Olympia, State capital and seat of Thurston County, spreads fan-like from its harbor on Puget Sound over gently sloping hills, with Mount Rainier on the east and the more distant Olympics visible to the north. Here, near the place where the Nisqually once met in solemn council to devise means of protection against the soleeks itsweet (angry brown bear), today legislators convene to represent the citizens of the State named in honor of the Great White Father.
From a broad knoll near the center of the town rise the massive white sandstone buildings of the Capitol Group, with the tall white dome of the Legislative Building conspicuous for miles around. In general Olympia has an atmosphere of conservatism and moderate prosperity. Modern buildings predominate in the small compact business district, while residential areas represent an older architectural mode, quiet and attractive, with substantial homes, smooth lawns, and long colonnades of shade trees. The Pacific Highway bisects the city, giving a glimpse of practically every phase of activity and a panoramic view of the surrounding mountains and the harbor. Sout'hernmost port on Puget Sound, Olympia is the center of an industrial area concentrated along the water front, where the Deschutes River flows into Budd Inlet. Sawmills and woodworking plants, knitting mills, and oyster-packing houses cover the area between the east and west bays. About two miles south of the city center is Turnwater, home of the locally famous brewery. Adjacent to the mitten-shaped tideflat is anchorage deep enough for ocean-going freighters; and in the shallow waters near by are the beds of the delicious Olympia oyster -- a bivalve so small that 1,600 to the gallon makes an average pack.
Governmental employees of city, county, and State constitute a substantial part of the residents. The days of such citizens are for the most part well-ordered in the long-established routine of their work, and the city reflects in some measure this placidity and economic stability. But, being a capital city, Olympia is greatly influenced by shifting political winds and registers recurrent changes in tempo in the life of its. population, as the legislature convenes or disperses or State administrations change. With the convening of the legislature, an air of hurry and bustle pervades the city. Legislators, their families, friends, and attendant lobbyists come and go; the hotels fill, and restaurants and shops do a thriving business; groups of people, generally engaged in political discussion, gather in lobbies, in capitol corridors, on the street; visitors throng the galleries as lawmakers deliberate; traffic is thick on Capitol Way.
The history of Olympia goes back to 1848, when Edmund Sylvester a Gloucester fisherman, and Levi Lathrop Smith, a Presbyterian divinity student, came to the region, called by the Nisqually tribe stechchass (place of the bear). These strangely assorted partners each secured a 320-acre land grant from the Oregon Provisional Government. The former chose Chamber's Prairie; the latter, the south shore of Budd Inlet. They agreed that, upon either's death, the survivor would become heir. They adopted for their lands a composite name, Smithter -- later modified by usage to Smithfield.
In 1845 a group of five settlers under the direction of Michael T. Simmons had arrived at near-by Turnwater. Eight of the new arrivals planned and built the first sawmill of the region near the northwestern part of lower Turnwater Falls. With the arrival of Father Pascal Ricard and nine Oblate fathers in June 1848, St. Joseph's Mission was established on Budd Inlet. The site, today called Priest's Point, a beautiful wooded park overlooking the bay, is the city's principal playground.
Accident decided which one of the two founders should succeed to control of the site; Smith, while traveling by canoe to the sessions of the Oregon Provisional Government, suffered an epileptic attack and was drowned when his craft capsized. Under the Oregon Provisional Land Laws, Sylvester became the owner of Smith's claim -- the present site of Olympia.
The village was practically depopulated during the California gold rush of 1849. Even Sylvester succumbed to the hope of striking it rich, but it was not long before this hope grew dim. Disappointed and homesick, he joined with several others in the purchase of the brig Orbit and set sail for Budd Inlet, arriving there on New Year's Day, 1850. Later, the Orbit sailed to San Francisco with a cargo of piling and returned with a supply of clothing, sugar, and miscellaneous supplies for the shelves of a small general store, the first in the region.
Congress authorized the establishment of a custom-house in the growing village on February 1851, thus creating the first port of entry on Puget Sound. S. P. Moses was appointed collector, and five months later the first mail contract was let to A. B. Robbeson for service by horseback and canoe between Smithfield and the Columbia River settlement.
Inspired by the magnificent panorama of the Olympics, Colonel Isaac N. Ebey, who succeeded Moses as collector of customs, persuaded Sylvester and the townfolk to rechristen the village Olympia. A townsite was platted and the lots were put up for sale.
In close succession a series of memorable events occurred. In 1852 George A. Barnes opened a general merchandise store at the west end of First Street, the first sessions of a district court were convened in the custom-house; the Columbian was established with T. F. McElroy and J. W. Wiley as publishers; stage service to the Columbia River region began; and in December, the Reverend Benjamin Close delivered a sermon to the first Methodist congregation. Two years later, Presbyterian services were conducted in a cooper's shop by the Reverend George P. Whitworth, and the first church edifice in the region was erected by Roman Catholics in 1854.
In 1852 agitation for the separation of the territory north of the Columbia got under way, and the Columbian was a powerful factor in developing public sentiment. The campaign was successful, and the new territory was created and named Washington in March 1853. So slowly, however, did dispatches travel from Washington, D. C., that the Columbian continued its urgent editorials for some weeks after the new Territory had been created. Major Isaac I. Stevens, appointed Territorial Governor, arrived November 25, 1853, and on November 28 proclaimed Olympia the Territorial capital. Then he launched vigorously into the problems of the new commonwealth. The first Territorial legislature was convened in 1854.
Bellingham History
The earliest exploration of this part of the northwest coast was by Francisco Eliza, who in 1791 sent a small ship into the bay and, according to Spanish charts, named it Seno de Gaston. In 1792, Captain George Vancouver, who was exploring the Straits of Georgia, sent a small party under Joseph Whidbey to chart the southern shoreline. Upon receiving the report of the surveying party, Vancouver named the large protected body of water Bellingham Bay, in honor of Sir William Bellingham.
More than 50 years passed before white men again turned their attention to this immediate area, for during the first half of the nineteenth century the United States and Great Britain centered the struggle for possession along the Columbia River, and largely in the diplomatic field. The settlement of the boundary question in 1846, fixing the line at 49° North latitude, served to release colonizing energies. On December 15, 1852, Captain Henry Roeder, son of a German immigrant and formerly a captain on a Great Lakes schooner, and Russell V. Peabody left California and made their way northward, planning to start a salmon cannery or a sawmill. Finding that Henry Yesler's mill adequately supplied the little settlement on the Duwamish, Roeder and Peabody continued to Port Townsend, where they embarked in an Indian canoe for Bellingham Bay.
