +worn small by the enormous millstone of ice that rolls slowly over the +bed, and deposited in part as 'terminal moraine' near the summer +melting-point. It is the quantity of mud thus produced, and borne down +by mountain torrents, that makes the alluvial plains collect so quickly +at their base. The mud flats of the world are in large part the wear +and tear of the eternal hills under the planing action of the eternal +glaciers. + +But let us be just to our friends. A large part is also due to the +industrious earth-worm, whose place in nature Darwin first taught us to +estimate at its proper worth. For there is much detritus and much +first-rate soil even on hills not covered by glaciers. Some of this +takes its origin, it is true, from disintegration by wind or rain, but +much more is caused by the earth-worm in person. That friend of +humanity, so little recognized in his true light, has a habit of +drawing down leaves into his subterranean nest, and there eating them +up, so as to convert their remains into vegetable mould in the form of +worm-casts. This mould, the most precious of soils, gets dissolved +again by the rain, and carried off in solution by the streams to the +sea or the lowlands, where it helps to form the future cultivable area. +At the same time the earthworms secrete an acid, which acts upon the +bare surface of rock beneath, and helps to disintegrate it in +preparation for plant life in unfavourable places. It is probable that +we owe almost more on the whole to these unknown but conscientious and +industrious annelids than even to those 'mills of God' the glaciers, of +which the American poet justly observes that though they grind slowly, +yet they grind exceedingly small. + +In the last resort, then, it is mainly on mud that the life of humanity +in all countries bases itself. Every great plain is the alluvial +deposit of a great river, ultimately derived from a great mountain +chain. The substance consists as a rule of the debris of torrents, +which is often infertile, owing to its stoniness and its purely mineral +character; but wherever it has lain long enough to be covered by +earth-worms with a deep black layer of vegetable mould, there the +resulting soil shows the surprising fruitfulness one gets (for example) +in Lombardy, where twelve crops a year are sometimes taken from the +meadows. Everywhere and always the amount and depth of the mud is the +measure of possible fertility; and even where, as in the Great American +Desert, want of water converts alluvial plains into arid stretches of +sand-waste, the wilderness can be made to blossom like the rose in a +very few years by artificial irrigation. The diversion of the Arkansas +River has spread plenty over a vast sage scrub; the finest crops in the +world are now raised over a tract of country which was once the terror +of the traveller across the wild west of America. + + + + + THE GREENWOOD TREE. + +It is a common, not to say a vulgar error, to believe that trees and +plants grow out of the ground. And of course, having thus begun by +calling it bad names, I will not for a moment insult the intelligence +of my readers by supposing them to share so foolish a delusion. I beg +to state from the outset that I write this article entirely for the +benefit of Other People. You and I, O proverbially Candid and +Intelligent One, it need hardly be said, are better informed. But Other +People fall into such ridiculous blunders that it is just as well to +put them on their guard beforehand against the insidious advance of +false opinions. I have known otherwise good and estimable men, indeed, +who for lack of sound early teaching on this point went to their graves +with a confirmed belief in the terrestrial origin of all earthly +vegetation. They were probably victims of what the Church in its +succinct way describes and denounces as Invincible Ignorance. + +Now, the reason why these deluded creatures supposed trees to grow out +of the ground, instead of out of the air, is probably only because they +saw their roots there. + +Of course, when people see a wallflower rooted in the clefts of some +old church tower, they don't jump at once to the inane conclusion that +it is made of rock--that it derives its nourishment direct from the +solid limestone; nor when they observe a barnacle hanging by its sucker +to a ship's hull, do they imagine it to draw up its food incontinently +from the copper bottom. But when they see that familiar pride of our +country, a British oak, with its great underground buttresses spreading +abroad through the soil in every direction, they infer at once that the +buttresses are there, not--as is really the case--to support it and +uphold it, but to drink in nutriment from the earth beneath, which is +just about as capable of producing oak-wood as the copper plate on the +ship's hull is capable of producing the flesh of a barnacle. Sundry +familiar facts about manuring and watering, to which I will return +later on, give a certain colour of reasonableness, it is true, to this +mistaken inference. But how mistaken it really is for all that, a +single and very familiar little experiment will easily show one. + +Cut down that British oak with your Gladstonian axe; lop him of his +branches; divide him into logs; pile him up into a pyramid; put a match +to his base; in short, make a bonfire of him; and what becomes of +robust majesty? He is reduced to ashes, you say. Ah, yes, but what +proportion of him? Conduct your experiment carefully on a small scale; +dry your wood well, and weigh it before burning; weigh your ash +afterwards, and what will you find? Why, that the solid matter which +remains after the burning is a mere infinitesimal fraction of the total +weight: the greater part has gone off into the air, from whence it +came, as carbonic acid. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes; but air to air, +too, is the rule of nature. + +It may sound startling--to Other People, I mean--but the simple truth +remains, that trees and plants grow out of the atmosphere, not out of +the ground. They are, in fact, solidified air; or to be more strictly +correct, solidified gas--carbonic acid. + +Take an ordinary soda-water syphon, with or without a wine-glassful of +brandy, and empty it till only a few drops remain in the bottom. Then +the bottle is full of gas; and that gas, which will rush out with a +spurt when you press the knob, is the stuff that plants eat--the raw +material of life, both animal and vegetable. The tree grows and lives +by taking in the carbonic acid from the air, and solidifying its +carbon; the animal grows and lives by taking the solidified carbon from +the plant, and converting it once more into carbonic acid. That, in its +ideally simple form, is the Iliad in a nutshell, the core and kernel of +biology. The whole cycle of life is one eternal see-saw. First the +plant collects its carbon compounds from the air in the oxidized state; +it deoxidizes and rebuilds them: and then the animal proceeds to burn +them up by slow combustion within his own body, and to turn them loose +upon the air, once more oxidized. After which the plant starts again on +the same round as before, and the animal also recommences _da capo_. +And so on _ad infinitum_. + +But the point which I want particularly to emphasize here is just this: +that trees and plants don't grow out of the ground at all, as most +people do vainly talk, but directly out of the air; and that when they +die or get consumed, they return once more to the atmosphere from which +they were taken. Trees undeniably eat carbon. + +Of course, therefore, all the ordinary unscientific conceptions of how +plants feed are absolutely erroneous. Vegetable physiology, indeed, got +beyond these conceptions a good hundred years ago. But it usually takes +a hundred years for the world at large to make up its leeway. Trees +don't suck up their nutriment by the roots, they don't derive their +food from the soil, they don't need to be fed, like babies through a +tube, with terrestrial solids. The solitary instance of an orchid hung +up by a string in a conservatory on a piece of bark, ought to be +sufficient at once to dispel for ever this strange illusion--if people +ever thought; but of course they don't think--I mean Other People. The +true mouths and stomachs of plants are not to be found in the roots, +but in the green leaves; their true food is not sucked up from the +soil, but is inhaled through tiny channels from the air; the mass of +their material is carbon, as we can all see visibly to the naked eye +when a log of wood is reduced to charcoal: and that carbon the leaves +themselves drink in, by a thousand small green mouths, from the +atmosphere around them. + +But how about the juice, the sap, the qualities of the soil, the manure +required? is the incredulous cry of Other People. What is the use of +the roots, and especially of the rootlets, if they are not the mouths +and supply-tubes of the plants? Well, I plainly perceive I can get 'no +forrarder,' like the farmer with his claret, till I've answered that +question, provisionally at least; so I will say here at once, without +further ado--the plant requires drink as well as food, and the roots +are the mouths that supply it with water. They also suck up a few other +things as well, which are necessary indeed, but far from forming the +bulk of the nutriment. Many plants, however, don't need any roots at +all, while none can get on without leaves as mouths and stomachs. That +is to say, no true plantlike plants, for some parasitic plants are +practically, to all intents and purposes, animals. To put it briefly, +every plant has one set of aerial mouths to suck in carbon, and many +plants have another set of subterranean mouths as well, to suck up +water and mineral constituents. + +Have you ever grown mustard and cress in the window on a piece of +flannel? If so, that's a capital practical example of the comparative +unimportance of soil, except as a means of supplying moisture. You put +your flannel in a soup-plate by the dining-room window; you keep it +well wet, and you lay the seeds of the cress on top of it. The young +plants, being supplied with water by their roots, and with carbon by +the air around, have all the little they need below, and grow and +thrive in these conditions wonderfully. But if you were to cover them +up with an air-tight glass case, so as to exclude fresh air, they'd +shrivel up at once for want of carbon, which is their solid food, as +water is their liquid. + +The way the plant really eats is little known to gardeners, but very +interesting. All over the lower surface of the green leaf lie scattered +dozens of tiny mouths or apertures, each of them guarded by two small +pursed-up lips which have a ridiculously human appearance when seen +through a simple microscope. When the conditions of air and moisture +are favourable, these lips open visible to admit gases; and then the +tiny mouths suck in carbonic acid in abundance from the air around +then. A series of pipes conveys the gaseous food thus supplied to the +upper surface of the leaf, where the sunlight falls full upon it. Now, +the cells of the leaf contain a peculiar green digestive material, +which I regret to say has no simpler or more cheerful name than +chlorophyll; and where the sunlight plays upon this mysterious +chlorophyll, it severs the oxygen from the carbon in the carbonic acid, +turns the free gas loose upon the atmosphere once more through the tiny +mouths, and retains the severed carbon intact in its own tissues. That +is the whole process of feeding in plants: they eat carbonic acid, +digest it in their leaves, get rid of the oxygen with which it was +formerly combined, and keep the carbon stored up for their own +purposes. + +Life as a whole depends entirely upon this property of chlorophyll; for +every atom of organic matter in your body or mine was originally so +manufactured by sunlight in the leaves of some plant from which, +directly or indirectly, we derive it. + +To be sure, in order to make up the various substances which compose +their tissues--to build up their wood, their leaves, their fruits, +their blossoms--plants require hydrogen, nitrogen, and even small +quantities of oxygen as well; but these various materials are +sufficiently supplied in the water which is taken up by the roots, and +they really contribute very little indeed to the bulk of the tree, +which consists for the most part of almost pure carbon. If you were to +take a thoroughly dry piece of wood, and then drive off from it by heat +these extraneous matters, you would find that the remainder, the pure +charcoal, formed the bulk of the weight, the rest being for the most +part very light and gaseous. Briefly put, plants are mostly carbon and +water, and the carbon which forms their solid part is extracted direct +from the air around them. + +How does it come about then that a careless world in general, and more +especially the happy-go-lucky race of gardeners and farmers in +particular, who have to deal so much with plants in their practical +aspect, always attach so great importance to root, soil, manure, +minerals, and so little to the real gaseous food stuff of which their +crops are, in fact, composed? Why does Hodge, who is so strong on grain +and guano, know absolutely nothing about carbonic acid? That seems at +first sight a difficult question to meet. But I think we can meet it +with a simple analogy. + +Oxygen is an absolute necessary of human life. Even food itself is +hardly so important an element in our daily existence; for Succi, Dr. +Tanner, the prophet Elijah, and other adventurous souls too numerous to +mention, have abundantly shown us that a man can do without food +altogether for forty days at a stretch, while he can't do without +oxygen for a single minute. Cut off his supply of that life-supporting +gas, choke him, or suffocate him, or place him in an atmosphere of pure +carbonic acid, or hold his head in a bucket of water, and he dies at +once. Yet, except in mines or submarine tunnels, nobody ever takes into +account practically this most important factor in human and animal +life. We toil for bread, but we ignore the supply of oxygen. And why? +Simply because oxygen is universally diffused everywhere. It costs +nothing. Only in the Black Hole of Calcutta or in a broken tunnel shaft +do men ever begin to find themselves practically short of that +life-sustaining gas, and then they know the want of it far sooner and +far more sharply than they know the want of food on a shipwreck raft, +or the want of water in the thirsty desert. Yet antiquity never even +heard of oxygen. A prime necessary of life passed unnoticed for ages in +human history, only because there was abundance of it to be had +everywhere. + +Now it isn't quite the same, I admit, with the carbonaceous food of +plants. Carbonic acid isn't quite so universally distributed as oxygen, +nor can every plant always get as much as it wants of it. I shall show +by-and-by that a real struggle for food takes place between plants, +exactly as it takes place between animals; and that certain plants, +like Oliver Twist in the workhouse, never practically get enough to +eat. Still, carbonic acid is present in very large quantities in the +air in most situations, and is freely brought by the wind to all the +open spaces which alone man uses for his crops and his gardening. The +most important element in the food of plants is thus in effect almost +everywhere available, especially from the point of view of the mere +practical everyday human agriculturist. The wind that bloweth where it +listeth brings fresh supplies of carbon on its wings with every breeze +to the mouths and throats of the greedy and eager plants that long to +absorb it. + +It is quite otherwise, however, with the soil and its constituents. +Land, we all know--or if we don't, it isn't the fault of Mr. George and +Mr. A.R. Wallace--land is 'naturally limited in quantity.' Every plant +therefore struggles for a foothold in the soil far more fiercely and +far more tenaciously than it struggles for its share in the free air of +heaven. Your plant is a land-grabber of Rob Roy proclivities; it +believes in a fair fight and no favour. A sufficient supply of food it +almost takes for granted, if only it can once gain a sufficient +ground-space. But other plants are competing with it, tooth and nail +(if plants may be permitted by courtesy those metaphorical adjuncts), +for their share of the soil, like crofters or socialists; every spare +inch of earth is permeated and pervaded with matted fibres; and each is +striving to withdraw from each the small modicum of moisture, mineral +matter, and manure for which all alike are eagerly battling. + +Now, what the plant wants from the soil is three things. First and +foremost it wants support; like all the rest of us it must have its +_pou sto_, its _pied-a-terre_, its _locus standi_. It can't hang aloft, +like Mahomet's coffin, miraculously suspended on an aerial perch +between earth and heaven. Secondly, it wants water, and this it can +take in, as a rule, only or mainly by means of the rootlets, though +there are some peculiar plants which grow (not parasitically) on the +branches of trees, and absorb all the moisture they need by pores on +their surface. And thirdly, it wants small quantities of nitrogenous +matter--in the simpler language of everyday life called manure--as well +as of mineral matter--in the simpler language of everyday life called +ashes. It is mainly the first of these three, support, that the farmer +thinks of when he calculates crops and acreage; for the second, he +depends upon rainfall or irrigation; but the third, manure, he can +supply artificially; and as manure makes a great deal of incidental +difference to some of his crops, especially corn--which requires +abundant phosphates--he is apt to over-estimate vastly its importance +from a theoretical point of view. + +Besides, look at it in another light. Over large areas together, the +conditions of air, climate, and rainfall are practically identical. But +soil differs greatly from place to place. Here it's black; there it's +yellow; here it's rich loam; there it's boggy mould or sandy gravel. +And some soils are better adapted to growing certain plants than +others. Rich lowlands and oolites suit the cereals; red marl produces +wonderful grazing grass; bare uplands are best for gorse and heather. +Hence everything favours for the practical man the mistaken idea that +plants and trees grow mainly out of the soil. His own eyes tell him so; +he sees them growing, he sees the visible result undeniable before his +face; while the real act of feeding off the carbon in the air is wholly +unknown to him, being realizable only by the aid of the microscope, +aided by the most delicate and difficult chemical analysis. + +Nevertheless French chemists have amply proved by actual experiment +that plants can grow and produce excellent results without any aid from +the soil at all. You have only to suspend the seeds freely in the air +by a string, and supply the rootlets of the sprouting seedlings with a +little water, containing in solution small quantities of manure-stuffs, +and the plants will grow as well as on their native heath, or even +better. Indeed, nature has tried the same experiment on a larger scale +in many cases, as with the cliff-side plants that root themselves in +the naked clefts of granite rocks; the tropical orchids that fasten +lightly on the bark of huge forest trees; and the mosses that spread +even over the bare face of hard brick walls, with scarcely a chink or +cranny in which to fasten their minute rootlets. The insect-eating +plants are also interesting examples in their way of the curious means +which nature takes for keeping up the manure supply under trying +circumstances. These uncanny things are all denizens of loose, peaty +soil, where they can root themselves sufficiently for purposes of +foothold and drink, but where the water rapidly washes away all animal +matter. Under such conditions the cunning sundews and the ruthless +pitcher-plants set deceptive honey traps for unsuspecting insects, +which they catch and kill, absorbing and using up the protoplasmic +contents of their bodies, by way of manure, to supply their quota of +nitrogenous material. + +It is the literal fact, then, that plants really eat and live off +carbon, just as truly as sheep eat grass or lions eat antelopes; and +that the green leaves are the mouths and stomachs with which they eat +and digest it. From this it naturally results that the growth and +spread of the leaves must largely depend upon the supply of carbon, as +the growth and fatness of sheep depends upon the supply of pasturage. +Under most circumstances, to be sure, there is carbon enough and to +spare lying about loose for every one of them; but conditions do now +and again occur where we can clearly see the importance of the carbon +supply. Water, for example, contains practically much less carbonic +acid than atmospheric air, especially when the water is stagnant, and +therefore not supplied fresh to the plant from moment to moment. As a +consequence, almost all water-plants have submerged leaves very narrow +and waving, while floating plants, like the water-lilies, have them +large and round, owing to the absence of competition from other kinds +about, which enables them to spread freely in every direction from the +central stalk. Moreover, these leaves, lolling on the water as they do, +have their mouths on the upper instead of the under surface. But the +most remarkable fact of all is that many water plants have two entirely +different types of leaves, one submerged and hair-like, the other +floating and broad or circular. Our own English water-crowfoot, for +example, has the leaves that spring from its stem, below the surface, +divided into endless long waving filaments, which look about in the +water for the stray particles of carbon; but the moment it reaches the +top of its native pond the foliage expands at once into broad lily-like +lobes, that recline on the water like oriental beauties, and absorb +carbon from the air to their heart's content, The one type may be +likened to gills, that similarly catch the dissolved oxygen diffused in +water; the other type may be likened to lungs, that drink in the free +and open air of heaven. + +Equally important to the plant, however, with the supply of carbonic +acid, is the supply of sunshine by whose aid to digest it. The carbon +alone is no good to the tree if it can't get something which will +separate it from the oxygen, locked in close embrace with it. That +thing is sunshine. There is nothing, therefore, for which herbs, trees, +and shrubs compete more eagerly than for their fair share of solar +energy. In their anxiety for this they jostle one another down most +mercilessly, in the native condition, grasses struggling up with their +hollow stems above the prone low herbs, shrubs overtopping the grasses +in turn, and trees once more killing out the overshadowed undershrubs. +One must remember that wherever nature has free play, instead of being +controlled by the hand of man, dense forest covers every acre of ground +where the soil is deep enough; gorse, whins, and heather, or their +equivalents grow wherever the forest fails; and herbs can only hold +their own in the rare intervals where these domineering lords of the +vegetable creation can find no foothold. Meadows or prairies occur +nowhere in nature, except in places where the liability to destructive +fires over wide areas together crushes out forest trees, or else where +goats, bison, deer, and other large herbivores browse them ceaselessly +down in the stage of seedlings. Competition for sunlight is thus even +keener perhaps than competition for foodstuffs. Alike on trees, shrubs, +and herbs, accordingly the arrangement of the leaves is always exactly +calculated so as to allow the largest possible horizontal surface, and +the greatest exposure of the blade to the open sunshine. In trees this +arrangement can often be very well observed, all the leaves being +placed at the extremities of the branches, and forming a great +dome-shaped or umbrella-shaped mass, every part of which stands an even +chance of catching its fair share of carbonic acid and solar energy. + +The shapes of the leaves themselves are also largely due to the same +cause, every leaf being so designed in form and outline as to interfere +as little as possible with the other leaves on the same stem, as +regards supply both of light and of carbonaceous foodstuffs. It is only +in rare cases, like that of the water-lily, that perfectly round leaves +occur, because the conditions are seldom equal all round, and the +incidence of light and the supply of carbon are seldom unlimited. But +wherever leaves rise free and solitary into the air, without mutual +interference, they are always circular, as may be well seen in the +common nasturtium and the English pennywort. On the other hand, among +dense hedgerows and thickets, where the silent, invisible struggle for +life is fierce indeed, and where sunlight and carbonic acid are +intercepted by a thousand competing mouths and arms, the prevailing +types of leaf are extremely cut up and minutely subdivided into small +lace-like fragments. The plant in such cases can't afford material to +fill up the interstices between the veins and ribs which determine its +underlying architectural structure. Often indeed species which grow +under these hard conditions produce leaves which are, as it were, but +skeleton representatives of their large and well filled-out compeers in +the open meadows. + +It is only by bearing vividly in mind this ceaseless and noiseless +struggle between plants for their gaseous food and the sunshine which +enables them to digest it that we can ever fully understand the varying +forms and habits of the vegetable kingdom. To most people, no doubt, it +sounds like pure metaphor to talk of an internecine struggle between +rooted beings which cannot budge one inch from their places, nor fight +with horns, hoofs, or teeth, nor devour one another bodily, nor tread +one another down with ruthless footsteps. But that is only because we +habitually forget that competition is just as really a struggle for +life as open warfare. The men who try against one another for a +clerkship in the City, or a post in a gang of builder's workmen, are +just as surely taking away bread and butter out of their fellows' +mouths for their own advantage, as if they fought for it openly with +fists or six-shooters. The white man who encloses the hunting grounds +of the Indian, and plants them with corn, is just as surely dooming +that Indian to death as if he scalped or tomahawked him. And so too +with the unconscious warfare of plants. The daisy or the plantain that +spreads its rosette of leaves flat against the ground is just as truly +monopolizing a definite space of land as the noble owner of a Highland +deer forest. No blade of grass can spring beneath the shadow of those +tightly pressed little mats of foliage; no fragment of carbon, no ray +of sunshine can ever penetrate below that close fence of living +greenstuff. + +Plants, in fact, compete with one another all round for everything they +stand in need of. They compete for their food--carbonic acid. They +compete for their energy--their fair share of sunlight. They compete +for water, and their foothold in the soil. They compete for the favours +of the insects that fertilize their flowers. They compete for the good +services of the birds or mammals that disseminate their seeds in proper +spots for germination. And how real this competition is we can see in a +moment, if we think of the difficulties of human cultivation. There, +weeds are always battling manfully with our crops or our flowers for +mastery over the field or garden. We are obliged to root up with +ceaseless toil these intrusive competitors, if we wish to enjoy the +kindly fruits of the earth in due season. When we leave a garden to +itself for a few short years, we realize at once what effect the +competition of hardy natives has upon our carefully tended and unstable +exotics. In a very brief time the dahlias and phloxes and lilies have +all disappeared, and in their place the coarse-growing docks and +nettles and thistles have raised their heads aloft to monopolize air +and space and sunshine. + +Exactly the same struggle is always taking place in the fields and +woods and moors around us, and especially in the spots made over to +pure nature. There, the greenwood tree raises its huge umbrella of +foliage to the skies, and allows hardly a ray of sunlight to struggle +through to the low woodland vegetation of orchid or wintergreen +underneath. Where the soil is not deep enough for trees to root +securely, bushes and heathers overgrow the ground, and compete with +their bell-shaped blossoms for the coveted favour of bees and +butterflies. And in open glades, where for some reason or other the +forest fails, tall grasses and other aspiring herbs run up apace +towards the free air of heaven. Elsewhere, creepers struggle up to the +sun over the stems and branches of stronger bushes or trees, which they +often choke and starve by monopolizing at last all the available carbon +and sunlight. And so throughout; the struggle for life goes on just as +ceaselessly and truly among these unconscious combatants as among the +lions and tigers of the tropical jungle, or among the human serfs of +the overstocked market. + +An ounce of example, they say, is worth a pound of precept. So a single +concrete case of a fierce vegetable campaign now actually in progress +over all Northern Europe may help to make my meaning a trifle clearer. +Till very lately the forests of the north were largely composed in +places of the light and airy silver birches. But with the gradual +amelioration of the climate of our continent, which has been going on +for several centuries, the beech, a more southern type of tree, has +begun to spread slowly though surely northward. Now, beeches are greedy +trees, of very dense and compact foliage; nothing else can grow beneath +their thick shade, where once they have gained a foothold; and the +seedlings of the silver birch stand no chance at all in the struggle +for life against the serried leaves of their formidable rivals. The +beech literally eats them out of house and home; and the consequence is +that the thick and ruthless southern tree is at this very moment +gradually superseding over vast tracts of country its more graceful and +beautiful, but far less voracious competitor. + + + + + FISH AS FATHERS. + +Comparatively little is known as yet, even in this age of publicity, +about the domestic arrangements and private life of fishes. Not that +the creatures themselves shun the wiles of the interviewer, or are at +all shy and retiring, as a matter of delicacy, about their family +affairs; on the contrary, they display a striking lack of reticence in +their native element, and are so far from pushing parental affection to +a quixotic extreme that many of them, like the common rabbit +immortalised by Mr. Squeers, 'frequently devour their own offspring.' +But nature herself opposes certain obvious obstacles to the pursuit of +knowledge in the great deep, which render it difficult for the ardent +naturalist, however much he may be so disposed, to carry on his +observations with the same facility as in the case of birds and +quadrupeds. You can't drop in upon most fish, casually, in their own +homes; and when you confine them in aquariums, where your opportunities +of watching them through a sheet of plate-glass are considerably +greater, most of the captives get huffy under the narrow restrictions +of their prison life, and obstinately refuse to rear a brood of +hereditary helots for the mere gratification of your scientific +curiosity. + +Still, by hook and by crook (especially the former), by observation +here and experiment there, naturalists in the end have managed to piece +together a considerable mass of curious and interesting information of +an out-of-the-way sort about the domestic habits and manners of sundry +piscine races. And, indeed, the morals of fish are far more varied and +divergent than the uniform nature of the world they inhabit might lead +an _a priori_ philosopher to imagine. To the eye of the mere casual +observer every fish would seem at first sight to be a mere fish, and to +differ but little in sentiments and ethical culture from all the rest +of his remote cousins. But when one comes to look closer at their +character and antecedents, it becomes evident at once that there is a +deal of unsuspected originality and caprice about sharks and flat-fish. +Instead of conforming throughout to a single plan, as the young, the +gay, the giddy, and the thoughtless are too prone to conclude, fish are +in reality as various and variable in their mode of life as any other +great group in the animal kingdom. Monogamy and polygamy, socialism and +individualism, the patriarchal and matriarchal types of government, the +oviparous and viviparous methods of reproduction, perhaps even the +dissidence of dissent and esoteric Buddhism, all alike are well +represented in one family or another of this extremely eclectic and +philosophically unprejudiced class of animals. + +If you want a perfect model of domestic virtue, for example, where can +you find it in higher perfection than in that exemplary and devoted +father, the