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Preface ix-x Introduction xv-xxviii

PART I

PART II

Natural Beauty and Geography

Presidential Address to the Royal Geographical Society 195-216

An Address to the Union Society of University College, London 217-235

PREFACE The value of Knowledge and Character is duly impressed upon us. Of the value of Freedom we are told so much that we have come to regard it as an end in itself instead of only a means, or necessary condition. But Beauty we are half-inclined to connect with the effeminate. Poetry, Music, and Literature are under suspicion with the average English schoolboy, whose love of manliness he will share with nothing else. Yet love of Beauty persists in spite of all discouragement, and will not be suppressed. Natural Beauty, especially, insists on a place in our affections, derived originally from Love, and essentially and inseparably connected with it, Natural Beauty acknowledges supremacy to Love alone. And it deserves our generous recognition, for it is wholesome and refreshing for our souls.

I am conscious of having myself made most inadequate use of the splendid opportunities my travels afforded me of seeing the Beauty of Nature. So I am all the more anxious that those following after me should not, by like omission, commit the same sin against themselves and against our country. We owe it to ourselves and to mankind to give full rein to our instinctive love of Natural Beauty, and to train and refine every inclination and capacity we have for appreciating it till we are able to see all those finer glories of which we now discern only the first faint glow.

And if any other country excel us in appreciation, then it behoves us to brace ourselves up to emulate and surpass that country, and learn how to understand Nature better and see more Beauty. For in love of Natural Beauty, and in capacity for communicating that love, England ought to be preeminent. She above every other country should come nearest to the Heart of Nature.

INTRODUCTION

In this process all will depend upon the mood. If we are not in the mood for it, we are unreceptive of Nature's impressions, and we are irresponsive. We do not come into touch with Nature. Consequently we see no Beauty. But if we are in a sensitive and receptive mood, if our minds are not preoccupied, and if our soul is open to the impressions which Nature is ever raining on it, then we respond to Nature's appeal. We feel ourselves in tune with her. We come into communion with her, and we see Beauty.

If we are ourselves feeling sad and sorrowful when we look out on Nature, and there all should happen to be bright and gay, we shall feel out of harmony with Nature, we shall not feel in touch with her, and we shall not see Beauty.

On the other hand, when we are in a glad and overflowing mood we shall be extraordinarily responsive to Nature's appeal, and see Beauty in a rugged, leafless oak tree or a poor old woman at the corner of some mean street. And if when we are in such a mood Nature happens to be at her best and brightest, as on some spring morning, the Beauty we shall then see will be overpowering, and we shall scarcely be able to contain ourselves for ecstasy of joy.

And the instinct of fellowship with our kind impels us to communicate to others what we ourselves have felt. We want to tell others what we have seen and what we have experienced.

If we have petty, meagre souls we shall find little in common with the great soul of Nature, and consequently see only shallow Beauty. If we have great souls we shall have more in common and see more Beauty. But to arrive at a full understanding of the real Nature we must observe her from every point of view and see her in all her aspects. Only so shall we be able to understand her real self and see her full Beauty. And her aspects and the points of view from which we may observe them change so incessantly that the greatest of us falters. The more we see of Nature, the more we find there is to understand. And the more we understand Nature and commune with her, the more Beauty do we find there is to see. So to arrive at a complete understanding of Nature and see all her Beauty is beyond the capacity of us finite men.

Yet we are impelled to go on striving to see all we can. And in the following pages an attempt is made to show how, more Beauty in Nature may be discovered.

Often in the Himalaya I have watched an eagle circling overhead. I have sat on the mountain-side and watched it sail majestically along in graceful curves and circles, and with perfect ease and poise. Far above the earth it would range, and seemingly without exertion glide easily over tracts that we poor men could only enter by prodigious effort. Captivated by its grace of motion, and jealous of its freedom, I would for hours watch it. And this eagle I knew, from the height and distance from which it would swoop down on its prey, to be possessed of eyesight of unrivalled keenness in addition to its capacity for movement.

So this bird had opportunities such as no human being--not even an airman--has of seeing the earth and what is on it. At will it could glide over the loftiest mountain ranges. At will it could sail above the loveliest valleys. At will it could perch upon any chosen point and observe things at close range. In a single day this one eagle might have seen the finest natural scenery in the world--the highest mountain, the most varied forest, thickly populated plains and bare, open plains, peoples, animals, birds, insects, trees, flowers, all of the most varied description. In one day, and in the ordinary course of its customary circlings and sailings, it might have seen what men come from the ends of the Earth to view, and are content if they see only a hundredth part of what the eagle sees every day.

