6 FRESH FIELDS 



grace and composure with which she took to the 

 water ; the problem nicely studied and solved, — 

 just power enough, and not an ounce to spare. 

 The vessels are launched diagonally up or down 

 stream, on account of the narrowness of the chan- 

 nel. But to see such a brood of ships, the largest 

 in the world, hatched upon the banks of such a 

 placid little river, amid such quiet country scenes, 

 is a novel experience. But this is Britain, — a little 

 island, with little lakes, little rivers, quiet, bosky 

 fields, but mighty interests and power that reach 

 round the world. I was conscious that the same 

 scene at home would have been less pleasing. It 

 would not have been so compact and tidy. There 

 would not have been a garden of ships and a garden 

 of turnips side by side; haymakers and shipbuild- 

 ers in adjoining fields; milch-cows and iron steamers 

 seeking the water within sight of each other. We 

 leave wide margins and ragged edges in this coun- 

 try, and both man and nature sprawl about at 

 greater lengths than in the Old World. 



For the rest I was perhaps least prepared for the 

 utter tranquillity, and shall I say domesticity, of 

 the mountains. At a distance they appear to be 

 covered with a tender green mould that one could 

 brush away with his hand. On nearer approach it 

 is seen to be grass. They look nearly as rural and 

 pastoral as* the fields. Goat Fell is steep and stony, 

 but even it does not have a wild and barren look. 

 At home, one thinks of a mountain as either a vast 

 pile of barren, frowning rocks and precipices, or 