common great pipe-fish of the North Atlantic and the +British Seas? This high-principled lophobranch is so careful of its +callow and helpless young that it carries about the unhatched eggs with +him under his own tail, in what scientific ichthyologists pleasantly +describe as a subcaudal pouch or cutaneous receptacle. There they hatch +out in perfect security, free from the dangers that beset the spawn and +fry of so many other less tender-hearted kinds; and as soon as the +little pipe-fish are big enough to look after themselves the sac +divides spontaneously down the middle, and allows them to escape, to +shift for themselves in the broad Atlantic. Even so, however, the +juniors take care always to keep tolerably near that friendly shelter, +and creep back into it again on any threat of danger, exactly as +baby-kangaroos do into their mother's marsupium. The father-fish, in +fact, has gone to the trouble and expense of developing out of his own +tissues a membranous bag, on purpose to hold the eggs and young during +the first stages of their embryonic evolution. This bag is formed by +two folds of the skin, one of which grows out from each side of the +body, the free margins being firmly glued together in the middle by a +natural exudation, while the eggs are undergoing incubation, but +opening once more in the middle to let the little fish out as soon as +the process of hatching is fairly finished. + +So curious a provision for the safety of the young in the pipe-fish may +be compared to some extent, as I hinted above, with the pouch in which +kangaroos and other marsupial animals carry their cubs after birth, +till they have attained an age of complete independence. But the +strangest part of it all is the fact that while in the kangaroo it is +the mother who owns the pouch and takes care of the young, in the +pipe-fish it is the father, on the contrary, who thus specially +provides for the safety of his defenceless offspring. And what is odder +still, this topsy-turvy arrangement (as it seems to us) is the common +rule throughout the class of fishes. For the most part it must be +candidly admitted by their warmest admirer, fish make very bad parents +indeed. They lay their eggs anywhere on a suitable spot, and as soon as +they have once deposited them, like the ostrich in Job, they go on +their way rejoicing, and never bestow another passing thought upon +their deserted progeny. But if ever a fish _does_ take any pains in the +education and social upbringing of its young, you're pretty sure to +find on enquiry it's the father--not as one would naturally expect, the +mother--who devotes his time and attention to the congenial task of +hatching or feeding them. It is he who builds the nest, and sits upon +the eggs, and nurses the young, and imparts moral instruction (with a +snap of his jaw or a swish of his tail) to the bold, the truant, the +cheeky, or the imprudent; while his unnatural spouse, well satisfied +with her own part in having merely brought the helpless eggs into this +world of sorrow, goes off on her own account in the giddy whirl of +society, forgetful of the sacred claims of her wriggling offspring upon +a mother's heart. + +In the pipe-fish family, too, the ardent evolutionist can trace a whole +series of instructive and illustrative gradations in the development of +this instinct and the corresponding pouch-like structure among the male +fish. With the least highly-evolved types, like the long-nosed +pipe-fish of the English Channel, and many allied forms from European +seas, there is no pouch at all, but the father of the family carries +the eggs about with him, glued firmly on to the service of his abdomen +by a natural mucus. In a somewhat more advanced tropical kind, the +ridges of the abdomen are slightly dilated, so as to form an open +groove, which loosely holds the eggs, though its edges do not meet in +the middle as in the great pipe-fish. Then come yet other more +progressive forms, like the great pipe-fish himself, where the folds +meet so as to produce a complete sac, which opens at maturity, to let +out its little inmates. And finally, in the common Mediterranean +sea-horses, which you can pick up by dozens on the Lido at Venice, and +a specimen of which exists in the dried form in every domestic museum, +the pouch is permanently closed by coalescence of the edges, leaving a +narrow opening in front, through which the small hippocampi creep out +one by one as soon as they consider themselves capable of buffeting the +waves of the Adriatic. + +Fish that take much care of their offspring naturally don't need to +produce eggs in the same reckless abundance as those dissipated kinds +that leave their spawn exposed on the bare sandy bottom, at the mercy +of every comer who chooses to take a bite at it. They can afford to lay +a smaller number, and to make each individual egg much larger and +richer in proportion than their rivals. This plan, of course, enables +the young to begin life far better provided with muscles and fins than +the tiny little fry which come out of the eggs of the improvident +species. For example, the cod-fish lays nine million odd eggs; but +anybody who has ever eaten fried cod's-roe must needs have noticed that +each individual ovum was so very small as to be almost indistinguishable +to the naked eye. Thousands of these infinitesimal specks are devoured +before they hatch out by predaceous fish; thousands more of the young +fry are swallowed alive during their helpless infancy by the enemies of +their species. Imagine the very fractional amount of parental affection +which each of the nine million must needs put up with! On the other +hand, there is a paternally-minded group of cat-fish known as the genus +_Arius_, of Ceylon, Australia, and other tropical parts, the males of +which carry about the ova loose in their mouths, or rather in an +enlargement of the pharynx, somewhat resembling the pelican's pouch; +and the spouses of these very devoted sires lay accordingly only very +few ova, all told, but each almost as big as a hedge-sparrow's egg--a +wonderful contrast to the tiny mites of the cod-fish. To put it +briefly, the greater the amount of protection afforded the eggs, the +smaller the number and the larger the size. And conversely, the larger +the size of the egg to start with, the better fitted to begin the +battle of life is the young fish when first turned out on a cold world +upon his own resources. + +This is a general law, indeed, that runs through all nature, from +London slums to the deep sea. Wasteful species produce many young, and +take but little care of them when once produced. Economical species +produce very few young, but start each individual well-equipped for its +place in life and look after them closely till they can take care of +themselves in the struggle for existence. And on the average, however +many or however few the offspring to start with, just enough attain +maturity in the long run to replace their parents in the next +generation. Were it otherwise, the sea would soon become one solid mass +of herring, cod, and mackerel. + +These cat-fish, however, are not the only good fathers that carry their +young (like woodcock) in their own mouths. A freshwater species of the +Sea of Galilee, _Chromis Andreae_ by name (dedicated by science to the +memory of that fisherman apostle, St. Andrew, who must often have +netted them), has the same habit of hatching out its young in its own +gullet: and here again it is the male fish upon whom this apparently +maternal duty devolves, just as it is the male cassowary that sits upon +the eggs of his unnatural mate, and the male emu that tends the nest, +while the hen bird looks on superciliously and contents herself with +exercising a general friendly supervision of the nursery department. I +may add parenthetically that in most fish families the eggs are +fertilised after they have been laid, instead of before, which no doubt +accounts for the seeming anomaly. + +Still, good mothers too may be found among fish, though far from +frequently. One of the Guiana catfishes, known as Aspredo, very much +resembles her countrywoman the Surinam toad in her nursery +arrangements. Of course you know the Surinam toad--whom not to know +argues yourself unknown--that curious creature that carries her eggs in +little pits on her back, where the young hatch out and pass through +their tadpole stage in a slimy fluid, emerging at last from the cells +of this living honeycomb only when they have attained the full +amphibian honours of four-legged maturity. Well, Aspredo among cat-fish +manages her brood in much the same fashion; only she carries her eggs +beneath her body instead of on her back like her amphibious rival. When +spawning time approaches, and Aspredo's fancy lightly turns to thoughts +of love, the lower side of her trunk begins to assume, by anticipation, +a soft and spongy texture, honeycombed with pits, between which are +arranged little spiky protuberances. After laying her eggs, the mother +lies flat upon them on the river bottom, and presses them into the +spongy skin, where they remain safely attached until they hatch out and +begin to manage for themselves in life. It is curious that the only two +creatures on earth which have hit out independently this original mode +of providing for their offspring should both be citizens of Guiana, +where the rivers and marshes must probably harbour some special danger +to be thus avoided, not found in equal intensity in other fresh waters. + +A prettily marked fish of the Indian Ocean, allied, though not very +closely, to the pipe fishes, has also the distinction of handing over +the young to the care of the mother instead of the father. Its name is +Solenostoma (I regret that no more popular title exists), and it has a +pouch, formed in this case by a pair of long broad fins, within which +the eggs are attached by interlacing threads that push out from the +body. Probably in this instance nutriment is actually provided through +these threads for the use of the embryo, in which case we must regard +the mechanism as very closely analogous indeed to that which obtains +among mammals. + +Some few fish, indeed, are truly viviparous; among them certain +blennies and carps, in which the eggs hatch out entirely within the +body of the mother. One of the most interesting of these divergent +types is the common Californian and Mexican silver-fish, an inhabitant +of the bays and inlets of sub-tropical America. Its chief peculiarity +and title to fame lies in the extreme bigness of its young at birth. +The full-grown fish runs to about ten inches in length, fisherman's +scale, while the fry measure as much as three inches apiece; so that +they lie, as Professor Seeley somewhat forcibly expresses it, 'packed +in the body of the parent as close as herrings in a barrel.' This +strange habit of retaining the eggs till after they have hatched out is +not peculiar to fish among egg-laying animals, for the common little +brown English lizard is similarly viviparous, though most of its +relatives elsewhere deposit their eggs to be hatched by the heat of the +sun in earth or sandbanks. + +Mr. Hannibal Chollop, if I recollect aright, once shot an imprudent +stranger for remarking in print that the ancient Athenians, that +inferior race, had got ahead in their time of the modern Loco-foco +ticket. But several kinds of fish have undoubtedly got ahead in this +respect of the common reptilian ticket; for instead of leaving about +their eggs anywhere on the loose to take care of themselves, they build +a regular nest, like birds, and sit upon their eggs till the fry emerge +from them. All the sticklebacks, for instance, are confirmed +nest-builders: but here once more it is the male, not the female, who +weaves the materials together and takes care of the eggs during their +period of incubation. The receptacle itself is made of fibres of +water-weeds or stalks of grass, and is open at both ends to let a +current pass through. As soon as the lordly little polygamist has built +it, he coaxes and allures his chosen mates into the entrance, one by +one, to lay their eggs; and then when the nest is full, he mounts guard +over them bravely, fanning them with his fins, and so keeping up a +continual supply of oxygen which is necessary for the proper +development of the embryo within. It takes a month's sitting before the +young hatch out, and even after they appear, this excellent father +(little Turk though he be, and savage warrior for the stocking of his +harem) goes out attended by all his brood whenever he sallies forth for +a morning constitutional in search of caddis-worms, which shows that +there may be more good than we imagine, after all, in the domestic +institutions even of people who don't agree with us. + +The bullheads or miller's thumbs, those quaint big-headed beasts which +divide with the sticklebacks the polite attentions of ingenious British +youth, are also nest-builders, and the male fish are said to anxiously +watch and protect their offspring during their undisciplined nonage. +Equally domestic are the habits of those queer shapeless creatures, the +marine lump-suckers, which fasten themselves on to rocks, like limpets, +by their strange sucking disks, and defy all the efforts of enemy or +fishermen to dislodge them by main force from their well-chosen +position. The pretty little tropical walking-fish of the filuroid +tribe--those fish out of water--carry the nest-making instinct a point +further, for they go ashore boldly at the beginning of the rainy season +in their native woods, and scoop out a hole in the beach as a place of +safety, in which they make regular nests of leaves and other +terrestrial materials to hold their eggs. Then father and mother take +turns-about at looking after the hatching, and defend the spawn with +great zeal and courage against all intruders. + +I regret to say, however, there are other unprincipled fish which +display their affection and care for their young in far more +questionable and unpleasant manners. For instance, there is that +uncanny creature that inserts its parasitic fry as a tiny egg inside +the unsuspecting shells of mussels and cockles. Our fishermen are only +too well acquainted, again, with one unpleasant marine lamprey, the hag +or borer, so called because it lives parasitically upon other fishes, +whose bodies it enters, and then slowly eats them up from within +outward, till nothing at all is left of them but skin, scales, and +skeleton. They are repulsive eel-shaped creatures, blind, soft, and +slimy; their mouth consists of a hideous rasping sucker; and they pour +out from the glands on their sides a copious mucus, which makes them as +disagreeable to handle as they are unsightly to look at. Mackerel and +cod are the hag's principal victims; but often the fisherman draws up a +hag-eaten haddock on the end of his line, of which not a wrack remains +but the hollow shell or bare outer simulacrum. As many as twenty of +these disgusting parasites have sometimes been found within the body of +a single cod-fish. + +Yet see how carefully nature provides nevertheless for the due +reproduction of even her most loathsome and revolting creations. The +hag not only lays a small number of comparatively large and well-stored +eggs, but also arranges for their success in life by supplying each +with a bundle of threads at either end, every such thread terminating +at last in a triple hook, like those with which we are so familiar in +the case of adhesive fruits and seeds, like burrs or cleavers. By means +of these barbed processes, the eggs attach themselves to living fishes; +and the young borer, as soon as he emerges from his horny covering, +makes his way at once into the body of his unconscious host, whom he +proceeds by slow degrees to devour alive with relentless industry, from +the intestines outward. This beautiful provision of nature enables the +infant hag to start in life at once in very snug quarters upon a +ready-made fish preserve. I understand, however, that cod-fish +philosophers, actuated by purely personal and selfish conceptions of +utility, refuse to admit the beauty or beneficence of this most +satisfactory arrangement for the borer species. + +Probably the best known of all fishes' eggs, however (with the solitary +exception of the sturgeon's, commonly observed between brown bread and +butter, under the name of caviare), are the queer leathery purse-shaped +ova of the sharks, rays, skates, and dog-fishes. Everybody has picked +them up on the seashore, where children know them as devil's purses and +devil's wheelbarrows. Most of these queer eggs are oblong and +quadrangular, with the four corners produced into a sort of handles or +streamers, often ending in long tendrils, and useful for attaching them +to corallines or seaweeds on the bed of the ocean. But it is worth +noticing that in colour the egg-cases closely resemble the common wrack +to which they are oftenest fastened; and as they wave up and down in +the water with the dark mass around them, they must be almost +indistinguishable from the wrack itself by the keenest-sighted of their +enemies. This protective resemblance, coupled with the toughness and +slipperiness of their leathery envelope or egg-shell, renders them +almost perfectly secure from all evil-minded intruders. As a +consequence, the dog-fish lay but very few eggs each season, and those +few, large and well provided with nutriment for their spotted +offspring. It is these purses, and those of the thornback and the +edible skate, that we oftenest pick up on the English coast. The larger +oceanic sharks are mostly viviparous. + +In some few cases, indeed, among the shark and ray family, the +mechanism for protection goes a step or two further than in these +simple kinds. That well-known frequenter of Australian harbours, the +Port Jackson shark, lays a pear-shaped egg, with a sort of spiral +staircase of leathery ridges winding round it outside, Chinese pagoda +wise, so that even if you bite it (I speak in the person of a +predaceous fish) it eludes your teeth, and goes dodging off +screw-fashion into the water beyond. There's no getting at this evasive +body anywhere; when you think you have it, it wriggles away sideways, +and refuses to give any hold for jaws or palate. In fact, a more +slippery or guileful egg was never yet devised by nature's unconscious +ingenuity. Then, again, the Antarctic chimaera (so called from its very +unprepossessing personal appearance) relies rather upon pure deception +than upon mechanical means for the security of its eggs. The shell or +case in this instance is prolonged at the edge into a kind of broad +wing on either side, so that it exactly resembles one of the large flat +leaves of the Antarctic fucus in whose midst it lurks. It forms the +high-water mark, I fancy, of protective resemblance amongst eggs, for +not only is the margin leaf-like in shape, but it is even gracefully +waved and fringed with floating hairs, as is the fashion with the +expanded fronds of so many among the gigantic far-southern sea-weeds. + +A most curious and interesting set of phenomena are those which often +occur when a group of fishes, once marine, take by practice to +inhabiting freshwater rivers; or, _vice-versa,_ when a freshwater kind, +moved by an aspiration for more expansive surroundings, takes up its +residence in the sea as a naturalised marine. Whenever such a change of +address happens, it usually follows that the young fry cannot stand the +conditions of the new home to which their ancestors were +unaccustomed--we all know the ingrained conservatism of children--and +so the parents are obliged once a year to undertake a pilgrimage to +their original dwelling-place for the breeding season. + +Extreme cases of terrestrial animals, once aquatic in habits, throw a +flood of lurid light (as the newspapers say) upon the reason why this +should be so. For example, frogs and toads develop from tadpoles, which +in all essentials are true gill-breathing fish. It is, therefore, +obvious that they cannot lay their eggs on dry land, where the tadpoles +would be unable to find anything to breathe; so that even the driest +and most tree-haunting toads must needs repair to the water once a year +to deposit their spawn in its native surroundings. Once more, crabs +pass their earlier larval stages as free-swimming crustaceans, somewhat +shrimp-like in appearance, and as agile as fleas: it is only by gradual +metamorphosis that they acquire their legs and claws and heavy +pedestrian habits. Now there are certain kinds of crab, like the West +Indian land-crabs (those dainty morsels whose image every epicure who +has visited the Antilles still enshrines with regret in a warm corner +of his heart), which have taken in adult life to walking bodily on +shore, and visiting the summits of the highest mountains, like the fish +of Deucalion's deluge in Horace. But once a year, as the land-crabs +bask in the sun on St. Catherine's Peak or the Fern Walk, a strange +instinctive longing comes over them automatically to return for a while +to their native element; and, obedient to that inner monitor of their +race, down they march in thousands, _velut agmine facto_, to lay their +eggs at their leisure in Port Royal harbour. On the way, the negroes +catch them, all full of rich coral, waiting to be spawned; and Chloe or +Dinah, serves them up hot, with breadcrumbs, in their own red shells, +neatly nestling between the folds of a nice white napkin. The rest run +away, and deposit their eggs in the sea, where the young hatch out, and +pass their larval stage once more as free and active little swimming +crustaceans. + +Well, crabs, I need hardly explain in this age of enlightenment, are +not fish; but their actions help to throw a side-light on the migratory +instinct in salmon, eels, and so many other true fish which have +changed with time their aboriginal habits. The salmon himself, for +instance, is by descent a trout, and in the parr stage he is even now +almost indistinguishable from many kinds of river-trout that never +migrate seaward at all. But at some remote period, the ancestors of the +true salmon took to going down to the great deep in search of food, and +being large and active fish, found much more to eat in the salt water +than ever they had discovered in their native streams. So they settled +permanently in their new home, as far as their own lives went at least; +though they found the tender young could not stand the brine that did +no harm to the tougher constitutions of the elders. No doubt the change +was made gradually, a bit at a time, through the brackish water, the +species getting further and further seaward down bays and estuaries +with successive generations, but always returning to spawn in its +native river, as all well-behaved salmon do to the present moment. At +last, the habit hardened into an organic instinct, and nowadays the +young salmon hatch out like their fathers as parr in fresh water, then +go to the sea in the grilse stage and grow enormously, and finally +return as full-grown salmon to spawn and breed in their particular +birthplace. + +Exactly the opposite fate has happened to the eels. The salmonoids as a +family are freshwater fish, and by far the greater number of +kinds--trout, char, whitefish, grayling, pollan, vendace, gwyniad, and +so forth--are inhabitants of lakes, steams, ponds, and rivers, only a +very small number having taken permanently or temporarily to a marine +residence. But the eels, as a family, are a saltwater group, most of +their allies, like the congers and muraenas, being exclusively confined +to the sea, and only a very small number of aberrant types having ever +taken to invading inland waters. If the life-history of the salmon, +however, has given rise to as much controversy as the Mar peerage, the +life-history of the eel is a complete mystery. To begin with, nobody +has ever so much as distinguished between male and female eels; except +microscopically, eels have never been seen in the act of spawning, nor +observed anywhere with mature eggs. The ova themselves are wholly +unknown: the mode of their production is a dead secret. All we know is +this: that eels never reproduce in fresh water; that a certain number +of adults descend the rivers to the sea, irregularly, during the winter +months; and that some of these must presumably spawn with the utmost +circumspection in brackish water or in the deep sea, for in the course +of the summer myriads of young eels, commonly called grigs, and +proverbial for their merriment, ascend the rivers in enormous bodies, +and enter every smaller or larger tributary. + +If we know little about the paternity and maternity of eels, we know a +great deal about their childhood and youth, or, to speak more eelishly, +their grigginess and elverhood. The young grigs, when they do make +their appearance, leave us in no doubt at all about their presence or +their reality. They wriggle up weirs, walls, and floodgates; they force +there way bodily through chinks and apertures; they find out every +drain, pipe, or conduit in a given plane rectilinear figure; and when +all other spots have been fully occupied, they take to dry land, like +veritable snakes, and cut straight across country for the nearest lake, +pond, or ornamental waters. + +These swarms or migrations are known to farmers as eel-fairs; but the +word ought more properly to be written eel-fares, as the eels then fare +or travel up the streams to their permanent quarters. A great many +eels, however, never migrate seaward at all, and never seem to attain +to years of sexual maturity. They merely bury themselves under stones +in winter, and live and die as celibates in their inland retreats. So +very terrestrial do they become, indeed, that eels have been taken with +rats or field-mice undigested in their stomachs. + +The sturgeon is another more or less migratory fish, originally (like +the salmon) of freshwater habits, but now partially marine, which +ascends its parent stream for spawning during the summer season. +Incredible quantities are caught for caviare in the great Russian +rivers. At one point on the Volga, a hundred thousand people collect in +spring for the fishery, and work by relays, day and night continuously, +as long as the sturgeons are going up stream. On some of the +tributaries, when fishing is intermitted for a single day, the +sturgeons have been known to completely fill a river 360 feet wide, so +that the backs of the uppermost fish were pushed out of the water. (I +take this statement, not from the 'Arabian Nights,' as the scoffer +might imagine, but from that most respectable authority, Professor +Seeley.) Still, in spite of the enormous quantity killed, there is no +danger of any falling off in the supply for the future, for every fish +lays from two to three million eggs, each of which, as caviare eaters +well know, is quite big enough to be distinctly seen with the naked eye +in the finished product. The best caviare is simply bottled exactly as +found, with the addition merely of a little salt. No man of taste can +pretend to like the nasty sun-dried sort, in which the individual eggs +are reduced to a kind of black pulp, and pressed hard with the feet +into doubtful barrels. + +In conclusion, let me add one word of warning as to certain popular +errors about the young fry of sundry well-known species. Nothing is +more common than to hear it asserted that sprats are only immature +herring. This is a complete mistake. Believe it not. Sprats are a very +distinct species of the herring genus, and they never grow much bigger +than when they appear, _broches_, at table. The largest adult sprat +measures only six inches, while full-grown herring may attain as much +as fifteen. Moreover, herring have teeth on the palate, always wanting +in sprats, by which means the species may be readily distinguished at +all ages. When in doubt, therefore, do not play trumps, but examine the +palate. On the other hand, whitebait, long supposed to be a distinct +species, has now been proved by Dr. Guenther, the greatest of +ichthyologists, to consist chiefly of the fry or young of herring. To +complete our discomfiture, the same eminent authority has also shown +that the pilchard and the sardine, which we thought so unlike, are one +and the same fish, called by different names according as he is caught +off the Cornish coast or in Breton, Portuguese, or Mediterranean +waters. Such aliases are by no means uncommon among his class. To say +the plain truth, fish are the most variable and ill-defined of animals; +they differ so much in different habitats, so many hybrids occur +between them, and varieties merge so readily by imperceptible stages +into one another, that only an expert can decide in doubtful cases--and +every expert carefully reverses the last man's opinion. Let us at least +be thankful that whitebait by any other name would eat as nice; that +science has not a single whisper to breathe against their connection +with lemon; and that whether they are really the young of _Clupea +harengus_ or not, the supply at Billingsgate shows no symptom of +falling short of the demand. + + + + + AN ENGLISH SHIRE. + +For the reasons which have determined the existence of Sussex as a +county of England, and which have given it the exact boundaries that it +now possesses, we must go back to the remote geological history of the +secondary ages. Its limits and its very existence as a separate shire +were predetermined for it by the shape and consistence of the mud or +sand which gathered at the bottom of the great Wealden lake, or filled +up the hollows of the old inland cretaceous sea. Paradoxical as it +sounds to say so, the Celtic kingdom of the Regni, the South Saxon +principality of AElle the Bretwalda, the modern English county of +Sussex, have all had their destinies moulded by the geological +conformation of the rock upon which they repose. Where human annals see +only the handicraft and interaction of human beings--Euskarian and +Aryan, Celt and Roman, Englishman and Norman--a closer scrutiny of +history may perhaps see the working of still deeper elements--chalk and +clay, volcanic upheaval and glacial denudation, barren upland and +forest-clad plain. The value and importance of these underlying facts +in the comprehension of history has, I believe, been very generally +overlooked; and I propose accordingly here to take the single county of +Sussex in detail, in order to show that when the geological and +geographical factors of the problem are given, all the rest follows as +a matter of course. By such detailed treatment alone can one hope to +establish the truth of the general principle that human history is at +bottom a result of geographical conditions, acting upon the +fundamentally identical constitution of man. + +In a certain sense, it is quite clear that human life depends mainly +upon soil and conformation, to an extent that nobody denies. You cannot +have a dense population in Sahara; and you can hardly fail to have one +in the fruitful valley of the Nile. The growth of towns in one district +rather than another must be governed largely by the existence of rivers +or harbours, of coal or metals, of agricultural lowlands or defensible +heights. Glasgow could not spring up in inland Leicestershire, nor +Manchester in coalless Norfolk. Insular England must naturally be the +greatest shipping country in Europe; while no large foreign trade is +possible in any Bohemia except Shakespeare's. So much everybody admits. +But it seems to me that these underlying causes have coloured the +entire local history of every district to an extent which few people +adequately recognise, and that until such recognition becomes more +general, our views of history must necessarily be very narrow. We must +see not only that something depends upon geographical configuration, +not even merely that a great deal depends upon it, but that everything +depends upon it. We must unlearn our purely human history, and learn a +history of interaction between nature and man instead. + +From the great central boss of the chalk system in Salisbury Plain, two +long cretaceous horns or projections run out to eastward towards the +Channel and the German Sea. These two horns, separated by the deep +valley of the Weald, are known as the North and South Downs +respectively. The first great spur or ridge passes through the heart of +Surrey, and then forms the backbone of Kent, expanding into a fan at +its eastward extremity, where it topples over abruptly into the sea in +the sheer bluffs which sweep round in a huge arc from the North +Foreland in the Isle of Thanet, to Shakespeare's Cliff at Dover. The +second or southernmost range, that of the South Downs, parts company +from the main boss in Hampshire, and runs eastward in a narrower but +bolder line, till the Channel cuts short its progress in the water-worn +precipice of Beachy Head. Between these two ranges of Downs lies the +low forest region of the Weald, and between the South Downs and the sea +stretches a long but very narrow strip of lowland, beginning at +Chichester, and ending where the chalk cliffs first meet the shore +beside the new Aquarium and Chain Pier at Brighton. Thus the whole of +Sussex consists of three well-marked parallel belts: the low coast-line +on the south-west, the high chalk Downs in the centre, and the Weald +district on the north and north-west. As these three belts determine +the whole history and very