From its mountain eerie in Upper Sikkim it might have seen the rose of dawn flushing the snowy summits of Kinchinjunga, and far away Mount Everest. And soaring aloft, the eagle might have looked out over the populous plains of India and seen, like silver streaks, the rivers flowing down from the Himalaya to join in the far distance the mighty Mother Ganges. Then its eye might have ranged over the vast forest which clothes in dense green mantle the plain at the foot of the mountains from Nepal to Bhutan and Assam, and from the plain spreads up on the mountain-sides themselves and reaches to the very borders of eternal snow. Over this vast forest with its treasures of tree and plant, animal and insect life, tropical, temperate, and alpine, the eagle might have soared; and then, passing over the Himalayan watershed, have looked down upon the treeless, open, undulating, almost uninhabited plain of Tibet, and in the distance seen the great Brahmaputra River, which, circling round Bhutan, cuts clean through the Himalaya and, turning westward, also joins the Ganges.

In the whole world no more wonderful natural scenery is to be found. And the eagle with no unusual effort could see it all in a single day, and see it with a distinctness of sight no man could equal. But keen though its eyesight was and wide though its range, the eagle in all that beautiful region would see not a single beauty. Neither in the sunrise, nor in the snowy mountains, nor in the luxuriant tropical forest, nor in the flowers, the birds, the butterflies, nor in the people and animals, nor in the cataracts and precipices would it see any beauty whatever. The mountain would be to it a mere outline, the forests a patch of green, the rivers streaks of white, the animals just possible items of food. The eagle would see much, but it would see no beauty.

Perhaps we shall understand why it is that the eagle with these unbounded opportunities sees no beauty if we consider the case of a little midge buzzing round a man's body. The midge is roughly in about the same relation to the body of a man that the eagle is to the body of the Earth. The midge in its hoverings sees vast tracts of the human body; sees the features--the nose, the eye, the mouth; sees the trunk and the limbs and the head. But even in the most beautiful of men it would see no beauty. And it would see no beauty because it would have no soul to understand expression. It might be hovering round the features of a man when the smile on his lips and the exaltation in his eyes were expressive of the highest ecstasy of soul, but the midge would see no beauty in those features because it had not the soul to enter into the soul of the man and understand the expression on his face. All the little shades and gradations and tones and lights in the features of the man would be quite meaningless to the midge because it would know nothing of the man's soul, of which the features and the changes and variations in them were the outward manifestation. The midge would know nothing of the reality of the man which lay hidden behind the appearance.

It is the same with the eagle in respect to natural features as it is with the midge in respect to the features of the man. The eagle sees only the bare outward appearance of Nature, and sees no meaning in her features. It has no soul to enter into the soul of Nature and understand what the natural features are expressing. The delicate lights and shades and changes on the face of Nature have no meaning for it. It sees the bare appearance. It sees nothing of the reality behind the appearance. It has no soul to wed to the soul of Nature. It therefore sees no beauty.

But now supposing that among all the midges that buzz about a man there happened to be an artist-midge with exceeding sensitiveness of soul, one which was able to recognise a fundamental identity of life between it and the man, one which was able to recognise samenesses of feelings and emotions and aspirations, and by recognition of the samenesses between it and the man enter into the very life and soul of the man, then that midge would be able to understand all the varying expressions on the face of the man, and by understanding those expressions see their beauty.

We cannot expect an eagle in a similar way to have that sensitiveness of soul which would enable it to enter into the soul of Nature, understand Nature, and so see its Beauty. But what we cannot expect of the eagle we can expect of man. We can expect an Artist to appear who will be to the Earth what the artist-midge was to the man.

And in a delicately sensitive man such as an artist--painter, poet, or musician--this sense of kinship with Nature is highly developed. In regard to his relationship with Nature he is like the finely sensitive and cultured artist-midge would be in regard to a man--the midge who, through understanding the inner soul and character of the man, was able to read the expression on his features and see their beauty.

What we ordinary men have to do, and what we especially want those gifted with unusually sensitive souls to do, is to bear in mind the difficulties which the midge has in understanding us and in seeing any beauty in us, and the way in which it would have to train and cultivate its faculties before it could ever hope to understand the expression on our features--to bear this in mind, and then to take ourselves in hand and develop the soul within us till it is fine enough and great enough to enter into the great soul of Nature.

The sense of Beauty we all possess in some slight degree is in itself a proof that behind the outward appearance of Nature there is a spiritual reality--an "I"--just as behind the outward appearance of the man which the artist-midge sees there is the "I" of the man. And by cultivating this sense--that is, by training and developing our capacity to see deeper into the heart of Nature, see more significance and meaning in each shade and change of her features, and read more understandingly what is going on deep within her soul--we shall enable ourselves to see a fuller and richer Natural Beauty.