Circumstances were propitious; the market was booming, the San Francisco fire having skyrocketed lumber prices to $1,000 a thousand board feet. All that was needed was a mill. Roeder and Peabody looked upon the virgin wilderness and pronounced it good -- at least for lumbermen. Sweeping back from the sheer bluffs at tide line was an unbroken forest, with scarcely a foot of open ground. Along the creek were giant cedars, while on higher ground were Douglas fir and hemlock. Here, below the falls of Whatcom Creekss, (creek with the rumbling noise, as the Indians called it), they built a crude, temporary shelter. At once they established friendly relations with the Indians and obtained permission from Cha-wit-zit, chief of the Lummi, to appropriate a place near the falls as a site for the mill.
At once they started to build, laboriously hewing the logs and cedar shakes with their far from adequate tools. Not being able to get sufficient help or supplies from Budd Inlet or Victoria, Roeder sailed for San Francisco early in 1853, returning in a few months with a small party including Captain Edward Eldridge, his wife and baby daughter, William Brown, Henry Hewitt, and William Utter, a millwright. He also brought back necessary supplies and equipment, although the high prices and his small finances severely limited the quantity he could buy. By the summer of 1853, the little mill on Whatcom Creek was whining and snorting away, while the friendly Nooksack and Lummi watched with mingled awe and pleasure.
This was the first industrial development on Bellingham Bay; and although the dreams of quickly accumulating profits faded when the bottom dropped out of the lumber market and the price fell to $20 a thousand, this little water-power mill pointed the way to what was to be one of the area's major industries.
In the meantime, while Roeder was in California, the second industry in the region had been started by William R. Pattle, who discovered outcroppings of coal on his donation claim. Roeder and his associates were not at once distracted from the sawmill; later in the same year, however, when Hewitt and Brown stumbled upon a richer vein at the base of all uprooted cedar tree, the vision of a new industry glowed so brightly that Brown was sent to San Francisco with power to dispose of the claims in order to finance development of the mine. San Francisco was ripe for any kind of promotion, and Brown succeeded in selling the claim for $17,000, but, unable to resist the pull of Colorado and the new mining developments there, he went to Denver and, with the nest egg from the sale of the claim, started a career which included the building of the famous Brown's Palace Hotel.
During the next few years, the little settlement met a succession of reverses and disappointments with a faith and dogged perseverance that would not give way. The sawmill proving to be unprofitable, Captain Roeder in 1854 built a small schooner, the H. C. Page, named for one of the settlers, and with this small boat established regular communication with the outside world. The mine began to operate on a small scale, and some coal was shipped to Puget Sound points and to San Francisco. Also in 1854 Whatcom County was organized, and Whatcorn, as the settlement was called, was made the county seat. Within two years, regular governmental procedures had been instituted, and the little town of 30 persons had come to look upon itself as permanently established.
Indian unrest, widespread throughout the Territory in 1855-6, alarmed the settlers in the Whatcom area, especially so because of the feud between the Indians of the north (British Columbia and Alaska) and the Bellingham Bay Indians. The settlers built a small blockhouse and manned it as well as they could, but this slight protection did not allay their fears, and they sent an urgent appeal for aid to the Federal Government. In response to their request, re-enforcements were sent under the command of Captain George E. Pickett, who eight years later was to lead the famous Confederate charge at Gettysburg. Fort Bellingham was built, Whatcom Creek was bridged, and a road was cleared between the fort and the village. Life in Whatcom soon resumed its monotonous if none too easy pace. In addition to the infrequent trips of Roeder's little steamer, connection with the outside world was maintained by a mail service furnished at irregular intervals by "Blanket Bill" Jarman, in a canoe paddled by nine Indians. (Jarman had received his nickname after being ransomed for 52 blankets by Governor Douglas of Vancouver Island).
In 1857 the magic cry "Gold!" drifted down from the Fraser River, gathering volume as it traveled; by April 20, 1858, the San Francisco Examiner could report a rush comparable to that of forty-nine. Early in the summer, fewer than 100 men were going about their tasks along Bellingham Bay. A few log cabins fringed the shore, and the only sounds of industry were the drone of the little sawmill and the echoes of pick and shovel at the Sehome mine. Then a small boat, its deck black with passengers, moved slowly into the bay. The rush was on, and within a few days a tent city had sprung up and blazed with the lights of campfires. The editor of the first newspaper, the Northern Light, reported that the boat on which he arrived carried a load of 1,000 to 1,300 passengers. For a few short weeks there was feverish activity: buildings were hastily erected, a new wharf was built, pilings were driven. It is reported that some lots sold for $500. More persons thronged into Whatcom to make their way to Canada by trail, boat, or canoe than were to be found in all the rest of the Territory. Then, an order came that all those going to the gold fields must get licenses at Victoria. This order, coupled with the failure to find rich strikes, led to an almost instantaneous collapse of the boom, and by the end of the year 1858 population had dropped from some 15,000 to a few hundred.
Among the goldseekers who settled on Bellingham Bay was John Bennett, who came in 1858, bringing with him a chest filled with roots and bulbs and seed of flowers and grasses that he had gathered in his wanderings. He worked in the mine at Sehome, until in 1860 he had saved sufficient money to buy a piece of land where he could cultivate his many choice varieties of fruit. In the course of years, his claim became the show place of the county. Credited to his endeavors are the Bennett pear, Bennett's Champion plum, and several varieties of apples and flowers.
The dreams of fortune faded with the decline of real-estate values and the exodus of miners and adventurers, but some optimism survived. The Sehome mine, which had imported experienced English miners from Nanaimo, continued to ship some coal, and the little sawmill still whined and sputtered beside the creek. A telegraph line was strung, and boats continued to call occasionally. Hope rose with land values again in 1870, when the Northern Pacific bought land for a proposed water-front terminal. The town of Sehome was platted and filed in 1871, and mining operations were accelerated again.
Then came 1873 and the Nation-wide panic. Jay Cooke's empire tottered and fell, and the force of its crash put an end to the short-lived boom along Bellingham Bay. Then the mill burned, and a few more settlers drifted away in search of work. The final blow was the closing and dismantling of the Sehome mine in 1878 as a result of slow markets, diminishing deposits, water seepage into the tunnels, and financial difficulties. Gloom settled over the two little towns; the few remaining settlers -- some 20 in all -- doggedly stuck to their land and waited for a change of fortune.
This change began with the arrival in 1880 of 600 Kansans. Meeting what they felt to be an inhospitable reception from the local land-owners, the newcomers founded New Whatcom, across the creek from the older town. Three years later Dan Harris, who had succeeded to the claim of John Thomas, recorded "Fair Haven on Harris Bay." Four small towns now fringed the bay: Whatcom, New Whatcom, Sehome, and Fairhaven.
The Bellingham Bay settlements, having tried two industries, now ventured upon a third -- the canning of fish. For years salmon and herring had been shipped, slightly cured, in barrels and boxes to San Francisco and even to the east coast. It was not until 1881, however, that a cannery was built and put into operation. For a few years the plant struggled along, but the evidence of failure was so obvious that the plant was closed; the fish-canning industry had to wait for development in technology and science.
