The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-09-28

In advance that which YOU wish and
expect to see. 1t boots but little TO
obtain your initial information OF
locality from guide who may be both
Ignorant and indifferent and who, pre-
suming upon your gullibility. proffers
an extravagant and irresponsible state
ment.
Observant visitors to the city of
Washington will note upon the facade
of the new railway station the legend
that the 'traveler who expects TO bring
back knowledge must take it away
with him. This is upon the same prin-
cip1e that for the sake of pleasure 1t
is much better to have read drama
or play before seeing It upon the stage
than vice versa and the proposition
seems too apparent to dwell upon.
Another important factor in travel is
to be able to appreciate the vast diff
ference between seeing a place and
Knowing it. Thousands of tourists
upon reaching city hire an "obser-
walton" car or char -banc and spend
several hours in driving over the place,
having the points of interest pointed
out to them in rapid and panoramic
succession, forgetting them in the next
instant and imagine that they know the
city How many of the myriads of
visitors who annually frequent London
have ever spent day upon the
Thames? And yet along It's banks is
to be found the real center of English
life, of English history. To visit Great
Britain without spending a day upon
its chief river is like leaving house
after having paid a social call and
found the mistress not at homo.
There is as much impressiveness in
river as there is in ruin" and
when the stream threads its way
through a land associated with the
most profound and romantic of his
E toric events. such impressiveness is to
. be sensed nowhere else in the entire
world.
Such a river is the Thames and while
cannot share the patriotic enthu-
siasm of Sir Walter Raleigh in declar-
ing There are two things scarce
matched in the universe-the sun in
: heaven and the Thames on earth"-I
must admit that the noble stream is In
many respects Incompatible. Upon It's
banks are the first university, the most
famous public school, two of the finest
royal palaces and the metropolis of
s old England. Oxford, Eton Windsor,
Hampton court and London are them
selves enough and if the intending Wis
itor will imagine them set at intervals
beside a silver steam in a long river
valley rich in the English beauty,
5 meadowland and forest. he will al
ready have n true idea of what to ex-
pect
He must not look for magnificance of
scenery nor for any exhibition of the
. forces of nature. The roar of Niagra is
not there the seething ebulition of the
; Alpine stream is wanting, the foamy cata-
: racts of the Nile are absent and the
castellated contour of the Rhine and the
I Danube is missing for the Thames flows
. quietly and slowly past low meadows,
long woods and modest hills, and its land
scapes have no large perspeetives nor
bold outline.
At the same time it may. be doubted
whether any river in the world is quite
so continuously interesting and attrac-
. tive or possesses quite the same happy
variety of charms. The streams of Amer
. lea. have grander scenery and perhaps
greater future-but their history is still
TO make; some in Asia have longer his
tory, but it is of a greatness that is
past But upon the Thames If there is
. no majesty there is at the same time no
monotony. Old abbeys churches and
bridges alternate with riverside mansions,
gardens and houseboats, and modern
towns with others of a "storied past"
Long. level reaches of placid water and
then tossing weir; meadows, hills and
! woods, and then an ancient village fol-
low in quick succession. Always there
is at least the quiet beauty of English
scenery, and scarcely mile lacks the
visible evidence of long and eventful
past.
1t is not difficult to understand how
the Thames has run like a silver thread.
through the main events of English his
tory. Flowing through the south of Eng
land, It has been the natural centre of all
that has happened there-and the history
Of the south of England has until the
last century been almost the history of
England The result is a wonderful series
of ancient memories and monuments. No
: century since the conquest has passed
+. without deposting here both material
a relics and the tradition of great events.
/. Its very names-Oxford, Abingdon, Dor
: chester, Wallingford Reading Windsor,
{ Runnymede and many others-are a part
i. of history: and the whole Thames valley
: Is long historical museum Yet museum
=. IS perhaps hardly the right word for the
+ Thames mas comparatively few relics and
& fuins-the dry bones of history It is
characteristic that Windsor Castle, found
Z ed by Norman Kings, is still royal resi-
dence; that the modern Oxford UNDER
Z graduate still sleeps In fifteenth century
bedrooms and that regular services are
still celebrated in the church of the Vicar
of Bray
Destruction there has been, but not dis
+ use. A long procession of noble abbevs
: has perished-for the most part perished
= utterly. A long series of churches OF
castles, OF ancient manor houses remains.
not in ruins but in continuing usefulness
They do not merely record the past. like
relics but unite it to the present by still
serving useful purpose.
! 1t would be pleasing task for an artist
or descriptive writer to take one typical
scene from each century and publish a
: collection of Scenes from Thames His.
tory In our own times he would doubt.
Iessly choose an Ascot Sunday at Boul.
ter's Lock or finals day at Henley: q
vivid picture of fashions and fiannels, and
endless maze Of boats punts, canoes and
launches threading their way to the lone
reach beside Clveden woods, or lining
the wlite-boomed regatta course. In the
eighteenth century he would present the
strange sight of London's society on it.
own immediate waters between Richmond
and Westminster For the seventeenth
he would turn to Pepy's diary and read OF
1.-TWO pageants, one of king and another
Of queen, with her maids of honor al
her feet very prettiy." Earlier still there
is Elizabeth gliding magnficently tc
Hampton court with her bevy of courtiers
/. The fifteenth century would furnish hin
with picture of the old bridge at Abing.
: don spanning all these later centuries and
+: still bearing the freight of a main road
&traffic. And among many yet earlier
! scenes he would choose at least two-ISne
! ohm signing Magma Charta under com