So we look forward to the appearance among us of a great Artist who, born with an exceptionally sensitive soul, will deliberately heighten and intensify this sensitiveness, learn what others have experienced, compare notes with them, and train himself to detect the significance of every slightest indication which Nature gives of the workings of the soul within her; and then, recognising the sameness between his own feelings and the feelings of Nature, will fall deeply in love with her, give himself up utterly to her, marry her, and in their marriage give birth to Beauty of surpassing richness and intensity.

What we await, then, is an Artist with a soul worthy of being wedded to Nature. Puny, shallow artists will not be able to see much more of Nature than a midge sees of a man. What we want is a man with the physique, the abounding health and spirits, the fine intellect, the poetic power and imagination, the love of animals and his fellow-men, the skill, fitness, and gay courage of a Julian Grenfell. We want a man with the opportunities he had of mixing from childhood in London and in country houses with every grade and condition of men, with statesmen, soldiers, men of art, hunting men, racing men, schoolboys, undergraduates, literary men, gamekeepers, old family retainers--every kind and sort of human being. We want a man of such qualifications combined with the qualifications of a Darwin--with his love of natural history, his power of close and accurate observation, his genius for drawing right inferences from what he observed, his wide knowledge of Nature in her many manifestations, his sympathetic touch with every plant and animal, and his warm, affectionate nature in all human intercourse.

We want, in fact, a Naturalist-Artist--a combination of Julian Grenfell and Darwin. And this is no outrageously impossible, but a very likely and fitting combination. For Julian Grenfell wrote great poetry even in the trenches in Flanders between the two battles of Ypres. And with his love of country life, shooting, fishing, and hunting, his inclination might very easily have been directed towards natural history. If it had been and the opportunity had offered, we might have had the very type of Naturalist-Artist we are now awaiting. He would have had the physical fitness and capacity to endure hardships which are required for travel in parts of the Earth where the Natural Beauty is finest, and he would have had, too, the sensitiveness of soul to receive impressions and the power of expressing himself so that others might share with him the impressions he had felt. If after passing through the earlier stages of shooting and hunting birds and animals he had come to the more profitable stage of observing them, and had devoted to the observation of their habits and ways of life the same skill and acumen which he had shown in hunting them, he might, with his innate and genuine love of animals, very well have become a great naturalist as well as what he was--a great sportsman and a writer of great poetry.

It is for the advent of such Naturalist-Artist that we wait. But we have to prepare the way for him and do our share in helping to produce him. And this will now be my endeavour, for it so happens that I have been blessed with opportunities--some of my own making, some provided for me--of seeing Nature on a larger scale and under more varied aspects than falls to the lot of most men. I am ashamed when I reflect how little use I have made of those opportunities--how little I was prepared and trained to make the most of them. But this at least I can do: I can point out to the coming Artist those parts of the world where he is likely to see the Beauty of Nature most fully, and in greatest variety.

With this end in view I shall begin with the Sikkim Himalaya, over which the eagle flew, because it contains within a small area a veritable compendium of Nature. Rising directly out of the plains of India, practically within the tropics, these mountains rise far above the limits of perpetual snow. Their base is covered with luxuriant vegetation of a truly tropical character, and this vegetation extends through all the ranges from tropical to temperate and arctic. The animal, bird, and insect life does the same. And here also are to be found representative men of every clime. Similarly does the natural scenery vary from plain to highest mountain. There are roaring torrents and wide, placid rivers. The Sikkim Himalaya, looking down on the plains of India on the one side and the steppes of Tibet on the other, is the most suitable place I know for a study of Natural Beauty.

But there are beauties in Kashmir and in the great Karakoram Mountains behind Kashmir which are not found in Sikkim. And there are beauties in the Desert which are not found in either Sikkim or Kashmir. So I must take the Artist to these regions also.

And I choose Sikkim and Kashmir because these are easily accessible regions to which men with a thirst for Beauty can return again and again, till they are saturated with the atmosphere and have imbibed the true spirit of the region--till they have realised how much these natural features express sentiments which they, too, are wanting to express--their aspirations for the highest and purest, their longing for repose, their delight in warmth and affection, or whatever their sentiment might be. Thousands of Englishmen, cultured Indians, and travellers from all over the world, visit the Himalaya every year--some for sport, some for health, some for social enjoyment. Amongst these may be our Naturalist-Artist who year after year, drawn to Sikkim and Kashmir by his love of Natural Beauty, would learn to know Nature in the wonderfully varied aspects under which she is to be seen in those favoured regions, who would come into ever-deepening communion with her, would yearly see more Beauty in her, and would communicate to us the enjoyment he had felt.