The nineties marked the beginning of growth and prosperity for the Bellingham Bay area. A number of salmon canneries began successful operation. As transportation facilities were improved and the demand for lumber increased, new sawmills and shingle mills were built, and the dense forests that had separated the four small towns disappeared. Whatcom and New Whatcom consolidated.
Tulip cultivation spread to the mainland from Orcas Island, dairy cattle were introduced, and general agriculture began to develop. In September 1899, the normal school awarded to the Bellingham Bay area was opened with 6 instructors and an enrollment of Some 200 students.
In 1900, Fairhaven merged with New Whatcom, and, in 1903, the addition of Sehome brought the population of the united city of New Whatcom to 13,236. At the first city election the name was changed to Bellingham.
Expansion continued throughout the early years of the twentieth century. New railroad connections were secured, sawmills and shingle mills increased in number and size and improved their technique; canneries sent hundreds of thousands of cases of salmon by steamship and rail to eastern United States and Europe. Docks and piers were constructed, coal mines were extended, streets were paved, and scores of small industries were established. An experimental bulb farm was established in the vicinity in 1907, and diversified farming, dairying, and poultry raising became increasingly important as logged-off land was cleared, at a cost of hundreds of dollars an acre, and put into cultivation. Cultural interests began to assume greater importance, new churches and schools were built, and the normal school rapidly increased its enrollment. The 1910 census gave to Bellingham over 24,000 population, an increase of almost 100 per cent.
Succeeding years were marked by less spectacular changes. Sawmills and shingle mills continued to hum as the lumberjacks cut their way deeper into the forests to get the necessary supply of logs. Canneries increased their output, but whispers were already being heard of the day when steadily decreasing runs would force the curtailment of the industry. The Port of Bellingham Commission (which directs the affairs of the port district, co-extensive with Whatcom County) was organized in 1911. Shipments of canned salmon and other fish were for a long time an important part of port traffic, but lumber was (and remains) the leading commodity.
More than 50 years passed before white men again turned their attention to this immediate area, for during the first half of the nineteenth century the United States and Great Britain centered the struggle for possession along the Columbia River, and largely in the diplomatic field. The settlement of the boundary question in 1846, fixing the line at 49° North latitude, served to release colonizing energies. On December 15, 1852, Captain Henry Roeder, son of a German immigrant and formerly a captain on a Great Lakes schooner, and Russell V. Peabody left California and made their way northward, planning to start a salmon cannery or a sawmill. Finding that Henry Yesler's mill adequately supplied the little settlement on the Duwamish, Roeder and Peabody continued to Port Townsend, where they embarked in an Indian canoe for Bellingham Bay.
Circumstances were propitious; the market was booming, the San Francisco fire having skyrocketed lumber prices to $1,000 a thousand board feet. All that was needed was a mill. Roeder and Peabody looked upon the virgin wilderness and pronounced it good -- at least for lumbermen. Sweeping back from the sheer bluffs at tide line was an unbroken forest, with scarcely a foot of open ground. Along the creek were giant cedars, while on higher ground were Douglas fir and hemlock. Here, below the falls of Whatcom Creekss, (creek with the rumbling noise, as the Indians called it), they built a crude, temporary shelter. At once they established friendly relations with the Indians and obtained permission from Cha-wit-zit, chief of the Lummi, to appropriate a place near the falls as a site for the mill.
At once they started to build, laboriously hewing the logs and cedar shakes with their far from adequate tools. Not being able to get sufficient help or supplies from Budd Inlet or Victoria, Roeder sailed for San Francisco early in 1853, returning in a few months with a small party including Captain Edward Eldridge, his wife and baby daughter, William Brown, Henry Hewitt, and William Utter, a millwright. He also brought back necessary supplies and equipment, although the high prices and his small finances severely limited the quantity he could buy. By the summer of 1853, the little mill on Whatcom Creek was whining and snorting away, while the friendly Nooksack and Lummi watched with mingled awe and pleasure.
This was the first industrial development on Bellingham Bay; and although the dreams of quickly accumulating profits faded when the bottom dropped out of the lumber market and the price fell to $20 a thousand, this little water-power mill pointed the way to what was to be one of the area's major industries.
In the meantime, while Roeder was in California, the second industry in the region had been started by William R. Pattle, who discovered outcroppings of coal on his donation claim. Roeder and his associates were not at once distracted from the sawmill; later in the same year, however, when Hewitt and Brown stumbled upon a richer vein at the base of all uprooted cedar tree, the vision of a new industry glowed so brightly that Brown was sent to San Francisco with power to dispose of the claims in order to finance development of the mine. San Francisco was ripe for any kind of promotion, and Brown succeeded in selling the claim for $17,000, but, unable to resist the pull of Colorado and the new mining developments there, he went to Denver and, with the nest egg from the sale of the claim, started a career which included the building of the famous Brown's Palace Hotel.
During the next few years, the little settlement met a succession of reverses and disappointments with a faith and dogged perseverance that would not give way. The sawmill proving to be unprofitable, Captain Roeder in 1854 built a small schooner, the H. C. Page, named for one of the settlers, and with this small boat established regular communication with the outside world. The mine began to operate on a small scale, and some coal was shipped to Puget Sound points and to San Francisco. Also in 1854 Whatcom County was organized, and Whatcorn, as the settlement was called, was made the county seat. Within two years, regular governmental procedures had been instituted, and the little town of 30 persons had come to look upon itself as permanently established.
Indian unrest, widespread throughout the Territory in 1855-6, alarmed the settlers in the Whatcom area, especially so because of the feud between the Indians of the north (British Columbia and Alaska) and the Bellingham Bay Indians. The settlers built a small blockhouse and manned it as well as they could, but this slight protection did not allay their fears, and they sent an urgent appeal for aid to the Federal Government. In response to their request, re-enforcements were sent under the command of Captain George E. Pickett, who eight years later was to lead the famous Confederate charge at Gettysburg. Fort Bellingham was built, Whatcom Creek was bridged, and a road was cleared between the fort and the village. Life in Whatcom soon resumed its monotonous if none too easy pace. In addition to the infrequent trips of Roeder's little steamer, connection with the outside world was maintained by a mail service furnished at irregular intervals by "Blanket Bill" Jarman, in a canoe paddled by nine Indians. (Jarman had received his nickname after being ransomed for 52 blankets by Governor Douglas of Vancouver Island).
