IN THAMESLAND То CHAPTER I THE RIVER Its Name - Its Source Thames Head O one who has lived upon the great Mississippi and trapped the marten on its flat banks, who has camped upon the dark Missouri and disturbed its wild fowl at an autumn daybreak, and has cruised upon the St. Lawrence, reckless of its rapids, and to one who has generally misdemeaned himself with rod and gun and boat throughout the wilder regions of North America, the Thames, when first beheld above the city of London, seems hardly a river at all. To him it appears to be a well-groomed, quaintly banked, park rivulet, an aqueous dwarf, with a picturesque swagger and a pride typically British. Just as many Englishmen believe that their race and civilisation constitute the only force which renders the world a planet worth abiding in, so does this sinuous little creek go winding on from a disputed source in Gloucestershire to the sea on which rides Britain's night -- a might at once the most admirable and the most incomprehensible feature of modern British life. One could hardly fancy an England without the Thames. It is the source, the inspiration, the participant in so much that distinguishes England's sylvan beauty. In the centuries that have lived upon its banks it has been a potent factor in the civilisation of this island-kingdom. It cuts in twain and laves the burliest city in all the world, a dark mass of human structure impenetrably profound. It rides a vast commerce from London to the sea, and along its jutting wharves nights are often made darker with its tragedies. Years agone kings and princes and the fairest women in the land rode upon its tide in functions of state or in the idle. pose of pleasure. Those were the days of the garlanded barge or the hooded galley-foist which, gliding stealthily beneath the Tower portcullis, lost another noble to the world of politics and intrigue. A few miles from where London now teems and swarms with its devouring materialism, Elizabeth and Leicester, gazing from beneath the alders on the heights of Richmond Terrace, once enjoyed the rapture of the same beautiful landscape which enchants us to-day. To the left, and below the terrace of the Star and Garter, a modern hostelry which occupies the site of the structure where Queen Elizabeth died, one sees White Lodge, sometime the residence of the Prince of Wales, of the Battenbergs, and of other members of the royal household. Beyond is Ham House on the banks of the Thames in the dull little village of Petersham, where Charles I took refuge in his flight. On the opposite, the north bank, Pope's villa peeps out its ruddy turrets from a dark-green foliate mass. House and Teddington lock, a pretty islet and backwater, and the distant towers of Windsor glint in the afternoon sun. Winding through the valley, stretching its silvern width before us, flows the merry river, its burthen of pleasure craft and flanneled fuss and play; a scene of everchanging loveliness, of perfect tranquillity on a summer's day. Behind us is old London, and all around the ancient town of Richmond, the fashionable resort of the great courtiers and fine ladies of many splendid days ago. Weir The River The river Thames has, possibly, been the inspiration of more lettered lore than any other stream in It has been the scene of more the world. history-making events than it would be possible to recount in this frail appreciation of its natural and artificial charms. It has done some big things and the phases of its life are many. Its Name Like everything with individuality and character, whether that be man, woman, theory, cult, idea, or principle, the Thames has been the cause of much controversy. Its name has been variously stated as Tameses, Tamese, Tamises (at the juncture of the Isis and Tame, near Dorchester), Tamisa, Tamesa, Thamisia, Thamesis and finally Isis (where it flows between the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire shores). Thus, at Oxford it is still often called the Isis until it receives the shallow river Tame just below Dorchester, from which point it is called Thames. Historians trace this error to an early attempted division of the Latin word Tamesis into two words, Tame esis or Tame isis, suggested perhaps by the existence of the Tame in Buckinghamshire. The Saxons called it the Thames, ancient maps and documents designating it Thamesis Fluvius. |