existence of Sussex as an English shire, I +shall make no apology for treating their origin here in some rapid +detail. + +The oldest geological formation with which we have to deal in Sussex +(to any considerable extent) is the Wealden: so that our inquiry need +not go any farther back in the history of the world than the later +secondary ages. Before that time, and for long aeons afterward, the +portion of the earth's crust which now forms Sussex had probably never +emerged from the ocean. Britain was then wholly represented by the +primary regions of Wales, Scotland, and Cornwall, forming a small +archipelago or group of rocky islands separated at some distance by a +wide passage from the nucleus of the young European continent. But by +the Wealden period, the English Channel and the Eastern half of England +had been considerably elevated above the level of the sea. Great rivers +and lakes existed in this new continental region, much like those which +now exist in Sweden, Northern Russia, and Canada; and the deposits of +sand or mud formed at their bottoms or in their estuaries compose the +chief part of the Wealden formation in England. Without going fully +into this question (somewhat complicated by frequent changes of level), +it will suffice for our present purpose to say that the Wealden +consists, in the main, of two great divisions, which form, so to speak, +the floor, or lowest story, of the Sussex formations. The first or +bottom division is chiefly composed of a rather soft and friable +sandstone, which runs through the whole Forest Ridges, and crops out in +the grey cliffs of Hastings and Fairlight. The second or upper division +is chiefly composed of a thick greasy clay, which forms the soil in the +greater part of the Weald, and glides unobtrusively under the sea in +the flat shore on either side of Hastings, giving rise to the lowlands +of Pevensey Bay and the Romney Marshes. Why the sandstone, which is +really the bottom layer, should appear higher than the clay in these +places, we shall see a little later. + +After the deposition of the gritty or muddy Wealden beds in the lake +and _embouchure_ of the old continental river, there came a second +period of considerable depression, during which the whole of +south-eastern England was once more covered by a shallow sea. This sea +ran, like an early northern Mediterranean, right across the face of +Central Europe; and on its bottom was deposited the soft ooze of +globigerina shells and siliceous sponge skeletons which has now +hardened into chalk and flint. A great cretaceous sheet thus overlay +the Wealden beds and the whole face of Sussex to a depth of at least +600 feet; and if it had not been afterwards worn off in places, as the +nursery rhyme says of old Pillicock, it would be there still. I need +hardly say that the chalk is yet _en evidence_ along the whole range of +South Downs, and forms the tall white cliffs between Brighton and +Beachy Head. + +Finally, during the Tertiary period, another layer of London clay and +other soft deposits was spread over the top of the chalk, certainly on +the strip between the South Downs and the sea, and probably over the +whole district between the Channel and the Thames valley: though in +this case, later denudation has proceeded so far that very few traces +of the Tertiary formations are preserved anywhere except in the greater +hollows. + +Such being the original disposition of the strata which compose Sussex, +we have next to ask, What are the causes which have produced its +existing configuration? If the whole mass had merely been uplifted +straight out of the sea, we ought now to find the whole country a flat +and level table-land, covered over its entire surface with a uniform +coat of Tertiary deposits. On digging or boring below these, we ought +to come upon the chalk, and below the chalk again, with its cretaceous +congeners the greensand or the gault, we ought to meet the Weald clay +and the Hastings sand. Wherever a seaward cliff exhibited a section for +our observation, we ought to find these same strata all exposed in +regular order--the sandstone at the bottom, the clay above it, the +broad belt of chalk halfway up, and the Tertiary muds and rubbles at +the top. But in the county as we actually find it, we get a very +different state of things. Here, the surface at sea-level is composed +of London clay; there, a great mound of chalk rises into a swelling +down; and yonder, once more, a steep escarpment leads us down into a +broad lowland of the Weald. The causes which have led to this +arrangement of surface and conformation must now be considered with +necessary brevity. + +The North and South Downs, with all the country between them, form part +of a great fold or outward bulge of the strata above enumerated, having +its centre about the middle line of the Forest Ridge. Imagine these +strata bent or pushed upward by an internal upheaving force acting +along that line, and you will get a rough picture of the original +circumstances which have led to the existing arrangement of the county. +You would then have, instead of a flat table-land, as supposed above, a +great curved mountain slope, with its centre on top of the Forest +Ridge. This gentle slope would rise from the sea between Chichester and +a point south of Beachy, would swell slowly upward till it reached a +height of two or three thousand feet at the Surrey border, and would +fall again gradually towards the Thames valley at London. On the +southern side of the Downs this is pretty much what we now get, the +Tertiary strata being preserved in the district near Chichester; though +farther east, around Newhaven and Beachy Head, the sea has encroached +upon the chalk so as to cut out the great white cliffs which bound the +view everywhere along the shore from Brighton to Eastbourne. In the +central portion of the boss, however, almost all the highest elevated +part has been denuded by ice or water action. Between the North and +South Downs, where we ought to find the mountain ridge, we find instead +the valley of the Weald. Here the chalk has been quite worn away, +giving rise to the steep escarpment on the northern side of the South +Downs, seen from the Devil's Dyke, so that at the foot of the sudden +descent we get the Weald clay exposed; while in the very centre of the +upheaved tract the clay itself has been cut through, and the Hastings +sand appears upon the surface. Moreover, the sand, being upraised by +the central force, stands higher than the clay on either side, which +forms the trough of the Weald; and thus the forest ridge, which abuts +upon the sea in the cliffs of Hastings Castle, seems to lie above the +clay, under which, however, it really glides on either side. I need +hardly add that this rough diagrammatic description is only meant as a +general indication of the facts, and that it considerably simplifies +the real geological changes probably involved in the sculpture of +Sussex. Nevertheless, I believe it pretty accurately represents the +main formative points in the ante-human history of the county. + +So much by way of preface or introduction. These facts of structure +form the data for the reconstruction of the Sussex annals during the +human period. Upon them as framework all the subsequent development of +the county hangs. And first let us observe how, before the advent of +man upon the scene, the shire was already strictly demarcated by its +natural boundaries. Along the coast, between Chichester Harbour and +Brighton, stretched a long, narrow, level strip of clay and alluvium, +suitable for the dwelling-place of an agricultural people. Back of this +coastwise belt lay the bare rounded range of the South Downs--good +grazing land for sheep, but naturally incapable of cultivation. Two +rivers, however, flowed in deep valleys through the Downs, and their +basins, with the outlying combes and glens, were also the predestined +seats of agricultural communities. The one was the Ouse, passing +through the fertile country around Lewes, and falling at last into the +English Channel at Seaford, not as now at Newhaven; the other was the +Cuckmere river, which has cut itself a deep glen in the chalk hills +just beneath the high cliffs of Beachy Head. Beyond the Downs again, to +the north, the country descended abruptly to the deep trough of the +Weald, whose cold and sticky clays or porous sandstones are never of +any use for purposes of tillage. Hence, as its very name tells us, the +Weald has always been a wild and wood-clad region. The Romans knew it +as the Silva Anderida, or forest of Pevensey; the early English as the +Andredesweald. Both names are derived from a Celtic root signifying +'The Uninhabited.' Even in our own day, a large part of this tract is +covered by the woodlands of Tolgate Forest, St. Leonard's Forest, and +Ashdown Forest; while the remainder is only very scantily laid down in +pasture-land or hop-fields, with a considerable sprinkling of copses, +woods, commons, and parks. From its very nature, indeed, the Weald can +never be anything else, in its greater portion, than a wild, +uncultivated, and wooded region. + +Let us note, too, how the really habitable strip of Sussex, from the +point of view of an early people, was quite naturally cut off from all +other parts of England by obvious limits. This habitable strip +consists, of course, of the coastwise belt from Brighton to the +Hampshire border (which belt I shall henceforward take the liberty of +designating as Sussex Proper), together with the seaward valleys and +combes of the South Downs. To the west, the great tidal flats and +swamps about Hayling Island cut off Sussex from Hampshire; and before +drainage and reclamation had done their work, these marshy districts +must have formed a most impassable frontier. From this point, the great +woodland region of the Weald, thickly covered with primaeval forest, and +tenanted by wolves, bears, wild boars, and red deer, swept round in a +long curve from the swamps at Bosham and Havant to the corresponding +swamps of the opposite end at Pevensey and Hurstmonceux. The belt of +savage wooded country, thick with the lairs of wild beasts, which thus +ringed round the greater part of the county, shut off the coastwise +strip at once from all possibility of communication with the rest of +England. So Sussex Proper and the combes of the Downs were naturally +predestined to form a single Celtic kingdom, a single Saxon +principality, and a single English shire. + +It will be observed that this description leaves wholly out of +consideration the strip of country about Hastings, Rye, and Winchelsea. +It does so intentionally. That strip of country does not belong to +Sussex in the same intimate and strictly necessary manner as the rest +of the county. It probably once formed the seat of a small independent +community by itself; and though there were good and obvious reasons why +it should become finally united to Sussex rather than to Kent, it may +be regarded as to some extent a debateable island between them. For an +island it practically was in early times. At Pevensey Bay the Weald ran +down into the sea by a series of swamps and bogs still artificially +drained by dykes and sluices. On the other side, the Romney marshes +formed a similar though wider stretch of tidal flats, reclaimed and +drained at a far later period, partly through the agency of the long +shingle bank thrown up round the low modern spit of Dungeness. Between +them, the Hastings cliffs rose high above marsh and sea. In their rear, +the Weald forest covered the ridge; so that the Hastings district +(still a separate rape or division of the county) formed a sort of +smaller Sussex, divided, like the larger one, from all the rest of +England by a semicircular belt of marsh, forest, and marsh once more. +These are the main elements out of which the history of the county is +made up. + +How far such conditions may have acted upon the very earliest human +inhabitants of Sussex--the palaeolithic savages of the drift--before the +last Glacial epoch, it is impossible to say, because we know that many +of them did not then exist, and that the present configuration of the +county is largely due to subsequent agencies. Britain was then united +to the continent by a broad belt of land, filling up the bed of the +English Channel, and it possessed a climate wholly different from that +of the present day; while the position of the drift and the river +gravels shows that the sculpture of the surface was then in many +respects unlike the existing distribution of hill and valley. We must +confine ourselves, therefore, to the later or recent period (subsequent +to the last glaciation of Britain), during which man has employed +implements of polished stone, of bronze, and of iron. + +The Euskarian neolithic population of Britain--a dark white race, like +the modern Basques--had settlements in Sussex, at least in the coast +district between the Downs and the sea. Here they could obtain in +abundance the flints for the manufacture of their polished stone +hatchets; while on the alluvial lowlands of Selsea and Shoreham they +could grow those cereals upon which they largely depended for their +daily bread. Neolithic monuments, indeed, are common along the range of +the South Downs, as they are also on the main mass of the chalk in +Salisbury Plain; and at Cissbury Hill, near Worthing, we have remains +of one of the largest neolithic camp refuges in Britain. The evidence +of tumuli and weapons goes to show that the Euskarian people of Sussex +occupied the coast belt and the combes of the Downs from the Chichester +marshland to Pevensey, but that they did not spread at all into the +Weald. In fact, it is most probable that at this early period Sussex +was divided into several little tribes or chieftainships, each of which +had its own clearing in the lowland cut laboriously out of the forest +by the aid of its stone axes; while in the centre stood the compact +village of wooden huts, surrounded by a stockade, and girt without by +the small cultivated plots of the villagers. On the Downs above rose +the camp or refuge of the tribe--an earthwork rudely constructed in +accordance with the natural lines of the hills--to which the whole body +of people, with their women, children, and cattle, retreated in case of +hostile invasion from the villagers on either side. It is not likely +that any foreigners from beyond the great forest belt of the Weald +would ever come on the war-trail across that dangerous and trackless +wilderness; and it is probable, therefore, that the camps or refuges +were constructed as places of retreat for the tribes against their +immediate neighbours, rather than against alien intruders from without. +Hence we may reasonably conclude--as indeed is natural at such an early +stage of civilisation--that the whole district was not yet consolidated +under a single rule, but that each village still remained independent, +and liable to be engaged in hostilities with all others. Even if +extended chieftainships over several villages had already been set up, +as is perhaps implied by the great tumuli of chiefs and the size of the +camps in some parts of Britain, we must suppose them to have been +confined for the most part to a single river valley. If so, there may +have been petty Euskarian principalities, rude supremacies or +chieftainships like those of South Africa, in the Chichester lowlands, +in the dale of Arun, in the valleys of the Adur, the Ouse, and the +Cuckmere River, and perhaps, too, in the insulated Hastings region, +between the Pevensey levels and the Romney marsh. These principalities +would then roughly coincide with the modern rapes of Chichester, +Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey, and Hastings. Each would possess its +own group of villages, and tilled lowland, its own boundary of forest, +and its own camp of refuge on the hill-tops. Cissbury almost +undoubtedly formed such a camp for the fertile valley of the Adur and +the coast strip from Worthing to Brighton. On its summit has been +discovered an actual manufactory of stone implements from the copious +material supplied by the flint veins in the chalk of which it is +composed. + +Such a society, left to itself in Sussex, could never have got much +further than this. It could not discover or use metals, when it had no +metal in its soil except the small quantity of iron to be found in the +then inaccessible Weald. It had no copper and no tin, and therefore it +could not manufacture bronze. But the geographical position of England +generally, within sight of the European continent, made it certain that +if ever anywhere else bronze should come to be used, the +bronze-weaponed people must ultimately cross over and subjugate the +stone-weaponed aborigines of the island. Moreover, bronze was certain +to be first hit upon in those countries where tin and copper were most +easily workable--that is to say, in Asia. From Asia, the secret of its +manufacture spread to the outlying peninsula of Europe, where it was +quickly adopted by the Aryan Celts, who had already invaded the +outlying continent, armed only with weapons of stone. As soon as they +had learnt the use of bronze, certain great changes and improvements +followed naturally--amongst others, an immense advance in the art of +boat-building. The Celts of the bronze age soon constructed vessels +which enabled them to cross the narrow seas and invade Britain. Their +superior weapons gave them at once an enormous advantage over the +Euskarian natives, armed only with their polished flint hatchets, and +before long they overran the whole island, save only the recesses of +Wales and the north of Scotland. From that moment, the bronze age of +Britain set in--say some 1,000 or 1,500 years before the Christian era. + +The Celts, however, did not exterminate the whole Euskarian people; +they were too few in number and too far advanced in civilisation for +such a course. They knew it was better to make them slaves than to +destroy them: for the Celts had just reached, but had not yet got +beyond, the slave-making stage of culture. To this day, people of mixed +Euskarian parentage, and marked by the long skull, dark complexion, and +black eyes of the Euskarian type, form a large proportion of the +English peasantry; and they are found even in Sussex, which +subsequently suffered more than most other parts of Britain from the +destructive deluge of Teutonic barbarism in the fifth century. But +though the Celts did not exterminate the Euskarians, they completely +Celticised them, just as the Teuton is now Teutonising the old +population of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In South Wales and +elsewhere, indeed, the aborigines retained their own language and +institutions, as Silures and so forth; but in the conquered districts +of southern and eastern Britain they learned the tongue of their +masters, and came to be counted as Celtic serfs. Thus, at the time when +Britain comes forth into the full historic glare of Roman civilisation, +we find the country inhabited by a Celtic aristocracy of Aryan +type--round-headed, fair-haired, and blue-eyed; together-with a _plebs_ +of Celticised Euskarian or half-caste serfs, retaining, as they still +retain, the long skulls and dark complexions of their aboriginal +ancestors. This was the ethnical composition of the Sussex population +at the date of the first Roman invasions. + +Under the bronze-weaponed Celts, a very different type of civilisation +became possible. In the first place a more extended chieftainship +resulted from the improved weapons and consequent military power; and +all Britain (at least, towards the close of the Celtic domination) +became amalgamated into considerable kingdoms, some of which seem to +have spread over several modern shires. Sussex, however, enclosed by +its barrier of forest, would naturally remain a single little +principality of itself, held, at least in later times, by a tribe known +to the Romans as Regni. Traces of Celtic occupation are mainly confined +to the Downs and the seaward slope of Sussex Proper; in the broad +expanse of the Weald, they are few and far between. The Celts occupied +the fertile valleys and alluvial slopes, cut down the woods by the +river sides and on the plains, and built their larger and more regular +camps of refuge upon the Downs, for protection against the kindred +Cantii beyond the Weald, or the more distantly-related Belgae across the +Hayling tidal flats. Of these hill-forts, Hollingbury Castle, near +Brighton, may be taken as a typical example. Bronze weapons and other +implements of the bronze age are found in great numbers about Lewes in +particular (where the isolated height, now crowned by the Norman +Castle, must always have commanded the fertile river vale of the Ouse), +as well as at Chichester, Bognor, and elsewhere. But the great forest, +inhabited by savage beasts and still more terrible fiends, proved a +barrier to their northward extension. Even if they had cleared the +land, they could not have cultivated it with their existing methods; +and so it is only in a few spots near the upper river valleys that we +find any traces of outlying Celtic hamlets in the wilderness of the +Weald. Some kind of trade, however, must have existed between the Regni +and the other tribes of Britain, in order to supply them with the +bronze, whose component elements Sussex does not possess. Woolsonbury, +Westburton Hill, Clayton Hill, Wilmington, Hangleton Down, Plumpton +Plain, and many other places along the coast have yielded large numbers +of bronze implements; while the occurrence of the raw metal in lumps, +together with the finished weapons, at Worthing and Beachy Head, as +well the discovery of a mould for a socketed celt at Wilmington, shows +that the actual foundry work was performed in Sussex itself. A +beautiful torque from Hollingbury Castle attests the workmanship of the +Sussex founders. No doubt the tin was imported from Cornwall, while the +copper was probably brought over from the continent. Glass beads, +doubtless of Southern (perhaps Egyptian) manufacture, have also been +found in Sussex, with implements of the bronze age. + +In the polished stone age, the county had been self-supporting, because +of its possession of flint. In the bronze age it was dependent upon +other places, through its non-possession of copper or tin. During the +former period it may have exported weapons from Cissbury; during the +latter, it must have imported the material of weapons from Cornwall and +Gaul. + +Before the Romans came, the Celts of Britain had learned the use of +iron. Whether they ever worked the iron of the Weald, however, is +uncertain. But as the ores lie near the surface, as wood (to be made +into charcoal) for the smelting was abundant, and as these two facts +caused the Weald iron to be extensively employed in later times, it is +probable that small clearings would be made in the most accessible +spots, and that rude ironworks would be established. + +The same geographical causes which made Britain part of the Roman world +naturally affected Sussex, as one of its component portions. Even under +the Empire, however, the county remained singularly separate. The +Romans built two strong fortresses at Anderida and Regnum, Pevensey and +Chichester, to guard the two Gwents or lowland plains, where the shore +shelves slowly to seaward; and they ran one of their great roads across +the coastwise tract, from Dover to the Portus Magnus (now Porchester), +near Portsmouth; but they left Sussex otherwise very much to its own +devices. We know that the Regni were still permitted to keep their +native chief, who probably exercised over his tribesmen somewhat the +same subordinate authority which a Rajput raja now exercises under the +British government. Here, again, we see the natural result of the +isolation of Sussex. The Romans ruled directly in the open plains of +the Yorkshire Ouse and the Thames, as we ourselves rule in the Bengal +Delta, the Doab, and the Punjab; but they left a measure of +independence to the native princes of south Wales, of Sussex, and of +Cornwall, as we ourselves do to the native rulers in the deserts of +Rajputana, the inaccessible mountains of Nipal, and the aboriginal hill +districts of Central India. + +When the Roman power began to decay, the outlying possessions were the +first to be given up. The Romans had enslaved and demoralised the +provincial population; and when they were gone, the great farms tilled +by slave labour under the direction of Roman mortgagee-proprietors lay +open to the attacks of fresh and warlike barbarians from beyond the +sea. How early the fertile east coasts of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and +East Anglia may have fallen a prey to the Teutonic pirates we cannot +say. The wretched legends, indeed, retailed to us by Gildas, Baeda, and +the English Chronicle, would have us believe that they were colonised +at a later period; but as they lay directly in the path of the +marauders from Sleswick, as they were certainly Teutonised very +thoroughly, and as no real records survive, we may well take it for +granted that the long-boats of the English, sailing down with the +prevalent north-east winds from the wicks of Denmark, came first to +shore on these fertile coasts. After they had been conquered and +colonised, the Saxon and Jutish freebooters began to look for +settlements, on their part, farther south. One horde, led, as the +legend veraciously assures us, by Hengest and Horsa, landed in Thanet; +another, composed entirely of Saxons, and under the command of a +certain dubious AElle, came to shore on the spit of Selsea. It was from +this last body that the county took its newer name of Suth-Seaxe, Suth +Sexe, or Sussex. Let us first frankly narrate the legend, and then see +how far it may fairly be rationalised. + +In 477, says the English Chronicle--written down, it must be +remembered, from traditional sources, four centuries later, at the +court of Alfred the West Saxon--in 477, AElle and his three sons, Cymen, +Wlencing, and Cissa, came to Britain in three ships, and landed at the +stow that is cleped Cymenes-ora. There that ilk day they slew many +Welshmen, and the rest they drave into the wood hight Andredes-leah. In +485, AElle, fighting the Welsh near Mearcredes Burn, slew many, and the +rest he put to flight. In 491, AElle, with his son Cissa, beset +Andredes-ceaster, and slew all that therein were, nor was there after +one Welshman left. Such is the whole story, as told in the bald and +simple entries of the West Saxon annalist, A more dubious tradition +further states that AElle was also Bretwalda, or overlord, of all the +Teutonic tribes in Britain. + +And now let us see what we can make of this wholly unhistorical and +legendary tale. Whether there ever was a South Saxon king named AElle we +cannot say; but that the earliest English pirate fleet on this coast +should have landed near Selsea is likely enough. The marauders would +not land near the Romney marshes or the Pevensey flats, where the great +fortresses of Lymne and Anderida would block their passage; and they +could not beach their keels easily anywhere along the cliff-girt coast +between Beachy Head and Brighton; so they would naturally sail along +past the marshland and the chalk cliffs till they reached the open +champaign shore near Chichester. Cymenes-ora, where they are said to +have landed, is now Keynor on the Bill of Selsea; and Selsea itself, as +its name (correctly Selsey) clearly shows us, was then an island in the +tidal flats. This was just the sort of place which the English pirates +loved, for all tradition represents their first settlements as effected +on isolated spots like Thanet, Hurst Castle, Holderness, and +Bamborough. Thence they would march upon Regnum, the square Roman town +at the harbour head, and reduce it by storm, garrisoned as it doubtless +was by a handful of semi-Romanised Welshmen or Britons. The town took +the English name of Cissanceaster, or Chichester. Moreover, all around +the Chichester district, we still find a group of English clan +villages, with the characteristic patronymic termination _ing_. Such +are East and West Wittering, Donnington, Funtington, Didling, and +others. It is _vraisemblable_ enough that the little strip of very low +coast between Hayling Island and the Arun may have been the first +original South Saxon colony. Nor is it by any means impossible that the +names of Keynor and Chichester Cymenes-ora and Cissanceaster--may still +enshrine the memory of two among the old South Saxon freebooters. + +The tradition of a battle at Mearcredes Burn, when the Welsh were again +defeated, may refer to an advance by which, a few years later, the +South Saxon pirates pushed eastward along the coast, and occupied the +strip of shore as far as Brighton, together with the fertile valley of +the Lewes Ouse. In the first-named district we find a large group of +English Clan villages, including Patching, Poling, Angmering, Goring, +Worthing, Tarring, Washington, Lullington, Blatchingden, Ovingdean, +Rottingdean, and many others. Amongst them is one which has clearly +given rise to the name of AElle's third son, and that is Lancing. +Unfortunately for the legend, we must decide that this was really the +settlement of an English clan of Lancingas, as Washington was the _tun_ +or enclosure of the Weasingas, and Beddingham was the _ham_ or home of +the Beddingas. Around Lewes, in like manner, we find Tarring, Malling, +Piddinghoe, Bletchington, and others; while in the valley just to the +east we have ten or eleven such names as Lullington, Wilmington, +Folkington, and Littlington. These districts, I imagine, represent the +second advance of the English conquerors. + +Finally, fourteen years after the first landing, the South Saxons +crossed the Downs and attacked Anderida. The Roman walls of the great +fortress were thick and strong, as their remains, built over by the +Norman Castle, still show; but they were defended by half-trained +Welsh, who could not withstand the English onset. With the fall of +Anderida, the native power was broken for ever, 'nor was there after +one Welshman left.' The English tribe of the Hastingas settled at +Hastings; and the South Saxons were now supreme from marsh to marsh. + +But did they really exterminate the native Celt-Euskarian population? I +venture to say, no. Some no doubt, especially the men, they slew; but +the women and children, as even Mr. Freeman admits, were probably +spared in large numbers. Even of the men, many doubtless became slaves +to the Saxon lords; while others maintained themselves in isolated +bands in the Weald. To this day the Euskarian type of humanity is not +uncommon among the Sussex peasantry, and all the rivers still bear the +Celtic names of Arun, Adur, Ouse, and Calder. That there was 'no +Welshmen left' is only another way of saying that the armed Welsh +resistance ceased. The Romanised Britons became English churls and +serfs--nay, the very name for a serf in ordinary conversation was Weala +or Welshman. The population received a new element--the English +Saxons--but it was not completely changed. The Weorthingas and Goringas +simply became masters of the lands formerly held by Roman owners; and +the cabins of their British serfs still clustered around the wooden +hall of the English lords. + +Nevertheless, Sussex is one of the most thoroughly Teutonised counties +in England. The proportion of Saxon blood is very marked: light hair +and blue eyes, together with the broad and short English skull, are +common even among the peasantry. The number of English Clan names +noticed by Mr. Kemble in the towns and villages of Sussex is 68 as +against 60 in almost equally Teutonic Kent, 48 in Essex, 21 in largely +Celtic Dorset, 6 in Cumberland, 2 in Cornwall, and none in Monmouth. +The size and number of the hundreds into which the county is divided +tells us much the same tale. Each hundred was originally a group of one +hundred free English families, settled on the soil, and holding in +check the native subject population of Anglicised Celt-Euskarian +churls. Now, in Sussex we get 61 hundreds, and in Kent 61, as against +13 in Surrey beyond the Weald (where the clan names also sink to 18), +and 8 in Hertfordshire. Or, to put it another way, which I borrow from +Mr. Isaac Taylor, in Sussex there is one hundred to every 23 square +miles; in Kent to every 24; in Dorset to every 30; in Surrey to every +58; in Herts to every 79; in Gloucester to every 97; in Derby to every +162; in Warwick to every 179; and in Lancashire to every 302. In other +words, while in Kent, Sussex, and the east the free English inhabitants +clustered thickly on the soil, with a relatively small servile +population, in Mercia and the west the English population was much more +sparsely scattered, with a relatively great servile population. So, as +late as the time of Domesday, in Kent and Sussex the slaves mentioned +in the great survey (only a small part, probably, of the total) +numbered only 10 per cent. of the population, while in Devon and +Cornwall they numbered 20 per cent., and in Gloucestershire 33 per +cent. + +These results are all inevitable. It is obvious that the first attacks +must necessarily be made upon the east and south coasts, and that the +inland districts and the west must only slowly be conquered afterward. +Especially was it easy to found Teutonic kingdoms in the four isolated +regions of Lincolnshire, East