How
Interesting Are The Varied Beauties Of Nature, And What Peculiar
Charms Characterise Each Season!
The purple hue which the heath now
assumed gave it a degree of richness that almost exceeded the lustre
of the young green of spring, and harmonised exquisitely with the
rays of the ripening corn.
The weather was uninterruptedly fine,
and the people busy in the fields cutting down the corn, or binding
up the sheaves, continually varied the prospect. The rocks, it is
true, were unusually rugged and dreary; yet as the road runs for a
considerable way by the side of a fine river, with extended pastures
on the other side, the image of sterility was not the predominant
object, though the cottages looked still more miserable, after
having seen the Norwegian farms. The trees likewise appeared of me
growth of yesterday, compared with those Nestors of the forest I
have frequently mentioned. The women and children were cutting off
branches from the beech, birch, oak, &c, and leaving them to dry.
This way of helping out their fodder injures the trees. But the
winters are so long that the poor cannot afford to lay in a
sufficient stock of hay. By such means they just keep life in the
poor cows, for little milk can be expected when they are so
miserably fed.
It was Saturday, and the evening was uncommonly serene. In the
villages I everywhere saw preparations for Sunday; and I passed by a
little car loaded with rye, that presented, for the pencil and
heart, the sweetest picture of a harvest home I had ever beheld. A
little girl was mounted a-straddle on a shaggy horse, brandishing a
stick over its head; the father was walking at the side of the car
with a child in his arms, who must have come to meet him with
tottering steps; the little creature was stretching out its arms to
cling round his neck; and a boy, just above petticoats, was
labouring hard with a fork behind to keep the sheaves from falling.
My eyes followed them to the cottage, and an involuntary sigh
whispered to my heart that I envied the mother, much as I dislike
cooking, who was preparing their pottage. I was returning to my
babe, who may never experience a father's care or tenderness. The
bosom that nurtured her heaved with a pang at the thought which only
an unhappy mother could feel.
Adieu!
LETTER XVII.
I was unwilling to leave Gothenburg without visiting Trolhaettae. I
wished not only to see the cascade, but to observe the progress of
the stupendous attempt to form a canal through the rocks, to the
extent of an English mile and a half.
This work is carried on by a company, who employ daily nine hundred
men; five years was the time mentioned in the proposals addressed to
the public as necessary for the completion. A much more
considerable sum than the plan requires has been subscribed, for
which there is every reason to suppose the promoters will receive
ample interest.
The Danes survey the progress of this work with a jealous eye, as it
is principally undertaken to get clear of the Sound duty.
Arrived at Trolhaettae, I must own that the first view of the
cascade disappointed me; and the sight of the works, as they
advanced, though a grand proof of human industry, was not calculated
to warm the fancy. I, however, wandered about; and at last coming
to the conflux of the various cataracts rushing from different
falls, struggling with the huge masses of rock, and rebounding from
the profound cavities, I immediately retracted, acknowledging that
it was indeed a grand object. A little island stood in the midst,
covered with firs, which, by dividing the torrent, rendered it more
picturesque; one half appearing to issue from a dark cavern, that
fancy might easily imagine a vast fountain throwing up its waters
from the very centre of the earth.
I gazed I know not how long, stunned with the noise, and growing
giddy with only looking at the never-ceasing tumultuous motion, I
listened, scarcely conscious where I was, when I observed a boy,
half obscured by the sparkling foam, fishing under the impending
rock on the other side. How he had descended I could not perceive;
nothing like human footsteps appeared, and the horrific crags seemed
to bid defiance even to the goat's activity. It looked like an
abode only fit for the eagle, though in its crevices some pines
darted up their spiral heads; but they only grew near the cascade,
everywhere else sterility itself reigned with dreary grandeur; for
the huge grey massy rocks, which probably had been torn asunder by
some dreadful convulsion of nature, had not even their first
covering of a little cleaving moss. There were so many appearances
to excite the idea of chaos, that, instead of admiring the canal and
the works, great as they are termed, and little as they appear, I
could not help regretting that such a noble scene had not been left
in all its solitary sublimity. Amidst the awful roaring of the
impetuous torrents, the noise of human instruments and the bustle of
workmen, even the blowing up of the rocks when grand masses trembled
in the darkened air, only resembled the insignificant sport of
children.
One fall of water, partly made by art, when they were attempting to
construct sluices, had an uncommonly grand effect; the water
precipitated itself with immense velocity down a perpendicular, at
least fifty or sixty yards, into a gulf, so concealed by the foam as
to give full play to the fancy. There was a continual uproar. I
stood on a rock to observe it, a kind of bridge formed by nature,
nearly on a level with the commencement of the fall. After musing
by it a long time I turned towards the other side, and saw a gentle
stream stray calmly out. I should have concluded that it had no
communication with the torrent had I not seen a huge log that fell
headlong down the cascade steal peacefully into the purling stream.
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