In 1857 the magic cry "Gold!" drifted down from the Fraser River, gathering volume as it traveled; by April 20, 1858, the San Francisco Examiner could report a rush comparable to that of forty-nine. Early in the summer, fewer than 100 men were going about their tasks along Bellingham Bay. A few log cabins fringed the shore, and the only sounds of industry were the drone of the little sawmill and the echoes of pick and shovel at the Sehome mine. Then a small boat, its deck black with passengers, moved slowly into the bay. The rush was on, and within a few days a tent city had sprung up and blazed with the lights of campfires. The editor of the first newspaper, the Northern Light, reported that the boat on which he arrived carried a load of 1,000 to 1,300 passengers. For a few short weeks there was feverish activity: buildings were hastily erected, a new wharf was built, pilings were driven. It is reported that some lots sold for $500. More persons thronged into Whatcom to make their way to Canada by trail, boat, or canoe than were to be found in all the rest of the Territory. Then, an order came that all those going to the gold fields must get licenses at Victoria. This order, coupled with the failure to find rich strikes, led to an almost instantaneous collapse of the boom, and by the end of the year 1858 population had dropped from some 15,000 to a few hundred.
Among the goldseekers who settled on Bellingham Bay was John Bennett, who came in 1858, bringing with him a chest filled with roots and bulbs and seed of flowers and grasses that he had gathered in his wanderings. He worked in the mine at Sehome, until in 1860 he had saved sufficient money to buy a piece of land where he could cultivate his many choice varieties of fruit. In the course of years, his claim became the show place of the county. Credited to his endeavors are the Bennett pear, Bennett's Champion plum, and several varieties of apples and flowers.
The dreams of fortune faded with the decline of real-estate values and the exodus of miners and adventurers, but some optimism survived. The Sehome mine, which had imported experienced English miners from Nanaimo, continued to ship some coal, and the little sawmill still whined and sputtered beside the creek. A telegraph line was strung, and boats continued to call occasionally. Hope rose with land values again in 1870, when the Northern Pacific bought land for a proposed water-front terminal. The town of Sehome was platted and filed in 1871, and mining operations were accelerated again.
Then came 1873 and the Nation-wide panic. Jay Cooke's empire tottered and fell, and the force of its crash put an end to the short-lived boom along Bellingham Bay. Then the mill burned, and a few more settlers drifted away in search of work. The final blow was the closing and dismantling of the Sehome mine in 1878 as a result of slow markets, diminishing deposits, water seepage into the tunnels, and financial difficulties. Gloom settled over the two little towns; the few remaining settlers -- some 20 in all -- doggedly stuck to their land and waited for a change of fortune.
This change began with the arrival in 1880 of 600 Kansans. Meeting what they felt to be an inhospitable reception from the local land-owners, the newcomers founded New Whatcom, across the creek from the older town. Three years later Dan Harris, who had succeeded to the claim of John Thomas, recorded "Fair Haven on Harris Bay." Four small towns now fringed the bay: Whatcom, New Whatcom, Sehome, and Fairhaven.
The Bellingham Bay settlements, having tried two industries, now ventured upon a third -- the canning of fish. For years salmon and herring had been shipped, slightly cured, in barrels and boxes to San Francisco and even to the east coast. It was not until 1881, however, that a cannery was built and put into operation. For a few years the plant struggled along, but the evidence of failure was so obvious that the plant was closed; the fish-canning industry had to wait for development in technology and science.
The nineties marked the beginning of growth and prosperity for the Bellingham Bay area. A number of salmon canneries began successful operation. As transportation facilities were improved and the demand for lumber increased, new sawmills and shingle mills were built, and the dense forests that had separated the four small towns disappeared. Whatcom and New Whatcom consolidated.
Tulip cultivation spread to the mainland from Orcas Island, dairy cattle were introduced, and general agriculture began to develop. In September 1899, the normal school awarded to the Bellingham Bay area was opened with 6 instructors and an enrollment of Some 200 students.
In 1900, Fairhaven merged with New Whatcom, and, in 1903, the addition of Sehome brought the population of the united city of New Whatcom to 13,236. At the first city election the name was changed to Bellingham.
Expansion continued throughout the early years of the twentieth century. New railroad connections were secured, sawmills and shingle mills increased in number and size and improved their technique; canneries sent hundreds of thousands of cases of salmon by steamship and rail to eastern United States and Europe. Docks and piers were constructed, coal mines were extended, streets were paved, and scores of small industries were established. An experimental bulb farm was established in the vicinity in 1907, and diversified farming, dairying, and poultry raising became increasingly important as logged-off land was cleared, at a cost of hundreds of dollars an acre, and put into cultivation. Cultural interests began to assume greater importance, new churches and schools were built, and the normal school rapidly increased its enrollment. The 1910 census gave to Bellingham over 24,000 population, an increase of almost 100 per cent.
Succeeding years were marked by less spectacular changes. Sawmills and shingle mills continued to hum as the lumberjacks cut their way deeper into the forests to get the necessary supply of logs. Canneries increased their output, but whispers were already being heard of the day when steadily decreasing runs would force the curtailment of the industry. The Port of Bellingham Commission (which directs the affairs of the port district, co-extensive with Whatcom County) was organized in 1911. Shipments of canned salmon and other fish were for a long time an important part of port traffic, but lumber was (and remains) the leading commodity.
Arkansas Folklore and Folkways
It was nearly hundred years ago, they say, that an unlucky woodcutter in the Ozarks had his first encounter with a hoopsnake--a reptile remarkable for its method of locomotion and for the poisonous stinger in its tail. The woodcutter promptly lit a shuck, that is, he started running. The snake tucked its tail in its mouth and rolled along in pursuit, like a wagonwheel bouncing downhill. While the panting woodsman was praying for his second wind, he came to a large white oak; here he took roundence. The snake, instead of swerving, rolled into the tree and accidentally buried its tail deep in the wood.
Talented as it is in some ways, the hoopsnake cannot pull out frontwise from anything it has stuck its tail into. The serpent began drilling backward through the tree, and the woodcutter ran for an ax. When he returned he saw that the poison from the stinger-tail had already got into the wood: dead leaves were sifting down like falling snow. The snake finally worked half its length from the bole, and the woodcutter chopped the writhing body in two.
Last spring when the woodsman was again cutting sawlogs in the same patch of timber he came upon the white oak. Though it had been dead, the wood appeared to be sound enough for lumber. The woodsman cut it down, then rested on the fallen trunk while he ate his lunch. Without thinking, he yanked a splinter from the stump and picked his teeth. The hoopsnake's poison, which had long since penetrated every fiber of the tree, had never lost its strength. The woodcutter died before sundown.
When that yarn is told on the porch of a country store or around a campfire at night, it may be followed by the one about the exceptionally clever joint snake.
A farmer who found a joint snake in his barnyard whacked it with a stick. True to tradition, the serpent flew into several dozen pieces. After remaining scattered long enough to convince any ordinary observer of the snake's annihilation, the segments warily began to reassemble. The farmer, however, knowing the habits of joint snakes, had hidden one of the middle pieces in his pocket. For several minutes the completed front and rear ends of the snake searched for the missing link. At last, apparently deciding that the joint was forever lost, the snake coupled in a corncob instead, and glided away, darting out its tongue in high dudgeon.