Anglia, Kent, and Sussex, each of which +was cut off from the rest of England in early times by impassable fens, +marshes, forests, or rivers. It was easy here to kill off the Welsh +fighting population, to drive the remnants into the Fen Country or the +Weald, to enslave the captives, the women, and the children, and to +secure the Teutonic colony by a mark or border of woodland, swamp, or +hill. On the other hand, Wessex, Northumbria, and Mercia, with a vague +and ill-defined internal border, had harder work to fight their way in +against a united Welsh resistance; and it was only very slowly that +they pushed across the central watershed, to dismember the unconquered +remnant of the Britons at last into the three isolated bodies of +Damnonia (Cornwall and Devon), Wales Proper, and Strathclyde. This is +probably why the earliest settlements were made in these isolated coast +regions, and why the inward progress of the other colonies was so +relatively slow. + +The South Saxons, then, at first occupied the three fertile bits of the +county--the coast belt of Sussex Proper, the Valley of the Ouse, and +the isolated Hastings district--because these were the best adapted for +their strictly agricultural life. In spite of the legend of AElle, I do +not suppose that they were all united from the first under a single +principality. It seems far more probable that each little clan +settlement was at first wholly independent; that afterwards three +little chieftainships grew up in the three fertile strips--typified, +perhaps, by the story of AElle's three sons--and that the whole finally +coalesced into a single kingdom of the South Saxons, which is the state +in which we find the county in Baeda's time. As ever, its boundaries +were marked out for it by nature, for the Weald remained as yet an +almost unbroken forest; and the names of Selsea, Pevensey, Winchelsea, +Romney, and many others, show by their common insular termination +(found in all isles round the British coast, as in Sheppey, Walney, +Bardsea, Anglesea, Fursey, Wallasey, and so forth) that the marshland +was still wholly undrained, and that a few islands alone stood here and +there as masses of dry land out of their desolate and watery expanse. +The Hastings district, too, fell more naturally to Sussex than to Kent, +because the marshes dividing it from the former were far less +formidable than those which severed it from the latter. Most probably +the South Saxons intentionally aided nature in cutting off their +territory from all other parts of Britain; for every English kingdom +loved to surround itself with a distinct mark or border of waste, as a +defence against invasion from outside. The Romans had brought Sussex +within the great network of their road system; but the South Saxons no +doubt took special pains to cut off those parts of the roads which led +across their own frontier. At any rate, it is quite clear that Sussex +did not largely participate in the general life of the new England, and +that intercourse with the rest of the world was extremely limited. + +The South Saxon kings probably lived for the most part at Chichester, +though no doubt they had _hams_, after the royal Teutonic fashion +generally, in many other parts of their territory; and they moved about +from one to the other, with their suite of thegns, eating up in each +what food was provided by their serfs for their use, and then moving on +to the next. The isolation of Sussex is strikingly shown by its long +adherence to the primitive paganism. Missionaries from Rome, under the +guidance of Augustine, converted Kent as early as 597. For Kent was the +nearest kingdom to the continent; it contained the chief port of entry +for continental travellers, Richborough--the Dover of those days--and +its king, accustomed to continental connections, had married a +Christian Frankish princess from Paris. Hence Kent was naturally the +first Teutonic principality to receive the faith. Next came +Northumbria, Lindsey, East Anglia, Wessex, and even inland Mercia. But +Sussex still held out for Thor and Woden as late as 679, three-quarters +of a century after the conversion of Kent, and twenty years after +Mercia itself had given way to the new faith. Even when Sussex was +finally converted, the manner in which the change took place was +characteristic. It was not by missionaries from beyond the Weald in +Kent or Surrey, nor from beyond the marsh in Wessex. An Irish monk, +Baeda tells us, coming ashore on the open coast near Chichester, +established a small monastery at Bosham--even then, no doubt, a royal +_ham_, as we know it was under Harold--'a place,' says the old +historian significantly, 'girt round by sea and forest.' (It lies just +on the mark between Wessex and the South Saxons.) AEthelwealh, the +king--a curious name, for it means 'noble Welshman' (perhaps he was of +mixed blood)--had already been baptized in Mercia, and his wife was the +daughter of a Christian ealdorman of the Worcester-men; but the rest of +the principality was heathen. The Irish monk effected nothing; but +shortly after Wilfrith, the fiery Bishop of York, on one of his usual +flying visits to Rome, got shipwrecked off Selsea. With his accustomed +vigour, he went ashore, and began a crusade in the heathen land. He was +able at once to baptize the 'leaders and soldiers'--that is to say, the +free military English population; while his attendant priests--Eappa, +Padda, Burghelm, and Oiddi (it is pleasant to preserve these little +personal touches)--proceeded to baptize the 'plebs'--that is to say, +the servile Anglicised Celt-Euskarian substratum--up and down the +country villages. + +It was to Wilfrith, too, that Sussex owed her first cathedral. +AEthelwealh made him a present of Selsea, 'a place surrounded by the sea +on every side save one, where an isthmus about as broad as a +stone's-throw connects it with the mainland,' and there the ardent +bishop founded a regular monastery, in which he himself remained for +five years. On the soil were 250 serfs, whom Wilfrith at once set free. +After the death of Aldhelm, the West Saxon bishop, in 709, Sussex was +made a separate bishopric, with its seat at Selsea; and it was not till +after the Norman Conquest that the cathedral was removed to Chichester. +It may be noted that all these arrangements were in strict accordance +with early English custom. The kings generally gave their bishops a +seat near their own chief town, as Cuthbert had his see at Lindisfarne, +close to the royal Northumbrian capital of Bamborough; so that the +proximity of Selsea to Chichester made it the most natural place for a +bishopstool; and, again, it was usual to make over spots in the fens or +marshes to the monks, who, by draining and cultivating them, performed +a useful secular work. No traces now remain of old Selsea Cathedral, +its site having long been swallowed up by incursions of the sea. Baeda +has the ordinary number of miracles to record in connection with the +monastery. + +As time went on, however, the isolation of Sussex became less complete. +AEthelwealh had got himself into complications with Wessex by accepting +the sovereignty of the Isle of Wight and the Meonwaras about +Southhampton from the hands of a Mercian conqueror. Perhaps AEthelwealh +then repaired the old Roman roads which led from his own _ham_ at +Chichester to Portsmouth in Wessex, and broke down the mark, so as to +connect his old and his new dominions with one another. At any rate, +shortly after, Caedwalla, the West Saxon, an aetheling at large on the +look-out for a kingdom, attacked him suddenly with his host of thegns +from this unexpected quarter, killed the King himself, and harried the +South Saxons from marsh to marsh. Two South Saxons thegns expelled him +for a time, and made themselves masters of the country. But afterwards, +Caedwalla, becoming King of the West Saxons, recovered Sussex once more, +and handed it on to his successor, Ini. Hence the South Saxons had no +bishopric of their own during this period, but were included in the see +of the West Saxons at Winchester. + +During the hundred years of the Mercian Supremacy, coincident, roughly +speaking, with the eighth century, we hear little of Sussex; but it +seems to have shaken off the yoke of Wessex, and to have been in +subjection to the great Mercian over-lords alone. It had its own +under-kings and its own bishops. Early in the ninth century, however, +when Ecgberht the West Saxon succeeding in throwing off the Mercian +yoke, the other Saxon States of South Britain willingly joined him +against the Anglian oppressors. 'The men of Kent and Surrey, Sussex and +Essex, gladly submitted to King Ecgberht.' When the royal house of the +South Saxons died out, Sussex still retained a sort of separate +existence within the West Saxon State, as Wales does in the England of +our own day. AEthelwulf made his son under-king of Kent, Essex, Surrey, +and Sussex; and so, during the troublous times of the Danish invasion, +when all southern England became one in its resistance to the heathen, +those old principalities gradually sank into the position of provinces +or shires. + +From the period of union with the general West Saxon Kingdom (which +grew slowly into the Kingdom of England under Eadgar and Cnut), the +markland of the Weald seems to have been gradually encroached upon from +the south. Most of the names in that district are distinctly +'Anglo-Saxon' in type; by which I mean that they were imposed before +the Norman Conquest, and belong to the stage of the language then in +use. Even during the Roman period, settlements for iron-mining existed +in the Weald, and these clearings would of course be occupied by the +English colonists at a comparatively early time. Just at the foot of +the Downs, too, on the north side, we find a few clan settlements on +the edge of the Weald, which must date from the first period of English +colonisation. Such are Poynings, Didling, Ditchling, Chillington, and +Chiltington. Farther in, however, the clan names grow rarer; and where +we find them they are not _hams_ or _tuns_, regular communities of +Saxon settlers, but they show, by their forestine terminations of +_hurst_, _ley_, _den_, and _field_, that they were mere outlying +shelters of hunters or swineherds in the trackless forest. Such are +Billinghurst, Warminghurst, Itchingfield, and Ardingley. On the +Cuckmere river, the villages in the combes bear names like Jevington +and Lullington; but in the upper valley of the little stream, where it +flows through the Weald, we find instead Chiddingley and Hellingley. +Most of the Weald villages, however, bear still more woodland +titles--Midhurst, Farnhurst, Nuthurst, Maplehurst, and Lamberhurst; +Cuckfield, Mayfield, Rotherfield, Hartfield, Heathfield, and +Wivelsfield; Crawley, Cowfold, Loxwood, Linchmere, and Marden. _Hams_ +and _tuns_, the sure signs of early English colonisation, are almost +wholly lacking; in their place we get abundance of such names as +Coneyhurst Common, Water Down Forest, Hayward's Heath, Milland Marsh, +and Bell's Oak Green. To this day even, the greater part of the Weald +is down in park, copse, heath, forest, common, or marshland. Throughout +the whole expanse of the woodland region in Sussex, with the outlying +portions in Kent, Surrey, and Hants, Mr. Isaac Taylor has collected no +fewer than 299 local names with the significant forest terminations in +_hurst_, _den_, _ley_, _holt_, and _field_. These facts show that, +during the later 'Anglo-Saxon' period, the Weald was being slowly +colonised in a few favourable spots. Its use as a mark was now gone, +and it might be safely employed for the peaceful purposes of the archer +and the swineherd. Names referring to pasture and the wild beasts are +therefore common. + +To the same time must doubtless be assigned the exact delimitation of +the Sussex frontiers. During the early periods, the Kentings, the +Suthrige, and the West Saxons would all extend on their side as far as +the Weald, which would be treated as a sort of neutral zone. But when +the Woodland itself began to be occupied, a demarcation would naturally +be made between the neighbouring provinces. The boundary follows the +most obvious course. It starts on the east from the old mouth of the +Rother (now diverted to Rye New Harbour), known as the Kent Ditch, in +what was then the central and most impassable part of the marshland. It +runs along the Rother to its bifurcation, and then makes for the +heaven-water-parting or dividing back of the Forest Ridge, beside two +or three lesser streams. Then it passes along the crest of the ridge +from Tunbridge Wells, past East Grinstead and Crawley, till it strikes +the Hampshire border. There it follows the line between the two +watersheds to the sea, which it reaches at Emsworth. There is, however, +one long insulated spur of Hampshire running down from Haslemere to +Graffham (in apparent defiance of geographical features), whose origin +and meaning I do not understand. + +With the Norman Conquest, the history of Sussex, and of England +generally, for the most part ceases abruptly; all the rest is mere +personal gossip about Prince Edward and the battle of Lewes, or about +George IV. and the Brighton Pavilion. Not, of course, that there is not +real national history here as elsewhere; but it is hard to disentangle +from the puerile personalities of historians generally. Nevertheless, +some brief attempt to reconstruct the main facts in the subsequent +history of Sussex must still be undertaken. The part which Sussex bore +passively in the actual Conquest is itself typical of the new +relations. England was getting drawn into the general run of European +civilisation, and the old isolation of Sussex was beginning to be +broken down. Lying so near the Continent, Sussex was naturally the +landing-place for an army coming from Normandy or Ponthieu. William's +fleet came ashore on the low coast at Pevensey. Naturally he turned +towards Hastings, whence a road now led through the Weald to London. On +the tall cliffs he threw up an earthwork, and then marched towards the +great town. Harold's army met him on the heights of Senlac, part of the +solitary ridge between the marshes, by which alone London could be +reached. Harold fell on the spot now marked by the ruined high altar of +Battle Abbey--a national monument at present in the keeping of an +English duke. Once the native army was routed, William marched on +resistlessly to London, and Sussex and England were at his feet. + +The new feudal organisation of the county is doubtless shadowed forth +in the existing rapes. Of these there are six, called respectively +after Chichester, Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey, and Hastings. It +will be noticed at once that these were the seats of the new bishopric +and of the five great early castles. In one form or another, more or +less modernised, Arundel Castle, Bramber Castle, Lewes Castle, Pevensey +Castle, and Hastings Castle all survive to our own day. In accordance +with their ordinary policy of removing cathedrals from villages to +chief towns, and so concentrating the civil and ecclesiastical +government, the Normans brought the bishopstool from Selsea to +Chichester. The six rapes are fairly coincident--Chichester with the +marsh district; Arundel with the dale of Arun; Bramber with the dale of +Adur; Lewes with the western dale of Ouse; Pevensey with the eastern +dale of Ouse; and Hastings with the insulated region between the +marshes. In other words, Sussex seems to have been cut up into six +natural divisions along the sea-shore; while to each division was +assigned all the Weald back of its own shore strip as far as the +border. Thus the rapes consist of six long longitudinal belts, each +with a short sea front and a long stretch back into the Weald. + +Increased intercourse with the Continent brought the Cinque Ports into +importance; and, as premier Cinque Port, Hastings grew to be one of the +chief towns in Sussex. The constant French wars made them prominent in +mediaeval history. As trade grew up, other commercial harbours gave rise +to considerable mercantile towns. Rye and Winchelsea, at the mouth of +the Rother, were great ports of entry from France as late as the days +of Elizabeth. Seaford, at the mouth of the Ouse, was also an important +harbour till 1570, when a terrible storm changed the course of the +stream to the town called from that fact Newhaven. Lewes was likewise a +port, as the estuary of the Ouse was navigable from the mouth up to the +town. Brighthelmstone was still a village; but old Shoreham on the Adur +was a considerable place. Arundel Haven and Chichester Harbour recalls +the old mercantile importance of their respective neighbourhoods. The +only other places of any note in mediaeval Sussex were Steyning, under +the walls of Bramber Castle; Hurstmonceux, which the Conqueror bestowed +upon the lord of Eu; Battle, where he planted his great expiatory +abbey; and Hurst Pierpont, which also dates from William's own time. +The sole important part of the county was still the strip along the +coast between the Weald and the sea. + +During the Plantagenet period, England became a wool-exporting country, +like Australia at the present day; and therefore the wool-growing parts +of the island rose quickly into great importance. Sussex, with its +large expanse of chalk downs, naturally formed one of the best +wool-producing tracts; and in the reign of Edward III., Chichester was +made one of the 'staples' to which the wool trade was confined by +statute. Sussex Proper and the Lewes valley were now among the most +thickly populated regions of England. + +The Weald, too, was beginning to have its turn. English iron was +getting to be in request for the cannon, armour, and arms required in +the French wars; and nowhere was iron more easily procured, side by +side with the fuel for smelting it, than in the Sussex Weald. From the +days of the Edwards to the early part of the eighteenth century, the +woods of the Weald were cut down in quantities for the iron works. +During this time, several small towns began to spring up in the old +forest region, of which the chief are Midhurst, Petworth, Billinghurst, +Horsham, Cuckfield, and East Grinstead. Many of the deserted +smelting-places may still be seen, with their invariable accompaniment +of a pond or dam. The wood supply began to fail as early as Elizabeth's +reign, but iron was still smelted in 1760. From that time onward, the +competition of Sheffield and Birmingham--where iron was prepared by the +'new method' with coal--blew out the Sussex furnaces, and the Weald +relapsed once more into a wild heather-clad and wood-covered region, +now thickly interspersed with parks and country seats, of which +Petworth, Cowdry, and Ashburnham are the best known. + +Modern times, of course, have brought their changes. With the northward +revolution caused by steam and coal, Sussex, like the rest of southern +England, has fallen back to a purely agricultural life. The sea has +blocked up the harbours of Rye, Winchelsea, Seaford, and Lewes. Man's +hand has drained the marshes of the Rother, of Pevensey, and of Selsea +Bill; and railways have broken down the isolation of Sussex from the +remainder of the country. Still, as of old, the natural configuration +continues to produce its necessary effects. Even now there are no towns +of any size in the Weald: few, save Lewes, Arundel, and Chichester, +anywhere but on the coast. The Downs are given up to sheep-farming; the +Weald to game and pleasure-grounds; the shore to holiday-making. The +proximity to London is now the chief cause of Sussex prosperity. In the +old coaching days, Brighton was a foregone conclusion. Sixty miles by +road from town, it was the nearest accessible spot by the seaside. As +soon as people began to think of annual holidays, Brighton must +necessarily attract them. Hence George IV. and the Pavilion. The +railroad has done more. It has made Brighton into a suburb, and raised +its population to over 100,000. At the same time, the South Coast line +has begotten watering-places at Worthing, Bognor, and Littlehampton. In +the other direction, it has created Eastbourne. Those who do not love +chalk (as the Georges did), choose rather the more broken and wooded +country round Hastings and St. Leonards, where the Weald sandstone runs +down to the sea. The difference between the rounded Downs and +saucer-shaped combes of the chalk, and the deep glens traversing the +soft friable strata of the Wealden, is well seen in passing from Beachy +Head to Ecclesbourne and Fairlight. Shoreham is kept half alive by the +Brighton coal trade: Newhaven struggles on as a port for Dieppe. But as +a whole, the county is now one vast seaside resort from end to end, so +that to-day the flat coasts at Selsea, Pevensey, and Rye, are alone +left out in the cold. The iron trade and the wool trade have long since +gone north to the coal districts. Brighton and Hastings sum up in +themselves all that is vital in the Sussex of 1881. + + + + + THE BRONZE AXE. + +There is always a certain fascination in beginning a subject at the +wrong end and working backward: it has the charm which inevitably +attaches to all evil practices; you know you oughtn't, and so you can't +resist the temptation to outrage the proprieties and do it. I can't +myself resist the temptation of beginning this article where it ought +to break off--with Chinese money, which is not the origin, but the +final outcome and sole remaining modern representative of that antique +and almost prehistoric implement, the Bronze Age hatchet. + +Improbable and grotesque as this affiliation sounds at first hearing, +it is, nevertheless, about as certain as any other fact in +anthropological science--which isn't, perhaps, saying a great deal. The +familiar little brass cash, with the square hole for stringing them +together on a thread in the centre, well known to the frequenter of +minor provincial museums, are, strange to say, the lineal descendants, +in unbroken order, of the bronze axe of remote Celestial ancestors. +From the regular hatchet to the modern coin one can trace a distinct, +if somewhat broken, succession, so that it is impossible to say where +the one leaves off and the other begins--where the implement merges +into the medium of exchange, and settles down finally into the root of +all evil. + +Here is how this curious pedigree first worked itself out. In early +times, before coin was invented, barter was usually conducted between +producer and consumer with metal implements, as it still is in Central +Africa at the present day with Venetian glass beads and rolls of red +calico. Payments were all made in kind, and bronze was the commonest +form of specie. A gentleman desirous of effecting purchases in foreign +parts went about the world with a number of bronze axes in his pocket +(or its substitute), which he exchanged for other goods with the native +traffickers in the country where he did his primitive business. At +first, the early Chinese in that unsophisticated age were content to +use real hatchets for this commercial purpose; but, after a time, with +the profound mercantile instinct of their race, it occurred to some of +them that when a man wanted half a hatchet's worth of goods he might as +well pay for them with half a hatchet. Still, as it would be a pity to +spoil a good working implement by cutting it in two, the worthy Ah Sin +ingeniously compromised the matter by making thin hatchets, of the +usual size and shape, but far too slender for practical usage. By so +doing he invented coin: and, what is more, he invented it far earlier +than the rival claimants to that proud distinction, the Lydians, whose +electrum staters were first struck in the seventh century, B.C. But, +according to Professor Terrien de la Couperie, some of the fancy +Chinese hatchets which we still retain date back as far as the year +1000 (a good round number), and are so thin that they could only have +been intended to possess exchange value. And when a distinguished +Sinologist gives us a date for anything Chinese, it behoves the rest of +the unlearned world to open its mouth and shut its eyes, and thankfully +receive whatever the distinguished Sinologist may send it. + +In the seventh century, then, these mercantile axes, made in the +strictest sense to sell and not to use, were stamped with an official +stamp to mark their amount, and became thereby converted into true +coins--that was the root of the 'root of all evil.' Thence the +declension to the 'cash' is easy; the form grew gradually more and more +regular, while the square hole in the centre, once used for the handle, +was retained by conservatism and practical sense as a convenient means +of stringing them together. + +So this was the end of the old bronze hatchet, perhaps the most +wonderful civilizing agent ever invented by human ingenuity. Let us +hark back now, and from the opposite side see what was its first +beginning. + +'But why,' you ask, 'the most wonderful civilizing agency? What did the +bronze axe ever do for humanity?' Well, nearly everything. I believe I +have really not said too much. We are apt to talk big nowadays about +the steam-engine, and that marvellous electricity which is always going +to do wonders for us all--to-morrow; but I don't know whether either +ever produced so great a revolution in human life, or so completely +metamorphosed human existence, as that simple and commonplace bronze +hatchet. + +For, consider that before the days of bronze man knew no weapon or +implement of any sort save the stone axe, or tomahawk, and the +flint-tipped arrow. Consider, that the highest stage of human culture +he had then reached was hardly higher than that of the scalp-hunting +Red Indian or the seal-spearing Esquimaux. Consider, that in his Stone +Age agriculture and grains were almost unknown--the forest uncleared, +the soil untilled, and hunting and fishing the sole or principal human +activities. It was the bronze axe that first enabled man to make +clearings in the woodland on the large scale, and to sow on those +clearings in good big fields the wheat and barley which determined the +first great upward step in the drama of civilization. All these things +depend in ultimate analysis upon that pioneer of culture, the bronze +hatchet. + +And how did the first Watt or Edison of metallurgy come to make that +earliest bronze implement? Well, it seems probable that between the +Stone Age and the Bronze Age there intervened everywhere, or nearly +everywhere, a very short and transient age of copper. And the reason +for thus thinking is threefold. In the first place, bronze is an alloy +of tin and copper: and it seems natural to suppose that men would use +the simple metals in isolation to begin with, before they discovered +that they could harden and temper them by mixing the two together. In +the second place, copper occurs in the pure or native state (without +the trouble of smelting) in several countries, and was therefore a very +natural metal for early man to cast his inquiring glance upon. And in +the third place, weapons of unmixed copper, apparently of very antique +types, have been found in various parts of the world, both in Asia and +America. According to Mr. John Evans, the most learned historian of the +Bronze Age, the greatest copper 'find' of the eastern hemisphere was +that at Gungeria, in Central India; and the copper implements there +found consisted entirely of flat celts of a very early and almost +primitive pattern. + +The copper weapons of America, however, have greater illustrative and +ethnological interest, because the noble red man, at the period when +Columbus first discovered him, and when he first discovered Columbus, +was still in the Stone Age of his very imperfect culture, or, to speak +more correctly, of extreme barbarism. The fact is, the Indians of Lake +Superior were only just beginning to employ copper, and were on the eve +of independently inaugurating a Bronze Age of their own, when the +intrusive white man came and spoiled the fun by the incontinent +introduction of iron, firearms, missionaries, whisky, and all the other +resources of civilization. On the shores of Lake Superior native copper +exists in abundance; and the intelligent Red Indian, finding this +handsome red stone in the cliffs by his side, was pretty sure to try +his hand at chipping a tomahawk out of the rare material. But, as soon +as he did so, Mr. Evans suggests, he would find to his surprise that it +yielded to his blows; in short, that he had got that singular +phenomenon, a malleable stone, to deal with. Hammering away at his new +invention, he must shortly have hammered it into a shapely axe. The new +process took his practical fancy at once: vistas of an untold wealth of +scalps floated gaily before his fevered brain; and he proceeded to +hammer himself various weapons and implements without delay. Amongst +others, he produced for himself very neat spear-heads, with sockets +adapted for the reception of a shaft, made by hammering out the base +flat, and then turning over the edges so as to enclose the wood between +them, like a modern hoe-handle. In Wisconsin alone more than a hundred +of such copper axes, spear-heads, and knives have been unearthed by +antiquaries and duly recorded. + +All these weapons, however, are simply hammered, not cast or melted. +The Red Indian hadn't yet reached the stage of making a mould when De +Champlain and his _voyageurs_ came down upon Canada and interrupted +this interesting experiment in industrial development by springing the +seventeenth century upon the unsophisticated red man at one fell blow, +with all its inherited wealth of European science. Nevertheless, the +Indians must have known that fire melted copper; for the heat of the +altars was great enough, say Squier and Davis, to fuse the implements +and ornaments laid upon them in sacrificial rites; and so the fact of +its fusibility could hardly have escaped them. A people who had +advanced so far on the road towards the invention of casting could +hardly have been prevented from taking the final step, save by the +sudden intervention of some social cataclysm like the European invasion +of Eastern America. And how awful a calamity that was for the Indians +themselves we at this day can hardly even realize. + +In some similar way, no doubt, the Asiatic people who first invented +bronze must have learned the fact of the fusibility of metals, and have +applied it in time, at first, perhaps, by accident, to the manufacture +of that hard alloy. I say Asiatic, because there seems good reason to +believe that Asia was the original home of the nascent bronze industry. +For a Bronze Age almost necessarily implies a brief preceding age of +copper; and there is no proof of pure copper implements ever having +been largely used in Europe, while there is ample proof of their having +been used to a very considerable extent in Asia. Hence we may +reasonably infer that the art of bronze-making was developed in Asia by +a copper-using people, and that when metallurgy was first introduced +into Europe the method of mixing the copper with tin had already been +perfected. The abundance of tin in the south-eastern islands of Asia +renders this view probable; while in Europe there are no tin mines +worth mentioning, except in the remotest part of a remote outlying +island--to wit, in Cornwall. + +Be this as it may, the earliest and simplest forms of bronze axe with +which we are acquainted are profoundly interesting, as casting a flood +of light upon the general process of human evolution all the world +over. Every new human invention is always at first directly modelled +upon the other similar products which have preceded it. There is no +really new thing under the sun. For example, the earliest English +railway carriages were built on the model of the old stage-coach, only +that three stage-coaches, as it were, were telescoped together, side by +side--the very first bore the significant motto, _Tria juncta in +uno_--and it was this preconception of the English coachbuilder that +has hampered us ever since with our hateful 'compartments,' instead of +the commodious and comfortable open American saloon carriages. So, too, +the earliest firearms were modelled on the stock of the old cross-bow, +and the earliest earthenware pots and pans were shaped like the still +more primitive gourds and calabashes. It need not surprise us, +therefore, to find that the earliest metal axes of which we have any +knowledge were directly moulded on the original shape of the stone +tomahawk. + +Such a copper hatchet, cast in a mould formed by a polished neolithic +stone celt, was found in an early Etruscan tomb, and is still preserved +in the Museum at Berlin. See how natural this process would be. For, in +the first place, the primitive workman, knowing already only one form +of axe, the stone tomahawk, would naturally reproduce it in the new +material, without thinking what improvements in shape and design the +malleability and fusibility of the metal would render possible or easy. +But, more than that, the idea of coating the polished stone axe with +plastic clay, and thereby making a mould for the molten metal, would be +so very simple that even the neolithic savage, already accustomed to +the manufacture of coarse pottery upon natural shapes, could hardly +fail to think of it. As a matter of fact, he did think of it: for celts +of bronze or copper, cast in moulds made from