6 FRESH FIELDS 



grace and composure with which she took to the 

 water; the j)roblem nicely studied and solved, — 

 just jDower enough, and not an ounce to sj^are. 

 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 wider 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. Groat Fell is steejD 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 



