176 Rivers! [FEB. 



As for the rill, the tiny tinkling rill, our associations are of the 

 simplest, gentlest character far-up valleys, heaths, and mosses; and 

 that music 



" The noise as of a hidden brook 



In the leafy month of June, 



That to the sleeping woods all night 



Singeth a quiet tune." 



Beauty of scenery is almjost, though not altogether, in an inverse 

 ratio to the magnitude of the river. Scenery is evidently out of the 

 question with rivers, whose banks cannot be distinctly seen from the 

 centre of the stream. The next two classes great and large rivers 

 do not certainly offer so great attractions as the fourth and fifth classes. 

 The scenery of the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Danube, is sufficiently 

 celebrated ; but at the hazard of appearing singular I will venture an 

 opinion, that the scenery of the Upper Rhine, the Upper Rhone, and 

 the Upper Danube, is more beautiful than it is lower down. The banks 

 of the Rhine, from Schaffhausen to Cologne, may be more gigantic, and 

 possessed of stronger features, but it is certainly less varied, and, as it 

 seems to me, less interesting than between Schaffhausen and its source. 

 The banks of the Rhine, too, between Geneva and Lyons, are much 

 more beautiful than between Lyons and Avignon. The same may be 

 said of all large rivers of the Danube, which is more interesting above 

 than below Vienna ; or the Guadalquivir, which loses below Seville all 

 the attractions it possessed between Seville and Cordova. And the 

 reason is obvious. A river does not become large until it descends into 

 the plains ; and it is not among plains that we must look for fine 

 scenery. It is among small rivers, or the beginnings of great rivers, 

 when they too are small, that we must go to feast with nature. The 

 Gave, the Reuss, the Wye, the Dee, or the Spey, will satisfy the most 

 extravagant expectations of the most ardent worshipper ; and many, 

 too, of the insignificant streams, nay, even nameless rivulets, will 

 conduct the traveller among scenes of surpassing beauty. Among the 

 Pyrenees, among the Bavarian Alps, and in the Tyrol, I have often 

 been led by such companions among the most majestic scenes that nature 

 offers to the contemplation of man. 



It has often been a question with me, whether it is more agreeable 

 to journey up or down a stream. In journeying down, there is cer- 

 tainly more companionship, for we are fellow-travellers; and there 

 is no small pleasure in seeing our companion, for whom we naturally 

 acquire a kind of affection, growing daily bigger, receiving the contri- 

 butions that pour into it, and, as it were, making its way in the world. 

 But, on the other hand, if, in journeying upward, the stream be less our 

 companion, in as much as it is ever running away from us, this is 

 balanced by other advantages. There is still a fonder feeling engen- 

 dered by going back with it to its infancy, and tracing it to those small 

 beginnings, from which, like many other great things, it must ascribe 

 its origin. Gradually we perceive its volume diminishing; now we 

 may wade across it ; now, leap over it ; now, we are able to bestride it ; 

 and, lastly, we stoop down, and drink from the spring. 



This naturally leads me to speak of the sources of rivers. " Throw- 

 ing my shoes off," says Bruce, in his travels to the source of the Nile, 

 " I ran down the hill, towards the little island of green sods, which was 

 about two hundred yards distant ; the whole side of the Jiill was thick 