PART I

THE HEART OF NATURE

THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA

The Sikkim Himalaya is a region first brought prominently into notice by the writings of Sir Joseph Hooker, the great naturalist, who visited it in 1848. It lies immediately to the east of Nepal, and can now be reached by a railway which ascends the outer range to Darjiling. It is drained by the Teesta River, up the main valley of which a railway runs for a short distance. The region is therefore easily accessible. For the purposes of this book it may be taken to include the flat open forest and grass-covered tract known as the Terai, immediately at the base of the mountain. This is only a few hundreds of feet above sea-level, so that from there to the summit of the Himalaya there is a rise of nearly 28,000 feet in about seventy miles. The lower part is in the 26th degree of latitude, so that the heat is tropical. And as the region comes within the sweep of the monsoon from the Bay of Bengal, there is not only great heat in the plains and lower valleys, but great moisture as well. The mountain-sides are in consequence clothed with a luxuriant vegetation.

To enter this wonderful region the traveller has first to cross the Ganges--the sacred river of the Hindus. Great rivers have about them a fascination all their own. They produce in us a sense of everlastingness and irresistibility. The Ganges, more than a mile wide, comes sweeping along in deep majestic flood from the far distance to the far distance, on and on unendingly, from all time to all time, and in such depth and volume that nothing human can withstand it. In the dry season, when it is low and the sun is shining, it is placid and benign with a bright and smiling countenance. Stately temples, set amidst sacred groves and graceful palms, lighten the banks. On the broad steps of the bathing ghats are assembled crowds of pious worshippers in clothes of every brilliant hue. The river has an aspect of kindliness and geniality and life-givingness. Its waters and rich silt have brought plenty to many a barren acre, and the dwellers on its banks know well that it issues from the holy Himalaya.

But the Ganges is not always in this gracious mood, and does not always wear this kindly aspect. In the rainy season it is a thing of terror. Overhead black, thundery clouds sweep on for days and weeks together towards the mountains. There is not a glimpse of sun. The rain descends as a deluge. The river is still further swollen by the melting of the snow on the Himalaya, and now comes swirling along in dark and angry mood, rising higher and higher in its banks, eating into them, and threatening to overtop them and carry death and destruction far and wide. Men no longer go down to meet it. They shrink back from it. They uneasily watch it till the fulness of its strength is spent and it has returned to its normal beneficent aspect.

No wonder such a river is regarded as sacred. To the more primitive people it is literally a living person--and a person who may be propitiated, a person who may do them harm if they annoy him, and do them good if they make themselves agreeable to him and furnish him with what he wants. To the cultured Hindus it is an object of the deepest reverence. If they can bathe in its waters their sins are washed away. If after death their ashes can be cast on its broad bosom, they will be secure of everlasting bliss. From perhaps the earliest days of our race, for some hundreds of thousands of years, men may have lived upon its banks. For it was in the forests beside great rivers, in a warm and even climate, that primitive men must have lived. They would have launched their canoes upon its waters, and used it as their only pathway of communication with one another. And always they would have looked upon it with mingled awe and affection. Besides the sun it would have been the one great natural object which would attract their attention. Insensibly the sight of that ever-rolling flood must have deeply affected them. They must have come to love it as they beheld it through the greater part of the year. The sight of its destructive power may have made them recoil for a time in fear and awe. But this would be forgotten as the flood subsided, and the river was again smooth and smiling and passing peacefully along before them.

So men do not run away from it. They gather to it. They build great cities on its banks, and come from great distances to see it. They perform pilgrimages every year in thousands to the spot where it issues from the Himalaya. And they penetrate even to its source far back and high up in the mountains.

To the most enlightened, also, the Ganges should be an object of reverence for its antiquity, for its future, and for its power. From the surface of the Bay of Bengal the sun's rays have drawn particles of water into the atmosphere. Currents in the air have carried them for hundreds of miles over the sea and over the plains of Bengal, till the chill of the Himalaya Mountains has caused them to condense and fall in snow and rain. But some have been carried farther. They have been transported right over the Himalaya at a height of at least 20,000 feet, till they have finally fallen in Tibet. It is a striking fact that some of the water in the Ganges is from rivers in Tibet which have cut their way clean through the mighty range of the Himalaya. The Arun River, for example, rises in Tibet and cuts through the Himalaya by a deep gorge in the region between Mount Everest and Kinchinjunga. These rivers are, indeed, much older than the mountains. They were running their course before the Himalaya were upheaved, and they kept wearing out a channel for themselves as the mountains rose and slowly over-towered them.