stone hatchets, have been +found in Cyprus by General di Cesnola, on the site of Troy by Dr. +Schliemann, and in many other assorted localities by less distinguished +but equally trustworthy archaeologists. + +To the neolithic hunter, herdsman, and villager this progress from the +stone to the metal axe probably seemed at first a mere substitution of +an easier for a more difficult material. He little knew whither his +discovery tended. It was pure human laziness that urged the change. How +nice to save yourself all that long trouble of chipping and polishing, +with ceaseless toil, in favour of a stone which you could melt at one +go and pour while hot into a ready-made mould! It must have looked, by +comparison, like weapon-making by magic; for properly to cut and polish +a stone axe is the work of weeks and weeks of elbow-grease. Yet here, +in a moment, a better hatchet could be turned out all finished! But the +implied effects lay deeper far than the neolithic hunter could ever +have imagined. The bronze axe was the beginning of civilization; it +brought the steam-engine, the telephone, woman's rights, and the county +councillor directly in its train. With the eye of faith, had he only +possessed that useful optical organ, the Stone Age artizan might +doubtless have beheld Pears' soap and the deceased wife's sister +looming dimly in the remote future. Till that moment human life had +been almost stationary: thenceforth, it proceeded by leaps and bounds, +like a kangaroo society, on its upward path towards triumphant +democracy and the penny post. The nineteenth century and all its wiles +hung by a thread upon the success of his melting pot. + +Indeed, the whole history of human civilization has been one of a +constantly accelerated progress. The Older Stone Age, when men knew +only how to chip flint implements, but hadn't yet invented the art of +grinding and polishing them, was one of immense and incalculable +duration, to be reckoned perhaps by tens of thousands of years--some +bold chronologists would even suggest by hundreds of thousands. +Improvement there was, to be sure, during all that long epoch of slow +development; but it was improvement at a snail's pace. The very rude +chipped axes of the naked drift age give way after thousands and +thousands of years to the shapelier chipped lances, javelins, and +arrowheads of the skin-clad cavemen. M. Gabriel de Mortillet, indeed, +most indefatigable of theorists, has even pointed out four stages of +culture, marked by four different types of weapons, into which he +subdivides the Older Stone Age. Yet vast epochs elapsed before some +prehistoric Stephenson or dusky Morse first, half by accident, smote +out the idea of grinding his tomahawk smooth to a sharp cutting edge, +instead of merely chipping it sharp, and so initiated the Neolithic +Period. This Neolithic Period itself, again, was immensely long as +compared with the Bronze Age which followed, though short by comparison +with the Palaeolithic epoch which preceded it. Then the Bronze Age saw +enormous changes come faster and faster, till the use of iron still +further accelerated the rate of progress. For each new improvement +becomes, in turn, the parent of yet newer triumphs, so that at last, as +in the present day, a single century sees vaster changes in the world +of man than whole ages before it have done in far longer intervals. + +But the invention of bronze, or, in other words, the introduction of +hard metal, was really perhaps the very greatest epoch of all, the most +distinct turning-point in the whole history of humanity. True, some +beginnings of civilisation were already found in the Newer Stone Age. +Man did not then live by slaughter alone. Hand-made pottery and rude +tissues of flax are found in neolithic lake dwellings in Switzerland. +Agriculture was already practised in a feeble way on small open +clearings, cautiously cleaved with fire or hewn with the tomahawk in +the native forests. The cow, the sheep, and the goat were more or less +domesticated, though the horse was yet riderless; and the pastoral had +therefore, to some extent, superseded the pure hunting stage. But what +inroad could the stone hatchet make unaided upon the virgin forests of +those remote days? The neolithic clearing must have been a mere stray +oasis in a desert of woodland, like the villages of the New Guinea +savages at the present day, lying few and far between among vast +stretches of primaeval forest. + +With the advent of bronze, everything was different; and the difference +showed itself with extraordinary rapidity. One may compare the +revolution effected by bronze in the early world, indeed, with the +revolution effected by railways in our own time; only the neolithic +world had been so very simple a one that the change was perhaps even +more marvellous in its suddenness and its comprehensiveness. Metal +itself implied metal-working; and metal-working brought about, not only +the arts of smelting and casting, but also endless incidental arts of +design and decoration. The bronze hatchets, for example, to take our +typical implement, begin by being mere copies of the stone originals; +but, as time goes on, they acquire rapidly innumerable improvements. +First, metal is economized in the upper part which fits into the +handle, while the lower or cutting edge is widened out sideways, so as +to form an elegant and gracefully curved outline for the whole +implement. Next come the flanged axes, with projecting ledges on either +side; and then the palstaves with loops and ribs, each marking some new +improvement in the character of the weapon, which the inventor would no +doubt have patented but for the unfortunate fact that patents were as +yet wholly unknown to Bronze Age humanity. Later still come the +socketed hatchets of many patterns, with endless ingenious little +devices for securing some small advantage to the special manufacturer. +I can fancy the Bronze Age smith showing them off with pride to his +interested customers: 'These are our own patterns--the newest thing out +in bronze axes; observe the advantage you gain from the ribs and +pellets, and the peculiar character which the octagonal socket gives to +the hafting!' Indeed, in this single department of bronze celts alone, +Mr. Evans in his great monumental work figures over a hundred and +eighty distinct specimens (out of thousands known), each one presenting +some well-marked advance in type upon its predecessor. There is almost +a Yankee ingenuity of design in many of the dodges thus registered for +our inspection. + +Many of the celts, I may add, are most beautifully decorated with +geometrical patterns, some of which belong to a very high order of +ornamental art. This is still more the case with the daggers, swords, +and defensive armour, often intended for the use of great chieftains, +and executed with an amount of taste and feeling long since dead among +the degenerate workmen of our iron age. + +But the indirect effects of the introduction of metal working were far +more interesting and important in their way than the direct effects. +With bronze began the great age of agriculture, of commerce, and of +navigation. + +Of agriculture first, because the bronze hatchet enabled men to make +such openings in the forest as neolithic man had never ever dreamed of. +For the first time in the history of our race, whole tracts of country +at once began to be cleared and cultivated. Stone Age tillage was the +tillage of tiny plots in the forest's depths; Bronze Age tillage was +the tillage of fields and wide open spaces in the champaign country. +The Stone Age knew no specials implements of agriculture as such; its +tomahawk was indiscriminately applied to all purposes alike of war or +gardening. You scalped your enemy with it, or you cut up your dinner, +or you dug your field, or you planted your seed-corn, according as +taste or circumstances directed. But while the Bronze Age men had axes +to hew down the wood, they had also sickles and reaping-hooks to cut +their crops, and a sort of hoe or scraper to till the soil with. +Specialisation reached a very high pitch. All the remains of the Bronze +Age show us an agricultural people by no means idyllic in their habits +to be sure, and not all disposed to join the Peace Preservation +Society, but cultivating large stretches of wheat or barley, grinding +their meal in regular mills, and possessed of implements of +considerable diversity, some of which I shall proceed to notice later. + +The evidences of commerce and of navigation are equally obvious. Bronze +itself consists of tin and copper: and there are only two parts of the +world from which tin in any large quantities can be procured--namely, +Cornwall and the Malay Archipelago. The very existence of bronze, +therefore, necessarily implies the existence of a sea-going trade in +tin, for which some corresponding benefits must of course have been +offered by the early purchaser. As a matter of fact, we know with some +probability that it was Cornish tin which first tempted the Phoenicians +out of the inland sea, past the Pillars of Hercules, to brave the +terrors of the open Atlantic. Long before the days of such advanced +navigation, however, the Cornish tin was transported by land across the +whole breadth of Southern Britain and shipped for the Continent from +the Isle of Thanet. A very old trackway runs along the crest of the +Downs from the West Country to Kent, known now as the Pilgrim's Way, +because it was followed in far later times by mediaeval wayfarers from +Somerset and Dorset to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. +But Mr. Charles Elton has shown conclusively that the Pilgrim's Way is +many centuries more ancient than the martyr of King Henry's epoch, and +that it was used in the Bronze Age for the transport of tin from the +mines in Cornwall to the port of Sandwich. To this day antique ingots +of the valuable metal are often dug up in hoards or finds along the +line of the ancient track. They were evidently buried there in fear and +trembling, long ages since, in what Indian _voyageurs_ still call a +_cache_, by caravans hurriedly surprised by the enemy; and owing to the +unfortunate accident of the possessors all getting killed off in the +ensuing fray, the ingots have been left undisturbed for centuries for +the benefit of antiquaries at the present time. 'It's an ill wind that +blows nobody good.' Probably the inhabitants of Herculaneum and Pompeii +had very little notion what valuable relics their bodies and houses +would prove in the end for curious posterity. + +The converse evidence of a return trade in other goods is no less +striking. Not only are articles in amber found in Bronze Age tombs all +over Europe (though the gum itself belongs to the Baltic and the North +Sea alone), but also gold objects of southern workmanship occur in +British barrows; while sometimes even ivory from Africa is noticed in +the inlaid handles of some Welsh or Brigantian chieftain's sword. Glass +beads were likewise imported into Britain, as were also ornaments of +Egyptian porcelain. In fact, the Bronze Age clearly marks for us the +period when trade routes extended in every direction from the +Mediterranean, north and south, and when the world began to be +commercially solidified by a primitive theory of foreign exchange. It +is a little odd that the basis of all this traffic was tin, and that we +still use the name of that same metal as a brief equivalent for coin in +general: but persons of serious economical or philological intelligence +are particularly requested not to enter into grave correspondence with +the author of this paper on any possible levity which they may detect +lurking in this innocent remark. + +Some small idea of the rapid advance in civilization which marked the +Bronze Age may perhaps be formed from a brief enumeration of the +principal classes of remains which have come down to us intact from +that first epoch of metal. Besides all the various celts, hatchets, and +adzes, whose name is legion, and whose patterns are manifold, many +other tools or implements occur abundantly in the barrows or _caches_. +Chisels, either plain, tanged, with lugs, or socketed; gouges, hammers, +anvils, and tongs; punches, awls, drills, and prickers; tweezers, +needles, fish-hooks, and weights; all these are found by dozens in +endless variety of design. Knives are common, and the vanity of Bronze +Age man made him even put up without a murmur with the pangs of shaving +with a bronze razor. Daggers and rapiers naturally abound, many of them +of rare and beautiful workmanship. Halberds turn up less frequently, +but swords are abundant, and are sometimes tastefully decorated with +gold or ivory. Even the scabbards sometimes survive, while the shields, +adorned with concentric rings or with knobs and bosses, would put to +shame the rank and file of cheap modern metal work. Nay, the very +trumpets which sounded the onset often lie buried by the warrior's +side, and the bells which adorned his horse's neck bring back to us +vividly the Homeric pictures of Bronze Age warfare. + +The private life of Bronze Age man and his correlative wife is +illustrated for us by another great group of more strictly personal +relics. There are pins simple and pins of the infantile safety-pin +order: there are brooches which might be worn by modern ladies, and +ear-rings so huge that even modern ladies would in all probability +object to wearing them, unless, indeed, a princess or an actress made +them the fashion. The torques, or necklets, are among the best known +male decorations, and are still famous in Ireland, where Malachi +(whoever he may have been) wore the collar of gold which he tore from +the proud invader. Many of the bracelets are extremely beautiful; but, +strange to say, as if on purpose to spite the common prejudice about +the degeneracy of modern man, they are all so small in girth as to +betoken a race with arms and legs hardly any bigger than the Finns or +Laplanders. Of the clasps, buttons, and buckles I will say nothing +here. I have enumerated enough to suggest to even the most casual +observer the vastness of the revolution which the Bronze Age wrought in +the mode of life and the civilisation of ancient man. + +Bronze found our early ancestor, in fact, a half-developed savage: it +left him a semi-civilized Homeric Greek. It came in upon a world of +skin-clad hunters and fishers: it went out upon a world of Phoenician +navigators, Egyptian architects, Achaean poets, and Roman soldiers. And +all this wide difference was wrought in a period of some eight or ten +centuries at the outside, almost entirely by the advent of the simple +bronze axe. + + + + + THE ISLE OF RUIM. + +Perhaps you have never heard its name before; yet in the earlier ages +of this kingdom of Britain, Ruim Isle, rising dim through the mist of +prehistoric oceans, was once in its own way famous and important. + +Off the old and obliterated south-eastern promontory of our island, +where the land of Kent shelved almost imperceptibly into the Wantsum +Strait, Ruim Island--the Holm of the Headland--stood out with its white +wall of broken cliffs into the German Sea. The greater part of it +consisted of gorse-clad chalk down, the last subsiding spur of that +great upland range which, starting from the central boss of Salisbury +Plain, runs right across the face of Surrey and Kent, and, bifurcating +near Canterbury, falls sheer into the sea at the end of either fork by +Ramsgate or Dover. But in earlier days Ruim Isle was not joined as now +by flats and marshes to the adjacent mainland; the chalk dipped under +the open Wantsum Strait, much as the chalk of Hampshire dips to-day +under the Solent Sea, and reappeared again on the other side in the +Thanet Downs, as it reappears in the Isle of Wight at the ridge of St. +Boniface and the central hills about Newport and Carisbrooke. For now +the murder indeed is out, and you have discovered already that +Ruim--his dim, mysterious Ruim--is only just the commonplace, +vulgarized Isle of Thanet. + +Still, it is not without cause that I have ventured to call it by that +strange and now almost forgotten old-world name. There is reason, we +know, in the roasting of eggs, and, if I have gone out of my way to +introduce the ancient isle to you by its title of Ruim, it is in order +that we might start clear of the odour of tea and shrimps, the +artificial niggers, and cheap excursionists, that the name of Thanet +brings up most prominently at the present day before the travelled mind +of the modern Londoner. I want to carry you back to a time when +Ramsgate was still but a green gap in the long line of chalk cliff, and +Margate but the chine of a little trickling streamlet that tumbled +seaward over the undesecrated sands; when a broad arm of the sea still +cut off Westgate from the Reculver cliffs, and when the tide swept +unopposed four times a day over the submerged sands of Minster Level. +You must think of Thanet as then greatly resembling Wight in +geographical features, and the Wantsum as the equivalent of the Solent +Sea. + +In the very earliest period of our history, before ever the existing +names had been given at all to the towns or villages--nay, when the +towns and villages themselves were not--Ruim was already a noteworthy +island. For there is now very little doubt indeed that Thanet is the +Ictis or 'Channel Island' to which Cornish tin was conveyed across +Britain for shipment to the continent. The great harbour of Britain was +then the Wantsum Sea, known afterwards as the Rutupine Port, and later +still as Sandwich Haven. To that port came Gaulish and Phoenician +vessels, or possibly even at times some belated Phocaean galley from +Massilia. But the trade in tin was one of immense antiquity, long +antedating these almost modern commercial nations: for tin is a +necessary component of bronze, and the bronze age of Europe was +entirely dependent for its supply of that all-important metal upon the +Cornish mines. From a very early date, therefore, we may be sure that +ingots of tin were exported by this route to the continent, and then +transported overland by the Rhone valley to the shores of the +Mediterranean. + +The tin road, to give it its more proper name, followed the crest of +the Hog's Back and the Guildford downs, crossing the various rivers at +spots whose very names still attest the ancient passages--the Wey at +Shalford, the Mole at Burford, the Medway at Aylesford, and the Wantsum +Strait at Wade, in which last I seem to hear the dim echo to this day +of the Roman Vada. Ruim itself, as less liable to attack than an inland +place, formed the depot for the tin trade, and the ingots were no doubt +shipped near the site of Richborough. We may regard it, in fact, as a +sort of prehistoric Hong-Kong or Zanzibar, a trading island, where +merchants might traffic at ease with the shy and suspicious islanders. + +Ruim at that time must have consisted almost entirely of open down, +sloping upward from the tidal Wantsum, and extending a little farther +out to sea than at the present moment. Pegwell Bay was then a wide +sea-mouth; Sandwich flats did not yet exist; and the Stour itself fell +into the Wantsum Strait at the place which still bears the historic +name of Stourmouth. Round the outer coast only a few houseless gaps +marked the spots where 'long lines of cliff, breaking, had left a +chasm'--the gaps that afterwards bore the familiar names of Ramsgate, +that is to say Ruim's Gate, or 'the Door of Thanet;' Margate, that is +to say, Mere Gate, the gap of the mere (Kentish for a brook), +Broadstairs, Kingsgate, Newgate, and Westgate. The present condition of +Dumpton Gap (minus the telegraph) will give some idea of what these +Gates looked like in their earliest days; only, instead of seeing the +cultivated down, we must imagine it wildly clad with primaeval +undergrowth of yew and juniper, like the beautiful tangled district +near Guildford, still known as Fairyland. Thanet is now all +sea-front--it turns its face, freckled with summer resorts, towards the +open German Ocean. Ruim had then no sea-front at all, save the bare and +inaccessible white cliffs; it turned, such as it was, not toward the +sea, but toward the navigable Wantsum. Even until late in the middle +ages Minster was the most important place in the whole island; and +after it ranked Monkton, St. Nicholas, and Birchington--villages, all +of them, on the flat western slope. The growth in importance of the +seaward escarpment dates only from the days when Thanet became +practically a London suburb. + +With the Roman invasion Ruim saw a new epoch begin. A great +organization took hold of Britain. Roads were made and colonies +established. Verulam and Camulodun gave place in part as centres of +life and trade to York and London. Even in the native days, I believe, +the Thames must always have been a great commercial focus, and the Pool +by Tower Hill must always have been what Bede called it many centuries +later, 'a mart of many nations.' But under the Romans London grew into +a considerable city; and as the regular sea highway to the Thames lay +through the Wantsum, in the rear of Thanet, that strip of estuary +became of immense importance. In those days of coasting navigation, +indeed, the habit was to avoid headlands, and take advantage everywhere +of shallow short cuts. Ships from the continent, therefore, avoided the +North Foreland by running through the Wantsum at the back of Thanet; as +they avoided Shellness and Warden Point by running through the Swale, +at the back of Sheppey. + +To protect this main navigable channel, accordingly, the Romans built +the two great guardian fortresses of the coast, Rutupiae, or +Richborough, at the southern entrance, and Regulbium, or Reculver, at +the northern exit. Under the walls of these powerful strongholds, whose +grim ruins still frown upon the dry channel at their feet, ships were +safe from piracy, while Ruim itself sheltered them from the heavy sea +that now beats with north-east winds upon the Foreland beyond. In fact, +the Wantsum was an early Spithead: it stood to Rutupiae as the Solent +stands to Portsmouth and Southampton. But Thanet Isle hardly shared at +all in this increased civilisation; on the contrary, Rutupiae (the +precursor of Sandwich Haven) seems to have diverted all its early +commerce. For Rutupiae became clearly the naval capital of our island, +the seat of that _vir spectabilis_, the Count of Saxon Shore, and the +rendezvous of the fleets of those British 'usurpers' Maximus and +Carausius. It was also the Dover of its own day, the favourite landing +place for continental travellers; while its famous oysters, the true +natives, now driven by the silting up of their ancient beds to +Whitstable, were as much in repute with Roman epicures as their +descendants are to-day with the young Luculluses of the Gaiety and the +Criterion. + +I have ventured by this time to speak of Ruim as Thanet; and indeed +that was already one of the names by which the island was known to its +own inhabitants. The ordinary history books, to be sure, will tell you +in their glib way that Thanet is 'Saxon' for Ruim; but, when they say +so, believe not the fond thing, vainly imagined. The name is every day +as old as the Roman occupation. Solinus, writing in the third century, +calls it Thanaton, and in the torn British fragment of the Peutinger +Tables--that curious old map of the later empire--it is marked as +Tenet. Indeed, it is a matter of demonstration that every spot which +had a known name in Roman Britain retained that name after the English +conquest. Kent itself is a case in point, and every one of its towns +bears out the law, from Dover and Lymne to Reculver and Richborough, +which last is spelt 'Ratesburg' by Leland, Henry the Eighth's +commissioner. + +In some ways, however, Thanet, under the Romans, must have shared in +the general advance of the country. Solinus says it was 'glad with +corn-fields'--_felix frumentariis campis_--but this could only have +been on the tertiary slope facing Kent, as agriculture had not yet +attempted to scale the flanks of the chalk downs. As lying so near +Rutupiae, too, villas must certainly have occupied the soil in places, +as we know they did in the Isle of Wight; while the immense number of +Roman coins picked up in the island appears to betoken a somewhat dense +provincial population. + +The advent of the English brings Thanet itself, as distinct from its +ancient port, the Wantsum, into the full glare of legendary history. +According to tradition, it was at Ebb's Fleet, a little side creek near +Minster, that Hengest and Horsa first disembarked in Britain. As a +matter of fact, there is reason to suppose that at a very early time an +English colony did really settle down in peace in Thanet. On Osengal +Hill, not far from Ebb's Fleet, the cemetery of these earliest English +pioneers in England was laid bare by the building of the South Eastern +Railway. The graves are dug very shallow in the chalk, seldom as deep +as four feet; and in them lie the remains of the old heathen pirates, +buried with their arms and personal ornaments, their amber beads and +strings of glass, and the coins that were to pay their way in the other +world. But, what is oddest of all, a few of the graves in this earliest +English cemetery are Roman in character, and in them the interment is +made in the Roman fashion. The inference is almost irresistible that +the first settlement of Thanet by the English was a purely friendly +one, and that Roman and Jute lived on side by side as neighbours and +allies on the Kentish island. + +I don't doubt, myself, that the whole settlement of Kent was equally +friendly, and that the population of the county contains throughout an +almost balanced mixture of Celtic and Teutonic elements. + +However, the century and a half that succeeded the English colonization +of south-eastern Britain were, no doubt, a time of great retrogression +towards barbarism, as everywhere else in Romanised Europe. The villas +that must have covered the gentle slopes towards the Wantsum fell into +decay; the fortresses were destroyed; the roads ran wild; and the sea +and river began slowly to slit up the central part of the great +navigable backwater. A hundred and fifty years after Hengest and Horsa, +if those excellent gentlemen ever really existed, another famous +landing took place in Thanet. Augustine and his companions disembarked +at Ebb's Fleet, and held close by (on the hill behind Prospect House) +their first interview with AEthelberht. But though this epoch-making +event happened to occur in Thanet, it has no special connection with +the history of the island, any further than as a component of England +generally. And indeed, even through the garbled version of Bede, it is +plain enough to see that British Christendom was not yet wholly wiped +out in eastern Britain. The conversion of Kent was essentially a +conversion of the king and nobles to the Roman communion; it brought +back once more the part of Britain most in connection with the +continent into the broad fold of continental Christendom. It is quite +clear, in fact, that Rutupiae and Durovernum, Richborough and +Canterbury, had never ceased to hold close intercourse with the +opposite shore, whose cliffs still shine so distinctly from the hills +about Ramsgate. For AEthelberht himself was married to a Christian +Frankish princess of the house of the Merwings; and coins of the +Frankish kings and of the Byzantine emperors have been found on the +surface or in contemporary Jutish graves in Kent. + +It is interesting to observe, too, that of the monks whom Gregory chose +to accompany Augustine on his easy mission, one was Lawrence, who +succeeded his leader as second Archbishop of Canterbury, and another +was Peter, the first Abbot of St. Augustine's monastery. Out of +compliment to these pioneer missionaries, or to their Roman house of +St. Andrew's, almost every old church in that part of Kent is dedicated +accordingly, either to St. Augustine, St. Lawrence, St. Peter, St. +Gregory, St. Andrew, or St. Martin (patron of Bertha's first church at +Canterbury). Thus, as we shall see hereafter, St. Lawrence was the +mother church of Ramsgate, and St. Peter's of Broadstairs, while the +entire lathe bears the name of St. Augustine. + +In Thanet, too, the first evidence of the new order of things was the +foundation in the island of that great civilizing agency of mediaeval +England, a monastery. The site chosen for its home was still, however, +characteristic of the old point of view of Thanet. It was the place +that yet bears the name of Minster, situated on a little creek of the +Wantsum sea, where some slight remains of an ancient pier may even now +be traced among the silt of the marshes. The island still looked +towards the narrow seas and the port of Rutupiae, not, as now, towards +the tall cliffs and the German Ocean. Ecgberht, fourth Christian king +of Kent, by the advice of Theodore, the monk of Tarsus who became +Archbishop of Canterbury, made over to the lady whose name is +conveniently Latinised as Dompneva, first abbess, some forty-eight +plough-lands in the Isle of Thanet. This cultivated district, bounded +by the ancient earthwork known (from the name of the second abbess) as +St. Mildred's Lynch, lay almost entirely within the westward-sloping +and mainly tertiary lands; the higher chalk country was as yet +apparently considered unfit for tillage. The existing remains of +Minster Abbey are, of course, of comparatively late Plantagenet date; +but as parts of a great grange, whose still larger granary was burnt +down only in the last century, they serve well to show the importance +of the monastic system as a civilizing agency in the country districts +of England. + +Already in Bede's time the Wantsum was beginning to get silted up, +mainly by the muddy deposits brought down by the Stour. It was then +only three furlongs wide, and could be forded at two points, near Sarr +and at Wade. The seaward mouth was also beginning to be encumbered with +sand, and the first indication we get of this important impending +change is the fact that we now hear less of Richborough, and more of +Sandwich, the new port a little nearer the sea, whose very name of the +Wick or haven on the Sand, in itself sufficiently tells the history of +its origin. As the older port got progressively silted up, the newer +one grew into ever greater importance, exactly as Norwich ousted +Caister, or as Portsmouth has taken the place of Porchester. +Nevertheless, the central channel still remained navigable for the +vessels of that age--they can only have drawn a very few feet of +water--and this made the Wantsum in time the great highway for the +Danish pirates on their way to London, and exposed Thanet exceptionally +to their relentless incursions. + +In fact, the Danes and Northmen were just what they loved to call +themselves, vik-ings or wickings, men of the viks, wicks, bays, or +estuaries. What they loved was a fiord, a strait, a peninsula, an +island. Everywhere round the coast of Britain they seized and fortified +the projecting headlands. But in the neighbourhood of the Thames, the +high road to the great commercial port of London, the mementoes of +their presence are particularly frequent. The whole nomenclature of the +lower Thames navigation, as Canon Isaac Taylor has pointed out, is +Scandinavian to this day. Deptford (the deep fiord), Greenwich (the +green reach), and Woolwich (the hill reach) all bear good Norse names. +So do the Foreness, the Whiteness, Shellness, Sheerness, Shoeburyness, +Foulness, Wrabness, and Orfordness. Walton-on-the-Naze near Harwich in +like manner still recalls the time when a Danish 'wall'--that is to +say, a _vallum_, or earthwork--ran across the isthmus to defend the +Scandinavian peninsula from its English enemies. + +At such a time Sandwich, with its shallow fiord, was sure to afford +good shelter to the northern long ships; and isolated Thanet, +overlooking the navigable strait, was a predestined depot for the +northern pirates, as four centuries earlier it had been for the +followers of those mythical personifications, Hengest and Horsa. Long +before the unification of England under a single West Saxon +overlordship the Danes used to land in the island every year, to +plunder the crops, and in 851, when AEthelwulf was lord of Wessex at +Winchester, 'heathen men,' says the Winchester Chronicle, with its +usual charming conciseness, 'first sat over winter in Tenet.' From that +time forward the 'heathen men' continually returned to the island, +which they used apparently as a base of operations, with their ships +lying in Sandwich Haven; in fact, Thanet must long have been a sort of +irregular Danish colony. Still, St. Mildred's nuns appear to have lived +on somehow at Minster through the dark time, for in 988 the Danes +landed and burnt the abbey, as they did again under Swegen in 1011, +killing at the same time the abbess and all the inmates. On the whole, +it is probable that life and property in Thanet were far from secure +any time in the ninth, tenth, and early eleventh centuries. + +At least as late as the Norman conquest the Wantsum remained a +navigable channel, and the usual route to London by sea was in at +Sandwich and out at Northmouth. It was thus that King Harold's fleet +sailed on its plundering expedition round the coast of Kent (a small +unexplained incident of the early English type, only to be understood +by the analogies of later Scotch history), and thus too, that many +other expeditions are described in the concise style of our +unsophisticated early historians. But from the eleventh century onward +we hear little of the Wantsum as a navigable channel; it has dwindled +down almost entirely to Sandwich Haven, 'the most famous of English +ports,' says the writer of the life of Emma of Normandy, about 1050. +Sandwich is indeed the oldest of the Cinque Ports, succeeding in this +matter to the honours of Rutupiae, and all through the middle ages it +remained the great harbour for continental traffic. Edward III. sailed +thence for France or Flanders, and as late as 1446 it is still spoken +of by a foreign ambassador as the resort of ships from all quarters of +Europe. + +Still, the Wantsum was all this while gradually silting up, a grain at +a time, and the Isle of Ruim was slowly becoming joined to the opposite +mainland. When Leland visited it, in Henry VIII.'s reign, the change +was almost complete. 