That episode brings up the question of the whipsnake, which is accused of wrapping itself around a victim and fatally lashing the unfortunate person with its tail. The only way to escape, old-timers insist, is to keep cool and back up to a tree, against which the snake will flail itself to death.
And speaking of escapes, nearly every farm boy knows how a fox rids himself of fleas. With a piece of wood in his mouth, the fox wades slowly into a creek. As the water comes up to his body, the vermin climb to avoid getting wet, first to the neck of the fox, then to his head, then out onto the piece of wood. When only the tip of his nose remains above water, the fox darts down and swims away under the surface. The chunk of wood floats away laden with outsmarted fleas.
If mosquitoes become a subject of conversation, some member of the crowd may tell of the swarms that once attacked him on a froggigging trip. The hunter at first defended himself with a paddle, then with a shotgun. Later he went back to the swamp and caught one of the insects in a bear trap, intending to train it to bore wells. He shackled the mosquito in a mule's harness, but it broke away. Seizing a cow in its mouth, the mosquito flapped heavily away through the treetops. That, of course, is an exaggeration. Generally it takes two swampland mosquitoes to fly off with a cow.
The Arkansan has no monopoly on tall stories that deal with hoopsnakes and other fabulous fauna. Similar yarns are to be heard all through the Southern mountains and, for that matter, throughout the United States. Countless Arkansans, however, seem to have been blessed with an ability to concoct variations of the standard stories. These solemn fantasies (called "so-tales") occupy a prominent place in the State's folklore. More of the stories seem to have ripened in the hills than in the Delta, and nearly every upland county boasts of a citizen with a reputation for telling whoppers. Perhaps it was the isolation of the Ozarks and Ouachitas during the nineteenth century that nourished the imagination of mountaineers.
Almost as interesting as some of the tales is the etiquette that is observed in a story-telling session. For example, a veteran member of the circle once in a great while will voice a mild doubt as to the truth of a yarn, but an outsider who is fortunate enough to be listening in must never indicate skepticism. More than that, even the presence of an outsider may shut off the flow of so-tales. This kind of story is best told to a trusted audience, and it isn't told lightly--the mood and setting must be just right for the narrator.
When gristmills were found at regular intervals along the streams, they were ideal spots for storytellers, and many a myth was created by men who loafed while waiting for their corn to be ground. It might have been to the accompaniment of a turning mill wheel and the sound of running water that the legend of the Arkansas razorback was born. Like all true folk-myths, the razorback stories have an unknown origin. Assume that someone commented on a temporary scarcity of acorns and the consequent thinness of his hogs. A second man would agree, saying that his sows were able for the first time to squeeze through the garden gate. A third would testify that he could now hang his hat on the hips of his hogs. The next would aver that his swine had to stand up twice in order to cast a shadow. One man was almost bound to swear that his hogs were so desperately starved he could clasp one like a straight razor and shave with the bony ridge of its back.
Outside the imagination, a true razorback probably does not exist. There is no flesh-and-blood counterpart of the little bristle-backed emblem of the University of Arkansas football team, and a State official once vainly offered a reward for a genuine razorback, dead or alive. It has been said by some historians that De Soto's men brought hogs with them when they crossed the Mississippi into Arkansas. Some of these animals strayed into the woods and became gaunt, savage beasts living on mast. That was a long time ago, however, and the truly wild breed, if there ever was one, has forever disappeared. Though many farmers let their hogs forage in the forest for a good part of the year, the swine resemble those to be found in all parts of the United States.
Talented as it is in some ways, the hoopsnake cannot pull out frontwise from anything it has stuck its tail into. The serpent began drilling backward through the tree, and the woodcutter ran for an ax. When he returned he saw that the poison from the stinger-tail had already got into the wood: dead leaves were sifting down like falling snow. The snake finally worked half its length from the bole, and the woodcutter chopped the writhing body in two.
Last spring when the woodsman was again cutting sawlogs in the same patch of timber he came upon the white oak. Though it had been dead, the wood appeared to be sound enough for lumber. The woodsman cut it down, then rested on the fallen trunk while he ate his lunch. Without thinking, he yanked a splinter from the stump and picked his teeth. The hoopsnake's poison, which had long since penetrated every fiber of the tree, had never lost its strength. The woodcutter died before sundown.
When that yarn is told on the porch of a country store or around a campfire at night, it may be followed by the one about the exceptionally clever joint snake.
A farmer who found a joint snake in his barnyard whacked it with a stick. True to tradition, the serpent flew into several dozen pieces. After remaining scattered long enough to convince any ordinary observer of the snake's annihilation, the segments warily began to reassemble. The farmer, however, knowing the habits of joint snakes, had hidden one of the middle pieces in his pocket. For several minutes the completed front and rear ends of the snake searched for the missing link. At last, apparently deciding that the joint was forever lost, the snake coupled in a corncob instead, and glided away, darting out its tongue in high dudgeon.
That episode brings up the question of the whipsnake, which is accused of wrapping itself around a victim and fatally lashing the unfortunate person with its tail. The only way to escape, old-timers insist, is to keep cool and back up to a tree, against which the snake will flail itself to death.
And speaking of escapes, nearly every farm boy knows how a fox rids himself of fleas. With a piece of wood in his mouth, the fox wades slowly into a creek. As the water comes up to his body, the vermin climb to avoid getting wet, first to the neck of the fox, then to his head, then out onto the piece of wood. When only the tip of his nose remains above water, the fox darts down and swims away under the surface. The chunk of wood floats away laden with outsmarted fleas.
If mosquitoes become a subject of conversation, some member of the crowd may tell of the swarms that once attacked him on a froggigging trip. The hunter at first defended himself with a paddle, then with a shotgun. Later he went back to the swamp and caught one of the insects in a bear trap, intending to train it to bore wells. He shackled the mosquito in a mule's harness, but it broke away. Seizing a cow in its mouth, the mosquito flapped heavily away through the treetops. That, of course, is an exaggeration. Generally it takes two swampland mosquitoes to fly off with a cow.
The Arkansan has no monopoly on tall stories that deal with hoopsnakes and other fabulous fauna. Similar yarns are to be heard all through the Southern mountains and, for that matter, throughout the United States. Countless Arkansans, however, seem to have been blessed with an ability to concoct variations of the standard stories. These solemn fantasies (called "so-tales") occupy a prominent place in the State's folklore. More of the stories seem to have ripened in the hills than in the Delta, and nearly every upland county boasts of a citizen with a reputation for telling whoppers. Perhaps it was the isolation of the Ozarks and Ouachitas during the nineteenth century that nourished the imagination of mountaineers.
Almost as interesting as some of the tales is the etiquette that is observed in a story-telling session. For example, a veteran member of the circle once in a great while will voice a mild doubt as to the truth of a yarn, but an outsider who is fortunate enough to be listening in must never indicate skepticism. More than that, even the presence of an outsider may shut off the flow of so-tales. This kind of story is best told to a trusted audience, and it isn't told lightly--the mood and setting must be just right for the narrator.