Reverence, therefore, is due to the Ganges on account of its vast antiquity. Reverence also is due because it will flow on like now for hundreds of thousands and perhaps for millions of years to come. Round and round in never-ceasing cycle the water is drawn up from the ocean, is carried along in the clouds, descends upon the mountains, and gathers in the Ganges to flow once more into the sea. The Ganges may gradually change its course as it eats into first one bank and then the other. But it will flow on and on and on for as far into the future as the human eye can ken.

And its power, so terrifying to primitive man--even to us at times --will become more and more a power for good. Already great canals have been taken from its main stream and its tributaries, and millions of acres have been irrigated by its water, thus helping to bring to birth great crops of wheat and rice, cotton, sugar-cane, and oil-seeds. Schemes for utilising the water-power in its fall through the mountains by converting it into electric power are in contemplation, so that railways may be run by it and power for great industries be furnished. Once more, too, the course of the river may become a line of communication as sea-planes are used to fly from town to town and alight upon its surface.

So as we come to know the river in its deepest significance, our impression of its everlastingness and its irresistible power remains. But our sense of fear diminishes. We feel that the river is ready to co-operate with us. That it is capable of being taken in hand and led. That its power is not essentially destructive but beneficent. That there is in it almost inexhaustible capacity for helping plant and beast and man. And that it is a friend and anxious to help us.

This the Artist will readily discern. He will enter into the spirit of the river. He will read its true character. Refusing to be terrorised by its more tremendous moods, he will exult in its might, and see in it a potent agency for good. In these ways the river will make its appeal to him; and responding to the appeal, the Artist will see great Beauty in the river and describe that Beauty to us.

Beyond the river, before we reach the mountain, we have to pass over absolutely level cultivated plains, without a single eminence in sight. To most they would appear dull, monotonous, uninteresting. There is no horizon to which the eye can wander and find satisfaction in remote distance. There is no hill to which to raise our eyes and our souls with them. The outlook is confined within the narrowest limits. Palm trees, banyan trees, houses, walled gardens, everywhere restrict it. The fields are small, the trees and houses numerous. Nothing distant is to be seen. To the European the prospect is depressing. But to the Bengali it is his very life. These densely inhabited plains are his home. They have, therefore, all the attraction which familiar scenes in which men have grown up from childhood always have. A Bengali prefers them to high mountains. He loves the sight of the brilliant emerald rice-fields, of the tall feathery palms, of the shady banyan trees, of the flaming poinsettias, the bright marigolds, cannas and bougainvillea, the many-coloured crotons and calladiums, the sweet-scented jasmine, oranges, tuberoses, and gardenia; and the gaudy jays, the swiftly darting parrots, and the playful squirrels. He loves, too, the bathing-pools, and the patient oxen, and the cool, sequestered gardens. And he loves these things for their very nearness. His attention is not distracted to distant horizons and inaccessible heights. All is close to the eye and easily visible. His world may be small, but it is all within reach. He can know well each tree and flower, each bird and animal. It is not a wide and varied life. But it is an intense and very vivid life; and to the Bengali, on that account, more preferable. And if it is confined it is at least confined in the open air, and in a climate of perpetual summer.

Beyond this highly cultivated and thickly populated part, and still in the plains, we come to a wild jungle country which stretches up to the foothills, and is swampy, pestilential, and swarming with every kind of biting insect. It is a nasty country to travel through. But it has its interests. There grow here remarkable grasses, with tall straight shoots gracefully bending over at the top from the weight of their feathery heads; and so high are these gigantic grasses that they often reach above the head of a man on an elephant. The areas covered by them are practically impenetrable to men on foot, and there is a mysterious feel about this region, for it is the haunt of rhinoceros, tigers, and boars. In passing through it we have an uneasy feeling that almost anything may appear on the instant, and that once we were on foot and away from the path we would be irretrievably lost--drowned in a sea of waving grass.

As we come closer under the mountains the base emerges from the haze and the line of snowy peaks disappears behind the nearer outer ranges. Then we come to these ranges themselves, which rise with considerable abruptness out of the level plains with very little intermediate modulation of form, and we find them densely clothed in forest--true, rich, luxuriant, tropical forest with all the delights of glistening foliage, graceful ferns and palms, glorious orchids, and brilliant butterflies.

THE TEESTA VALLEY

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