'At Northmouth,' says the royal commissioner, in +his quaint dry way, 'where the estery of the se was, the salt water +swelleth yet up at a Creeke a myle or more toward a place called Sarre, +which was the commune fery when Thanet was fulle iled.' Sandwich Haven +itself began to be difficult of access about 1500 (Henry VII. being +king), and in 1558 (under Mary) a Flemish engineer, 'a cunning and +expert man in waterworks,' was engaged to remedy the blocking of the +channel. By a century later it was quite closed, and the Isle of Thanet +had ceased to exist, except in name, the Stour now flowing seaward by a +long bend through Minster Level, while hardly a relic of the Wantsum +could be traced in the artificial ditches that intersect the flat and +banked-up surface of the St. Nicholas marshes. + +Meanwhile, Thanet had been growing once more into an agricultural +country. Minster, untenable by its nuns, had been made over after the +Danish invasions to the monks of St. Augustine at Canterbury, and it +was they who built the great barn and manor house which were the outer +symbol of its new agricultural importance. Monkton, close by, belonged +to the rival house of Christ Church at Canterbury (the cathedral +monastery), as did also St. Nicholas at Wade, remarkable for its large +and handsome Early English church. All these ecclesiastical lands were +excellently tilled. After the Reformation, however, things changed +greatly. The silting up of the Wantsum and the decay of Sandwich Haven +left Thanet quite out of the world, remote from all the main highroads +of the new England. Ships now went past the North Foreland to London, +and knew it only as a dangerous point, not without a sinister +reputation for wrecking. On the other hand, on the land side, the +island lay off the great highways, surrounded by marsh or +half-reclaimed levels; and it seems rapidly to have sunk into a state +resembling that of the more distant parts of Cornwall. The inhabitants +degenerated into good wreckers and bad tillers. They say an Orkney man +is a farmer who owns a boat, while a Shetlander is a fisherman who owns +a farm. In much the same spirit, Camden speaks of the Elizabethan +Thanet folks as 'a sort of amphibious creatures, equally skilled in +holding helm and plough'; while Lewis, early in the last century, tells +us they made 'two voyages a year to the North Seas, and came home soon +enough for the men to go to the wheat season.' With genial tolerance +the Georgian historian adds, 'It's a thousand pities they are so apt to +pilfer stranded ships.' Piracy, which ran in the Thanet blood, seemed +to their good easy local annalist a regrettable peccadillo. + +In all this, however, we begin to catch the first faintly-resounding +note of modern Thanet. The intelligent reader will no doubt have +observed, with his usual acuteness, that up to date we have heard +practically nothing of Ramsgate, Margate, and Broadstairs, which now +form the real centres of population in the nominal island. Its +relations have all been with Rutupiae, Sandwich, Canterbury, and the +mainland. But the silting up of the Wantsum turned the new Thanet +seaward, by the chalky cliffs; and the gaps or gates in that natural +sea-wall now began to be of comparative importance as fishing stations +and small havens. Ebb's Fleet was no longer the port of Ruim. The +centre of gravity of the island shifts at this point, accordingly, from +Minster to Ramsgate. The change is well marked by certain interesting +ecclesiastical facts. Neither Ramsgate nor Broadstairs had originally +churches of their own. The first formed part of the parish of St. +Lawrence, which was itself a mere chapelry of Minster till late in the +thirteenth century. The old village lies half a mile inland, and +Ramsgate itself was throughout the middle ages nothing more than a mere +gap and cove where the fishermen of St. Lawrence kept their boats. The +first church in the town proper was not erected till 1791. Similarly, +Broadstairs formed part of the parish of St. Peter's, the village of +which lies back at about the same distance from the sea as St. +Lawrence; and St Peter's, too, was at first a chapelry of Minster. The +cliffs were then nothing; the inward slope was everything. + +Margate seems to have been the first place in the new Thanet to attain +the honour of a place in history. As in two previous cases, the Mere +Gate was at first but a fisherman's station for the village of St. +John's, which gathered about the old church at the south end of the +existing town. But as the Northmouth closed up, and Sandwich Haven +decayed, the Mere Gate naturally became the little local port for corn +grown on the island and wool raised on the newly-reclaimed Minster +Level. A wooden pier existed at Margate long before the reign of Henry +VIII., when Leland found it "sore decayed," and the village was in +repute for fishery and coasting trade. Throughout the Stuart period +Margate was the ordinary place of departure and arrival for Flushing +and the Low Countries. William of Orange frequently sailed hence, and +Maryborough used it for almost all his expeditions. It was about the +middle of the last century, however, that the real prosperity of +Margate first began. Then it was that citizens of credit and renown in +London first hit upon the glorious discovery of the seaside, and that +watering-places tentatively and timidly raised their unobtrusive heads +along the nearer beaches. The journey from London could be made far +more easily by river than that to Brighton by coach; and so Margate, +the nearest spot to town (by water) on the real sea with any +accommodation for visitors, became in point of fact the earliest London +seaside resort. It was, if not the first place, at least one of the +first places in England to offer to its guests the perilous joy of +bathing machines, which were inaugurated here about 1790. + +With the introduction of steamers Margate's fortune was made. Floods of +Cockneydom were let loose upon the nascent lodging-houses. Then came +the London, Chatham and Dover, and South Eastern Railways, and with +them an ever-increasing inundation of good-humoured cheap-trippers. The +Hall-by-the-Sea and other modern improvements and attractions followed. +Like the rest of Thanet, Margate has now become a mere suburb of +London, and what it resembles at the present day a delicate regard for +the feelings of the inhabitants forbids me to enlarge upon. I will +merely add that the recognized modern name of Margate is an +etymological blunder, due to the idea immortalized in the borough +motto, "Porta maris, Portus salutis," that it means Door of the Sea. +The true word is still universally preserved on the lips of the local +fisher-folk, who always religiously call it either Meregate or Mergate. + +Ramsgate, a much more attractive and enjoyable centre, rich in +excursions to points of genuine interest, dates somewhat later. It +first came into note about the beginning of the eighteenth century, +when it did a modest trade with the Levant and the Black Sea, or, as +contemporary English more prettily phrases it, 'with Russia and the +east country.' In 1750 the first pier was built, as a national work, +mainly to serve as a harbour of refuge for ships caught in gales off +the Downs. The engineer was Smeaton, and he succeeded in creating an +artificial harbour of great extent, which has lasted substantially up +to the present time. This new port, rendered safer by the enlargement +in 1788, made Ramsgate at once into an important seafaring town, the +capital of the Kentish herring trade, alive with smacks in the busy +season. The steamers did it less good at first than they did to +Margate; but the completion of the two railways, and the building of +the handsome extensions on the east and west cliffs, turned it at once +into a frequented watering-place. It is the fashion nowadays rather to +laugh at Ramsgate. Marine painters know better. Few harbours are +livelier with red and brown sails; few coasts more enjoyable than the +cliff walk looking across towards the Goodwins, the low shore by +Sandwich, the higher ground about Deal and Dover, and the dim white +line of Cape Blancnez in the distance. + +Broadstairs, close by the lighthouse on the North Foreland (the Cantium +Promontorium of Roman geography), is still newer as a place of public +resort. But as a fishing village it dates back to the middle ages, when +the little chapel of "Our Lady of Bradstow" stood in the gap of the +cliffs, and was much addressed by anxious sailors rounding the +dangerous point after the silting up of the Wantsum. Ships as they +passed lowered their top-sails to do it reverence. Under Henry VIII. a +small wooden pier was thrown out to protect the fishing boats; and +about the same time, as part of the general scheme of coast defence +inaugurated by the king, a gate and portcullis were erected to close +the gap seaward, in case of invasion. The archway and portcullis groove +remain to this day, with an inscription recording their repair in 1795 +by Sir John Henniker. The railway has turned Broadstairs into a minor +rival of Ramsgate and Margate and 'a favourite resort for gentry,' +where 'those who require quietness, either from ill health or a +retiring disposition,' says a local guide-book, may enjoy 'the united +advantages of tranquillity and seclusion.' Hundreds of retiring souls +indeed may be observed on the beach any day during the season, seeking +tranquillity in a game of cards, repairing their health with the +stimulus of donkey exercise, or soothing their souls in secret hour +with music sweet as love, discoursed to them by gentlemen in loose pink +suits and artificially imitated AEthiopian countenances. + +Westgate is the very latest-born of these Thanet gates, a brand-new +watering-place, where every house proclaims the futility of the popular +belief that Queen Anne is dead, and where fashionable physicians send +fashionable patients to cure imaginary diseases by a dose of fresh air. +It has no history, for only a few years since it consisted entirely of +a coastguard station and three or four cottages: but it is interesting +as casting light on the nature of the revolution which has turned +Thanet inside out and hind part before, making the open sea take the +place of the Kentish mainland, and the railway to London that of the +silted Wantsum. + +At the present day Thanet as a whole consists of two parts: the live +sea front, which is one long succession of suburban watering-places; +and the agricultural interior, including the reclaimed estuary, which +ranks among the best-farmed and most productive districts in all +England, Yet till a very recent date the Thanet farmers still retained +the use of the old Kentish plough, the coulter of which is reversed at +the end of every furrow; and many other curious insular customs mark +off the agriculture of the island even now from that which prevails +over the rest of the country. + +I don't know whether I'm wrong, but it often seems to me the very best +way to gain an idea of the real history of England is thus to take a +single district piecemeal, and trace out for one's self the main +features of its gradual evolution. By so doing we get away from mere +dynastic or political considerations, leave behind the bang of drums or +the blare of trumpets, and reach down to the living facts of common +human activity themselves--the realities of the workaday world of +toilers and spinners. By narrowing our field of view, in fact, we gain +a clearer picture on our smaller focus. We see how the big historical +revolutions actually affected the life of the people; and we trace more +readily the true nature of deep-reaching changes when we follow them +out in detail over a particular area. + + + + + A HILL-TOP STRONGHOLD. + +'Why, what did they want to build a city right up here for, anyway?' +the pretty American asked, who had come with us to Fiesole, as we +rested, panting, after our long steep climb, on the cathedral platform. + +Now the question was a pertinent and in its way a truly philosophical +one. Fiesole crests the ridge of a Tuscan hill, and in America they +don't build cities on hill-tops. You may search through the length and +breadth of the United States, from Maine to California, and I venture +to bet a modest dollar you won't find a single town perched anywhere in +a position at all resembling that of many a glowing Etrurian fastness, +that 'Like an eagle's nest Hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine.' +Towns in America stand all on the level: most of them are built by +harbours of sea or inland lake; or by navigable rivers; or at the +junction of railways; or at a point where cataracts (sadly debased) +supply ample water-power for saw-mills and factories; or else in the +immediate neighbourhood of coal, iron, oil wells, or gold and silver +mines. In short, the position of American towns bears always an +immediate and obvious reference to the wants and necessities of our +modern industrial and commercial system. They are towns that have grown +up in a state of profound peace, and that imply advanced means of +communication, with a free interchange of agricultural and manufactured +products. + +Hence in America it is always quite easy to see at a glance the _raison +d'etre_ of every town or village one comes across. New York, Boston, +Philadelphia, Baltimore--New Orleans, Montreal, San Francisco, +Charleston--are all great ports for the exportation of corn, pork, +'lumber,' cotton, or tobacco, and the importation of European +manufactured goods. Chicago is the main collecting and distributing +centre for the wide basin of the upper Great Lakes, as Cincinnati is +for the Ohio Valley, and St. Louis for the Mississippi and Missouri +confluents. Pittsburg bases itself upon its coal and its iron; Buffalo +exists as the point of transfer where elevators raise the corn of +Chicago from lake-going vessels into the long, low barges of the Erie +Canal. In every case, in that newest of worlds, one can see for oneself +at a glance exactly why so large a body of human beings has collected +just at that precise spot, and at no other. + +But when you have toiled up, hot and breathless, through olive and +pine, from the Viale at Florence to the antique Cyclopean walls of +Etruscan Faesulae, you wonder to yourself, like our American friend, as +you pant on the terrace of the Romanesque cathedral, what on earth they +could ever have wanted to build a town up there for, anyway. + +If we look away from Tuscany to our own England, however, we shall find +on many a deserted down or lonely tor ample evidence of the causes +which led the people of this ancient Etruscan town to build their +citadel at so great a height above the neighbouring valley. Fiesole, +says Dante, in a well-known verse, was the mother of Florence. Even so +in England, Old Sarum was indeed the mother of Salisbury, and Caer +Badon or Sulis was the mother of Bath. And when there was first a +Faesulae on the hill here there could be no Florence, as when first there +was an Old Sarum on the Wiltshire downs there could be no Salisbury, +and when first there was a Caer Badon on the heights of Avon there +could be no Bath. + +In very early times indeed, in the European land area, when men began +first to gather together into towns or villages, two necessities +determined their choice of a place to dwell in: first, food-supply +(including water); and second, defence. Hence every early community +stands, to start with, near its own cultivable territory, usually a +broad river-valley, an alluvial plain, a 'carse' or lowland, for +uplands as yet were incapable of tillage by the primitive agriculture +of those early epochs. But it does not stand actually _in_ the carse; +it occupies as a rule the nearest convenient height or hill-top, most +often the one that juts out farthest into the subjacent plain, by way +of security against the attack of enemies. This is the beginning of +almost every great historical European town; it is an arx or acropolis +overhanging its own tilth or _ager_; and though in many cases the town +came down at last into the valley, retaining still its old name, yet +the remains of the old earthworks or walls on the hill-top above often +bear witness to our own day to the original site of the antique +settlement upon the high places. + +One can mark, too, various stages in this gradual process of secular +descent from the wind-swept hills into the valleys below, as freer +communications and greater security made access to water, roads, and +rivers of greater importance than mere defence or elevated position. At +Bath, for example, it was the Pax Romana that brought down the town +from the stockaded height of Caer Badon, and the Hill of Solisbury to +the ford and the hot springs in the valley of the Avon. At Old Sarum, +on the other hand, the hill-top town remained much longer: it lived +from the Celtic first into the Roman and then into the West Saxon +world; it had a cathedral of its own in Norman times; and even long +after Bishop Roger Poore founded the New Sarum, which we now call +Salisbury, at the point where the great west road passed the river +below, the hill-top town continued to be inhabited, and, as everybody +knows, when all its population had finally dwindled away, retained some +vestige of its ancient importance by returning a member of its own for +a single farmhouse to the unreformed Parliament till '32. As for +Fiesole, though Florence has long since superseded it as the capital of +the Arno Valley, the town itself still lives on to our own time in a +dead-alive way, and, like Norman. Old Sarum, retains even now its +beautiful old cathedral, its Palazzo Pretorio, and its acknowledged +claims to ancient boroughship. In England, I know by personal +experience only one such hill-top town of the antique sort still +surviving, and that is Shaftsbury; but I am told that Launceston, with +its strong castle overlooking the Tamar, is even a finer example. This +relatively early disappearance of the hill-top fortress from our own +midst is in part due, no doubt, to the early growth of the industrial +spirit in England, and our long-continued freedom from domestic +warfare. But all over Southern Europe, as everybody must have noticed, +the hill-top town, perched, like Eza, on the very summit of a pointed +pinnacle, still remains everywhere in evidence as a common object of +the country in our own day. + +I said above that Fiesole was the mother of Florence, and, in spite of +formal objections to the contrary, I venture to defend that now +somewhat obsolete and heretical opinion. For why does Fiesole stand +just where it does? What made them build a city up there, anyway? Well, +a town always exists just where it does exist for some good and amply +sufficient reason. Even if, like Fiesole, it is mainly a survival +(though at Fiesole there are, indeed, olives in plenty and other live +trades to keep a town going), it yet exists there in virtue of facts +which once upon a time were quite sufficient to bring the world to the +spot, and it goes on existing, partly by mere conservative use and +wont, no doubt, but partly also because there are houses, churches, +mills, and roads all ready built there. Now, a town must always, from a +very early period, have existed upon the exact site of Fiesole. And +why? To answer that question you have only to look at the view from the +platform. I do not mean to suggest that the ancient Etruscans came +there to enjoy the prospect as we go nowadays to the hotels on the Rigi +or to the summit of Mount Washington. The ancient Etruscan was a +practical man, and his views about views were probably rudimentary. But +gaze down for a moment from the cathedral platform upon the valley of +the Arno, spread like a glowing picture at your feet, and see how +immediately it resolves the doubt. Not, indeed, the valley of the Arno +as it stands at present, thick set with tower and spire and palace. In +order to arrive at the _raison d'etre_ of Fiesole you must blot out +mentally Arnolfo's vast pile, and Brunelleschi's dome, and Giotto's +campanile, and Savonarola's monastery, and the tall and slender tower +of the Palazzo Vecchio, rising like a shaft sheer into the air far, far +below--you must blot out, in short, all that makes the world now +congregate at Florence, and all Florence itself into the bargain. +Nowhere on earth do I know a more peopled plain than that plain of Arno +in our own time, seen on a sunny autumn day, when the light glints +clearly on each white villa and church and hamlet, from this specular +mount of antique Fiesole. But to understand why Fiesole itself stands +there at all you must neglect all this, neglect all the wealth of art +that makes each inch of that valley classic ground, and look only, if +you can for a brief moment, at the bare facts of primitive nature. + +And what then do you see? Spread far below you, and basking in the +sunshine, a comparatively flat and wide, open valley; olive and stone +pine and mulberry on its slopes; pasture land and flowery vale in its +midst. North and south, in two long ridges, the Apennines stretch their +hard, blue outlines from Carrara to Siena against the afternoon +sky--outlines of a sort that one never gets in northern lands, but +which remind one so exactly of the painted background to a +fifteenth-century Italian picture that nature seems here, to our +topsy-turvy fancy, to be whimsically imitating an effect from art. But +in between those two tossed and tumbled guardian ridges, the valley of +the Arno, as it flows towards Pisa, with the minor basins of its +tributary streams, expands for a while about Florence itself into a +broad and comparatively level plain. In a mountain country so broken +and heaved about as Peninsular Italy, every spare inch of cultivable +plain like that has incalculable value. True, on the terraced slopes of +the hillsides generation after generation of ingenious men have managed +to build up, tier by tier, a wonderful expanse of artificial tilth. But +while oil and wine can be produced upon the terraces, it is on the +river valleys alone that the early inhabitants had to depend for their +corn, their cheese, and their flesh-meat. Hence, in primitive Italy and +in primitive England alike, every such open alluvial plain, fit for +tilth or grazing, had overhanging it a stockaded hill-fort, which grew +with time into a mediaeval town or a walled city. It is just so that +Caer Badon at Bath overhangs, with its prehistoric earthworks, the +plain of Avon on which Beau Nash's city now spreads its streets, and it +is just so that Old Sarum in turn overhangs, with its regular Roman +fosses and gigantic glacis, the dale of the namesake river in Wilts, +near its point of confluence with the stream of the Wily. + +We find it hard, no doubt, to imagine nowadays that once upon a time +England was almost as thickly covered with hill-top villages (though on +minor heights) as Italy is in the present century. Yet such was +undoubtedly the case in prehistoric times. I know no better instance of +the way these stockaded villages were built than the magnificent group +of antique earthworks in Dorset and Devon which rings round with a +double row of fortresses the beautiful valley of the Axminster Axe. +There, on one side, a long line of strongholds built by the Durotriges +caps every jutting down and hill-top on the southern and eastern bank +of the river, while facing them, on the opposite northern and western +side, rises a similar series of Damnonian fortresses, crowning the +corresponding Devonshire heights. Lambert's Castle, Musberry Castle, +Hawksdown Castle, and so forth, the local nomenclature still calls +them, but they are castles, or _castra_, only in the now obsolete Roman +sense; prehistoric earthworks, with dyke and trench, once stockaded +with wooden palings on top, and enclosing the huts and homes of the +inhabitants. The river ran between the hostile territories; each +village held its own strip of land below its fortress-height, and drove +up its cattle, its women, and its children, in times of foray, to the +safety of the kraal or hill-top encampment. + +In such a condition of society, of course, every community was +absolutely dependent upon its own territory for the means of +subsistence. And wherever the means of subsistence existed, a village +was sure to spring up in time upon the nearest hill-top. That is how +the oldest Fiesole of all first came to be perched there. It was a +hill-top refuge for the tillers and grazers of the fertile Arno vale at +its feet. + +But why did the people of the Arno Valley fix upon the particular site +of Fiesole? Surely on the southern side of the river, about the Viale +dei Colli, the hills approach much nearer to the plain. From San +Miniato and the Bello Sguardo one looks down far more directly upon the +domes and palaces and campaniles of Florence spread right at one's +feet. Why didn't the primitive inhabitants of the valley fix rather on +a spur of that nearer range--say the one where Galileo's tower +stands--for the site of their village? + +If you know Florence and have asked that question within yourself in +all seriousness as you read, I see you haven't yet begun to throw +yourself into the position of affairs in prehistoric Tuscany. You can't +shuffle off your own century. For between the broad plain and the range +of hills where the Viale dei Colli now winds serpentine on its +beautiful way round the glens and ravines, the Arno runs, a broad +torrent flood in times of freshet: the Arno, unbridged as yet (in the +days I speak of) by the Ponte Vecchio, an impassable frontier between +the wide territory of prehistoric Fiesole and the narrow fields of some +minor village, long since forgotten, on the opposite bank. The great +alluvial plain lies north of the river; the three streams whose silt +contributes to form it flow into the main channel from Pistoja and +Prato. To live across the river on the south bank would have been +absolutely impossible for the owners of the plain. But Fiesole occupies +a central spur of the northern heights, overlooking the valley to east +and west, and must therefore have been always the natural place from +which to command the plain of Arno. A little above and a little below +Florence gorges once more hem the river in. So that the plain of +Florence (as we call it nowadays), the plain of Fiesole, as it once +was, formed at the beginning a little natural principality by itself, +of which Fiesole was the obvious capital and stronghold. + +For in order to understand Fiesole aright, we must always manage in our +own minds to get rid entirely of that beautiful mushroom growth, +Florence, and to think only of the most ancient epoch. While we are in +Florence itself, to be sure, it seems to us always, by comparison with +our modern English towns, that Florence is a place of immemorial +antiquity. It was civilized when Britain was a den of thieves. While in +feudal England Edward I. was summoning his barons to repress the rising +of William Wallace, in Florence, already a great commercial town, +Arnolfo di Cambio had received the sublime orders of the Signoria to +construct for the Duomo 'the most sumptuous edifice that human +invention could desire or human labour execute,' and had carried out +those orders with consummate skill. While Edward III. was dreaming of +his lawless filibustering expeditions into France, Ciotto was +encrusting the face of his glorious belfry with that magnificent +decoration of many-coloured marbles which makes northern churches look +so cold and grey and barbaric by comparison. While Englishmen were +burning Joan of Arc at Rouen, Fra Angelico was adorning the walls of +San Marco with those rapt saints and those spotless Madonnas. Even the +very back streets of Florence recall at every step its mediaeval +magnificence. But when from Florence itself one turns to Fiesole, the +city by the Arno sinks at once by a sudden revulsion into a mere thing +of yesterday by the side of the city on the Etruscan hill-top. Fiesole +was a town of immemorial antiquity while Florence was still, what +perhaps its poetical name imports, a field of flowers. + +But why this particular height rather than any other of the dozen that +jut out into the plain? Well, there we get at another fundamental point +in hill-top town history. Fiesole had water. A spring at such a height +is comparatively rare, but it is a necessary accompaniment, or rather a +condition precedent, of all high-place villages. In the Borgo Unto you +will still find this spring--a natural fountain, the Fonte Sotterra--in +an underground passage, now approached (so greatly did the Fiesolans +appreciate its importance) by a Gothic archway. The water supplies the +whole neighbourhood; and that accounts for the position of the town on +the low _col_ just below the acropolis. + +Who first chose the site it would be impossible to say; the earliest +stockaded fort at Fiesole (enclosing the town and arx above) must go +back to the very dawn of neolithic history, long before the Etruscans +had ever issued forth from their Rhaetian fastnesses to occupy the blue +and silver-grey hills of modern Tuscany. Nor do we know who built the +great Cyclopean walls, whose huge rough blocks still overhang the +modern carriage road that leads past Boccaccio's Valley of the Ladies +and Fra Angelico's earliest convent from the town in the Valley. They +are attributed to the Etruscans, of course, on much the same grounds as +Stonehenge is attributed to the Druids--because in the minds of the +people who made the attribution Etruscans and Druids were each in their +own place the _ne plus ultra_ of aboriginal antiquity. But at any rate, +at some very early time, the people who held the valley of the Arno +erected these vast megalithic walls round their city and citadel as a +protection, probably, against the people who held the Ligurian +sea-board. Throughout the early historical period at least we know that +Faesulae was an Etruscan border-town against the Ligurian freebooters, +and we can see that the arx or acropolis of Faesulae must have occupied +the hill-top now occupied by the Franciscan monastery on the height +above the town, while the houses must have spread, as they still do +within shrunken limits, about the spring and over the _col_ at its +base. + +Faesulae was not one of the great Etrurian cities, not one of the twelve +cities of the Etruscan League. Volterra occupies the site of the large +Tuscan town which lorded it over this part of the Lower Apennines. But +Faesulae must still have been a considerable place, to judge by the +magnitude and importance of its fortifications, and it must have +gathered into itself the entire population of all the little Arno +plain. As long as _fortis Etruria crevit_, Faesulae must always have held +its own as a frontier post against the Ligurian foe. But when _fortis +Etruria_ began to decline, and Rome to become the summit of all things, +the glory of Faesulae received a severe shock. Not indeed by +conquest--that counts for little--but the Roman peace introduced into +Italy a new order of things, fatal to the hill-tops. Sulla, who humbled +Faesulae, did far worse than that: he planted a Roman colony in the +valley at its foot--the colony of Florentia--at the point where the +road crossed the Arno--the colony that was afterwards to become the +most famous commercial and artistic town of the mediaeval world as +Florence. + +The position of the new town marks the change that had come over the +conditions of life in Upper Italy. Florence was a Fiesole descended to +the plain. And it descended for just the selfsame reason that made +Bishop Poore thirteen centuries later bring down Sarum from its lofty +hill-top to the new white minster by the ford of Avon. Roads, +communications, internal trade were henceforth to exist and to count +for much; what was needed now was a post and trading town on the river +to guard the passage from north to south against possible aggression. +Fiesole had been but a mountain stronghold; Florence was marked from +the very beginning by its mere position as a great commercial and +manufacturing town. + +Nevertheless, just as in mediaeval England the upper town on the hill, +the castled town of the barons, often existed for many years side by +side with the lower town on the river, the high-road town of the +merchant guilds--just as Old Sarum, for example, continued to exist +side by side with Salisbury--so Faesulae continued to