When gristmills were found at regular intervals along the streams, they were ideal spots for storytellers, and many a myth was created by men who loafed while waiting for their corn to be ground. It might have been to the accompaniment of a turning mill wheel and the sound of running water that the legend of the Arkansas razorback was born. Like all true folk-myths, the razorback stories have an unknown origin. Assume that someone commented on a temporary scarcity of acorns and the consequent thinness of his hogs. A second man would agree, saying that his sows were able for the first time to squeeze through the garden gate. A third would testify that he could now hang his hat on the hips of his hogs. The next would aver that his swine had to stand up twice in order to cast a shadow. One man was almost bound to swear that his hogs were so desperately starved he could clasp one like a straight razor and shave with the bony ridge of its back.
Outside the imagination, a true razorback probably does not exist. There is no flesh-and-blood counterpart of the little bristle-backed emblem of the University of Arkansas football team, and a State official once vainly offered a reward for a genuine razorback, dead or alive. It has been said by some historians that De Soto's men brought hogs with them when they crossed the Mississippi into Arkansas. Some of these animals strayed into the woods and became gaunt, savage beasts living on mast. That was a long time ago, however, and the truly wild breed, if there ever was one, has forever disappeared. Though many farmers let their hogs forage in the forest for a good part of the year, the swine resemble those to be found in all parts of the United States.
Japanese food serving
What the Japanese feel inclined to boast to the world regarding the gastronomical attractions of their country consists as much in the manner of serving food as in the quality of food. In this respect, perhaps no other nation approaches Japan in the exquisite delicacy of taste, or in the luxury and grandeur of the utensils employed. The culinary art, as practised in the olden court of the Shōgun or of the Mikado, had attained a plane of perfection comparable in its elaborate technique and art to any other art or craft.
It is possible to find even in an ordinary restaurant, at all mindful of its reputation as is a typical Japanese restaurant, that a five dollar meal is served upon plates worth fifty dollars or more. To speak of the vessels in which the Japanese food is served as plates is, to put it mildly, inaccurate. The plates, so-called, are generally white, of no particular value, always classed as crockery, which one would not regret very much, if they were broken. Of the Japanese vessels, however, there is a great variety of all conceivable shapes, materials, sizes, designs, and coloring. No two things of the same kind are allowed on the table for one person. Even about the sara (plates), we always speak of "So and So" sara, such as a plate for sashimi, a plate for vegetable, for shell-fish, for fried fish, etc., every one of them being of different shape, design and size, and adapted to its peculiar contents.
The soup is served either in a lacquered wooden bowl, used for keeping the contents warm, or in a porcelain bowl, as when it contains much fish or fowl, served hot, as the porcelain vessel can bear greater heat. Hot-boiled vegetables are placed in a porcelain bowl with a lid on, and the vegetables with vinegar, served cold, are placed in a small deep vessel, called "jar," perhaps of unglazed pottery. The elaborate kuchitori (relish) may be served on a plate of pleasing colors, probably Kutani ware, and raw fish is served on a cool light-colored plate, perhaps the color of the sea, often with a glass cushion between the plate and the sliced fish. Long slender fish such as ayu are served in long slender plates, exactly suited to them.
Nor is the arrangement of each dish done in a haphazard way; there are rules and traditions about the way each dish should be prepared that are absolutely binding. And the whole show, that is, a set of plates, jars, bowls, etc., on a tray or the table, are subject to equally inviolable rules of good taste. Each dish is a picture to please the eye as well as food to eat; it is presented sometimes in the design of a landscape garden, or a sea-and-island scene. The whole feast, apparently irregular, is none the less picturesque and artistic, if you view it closely. Indeed, it is part of a Japanese dinner to appeal to the sense of beauty as well as to the inner man.
Can this be a ceremonial banquet served on a special occasion? No, it is just an ordinary meal which may be served at the first Japanese restaurant you drop in about Kyōbashi or Nihonbashi in Tokyo. So ingrained is the sense of artistic beauty connected with the Japanese cuisine that both cook and waiter are probably unconscious of anything particularly elaborate or ceremonious about the utensils or the way of serving food. Just as the Europeans are unconsciously particular in using a coffee-cup for coffee, a tea-cup for tea, a wine-glass for wine, liqueur-glass for liqueur, etc., though one kind of largish glass may serve for all sorts of beverages; so the Japanese sense of discrimination with regard to the appropriate vessels for different kinds of food has been unconsciously inculcated. It is unthinkable that we should use the same cheap, colorless plates for all sorts of Japanese food, both hot and cold.
It is possible to find even in an ordinary restaurant, at all mindful of its reputation as is a typical Japanese restaurant, that a five dollar meal is served upon plates worth fifty dollars or more. To speak of the vessels in which the Japanese food is served as plates is, to put it mildly, inaccurate. The plates, so-called, are generally white, of no particular value, always classed as crockery, which one would not regret very much, if they were broken. Of the Japanese vessels, however, there is a great variety of all conceivable shapes, materials, sizes, designs, and coloring. No two things of the same kind are allowed on the table for one person. Even about the sara (plates), we always speak of "So and So" sara, such as a plate for sashimi, a plate for vegetable, for shell-fish, for fried fish, etc., every one of them being of different shape, design and size, and adapted to its peculiar contents.
The soup is served either in a lacquered wooden bowl, used for keeping the contents warm, or in a porcelain bowl, as when it contains much fish or fowl, served hot, as the porcelain vessel can bear greater heat. Hot-boiled vegetables are placed in a porcelain bowl with a lid on, and the vegetables with vinegar, served cold, are placed in a small deep vessel, called "jar," perhaps of unglazed pottery. The elaborate kuchitori (relish) may be served on a plate of pleasing colors, probably Kutani ware, and raw fish is served on a cool light-colored plate, perhaps the color of the sea, often with a glass cushion between the plate and the sliced fish. Long slender fish such as ayu are served in long slender plates, exactly suited to them.
Nor is the arrangement of each dish done in a haphazard way; there are rules and traditions about the way each dish should be prepared that are absolutely binding. And the whole show, that is, a set of plates, jars, bowls, etc., on a tray or the table, are subject to equally inviolable rules of good taste. Each dish is a picture to please the eye as well as food to eat; it is presented sometimes in the design of a landscape garden, or a sea-and-island scene. The whole feast, apparently irregular, is none the less picturesque and artistic, if you view it closely. Indeed, it is part of a Japanese dinner to appeal to the sense of beauty as well as to the inner man.
