1832.] Rivers! 177 



grown over with flowers. I after this came to the island of green turf, 

 which was in form of an altar, apparently the work of art, and I stood 

 in rapture over the principal fountain which rises in the middle of it. 

 It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at this 

 moment." This rapture was perhaps foolish, but it was natural ; and 

 even those who cannot, like Bruce, boast of having accomplished that 

 which has baffled the inquiry and industry of both ancients and moderns, 

 will yet admit, that there is a peculiar pleasure a pleasure, perhaps 

 per se i n reaching the source of any well-known river. This may 

 partly arise from the consciousness of having overcome difficulty ; for 

 to reach the sources of any of the greater rivers some difficulties are to 

 be vanquished ; and it may also be in part attributed to the many asso- 

 ciations that are instantly awakened, as following the tiny rill with our 

 eye, imagination continues to accompany it in its long and victorious 

 course, fertilizing empires, enriching cities, and carrying the products 

 of industry to the remotest parts of the habitable world. 



The sources of the greatest rivers are not the most remarkable for the 

 features that surround them. The sources of the mighty rivers of the 

 Western Hemisphere, or even of the great rivers of Africa or Asia, 

 have not, as far as is known, been visited by the traveller, with the 

 single exception of the Nile ; their sources are probably placed amid 

 those unapproached solitudes, where the foot of man- hath never yet 

 wandered; what appearances of nature may preside over their birth 

 we have no means of knowing ; but it does not appear from the narra- 

 tive of Bruce that the source of the Nile afforded any example of extra- 

 ordinary sublimity. The sources of the large rivers of the European 

 continent are many of them well known ; but the sources of neither the 

 Rhine, the Rhone, nor the Danube, present those majestic and imposing 

 features that distinguish the sources of some of the smaller class. Nor 

 is this difficult to explain; the large rivers have not one, but many 

 sources ; and, as the source par excellence, we mount to the highest, 

 which invariably lies among the upper fields of snow. The smaller 

 rivers, on the other hand, may gush at once from a single spring, placed 

 perhaps among the rocks, and ravines, and precipices, which lie lower 

 than the line of congelation. It is, at all events, a fact, that the most 

 sublime sources are those which belong to the smaller rivers. Of these, 

 I. may mention the Soane, the Gave, and the Sourgue the two latter 

 especially. The Gave rises in the magnificent amphitheatre of Marbore ; 

 and the Sourgue bursts at once, an imposing torrent, from the immortal 

 fountain of Vaucluse. 



Different, very different, are the associations called up to different 

 minds, by the contemplation of a river's source. The utilitarian would 

 most rejoice to stand by the spring from which swells forth the Ohio or 

 Mississippi of the Western Hemisphere, destined to carry the riches of 

 one world to contribute to the wants and luxuries of another ; or he 

 would rejoice, like Bruce, to stand beside the sources of the Nile, ap- 

 pointed by its inundations to fructify lands, that, without it, would be 

 deserts ; or place at the source of the Rhine the utilitarian, the historian, 

 the novelist, and the simple lover of nature, and the thoughts of each 

 would run in a different channel. The utilitarian would see in it a 

 mighty artery, carrying on the circulation between Western Germany, 

 the Netherlands, Holland, and the rest of the world; the historian 

 would recal to his memory the epochs in which the Rhine has been the 



M. M. Series. VOL. XIII, No. 74. N 