exist side by side +with Florentia. As a military post, commanding the plain, it was +needful to retain it; and so, though Sulla destroyed in part its +population, he reinstated it before long as one of his own Roman +colonies. And for a long time, during the ages of doubtful peace that +succeeded the first glorious flush of the military empire, Faesulae must +have kept up its importance unchanged. The remains of the Roman theatre +on the slope behind the cathedral--great stone semicircles carved on a +scale to seat a large audience--betoken a considerable Roman town. And +from a very early period it seems to have possessed a Christian church, +whose first bishop, according to a tradition as good as most, was a +convert of St. Peter's, and was martyred, says his legend, in the +Neronian persecution. The existing cathedral, its later representative, +is still an early and very simple Tuscan basilica, with picturesque +crypt and raised choir, of a very plain Romanesque type. It looks like +a fitting church for the mother-town of Florence; it seems to recall in +its own cold and austere fabric the more ancient claims of the sombre +Etruscan hill-top city. + +It was the middle ages, however, that finally brought down Fiesole in +earnest to the plain. Pisa had been the earliest Tuscan town to attain +importance and maritime supremacy after the dark days of barbarian +incursion; but as soon as land-transit once more assumed general +importance, Florence, seated on the great route from the north to Rome +by Siena, and commanding the passage of the Arno and the gate of the +Apennines, naturally began to surpass in time its distanced rival. As +early as the Roman days a bridge is said to have spanned the Arno on +the site of the existing Ponte Vecchio. The mediaeval walls enclosed the +southern _tete du pont_ within their picturesque circuit, thus securing +the passage of the river and giving Florence its little Janiculus, the +Oltrarno, with its southern exit by the Porta Romana. The real 'makers +of Florence' were the humble workmen who thus extended the firm hold of +the growing republic to the southern bank. By so doing, they gave their +city undoubted command of the imperial route from Germany Romeward, and +brought in their train Dante and Giotto, Brunelleschi and Donatello, +Fra Angelico and Savonarola, the Medici and the Pitti, Michael Angelo +and Raffaele, and all the glories of the Renaissance epoch. For as at +Athens, so in Florence, art and literature followed plainly in the wake +of commerce. But the rise of Florence was the fall of Fiesole. Already +in the eleventh century the undutiful daughter had conquered and +annexed her venerable mother; and in proportion as the mercantile +importance of the city in the plain waxed greater and greater, that of +the city on the hill-top must slowly have waned to less and less. At +the present day Fiesole has degenerated into a mere suburb of Florence, +which, indeed, it had almost become when Lorenzo the Magnificent held +his country court at the Villa Mozzi, or even earlier, when Boccaccio's +lively narrators fled from the plague to the gardens of the Palmieri, +though it still retains the dignity of its ancient cathedral, its +municipal palace, its gigantic seminary, and its great overgrown +Franciscan monastery, that replaces the citadel on the height above the +town. Nay, more, with its local museum, its bishop's palace, and its +quaint churches, it keeps up, to some extent, all the airs and graces +of a real living town. But in reality these few big buildings, and the +graceful campanile which makes so fair a show in all the neighbouring +views, are the best of the little city. Fiesole looks biggest seen from +afar. All that is vital in it is the ecclesiastical establishment, +which still clings, with true ecclesiastical conservatism, to the +hill-top city, and the trade of the straw plaiters, who make Leghorn +straw goods and pester the visitor with their flimsy wares, taking no +answer to all their importunities save one in solid coin of good King +Umberto. + +One last question. How does it come that in these southern climates the +hill-top town has survived so much more generally to our own day than +in Northern Europe? The obvious answer seems at first sight to be that +in the warmer climates life can be carried on comfortably, and +agriculture can yield good results, at a greater height than in a cold +climate. Olives, vines, chestnuts, maize will grow far up on Italian +hill sides, and that, no doubt, counts for something; but I do not +believe it covers all the ground. Two other points seem to me at least +equally important, especially when we remember that the hill-top town +was once as common in the north as in the south, and that what we have +really to account for in Italy is not its existence merely, but rather +its late survival into newer epochs. One point is that in Southern +Europe the state of perpetual internal warfare lasted much longer than +in the feudal north. The other point is that each little patch of +country in the south is still far more self-supporting, has had its +economic conditions far less disturbed by modern rearrangements and +commercial necessities, than in Northern Europe. In England every town +and village stands upon some high road; the larger stand almost +invariably upon some railway or some navigable river. In Italy it is +still quite possible, where agricultural conditions are favourable, to +have a comparatively flourishing town perched upon some out-of-the-way +mountain height. Even a carriage road is scarcely a necessity; a mule +path will do well enough for wine and oil and the other simple +commodities of southern life. The hill-top town, in short, belongs to +an earlier type of civilisation than ours; it survives, unaltered, on +its own pinnacle wherever that type of civilisation is still possible. + +And I sincerely hope our pretty American friend will pardon me for +having thus publicly answered, at so great length, her natural +question. + + + + + A PERSISTENT NATIONALITY. + +Standing to-day before the dim outline of Orcagna's "Hell" in the +Church of Santa Maria Novella, at Florence, and mentally comparing +those mediaeval demons and monsters and torturers on the frescoed wall +in front of me with the more antique Etruscan devils and tormentors +pictured centuries earlier on the ancient tombs of Etrurian princes, +the thought, which had often occurred to me before, how essentially +similar were the Tuscan intellect and Tuscan art in all ages, forced +itself upon me once more at a flash with an irresistible burst of +internal conviction. The identity of old and new seemed to stand +confessed. Etruria throughout has been one and the same; and it is +almost impossible for any one to over-estimate the influence of the +powerful, but gloomy, Etruscan character upon the whole tone, not only +of popular Christianity, but of that modern civilisation which is its +offspring and outcome. + +I suppose it is hardly necessary, "in this age of enlightenment" (as +people used to say in the last century), to insist any longer upon the +obvious fact that conquest and absorption do not in any way mean +extermination. Most people still vaguely fancy to themselves, to be +sure, that, when Rome conquered and absorbed Etruria, the ancient +Etruscan ceased at once to exist--was swallowed, as it were, and became +forthwith, in some mysterious way, first a Roman, and then a modern +Italian. And, in a certain sense, this is, no doubt, more or less true; +but that sense is decidedly not the genealogical one. Manners change, +but blood persists. The Tuscan people went on living and marrying under +consul and emperor just as they had done under _lar_ and _lucumo_; +Latin and Gaul, Lombard and Goth, mingled with them in time, but did +not efface them; and I do not doubt that the vast mass of the +population of Tuscany at the present day is still of preponderatingly +Etruscan blood, though qualified, of course (and perhaps improved), by +many Italic, Celtic, and Teutonic elements. + +Again, when we remember that Florence, Pisa, Siena, Perugia are all +practically in Tuscany, and that Florence alone has really given to the +world Dante and Boccaccio, Galileo and Savonarola, Cimabue and Giotto, +Botticelli and Fra Angelico, Donatello and Ghiberti, Michael Angelo and +Raffael, Leonardo da Vinci and Macchiavelli and Alfieri, and a host of +other almost equally great names, it will be obvious to every one that +the problem of the origin of this Tuscan nationality must be one that +profoundly interests the whole world. Nay, more, we must remember, too, +that Etruria had other and earlier claims than these; that it spread up +to the very walls of Rome; that the Etruscan element in Rome itself was +immensely strong; that the Roman religion owed, confessedly, much to +Tuscan ideas; that Latin Christianity, the Christianity of all the +Western world, took its shape in semi-Tuscan Rome; that the Roman +Empire was largely modelled by the Etruscan Maecenas; that the Italian +renaissance was largely influenced by the Florentine Medici; that Leo +the Tenth was himself a member of that great house; and that the +artists whom he summoned to the metropolis to erect St. Peter's and to +beautify the Vatican were, almost all of them, Florentines by birth, +training, or domicile. I think, when we have run over mentally these +and ten thousand other like facts, we will readily admit to ourselves +the magnitude of the world's debt to Tuscany--social, artistic, +intellectual, religious--both in ancient, mediaeval, and modern times. + +And what, now, was this strong Tuscan nationality, which persists so +thoroughly through all external historical changes, and which has +contributed so large and so marvellous a part to the world's thought +and the world's culture? It is a curious consideration for those who +talk so glibly, about the enormous natural superiority of the Aryan +race, that the ancient Etruscans were the one people of the antique +European world, who, by common consent, did _not_ belong to the Aryan +family. They were strangers in the land, or, rather, perhaps they were +its oldest possessors. Their language, their physique, their creed, +their art, all point to a wholly different origin from the Aryans. I am +not going, in a brief essay like this, to settle dogmatically, +off-hand, the vexed question of the origin and affinities of the +Etruscan type; more nonsense, I suppose, has been talked and written +upon that occult subject by learned men than even learned men have ever +poured forth upon any other sublunary topic; but one thing at least, I +take it, is absolutely certain amid the conflicting theories of +ingenious theorists about the Etruscan race, and that one thing is that +the Rasennae stand in Europe absolutely alone, the sole representatives +of some ancient and elsewhere exterminated stock, surviving only in +Tuscany itself, and in the Rhaetian Alps of the Canton Grisons. + +At the moment when the Etruscans first appear in history, however, they +appear as a race capable of acquiring and assimilating culture with +great ease, rapidity, and certainty. No sooner do they come into +contact with the Greek world than they absorb and reproduce all that +was best and truest in Greek civilization. 'Merely receptive--European +Chinese,' says, in effect, Mommsen, the great Roman historian: to me, +that judgment, though true in some small degree, seems harsh indeed on +a wider view, when applied to a people who begot at last the 'Divina +Commedia,' the campanile of Florence, the dome of St. Peter's, and the +glories of the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace. It is quite true that the +Etruscans themselves, like the Japanese in our own time, did at first +accept most imitatively the Hellenic culture; but they gradually +remoulded it by their own effort into something new, growing and +changing from age to age, until at last, in the Italian renaissance, +they burst out with a wonderful and novel message to all the rest of +dormant Europe. + +One of the most persistent key-notes of this underlying Etruscan +character is the solemn, weird, and gloomy nature of so much of the +true Etruscan workmanship. From the very beginning they are strong, but +sullen. Solidity and power, rather than beauty and grace, are what they +aim at; and in this, Michael Angelo was a true Tuscan. If we look at +the massive old Etruscan buildings, the Cyclopean walls of Faesulae and +Volterrae, with their gigantic unhewn blocks, or the gloomy tombs of +Clusium, with their heavy portals, and then at the frowning facade of +the Strozzi or the Pitti Palace, we shall see in these, their earliest +and latest terms, the special marks of Tuscan architecture. 'Piled by +the hands of giants for mighty kings of old,' says Macaulay, well, of +the Cyclopean walls. 'It somewhat resembles a prison or castle, and is +remarkable for its bold simplicity of style, the unadorned huge blocks +of stone being hewn smooth at the joints only,' says a modern writer, +of Brunelleschi's palatial masterpiece. Every visitor to Florence must +have noticed on every side the marks of this sullen and rugged Etruscan +character. Compare for a moment the dark bosses of the Palazzo Strozzi, +the '_apre energie_' of the Palazzo Vecchio, the '_beaute sombre et +severe_' of the mediaeval Bargello, with the open, airy brightness of +the Doge's Palace, or the glorious Byzantine gold-and-blue of St. +Mark's at Venice, and you get at once an admirable measure of this +persistent trait in the Etruscan idiosyncrasy. Tuscan architecture is +massive and morose where Venetian architecture is sunny and smiling. + +Now, Tuscan religion has in all times been specially influenced by the +peculiarly gloomy tinge of the Tuscan character. It has always been a +religion of fear rather than of love; a religion that strove harder to +terrorize than to attract; a religion full of devils, flames, tortures, +and horrors; in short, a sort of horrible Chinese religion of dragons +and monstrosities, and flames and goblins. In the painted tombs of +ancient Etruria you may see the familiar devil with his three-pronged +fork thrusting souls back into the seething flood of a heathen hell, as +Orcagna's here thrust them back similarly into that of its more modern +Christian successor. All Etruscan art is full throughout of such +horrors. You find their traces abundantly in the antique Etruscan +museum at Florence; you find them on the mediaeval Campo Santo at Pisa; +you find them with greater skill, but equal repulsiveness, in the work +of the great Renaissance artists. The 'ghastly glories of saints' the +Tuscan revels in. The most famous portion of the most famous Tuscan +poem is the 'Inferno'--the part that gloats with minute and truly +Tuscan realism over the torments of the damned in every department of +the mediaeval hell. And, as if still further to mark the continuity of +thought, here in Orcagna's frescoes at Santa Maria Novella you have +every horror of the heathen religion incongruously mingled with every +horror of the Christian--gorgons and harpies and chimaeras dire are +tormenting the wicked under the eyes of the Madonna; centaurs are +shooting and prodding them before the God of Love from the torrid banks +of fiery lakes; furies with snaky heads are directing their +punishments; Minos and AEacus are superintending their tasks; and, in +the centre of all, a huge Moloch demon is devouring them bodily in his +fiery jaws, with hideous tusks as of a Japanese monster. + +It would be a curious question to inquire how far these old and +ingrained Etruscan ideas may have helped to modify and colour the +gentler conceptions of primitive Christianity. Certainly, one must +never for a moment forget that Rome was at bottom nearly one-half +Etruscan in character; that during the imperial period it became, in +fact, the capital of Etruria; that myriads of Etruscans flocked to +Rome; and that many of them, like Sejanus, had much to do with moulding +and building up the imperial system. I do not doubt, myself, that +Etruscan notions large interwove themselves, from the very outset, with +Roman Christianity; and whenever in the churches or galleries of Italy +I see St. Lawrence frying on his gridiron, or St. Sebastian pierced +through with many arrows, or the Innocents being massacred in +unpleasant detail, or hell being represented with Dantesque minuteness +and particularity of delineation, I say to myself, with an internal +smile, 'Etruscan influence.' + +How interesting it is, too, to observe the constant outcrop, under all +forms and faiths, of this strange, underlying, non-Aryan type! The +Etruscans are and always were remarkable for their intellect, their +ingenuity, their artistic faculty; and even to this day, after so many +vicissitudes, they stand out as a wholly superior people to the rough +Genoese and the indolent Neapolitans. They have had many crosses of +blood meanwhile, of course; and it seems probable that the crosses have +done them good: for in ancient times it was Rome, the Etrurianised +border city of the Latins, that rose to greatness, not Etruria itself; +and at a later date, it was after the Germans had mingled their race +with Italy that Florence almost took the place of Rome. Nay, it is +known as a fact that under Otto the Great a large Teutonic colony +settled in Florence, thus adding to the native Etrurian race +(especially to the nobility) that other element which the Tuscan seems +to need in order that he may be spurred to the realisation of his best +characteristics. But allow as we may for foreign admixture, two points +are abundantly clear to the impartial observer of Tuscan history: one, +that this non-Aryan race has always been one of the finest and +strongest in Italy; and the other, that from the very dawn of history +its main characteristics, for good or for evil, have persisted most +uninterruptedly till the present day. + + + + + CASTERS AND CHESTERS. + +Everybody knows, of course, that up and down over the face of England a +whole crop of places may be found with such terminations as Lancaster, +Doncaster, Manchester, Leicester, Gloucester, or Exeter; and everybody +also knows that these words are various corruptions or alterations of +the Latin _castra_, or perhaps we ought rather to say of the singular +form, _castrum_. So much we have all been told from our childhood +upward; and for the most part we have been quite ready to acquiesce in +the statement without any further troublesome inquiry on our own +account. But in reality the explanation thus vouchsafed us does not +help us much towards explaining the real origin and nature of these +ancient names. It is true enough as far as it goes, but it does not go +nearly far enough. It reminds one a little of Charles Kingsley's +accomplished pupil-teacher, with his glib derivation of amphibious, +'from two Greek words, _amphi_, the land, and _bios_, the water.' A +detailed history of the root 'Chester' in its various British usages +may serve to show how far such a rough-and-ready solution as the +pupil-teacher's falls short of complete accuracy and comprehensiveness. + +In the first place, without troubling ourselves for the time being with +the diverse forms of the word as now existing, a difficulty meets us at +the very outset as to how it ever got into the English language at all. +'It was left behind by the Romans,' says the pupil teacher +unhesitatingly. No doubt; but if so, the only language in which it +could be left would be Welsh; for when the Romans quitted Britain there +were probably as yet no English settlements on any part of the eastern +coast. Now the Welsh form of the word, even as given us in the very +ancient Latin Welsh tract ascribed to Nennius, is 'Caer' or 'Kair;' and +there is every reason to believe that the Celtic _cathir_ or the Latin +_castrum_ had been already worn down into this corrupt form at least as +early as the days of the first English colonisation of Britain. Indeed +I shall show ground hereafter for believing that that form survives +even now in one or two parts of Teutonic England. But if this be so, it +is quite clear that the earliest English conquerors could not have +acquired the use of the word from the vanquished Welsh whom they spared +as slaves or tributaries. The newcomers could not have learned to speak +of a Ceaster or Chester from Welshmen who called it a Caer; nor could +they have adopted the names of Leicester or Gloucester from Welshmen +who knew those towns only as Kair Legion or Kair Gloui. It is clear +that this easy off-hand theory shirks all the real difficulties of the +question, and that we must look a little closer into the matter in +order to understand the true history of these interesting philological +fossils. + +Already we have got one clear and distinct principle to begin with, +which is too often overlooked by amateur philologists. The Latin +language, as spoken by Romans in Britain during their occupation of the +island, has left and can have left absolutely no directs marks upon our +English tongue, for the simple reason that English (or Anglo-Saxon as +we call it in its earlier stages) did not begin to be spoken in any +part of Britain for twenty or thirty years after the Romans retired. +Whatever Latin words have come down to us in unbroken succession from +the Roman times--and they are but a few--must have come down from Welsh +sources. The Britons may have learnt them from their Italian masters, +and may then have imparted them, after the brief period of precarious +independence, to their Teutonic masters; but of direct intercourse +between Roman and Englishman there was probably little or none. + +Three ways out of this difficulty might possibly be suggested by any +humble imitator of Mr. Gladstone. First, the early English pirates may +have learnt the word _castrum_ (they always used it as a singular) +years before they ever came to Britain as settlers at all. For during +the long decay of the empire, the corsairs of the flat banks and islets +of Sleswick and Friesland made many a light-hearted plundering +expedition upon the unlucky coasts of the maritime Roman provinces; and +it was to repel their dreaded attacks that the Count of the Saxon Shore +was appointed to the charge of the long exposed tract from the fenland +of the Wash to the estuary of the Rother in Sussex. On one occasion +they even sacked London itself, already the chief trading town of the +whole island. During some such excursions, the pirates would be certain +to pick up a few Latin words, especially such as related to new +objects, unseen in the rude society of their own native heather-clad +wastes; and amongst these we may be sure that the great Roman +fortresses would rank first and highest in their barbaric eyes. Indeed, +modern comparative philologists have shown beyond doubt that a few +southern forms of speech had already penetrated to the primitive +English marshland by the shores of the Baltic and the mouth of the Elbe +before the great exodus of the fifth century; and we know that Roman or +Byzantine coins, and other objects belonging to the Mediterranean +civilisation, are found abundantly in barrows of the first Christian +centuries in Sleswick--the primitive England of the colonists who +conquered Britain. But if the word _castrum_ did not get into early +English by some such means, then we must fall back either upon our +second alternative explanation, that the townspeople of the +south-eastern plains in England had become thoroughly Latinised in +speech during the Roman occupation; or upon our third, that they spoke +a Celtic dialect more akin to Gaulish than the modern Welsh of Wales, +which may be descended from the ruder and older tongue of the western +aborigines. This last opinion would fit in very well with the views of +Mr. Rhys, the Celtic professor at Oxford, who thinks that all +south-eastern Britain was conquered and colonised by the Gauls before +the Roman invasion. If so, it maybe only the western Welsh who said +Caer; the eastern may have said _castrum_, as the Romans did. In either +of the latter two cases, we must suppose that the early English learnt +the word from the conquered Britons of the districts they overran. But +I myself have very little doubt that they had borrowed it long before +their settlement in our island at all. + +However this may be--and I confess I have been a little puritanically +minute upon the subject--the English settlers learned to use the word +from the first moment they landed in Britain. In its earliest English +dress it appears as Ceaster, pronounced like Keaster, for the soft +sound of the initial in modern English is due to later Norman +influences. The new comers--Anglo-Saxons, if you choose to call them +so--applied the word to every Roman town or ruin they found in Britain. +Indeed, all the Latin words of the first crop in English--those used +during the heathen age, before Augustine and his monks introduced the +Roman civilisation--belong to such material relics of the older +provincial culture as the Sleswick pirates had never before known: +_way_ from _via_, _wall_ from _vallum_, _street_ from _strata_, and +_port_ from _portus_. In this first crop of foreign words Ceaster also +must be reckoned, and it was originally employed in English as a common +rather than as a proper name. Thus we read in the brief _Chronicle_ of +the West Saxon kings, under the year 577, 'Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought +against the Welsh, and offslew three kings, Conmail and Condidan and +Farinmail, and took three ceasters, Gleawan ceaster and Ciren ceaster +and Bathan ceaster.' We might modernise a little, so as to show the +real sense, by saying 'Glevum city and Corinium city and Bath city.' +Here it is noticeable that in two of the cases--Gloucester and +Cirencester--the descriptive termination has become at last part of the +name; but in the third case--that of Bath--it has never succeeded in +doing so. Ages after, in the reign of King Alfred, we still find the +word used as a common noun; for the _Chronicle_ mentions that a body of +Danish freebooters 'fared to a waste ceaster in Wirral; it is hight +Lega ceaster;' that is to say, Legionis castra, now Chester. The grand +old English epic of Beowulf, which is perhaps older than the +colonisation of Britain, speaks of townsfolk as 'the dwellers in +ceasters.' + +As a rule, each particular Roman town retained its full name, in a more +or less clipped form, for official uses; but in the ordinary colloquial +language of the neighbourhood they all seem to have been described as +'the Ceaster' simply, just as we ourselves habitually speak of 'town,' +meaning the particular town near which we live, or, in a more general +sense, London. Thus, in the north, Ceaster usually means York, the +Roman capital of the province; as when the _Chronicle_ tells us that +'John succeeded to the bishopric of Ceaster'; that 'Wilfrith was +hallowed as bishop at Ceaster'; or that 'AEthelberht the archbishop died +at Ceaster.' In the south it is employed to mean Winchester, the +capital of the West Saxon kings and overlords of all Britain; as when +the _Chronicle_ says that 'King Edgar drove out the priests at Ceaster +from the Old Minster and the New Minster, and set them with monks.' So, +as late as the days of Charles II., 'to go to town' meant in Shropshire +to go to Shrewsbury, and in Norfolk to go to Norwich. In only one +instance has this colloquial usage survived down to our own days in a +large town, and that is at Chester, where the short form has quite +ousted the full name of Lega ceaster. But in the case of small towns or +unimportant Roman stations, which would seldom need to be mentioned +outside their own immediate neighbourhood, the simple form is quite +common, as at Caistor in Norfolk, Castor in Hunts, and elsewhere. At +times, too, we get an added English termination, as at Casterton, +Chesterton, and Chesterholme; or a slight distinguishing mark, as at +Great Chesters, Little Chester, Bridge Casterton, and Chester-le-Street. +All these have now quite lost their old distinctive names, though they +have acquired new ones to distinguish them from _the_ Chester, or from +one another. For example, Chester-le-Street was Conderco in Roman +times, and Cunega ceaster in the early English period. Both names are +derived from the little river Cone, which flows through the village. + +Before we pass on to the consideration of those _castra_ which, like +Manchester and Lancaster, have preserved to the present day their +original Roman or Celtic prefixes in more or less altered shapes, we +must glance briefly at a general principle running through the +modernised forms now in use. The reader, with his usual acuteness, will +have noticed that the word Ceaster reappears under many separate +disguises in the names of different modern towns. Sometimes it is +_caster_, sometimes _chester_, sometimes _cester_, and sometimes even +it gets worn down to a mere fugitive relic, as _ceter_ or _eter_. But +these different corruptions do not occur irregularly up and down the +country, one here and one there; they follow a distinct law and are due +to certain definite underlying facts of race or language. Each set of +names lies in a regular stratum; and the different strata succeed one +another like waves over the face of England, from north-east to +south-westward. In the extreme north and east, where the English or +Anglian blood is purest, or is mixed only with Danes and Northmen to +any large extent, such forms as Lancaster, Doncaster, Caistor, and +Casterton abound. In the mixed midlands and the Saxon south, the sound +softens into Chesterfield, Chester, Winchester, and Dorchester. In the +inner midlands and the Severn vale, where the proportion of Celtic +blood becomes much stronger, the termination grows still softer in +Leicester, Bicester, Cirencester, Gloucester, and Worcester, while at +the same time a marked tendency towards elision occurs; for these words +are really pronounced as if written Lester, Bister, Cisseter, Gloster, +and Wooster. Finally, on the very borders of Wales, and of that +Damnonian country which was once known to our fathers as West Wales, we +get the very abbreviated forms Wroxeter, Uttoxeter, and Exeter, of +which the second is colloquially still further shortened into Uxeter. +Sometimes these tracts approach very closely to one another, as on the +banks of the Nene, where the two halves of the Roman Durobrivae have +become castor on one side of the river, and Chesterton on the other; +but the line can be marked distinctly on the map, with a slight outward +bulge, with as great regularity as the geological strata. It will be +most convenient here, therefore, to begin with the _casters_, which +have undergone the least amount of rubbing down, and from them to pass +on regularly to the successively weaker forms in _chester_, _cester_, +_ceter_, and _eter_. + +Nothing, indeed, can be more deceptive than the common fashion, of +quoting a Roman name from the often blundering lists of the +Itineraries, and then passing on at once to the modern English form, +without any hint of the intermediate stages. To say that Glevum is now +Gloucester is to tell only half the truth; until we know that the two +were linked together by the gradual steps of Glevum castrum, Gleawan +ceaster, Gleawe cester, Gloucester, and Gloster, we have not really +explained the words at all. By beginning with the least corrupt forms +we shall best be able to see the slow nature of the change, and we +shall also find at the same time that a good deal of incidental light +is shed upon the importance and extent of the English settlement. + +Doncaster is an excellent example of the simplest form of +modernisation. It appears in the Antonine Itinerary and in the _Notitia +Imperii_ as Danum. This, with the ordinary termination affixed, becomes +at once Dona ceaster or Doncaster. The name is of course originally +derived in either form from the river Don, which flows beside it; and +the Northumbrian invaders must have learnt the names of both river and +station from their Brigantian British serfs. It shows the fluctuating +nature of the early local nomenclature, however, when we find that Baeda +('the Venerable Bede') describes the place in his Latinised vocabulary +as Campodonum--that is to say, the Field of Don, or, more +idiomatically, Donfield, a name exactly analogous to those of +Chesterfield Macclesfield, Mansfield, Sheffield, and Huddersfield in +the neighbouring region. The comparison of Doncaster and Chesterfield +is thus most interesting: for here we have two Roman Stations, each of +which must once have had two alternative names; but in the one case the +old Roman name has ultimately prevailed, and in the other case the +modern English one. + +The second best example of a Caster, perhaps, is Lancaster. In all +probability this is the station which appears in the _Notitia Imperii_ +as Longovico, an oblique case which it might be hazardous to put in the +nominative, seeing that it seems rather to mean the town on the Lune or +Loan than the Long Village. Here, as in many other cases, the formative +element, vicus, is exchanged for Ceaster, and we get something like +Lon-ceaster or finally Lancaster. Other remarkable Casters are +Brancaster in Norfolk, once Branadunum (where the British termination +_dun_ has been similarly dropped); Ancaster in Lincolnshire, whose +Roman name is not certainly known; and Caistor, near Norwich, once +Venta Icenorum, a