Can this be a ceremonial banquet served on a special occasion? No, it is just an ordinary meal which may be served at the first Japanese restaurant you drop in about Kyōbashi or Nihonbashi in Tokyo. So ingrained is the sense of artistic beauty connected with the Japanese cuisine that both cook and waiter are probably unconscious of anything particularly elaborate or ceremonious about the utensils or the way of serving food. Just as the Europeans are unconsciously particular in using a coffee-cup for coffee, a tea-cup for tea, a wine-glass for wine, liqueur-glass for liqueur, etc., though one kind of largish glass may serve for all sorts of beverages; so the Japanese sense of discrimination with regard to the appropriate vessels for different kinds of food has been unconsciously inculcated. It is unthinkable that we should use the same cheap, colorless plates for all sorts of Japanese food, both hot and cold.
Chinese and Japanese Cuisines
Broadly, the world of eating may be divided into the three great systems: European, Chinese and Japanese. Each has been influenced by the other, though perhaps in an indirect and intangible way. The oldest, if not the best, is, of course, the Chinese, of which one of Charles Lamb's famous essays on Roasted Pig is a good illustration. There is an historic relation between the Chinese and European foods, as there is between the Chinese and Japanese. Marco Polo, visiting China in 1257, must have introduced into Peking something of the Italian culinary art, and taken back to Europe much of the Chinese cuisine. The Roman Empire, just before its downfall, had attained its zenith in luxurious eating. Indeed some persons are inclined to think that the great Empire went into decay through too much luxurious eating. There is little doubt that Rome had taken the best from Persia, which in its turn had been enriched by importations from China. It was this Roman cuisine representing the best cooking of the age, that came to France, spreading from there to the rest of Europe.
On the other hand, Japan received the first food envoy from China, along with her Buddhist preachers, in the 6th or 7th century. Of course, Japan had her own splendid native materials--its delicious rice, and its innumerable "auspicious" pro. ducts of mountain and sea. But her culinary art, at the dawn of history, was in a primitive state. The Chinese who had already attained a high plane of material civilization, could, therefore, influence the almost virgin field of Japan's inexhaustible fine materials, so that it took but little time to develop in this country both a taste and an art of food. In the classic Engishiki, published in the reign of Daigo Tenno ( 8 99)- 930), mention is made of Soy, Miso, Tōfu--highly-developed food stuffs which came without doubt from China. It is a notable fact that all these foods have been not only greatly improved since their acclimatization in Japan but have become, as has miso, all but extinct in the land of their origin. On the other hand, China herself has taken much of the land and sea products of Japan, as she is still doing, to prepare the so-called Chinese food. The debt is mutual.
Japan also knew something of European cookery, centuries before the Meiji era, of which the most conspicuous evidence is what we call "Nagasaki cuisine." Nagasaki, needless to say, was the first city in Japan to engage in foreign trade, and even during the centuries of national seclusion, enforced by the Tokugawa Government, was privileged to keep a loophole at Dejima, through which to trade with the Dutch and other European merchants. Thus came into Nagasaki something of the Dutch style of cooking. One characteristic of Nagasaki food, still kept, is in the manner of serving food upon a raised table shared by a number of eaters, instead of the orthodox Japanese style of providing a small tray, flat or raised, to each individual diner.
On the other hand, Japan received the first food envoy from China, along with her Buddhist preachers, in the 6th or 7th century. Of course, Japan had her own splendid native materials--its delicious rice, and its innumerable "auspicious" pro. ducts of mountain and sea. But her culinary art, at the dawn of history, was in a primitive state. The Chinese who had already attained a high plane of material civilization, could, therefore, influence the almost virgin field of Japan's inexhaustible fine materials, so that it took but little time to develop in this country both a taste and an art of food. In the classic Engishiki, published in the reign of Daigo Tenno ( 8 99)- 930), mention is made of Soy, Miso, Tōfu--highly-developed food stuffs which came without doubt from China. It is a notable fact that all these foods have been not only greatly improved since their acclimatization in Japan but have become, as has miso, all but extinct in the land of their origin. On the other hand, China herself has taken much of the land and sea products of Japan, as she is still doing, to prepare the so-called Chinese food. The debt is mutual.
Japan also knew something of European cookery, centuries before the Meiji era, of which the most conspicuous evidence is what we call "Nagasaki cuisine." Nagasaki, needless to say, was the first city in Japan to engage in foreign trade, and even during the centuries of national seclusion, enforced by the Tokugawa Government, was privileged to keep a loophole at Dejima, through which to trade with the Dutch and other European merchants. Thus came into Nagasaki something of the Dutch style of cooking. One characteristic of Nagasaki food, still kept, is in the manner of serving food upon a raised table shared by a number of eaters, instead of the orthodox Japanese style of providing a small tray, flat or raised, to each individual diner.
Possibilities of eating in Japan
"Dumplings rather than blossoms," says a Japanese proverb. After all, what is the beauty of scenery to a hungry man, or what avails the color of some antique treasure to the unfed stomach? The picture of hoary immortals, habitually "feeding on the clouds of the heavens and the mist of the earth" is found in the ancient classics only, no longer read or believed in. That food is an essential of life and of human happiness is so taken for granted that whatever form of human enjoyment, be it picnic or foreign travel, is tacitly understood to include satisfactory, if not luxurious, eating. If a great metropolis like Paris, London or New York, is generally conceded to be a desirable city to visit, its credit is partly, or in a very large measure, sustained by the reputation that good eating is guaranteed there. Whenever much-traveled friends get together for an informal chat, they must talk not so much about what they have seen, as about what they have eaten.
Now what are the possibilities of eating well in Japan? We can declare without either exaggeration or boasting that no finer eating is possible in any other country. Indeed, there is a question of taste, and every good taste is to be cultivated. One must have an educated taste for any good thing before he may thoroughly enjoy it. This rule applies to Japanese food, as it has peculiar features, not found in the food of any other country.
Now what are the possibilities of eating well in Japan? We can declare without either exaggeration or boasting that no finer eating is possible in any other country. Indeed, there is a question of taste, and every good taste is to be cultivated. One must have an educated taste for any good thing before he may thoroughly enjoy it. This rule applies to Japanese food, as it has peculiar features, not found in the food of any other country.
Towada
There are several benefactors of this lake park to remember, the chief among them being the late Keigetsu Ōmachi. He was a man of letters and wrote much about the charms of Towada with feeling and zest, especially on the Oirase Valley.
The little hot-spring village, called Tsuta, where Mr. Ōmachi wrote and died, has become a popular resort, one of the "must" spots for visitors to Towada. There is hardly a mountain resort but has some lakes near by to reflect its beauty and enhance its attractiveness, but in most cases the greater charms belong to the mountain. In Towada the lake is the mistress. Here the Hakkōda peaks, eight in number, as the word "hakkō" indicates, looming grandly to the north of the lake, are included within the orbit of the lake to form a picture-wise background to the Towada Park, for, as stated elsewhere, a Japanese garden must comprise both lake and mountain.