case which may best be considered under the head of +Winchester. On the other hand, Tadcaster gives us an instance where the +Roman prefix has apparently been entirely altered, for it appears in +the Antonine Itinerary (according to the best identification) as +Calcaria, so that we might reasonably expect it to be modernised as +Calcaster. Even here, however, we might well suspect an earlier +alternative title, of which we shall get plenty when we come to examine +the Chesters; and in fact, in Baeda, it still bears its old name in a +slightly disguised form as Kaelca ceaster. + +First among the softer forms, let us examine the interesting group to +which Chester itself belongs. Its Roman name was, beyond doubt, Diva, +the station on the Dee--as Doncaster is the station on the Don, and +Lancaster the station on the Lune. Its proper modern form ought, +therefore, to be Deechester. But it would seem that in certain places +the neighbouring rustics knew the great Roman town of their district, +not by its official title, but as the legion's Camp--Castra Legionis. +At least three such cases undoubtedly occur--one at Deva or Chester; +one at Ratae or Leicester; and one at Isca Silurum or Caerleon-upon-Usk. +In each case the modernisation has taken a very different form. Diva +was captured by the heathen English king, AEthelfrith of Northumbria, in +a battle rendered famous by Baeda, who calls the place 'The City of +Legions.' The Latin compilation by some Welsh writer, ascribed to +Nennius, calls it Cair Legion, which is also its name in the Irish +annals. In the _English Chronicle_ it appears as Lege ceaster, Laege +ceaster, and Leg ceaster; but after the Norman Conquest it becomes +Ceaster alone. On midland lips the sound soon grew into the familiar +Chester. About the second case, that of Leicester, there is a slight +difficulty, for it assumes in the _Chronicle_ the form of Laegra +ceaster, with an apparently intrusive letter; and the later Welsh +writers seized upon the form to fit in with their own ancient legend of +King Lear. Nennius calls it Cair Lerion; and that unblushing romancer, +Geoffrey of Monmouth, makes it at once into Cair Leir, the city of +Leir. More probably the name is a mixture of Legionis and Ratae, Leg-rat +ceaster, the camp of the Legion at Ratae. This, again, grew into Legra +ceaster, Leg ceaster, and Lei ceaster, while the word, though written +Leicester, is now shortened by south midland voices to Lester. The +third Legionis Castra remained always Welsh, and so hardened on Cymric +lips into Kair Leon or Caerleon. Nennius applies the very similar name +of Cair Legeion to Exeter, still in his time a Damnonian or West Welsh +fortress. + +Equally interesting have been the fortunes of the three towns of which +Winchester is the type. In the old Welsh tongue, Gwent means a +champaign country, or level alluvial plain. The Romans borrowed the +word as Venta, and applied it to the three local centres of Venta +Icenorum in Norfolk, Venta Belgarum in Hampshire, and Venta Silurum in +Monmouth. When the first West Saxon pirates, under their real or +mythical leader, Cerdic, swarmed up Southampton Water and occupied the +Gwent of the Belgae, they called their new conquest Wintan ceaster, +though the still closer form Waentan once occurs. Thence to Winte +ceaster and Winchester is no far cry. Gwent of the Iceni had a +different history. No doubt it also was known at first as Wintan +ceaster; but, as at Winchester, the shorter form Ceaster would +naturally be employed in local colloquial usage; and when the chief +centre of East Anglian population was removed a few miles north to +Norwich, the north wick--then a port on the navigable estuary of the +Yare--the older station sank into insignificance, and was only locally +remembered as Caistor. Lastly, Gwent of the Silurians has left its name +alone to Caer-Went in Monmouthshire, where hardly any relics now remain +of the Roman occupation. + +Manchester belongs to exactly the same class as Winchester. Its Roman +name was Mancunium, which would easily glide into Mancunceaster. In the +_English Chronicle_ it is only once mentioned, and then as +Mameceaster--a form explained by the alternative Mamucium in the +Itinerary, which would naturally become Mamue ceaster. Colchester of +course represents Colonia, corrupted first into Coln ceaster, and so +through Col ceaster into its present form. Porchester in Hants is +Portus Magnus; Dorchester is Durnovaria, and then Dorn ceaster. +Grantchester, Godmanchester, Chesterfield, Woodchester, and many others +help us to trace the line across the map of England, to the most +western limit of all at Ilchester, anciently Ischalis, though the +intermediate form of Givel ceaster is certainly an odd one. + +Besides these Chesters of the regular order, there are several curious +outlying instances in Durham and Northumberland, and along the Roman +Wall, islanded, as it were, beyond the intermediate belt of Casters. +Such are Lanchester in Durham, which maybe compared with the more +familiar Lancaster; Great Chesters in Northumberland, Ebchester on the +northern Watling Street, and a dozen more. How to account for these is +rather a puzzle. Perhaps the Casters may be mainly due to Danish +influence (which is the common explanation), and it is known that the +Danes spread but sparingly to the north of the Tees. However, this +rough solution of the problem proves too much: for how then can we have +a still softer form in Danish Leicester itself? Probably we shall be +nearer the truth if we say that these are late names; for +Northumberland was a desert long after the great harrying by William +the Conqueror; and by the time it was repeopled, Chester had become the +recognised English form, so that it would naturally be employed by the +new occupants of the districts about the Wall. + +No name in Britain, however, is more interesting than that of +Rochester, which admirably shows us how so many other Roman names have +acquired a delusively English form, or have been mistaken for memorials +of the English conquest. The Roman town was known as Durobrivae, which +does not in the least resemble Rochester; and what is more, Baeda +distinctly tells us that Justus, the first bishop of the West Kentish +see, was consecrated 'in the city of Dorubrevi, which the English call +Hrofaes ceaster, from one of its former masters, by name Hrof.' If this +were all we knew about it, we should be told that Baeda clearly +described the town as being called Hrof's Chester, from an English +conqueror Hrof, and that to contradict this clear statement of an early +writer was presumptuous or absurd. Fortunately, however, we have the +clearest possible proof that Hrof never existed, and that he was a pure +creation of Baeda's own simple etymological guesswork. King Alfred +clearly knew better, for he omitted this wild derivation from his +English translation. The valuable fragment of a map of Roman Britain +preserved for us in the mediaeval transcript known as the _Peutinger +Tables_, sets down Rochester as Rotibis. Hence it is pretty certain +that it must have had two alternative names, of which the other was +Durobrivae. Rotibis would easily pass (on the regular analogies) into +Rotifi ceaster, and that again into Hrofi ceaster and Rochester; just +as Rhutupiae or Ritupae passed into Rituf burh, and so finally into +Richborough. Moreover, in a charter of King Ethelberht of Kent, older a +good deal than Baeda's time, we find the town described under the mixed +form of Hrofi-brevi. After such a certain instance of philological +blundering as this, I for one am not inclined to place great faith in +such statements as that made by the _English Chronicle_ about +Chichester, which it attributes to the mythical South Saxon king Cissa. +Whatever Cissanceaster may mean, it seems to me much more likely that +it represents another case of double naming; for though the Roman town +was commonly known as Regnum, that is clearly a mere administrative +form, derived from the tribal name of the Regni. Considering that the +same veracious _Chronicle_ derives Portsmouth, the Roman Portus, from +an imaginary Teutonic invader, Port, and commits itself to other wild +statements of the same sort, I don't think we need greatly hesitate +about rejecting its authority in these earlier and conjectural +portions. + +Silchester is another much disputed name. As a rule, the site has been +identified with that of Calleva Atrebatum; but the proofs are scanty, +and the identification must be regarded as a doubtful one. I have +already ventured to suggest that the word may contain the root Silva, +as the town is situated close upon the ancient borders of Pamber +Forest. The absence of early forms, however, makes this somewhat of a +random shot. Indeed, it is difficult to arrive at any definite +conclusions in these cases, except by patiently following up the name +from first to last, through all its variations, corruptions, and +mis-spellings. + +The _Cesters_ are even more degraded (philologically speaking) than the +_Chesters_, but are not less interesting and illustrative in their way. +Their farthest northeasterly extension, I believe, is to be found at +Leicester and Towcester. The former we have already considered: the +latter appears in the _Chronicle_ as Tofe ceaster, and derives its name +from the little river Towe, on which it is situated. Anciently, no +doubt, the river was called Tofe or Tofi, like the Tavy in Devonshire; +for all these river-words recur over and over again, both in England +and on the Continent. In this case, there seems no immediate connection +with the Roman name, if the site be rightly identified with that of +Lactodorum; but at any rate the river name is Celtic, so that Towcester +cannot be claimed as a Teutonic settlement. + +Cirencester, the meeting-place of all the great Roman roads, is the +Latin Corinium, sometimes given as Durocornovium, which well +illustrates the fluctuating state of Roman nomenclature in Britain. As +this great strategical centre--the key of the west--had formerly been +the capital of the Dobuni, whose name it sometimes bears, it might +easily have come down to us as Durchester, or Dobchester, instead of +under its existing guise. The city was captured by the West Saxons in +577, and is then called Ciren ceaster in the brief record of the +conquerors. A few years later, the _Chronicle_ gives it as Cirn +ceaster; and since the river is called Chirn, this is the form it might +fairly have been expected to retain, as in the case of Cerney close by. +But the city was too far west not to have its name largely rubbed down +in use; so it softened both its initials into Cirencester, while Cissan +ceaster only got (through Cisse ceaster) as far as Chichester. At that +point the spelling of the western town has stopped short, but the +tongues of the natives have run on till nothing now remains but +Cisseter. If we had only that written form on the one hand, and +Durocornovium on the other, even the boldest etymologist would hardly +venture to suggest that they had any connection with one another. Of +course the common prefix Duro, is only the Welsh Dwr, water, and its +occurrence in a name merely implies a ford or river. The alternative +forms may be Anglicised as Churn, and Churnwater, just like Grasmere, +and Grasmere Lake. + +I wish I could avoid saying anything about Worcester, for it is an +obscure and difficult subject; but I fear the attempt to shirk it would +be useless in the long run. I know from sad experience that if I omit +it every inhabitant of Worcestershire who reads this article will hunt +me out somehow, and run me to earth at last, with a letter demanding a +full and explicit explanation of this silent insult to his native +county. So I must try to put the best possible face upon a troublesome +matter. The earliest existing form of the name, after the English +Conquest, seems to be that given in a Latin Charter of the eighth +century as _Weogorna civitas_. (Here it is difficult to disentangle the +English from its Latin dress.) A little later it appears in a +vernacular shape (also in a charter) as Wigran ceaster. In the later +part of the _English Chronicle_ it becomes Wigera ceaster, and Wigra +ceaster; but by the twelfth century it has grown into Wigor ceaster, +from which the change to Wire ceaster and Worcester (fully pronounced) +is not violent. This is all plain sailing enough. But what is the +meaning of Wigorna ceaster or Wigran ceaster? And what Roman or English +name does it represent? The old English settlers of the neighbourhood +formed a little independent principality of Hwiccas (afterwards subdued +by the Mercians), and some have accordingly suggested that the original +word may have been Hwiccwara ceaster, the Chester of the Hwicca men, +which would be analogous to Cant-wara burh (Canterbury), the Bury of +the Kent men, or to Wiht-gara burh (Carisbrooke), the Bury of the Wight +men. Others, again, connect it with the Braunogenium of the Ravenna +geographer, and the Cair Guoranegon or Guiragon of Nennius, which +latter is probably itself a corrupted version of the English name. +Altogether, it must be allowed that Worcester presents a genuine +difficulty, and that the facts about its early forms are themselves +decidedly confused, if not contradictory. The only other notable +_Ceasters_, are Alcester, once Alneceaster, in Worcestershire, the +Roman Alauna; Gloucester or Glevum, already sufficiently explained; and +Mancester in Staffordshire, supposed to occupy the site of +Manduessedum. + +Among the most corrupted forms of all, Exeter may rank first. Its Latin +equivalent was Isca Damnoniorum, Usk of the Devonians; Isca being the +Latinised form of that prevalent Celtic river name which crops up again +in the Usk, Esk, Exe, and Axe, besides forming the first element of +Uxbridge and Oxford; while the tribal qualification was added to +distinguish it from its namesake, Isca Silurum, Usk of the Silurians, +now Caerleon-upon-Usk. In the west country, to this day, _ask_ always +becomes _ax_, or rather remains so, for that provincial form was the +King's English at the court of Alfred; and so Isca became on Devonian +lips Exan ceaster, after the West Saxon conquest. Thence it passed +rapidly through the stages of Exe ceaster and Exe cester till it +finally settled down into Exeter. At the same time, the river itself +became the Exe; and the Exan-mutha of the _Chronicle_ dropped into +Exmouth. We must never forget, however, that Exeter, was a Welsh town +up to the reign of Athelstan, and that Cornish Welsh was still spoken +in parts of Devonshire till the days of Queen Elizabeth. + +Wroxeter is another immensely interesting fossil word. It lies just at +the foot of the Wrekin, and the hill which takes that name in English +must have been pronounced by the old Celtic inhabitants much like +Uricon: for of course the awkward initial letter has only become silent +in these later lazy centuries. The Romans turned it into Uriconium; but +after their departure, it was captured and burnt to the ground by a +party of raiding West Saxons, and its fall is graphically described in +the wild old Welsh elegy of Llywarch the Aged. The ruins are still +charred and blackened by the West Saxon fires. The English colonists of +the neighbourhood called themselves the Wroken-saetas, or Settlers by +the Wrekin--a word analogous to that of Wilsaetas, or Settlers by the +Wyly; Dorsaetas, or Settlers among the Durotriges; and Sumorsaetas, or +Settlers among the Sumor-folk,--which survive in the modern counties of +Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset. Similar forms elsewhere are the Pecsaetas +of the Derbyshire Peak, the Elmedsaetas in the Forest of Elmet, and the +Cilternsaetas in the Chiltern Hills. No doubt the Wroken-saetas called +the ruined Roman fort by the analogous name of Wroken ceaster; and this +would slowly become Wrok ceaster, Wrok-cester, and Wroxeter, by the +ordinary abbreviating tendency of the Welsh borderlands. Wrexham +doubtless preserves the same original root. + +Having thus carried the _Castra_ to the very confines of Wales, it +would be unkind to a generous and amiable people not to carry them +across the border and on to the Western sea. The Welsh corruption, +whether of the Latin word or of a native equivalent _cathir_, assumes +the guise of Caer. Thus the old Roman station of Segontium, near the +Menai Straits, is now called Caer Seiont; but the neighbouring modern +town which has gathered around Edward's new castle on the actual shore, +the later metropolis of the land of Arfon, became known to Welshmen as +Caer-yn-Arfon, now corrupted into Caernarvon or even into Carnarvon. +Gray's familiar line about the murdered bards--'On Arvon's dreary shore +they lie'--keeps up in some dim fashion the memory of the true +etymology. Caermarthen is in like manner the Roman Muridunum or +Moridunum--the fort by the sea--though a duplicate Moridunum in South +Devon has been simply translated into English as Seaton. Innumerable +other Caers, mostly representing Roman sites, may be found scattered up +and down over the face of Wales, such as Caersws, Caerleon, Caergwrle, +Caerhun, and Caerwys, all of which still contain traces of Roman +occupation. On the other hand, Cardigan, which looks delusively like a +shortened Caer, has really nothing to do with this group of ancient +names, being a mere corruption of Ceredigion. + +But outside Wales itself, in the more Celtic parts of England proper, a +good many relics of the old Welsh Caers still bespeak the +incompleteness of the early Teutonic conquest. If we might trust the +mendacious Nennius, indeed, all our Casters and Chesters were once good +Cymric Caers; for he gives a doubtful list of the chief towns in +Britain, where Gloucester appears as Cair Gloui, Colchester as Cair +Colun, and York as Cair Ebrauc. These, if true, would be invaluable +forms; but unfortunately there is every reason to believe that Nennius +invented them himself, by a simple transposition of the English names. +Henry of Huntingdon is nearly as bad, if not worse; for when he calls +Dorchester 'Kair Dauri,' and Chichester 'Kair Kei,' he was almost +certainly evolving what he supposed to be appropriate old British names +from the depths of his own consciousness. His guesswork was on a par +with that of the schoolboys who introduce 'Stirlingia' or 'Liverpolia' +into their Ovidian elegiacs. That abandoned story-teller, Geoffrey of +Monmouth, goes a step further, and concocts a Caer Lud for London and a +Caer Osc for Exeter, whenever the fancy seizes him. The only examples +amongst these pretended old Welsh forms which seem to me to have any +real historical value are an unknown Kair Eden, mentioned by Gildas, +and a Cair Wise, mentioned by Simeon of Durham, undoubtedly the true +native name of Exeter. + +Still we have a few indubitable Caers in England itself surviving to +our own day. Most of them are not far from the Welsh border, as in the +case of the two Caer Caradocs, in Shropshire, crowned by ancient +British fortifications. Others, however, lie further within the true +English pale, though always in districts which long preserved the Welsh +speech, at least among the lower classes of the population. The +earthwork overhanging Bath bears to this day its ancient British title +of Caer Badon. An old history written in the monastery of Malmesbury +describes that town as Caer Bladon, and speaks of a Caer Dur in the +immediate neighbourhood. There still remains a Caer Riden on the line +of the Roman wall in the Lothians. Near Aspatria, in Cumberland, stands +a mouldering Roman camp known even now as Caer Moto. In Carvoran, +Northumberland, the first syllable has undergone a slight contraction, +but may still be readily recognised. The Carr-dyke in Norfolk seems to +me to be referable to a similar origin. + +Most curious of all the English Caers, however, is Carlisle. The +Antonine Itinerary gives the town as Luguvallium. Baeda, in his +barbarised Latin fashion calls it Lugubalia. 'The Saxons,' says +_Murray's Guide_, with charming _naivete_, 'abbreviated the name into +Luel, and afterwards called it Caer Luel.' This astounding hotchpotch +forms an admirable example of the way in which local etymology is still +generally treated in highly respectable publications. So far as we +know, there never was at any time a single Saxon in Cumberland; and why +the Saxons, or any other tribe of Englishmen, should have called a town +by a purely Welsh name, it would be difficult to decide. If they had +given it any name at all, that name would probably have been Lul +ceaster, which might have been modernised into Lulcaster or Lulchester. +The real facts are these. Cumberland, as its name imports, was long a +land of the Cymry--a northern Welsh principality, dependent upon the +great kingdom of Strathclyde, which held out for ages against the +Northumbrian English invaders among the braes and fells of Ayrshire and +the Lake District. These Cumbrian Welshmen called their chief town Caer +Luel, or something of the sort; and there is some reason for believing +that it was the capital of the historical Arthur, if any Arthur ever +existed, though later ages transferred the legend of the British hero +to Caerleon-upon-Usk, after men had begun to forget that the region +between the Clyde and the Mersey had once been true Welsh soil. The +English overran Cumberland very slowly; and when they did finally +conquer it, they probably left the original inhabitants in possession +of the country, and only imposed their own overlordship upon the +conquered race. The story is too long a one to repeat in full here: it +must suffice to say that, though the Northumbrian kings had made the +'Strathclyde Welsh' their tributaries, the district was never +thoroughly subdued till the days of Edmund the West Saxon, who harried +the land, and handed it over to the King of Scots. Thus it happens that +Carlisle, alone among large English towns, still keeps unchanged its +Cymric name, instead of having sunk into an Anglicised Chester. The +present spelling is a mere etymological blunder, exactly similar to +that which has turned the old English word _igland_ into _island_, +through the false analogy of _isle_, which of course comes from the old +French _isle_, derived through some form akin to the Italian _isola_, +from the original Latin _insula_. Kair Leil is the spelling in +Geoffrey; Cardeol (by a clerical error for Carleol, I suspect) that in +the _English Chronicle_, which only once mentions the town; and Carleol +that of the ordinary mediaeval historians. The surnames Carlyle and +Carlile still preserve the better orthography. + +To complete the subject, it will be well to say a few words about those +towns which were once _Ceasters_, but which have never become Casters +or Chesters. Numerous as are the places now so called, a number more +may be reckoned in the illimitable chapter of the might-have-beens; and +it is interesting to speculate on the forms which they would have +taken, 'si qua fata aspera rupissent.' Among these still-born Chesters, +Newcastle-upon-Tyne may fairly rank first. It stands on the Roman site, +called, from its bridge across the Tyne, Pons Aelii, and known later +on, from its position on the great wall, as Ad Murum. Under the early +English, after their conversion to Christianity, the monks became the +accepted inheritors of Roman ruins; and the small monastery which was +established here procured it the English name of Muneca-ceaster, or, as +we should now say, Monk-chester, though no doubt the local +modernisation would have taken the form of Muncaster. William of +Normandy utterly destroyed the town during his great harrying of +Northumberland; and when his son, Robert Curthose, built a fortress on +the site, the place came to be called Newcastle--a word whose very form +shows its comparatively modern origin. _Castra_ and _Ceasters_ were now +out of date, and castles had taken their place. Still, we stick even +here to the old root: for of course castle is only the diminutive +_castellum_--a scion of the same Roman stock, which, like so many other +members of aristocratic families, 'came over with William the +Conqueror.' The word _castel_ is never used, I believe, in any English +document before the Conquest; but in the very year of William's +invasion, the _Chronicle_ tells us, 'Willelm earl came from Normandy +into Pevensey, and wrought a castel at Hastings port.' So, while in +France itself the word has declined through _chastel_ into _chateau_, +we in England have kept it in comparative purity as castle. + +York is another town which had a narrow escape of becoming Yorchester. +Its Roman name was Eburacum, which the English queerly rendered as +Eoforwic, by a very interesting piece of folks-etymology. _Eofor_ is +old English for a boar, and _wic_ for a town; so our rude ancestors +metamorphosed the Latinised Celtic name into this familiar and +significant form, much as our own sailors turn the Bellerophon into the +Billy Ruffun, and the Anse des Cousins into the Nancy Cozens. In the +same way, I have known an illiterate Englishman speak of +Aix-la-Chapelle as Hexley Chapel. To the name, thus distorted, our +forefathers of course added the generic word for a Roman town, and so +made the cumbrous title of Eoforwic-ceaster, which is the almost +universal form in the earlier parts of the _English Chronicle_. This +was too much of a mouthful even for the hardy Anglo-Saxon, so we soon +find a disposition to shorten it into Ceaster on the one hand, or +Eoforwic on the other. Should the final name be Chester or York?--that +was the question. Usage declared in favour of the more distinctive +title. The town became Eoforwic alone, and thence gradually declined +through Evorwic, Euorwic, Eurewic, and Yorick into the modern York. It +is curious to note that some of these intermediate forms very closely +approach the original Eburac, which must have been the root of the +Roman name. Was the change partly due to the preservation of the older +sound on the lips of Celtic serfs? It is not impossible, for marks of +British blood are strong in Yorkshire; and Nennius confirms the idea by +calling the town Kair Ebrauc. + +Among the other _Ceasters_ which have never developed into full-blown +Chesters, I may mention Bath, given as Akemannes ceaster and Bathan +ceaster in our old documents, so that it might have become +Achemanchester or Bathceter in the course of ordinary changes. +Canterbury, again, the Roman Durovernum, dropped through Dorobernia +into Dorwit ceaster, which would no doubt have turned into a third +Dorchester, to puzzle our heads by its likeness to Dorne ceaster in +Dorsetshire, and to Dorce ceaster near Oxford; while Chesterton in +Huntingdonshire, which was once Dorme ceaster, narrowly escaped +burdening a distracted world with a fourth. Happily, the colloquial +form Cantwara burh, or Kentmen's bury, gained the day, and so every +trace of Durovernum is now quite lost in Canterbury. North Shields was +once Scythles-ceaster, but here the Chester has simply dropped out. +Verulam, or St. Albans, is another curious case. Its Romano-British +name was Verulamium, and Baeda calls it Verlama ceaster. But the early +English in Sleswick believed in a race of mythical giants, the +Waetlingas or Watlings, from whom they called the Milky Way 'Watling +Street.' When the rude pirates from those trackless marshes came over +to Britain and first beheld the great Roman paved causeway which ran +across the face of the country from London to Caernarvon, they seemed +to have imagined that such a mighty work could not have been the +handicraft of men; and just as the Arabs ascribe the rock-hewn houses +of Petra to the architectural fancy of the Devil, so our old English +ancestors ascribed the Roman road to the Titanic Watlings. Even in our +own day, it is known along its whole course as Watling Street. Verulam +stands right in its track, and long contained some of the greatest +Roman remains in England; so the town, too, came to be considered as +another example of the work of the Watlings. Baeda, in his Latinised +Northumbrian, calls it Vaetlinga ceaster, as an alternative title with +Verlama ceaster; so that it might nowadays have been familiar to us all +either as Watlingchester or Verlamchester. This is one of the numerous +cases where a Roman and English name lived on during the dark period +side by side. In some of Mr. Kemble's charters it appears as Walinga +ceaster. But when Offa of Mercia founded his great abbey on the very +spot where the Welsh martyr Alban had suffered during the persecution +of Diocletian, Roman and English names were alike forgotten, and the +place was remembered only after the British Christian as St. Albans. + +There are other instances where the very memory of a Roman city seems +now to have failed altogether. For example, Baeda mentions a certain +town called Tiowulfinga ceaster--that is to say, the Chester of the +Tiowulfings, or sons of Tiowulf. Here an English clan would seem to +have taken up its abode in a ruined Roman station, and to have called +the place by the clan-name--a rare or almost unparalleled case. But its +precise site is now unknown. However, Baeda's description clearly points +to some town in Nottinghamshire, situated on the Trent; for St. +Paulinus of York baptized large numbers of converts in that river at +Tiowulfinga ceaster; and the site may therefore be confidently +identified with Southwell, where St. Mary's Minster has always +traditionally claimed Paulinus as its founder. Baeda also mentions a +place called Tunna ceaster, so named from an abbot Tunna, who exists +merely for the sake of a legend, and is clearly as unhistorical as his +piratical compeer Hrof--a wild guess of the eponymic sort with which we +are all so familiar in Greek literature. Simeon of Durham speaks of an +equally unknown Delvercester. Syddena ceaster or Sidna cester--the +earliest see of the Lincolnshire diocese--has likewise dropped out of +human memory; though Mr. Pearson suggests that it may be identical with +Ancaster--a notion which appears to me extremely unlikely. Wude cester +is no doubt Outchester, and other doubtful instances might easily be +recognised by local antiquaries, though they may readily escape the +general archaeologist. In one case at least--that of Othonae in +Essex--town, site, and name have all disappeared together. Baeda calls +it Ythan ceaster, and in his time it was the seat of a monastery +founded by St. Cedd; but the whole place has long since been swept away +by an inundation of the Blackwater. Anderida, which is called +Andredes-ceaster in the _Chronicle_, becomes Pefenesea, or Pevensey, +before the date of the Norman Conquest. + +It must not be supposed that the list given here is by any means +exhaustive of all the Casters and Chesters, past and present, +throughout the whole length and breadth of Britain. On the contrary, +many more might easily be added, such as Ribbel ceaster, now +Ribchester; Berne ceaster, now Bicester; and Blaedbyrig ceaster, now +simply Bladbury. In Northumberland alone there are a large number of +instances which I might have quoted, such as Rutchester, Halton +Chesters, and Little Chesters on the Roman Wall, together with +Hetchester, Holy Chesters, and Rochester elsewhere--the county +containing no less than four places of the last name. Indeed, one can +track the Roman roads across England by the Chesters which accompany +their route. But enough instances have probably been adduced to +exemplify fully the general principles at issue. I think it will be +clear that the English conquerors did not usually change the names of +Roman or Welsh towns, but simply mispronounced them about as much as we +habitually mispronounce Llangollen or Llandudno. Sometimes they called +the place by its Romanised title alone, with the addition of Ceaster; +sometimes they employed the servile British form; sometimes they even +invented an English alternative; but in no case can it be shown that +they at once disused the original name, and introduced a totally new +one of their own manufacture. In this, as in all other matters, the +continuity between Romano-British and English times is far greater than +it is generally represented to be. The English invasion was a cruel and +a desolating one, no doubt; but it could not and it did not sweep away +wholly the old order of things, or blot out all the past annals of +Britain, so as to prepare a _tabula rasa_ on which Mr. Green might +begin his _History of the English People_ with the landing of Hengest +and Horsa in the Isle of Thanet. The English people of to-day is far +more deeply rooted in the soil than that: our ancestors have lived +here, not for a thousand years alone, but for ten thousand or a hundred +thousand, in certain lines at least. And the very names of our towns, +our rivers, and our hills, go back in many cases, not merely to the +Roman corruptions, but to the aboriginal Celtic, and the still more +aboriginal Euskarian tongue. + +THE END. + + +HENDERSON & SPALDING, LTD., 3 & 5, MARYLEBONE LANE, W. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Science in Arcady, by Grant Allen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCIENCE IN ARCADY *** + +***** This file should be named 16325.txt or 16325.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/3/2/16325/ + +Produced by Clare Boothby, Peter Yearsley and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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