These mountains are rich in alpine plants and in primitive forests, the depths of which have not yet been explored. Their highest peak, Ōdake (5,199 feet above sea level) is a favorite objective of climbers far and near. Their volcanic nature is proved by the presence of hot springs in the vicinity, of which the aforesaid Tsuta, and Sugayu on the western side of the park, are noted. Coming from Aomori, the chief city in the north-eastern Japan, one passes these two spas en route to Yakeyama, the fine motor road being laid in a picturesque sylvan landscape. Then one enters the most perfect beauty spot of the Towada district, namely, the Oirase Valley. It is a continuous run of 7.5 miles, forming the bed of the river Oirase, flowing from the Towada Lake. The water runs placidly over a deep basin, now laughing upon shallow, stony beds, and now crashing in angry cascades. Its passage is laid in thickly-wooded and rocky gorge scenery of unsurpassable beauty.
Upon the many rocks, large and small, sticking out of the water, are seen not only moss but trees and shrubs, and this peculiar phenomenon is accounted for as follows. "As a rule, the bed of a mountain stream is so steep and the change in the volume of the water so considerable that few rocks in the stream can maintain plant life, but the Oirase is an exception to this rule, its water always flowing evenly." The drive or walk along this valley from Yakeyama to Nenokuchi ("the mouth of the lake") is worth all the journey one makes to Towada.
At Nenokuchi the wondrous lake Towada opens, almost round with a pair of peninsulas, Ogura and Nakayama, the one thick-set and the other slender, jutting into the lake, dividing its southern side into the three lakes, i.e. East, Central and Western. It is 28 miles around, six times the size of Lake Chūzenji, and is very deep, being over 1,100 feet at its deepest part, which nearly represents the height of the lake from sea level.
The sightseeing motor-boat is regularly run round the southern half of the lake, which is Lake Towada proper, or the most picturesque part of it. Most beautiful in autumn, it attracts visitors all the year, for it affords bathing, boating and fishing amid serene natural environs. The two villages of Oide and Yasumiya on the southern shore provide conveniences of life as well as stop-over stations for ramblers over land and by water and for mountain climbers.
The little hot-spring village, called Tsuta, where Mr. Ōmachi wrote and died, has become a popular resort, one of the "must" spots for visitors to Towada. There is hardly a mountain resort but has some lakes near by to reflect its beauty and enhance its attractiveness, but in most cases the greater charms belong to the mountain. In Towada the lake is the mistress. Here the Hakkōda peaks, eight in number, as the word "hakkō" indicates, looming grandly to the north of the lake, are included within the orbit of the lake to form a picture-wise background to the Towada Park, for, as stated elsewhere, a Japanese garden must comprise both lake and mountain.
These mountains are rich in alpine plants and in primitive forests, the depths of which have not yet been explored. Their highest peak, Ōdake (5,199 feet above sea level) is a favorite objective of climbers far and near. Their volcanic nature is proved by the presence of hot springs in the vicinity, of which the aforesaid Tsuta, and Sugayu on the western side of the park, are noted. Coming from Aomori, the chief city in the north-eastern Japan, one passes these two spas en route to Yakeyama, the fine motor road being laid in a picturesque sylvan landscape. Then one enters the most perfect beauty spot of the Towada district, namely, the Oirase Valley. It is a continuous run of 7.5 miles, forming the bed of the river Oirase, flowing from the Towada Lake. The water runs placidly over a deep basin, now laughing upon shallow, stony beds, and now crashing in angry cascades. Its passage is laid in thickly-wooded and rocky gorge scenery of unsurpassable beauty.
Upon the many rocks, large and small, sticking out of the water, are seen not only moss but trees and shrubs, and this peculiar phenomenon is accounted for as follows. "As a rule, the bed of a mountain stream is so steep and the change in the volume of the water so considerable that few rocks in the stream can maintain plant life, but the Oirase is an exception to this rule, its water always flowing evenly." The drive or walk along this valley from Yakeyama to Nenokuchi ("the mouth of the lake") is worth all the journey one makes to Towada.
At Nenokuchi the wondrous lake Towada opens, almost round with a pair of peninsulas, Ogura and Nakayama, the one thick-set and the other slender, jutting into the lake, dividing its southern side into the three lakes, i.e. East, Central and Western. It is 28 miles around, six times the size of Lake Chūzenji, and is very deep, being over 1,100 feet at its deepest part, which nearly represents the height of the lake from sea level.
The sightseeing motor-boat is regularly run round the southern half of the lake, which is Lake Towada proper, or the most picturesque part of it. Most beautiful in autumn, it attracts visitors all the year, for it affords bathing, boating and fishing amid serene natural environs. The two villages of Oide and Yasumiya on the southern shore provide conveniences of life as well as stop-over stations for ramblers over land and by water and for mountain climbers.
Kumano
Kumano is, or used to be, a great popular center of pilgrimage for devotees of its Ryōbu Shinto temples. The so-called three holy places of Kumano are Hongū (Original Shrine), Shingū (New Shrine) and Nachi, the last being noted for its famous Nachi waterfall, 430 feet in length, and the highest in Japan. The origin of these sacred regions is lost in the haze of antiquity. If they are less visited today for devotional purposes than they used to be, they are none the less popular for their scenic attractions.
Kumano is not so conveniently situated as Yoshino, and therefore carries an air of remote seclusion, dear to the hearts of jaded visitors from the cities. Among Kumano's natural gems the first place is given by general consent to the marvelous gorges of the river Kitayama, particularly at a place called "Toro-hatchō" (Gorge of Eight Chō) and its continued gorge, where, for a distance of several miles, the waters run in a tranquil and listless manner, giving the impression of being as still as a deep mountain lake, and it is flanked with tall cliffs and rocky bands of indescribable beauty. The gorge is best visited in May and June when the azaleas and rhododendrons in bloom in the crannies of cliffs are reflected in the liquid mirror below. It is good for bathing, boating and angling, and most visitors to Kumano go up or down the river by the special local craft driven by a propeller. This peculiar type of boat is used because of the shallows and rapid currents at some parts. The river flows from the Yoshino mountains, and joins the Kumano at the lower reaches before pouring into the Kumano sea. The coast of the Kumano sea again affords an exquisite landscape, especially in the vicinity of Katsuura, where the water is deep, making a lovely harbor with many picturesque islets adorning its mouth. This part is often compared to the pine-clad-isle Matsushima of northern Japan, and to its own advantage. Along the harbor of Katsuura and its vicinity are found several good hot springs, and the added charm of this shore resort is the exceptional mildness of its climate, which, with its bracing mountain and sea air, renders it a most admirable summer and winter resort.
Kumano is not so conveniently situated as Yoshino, and therefore carries an air of remote seclusion, dear to the hearts of jaded visitors from the cities. Among Kumano's natural gems the first place is given by general consent to the marvelous gorges of the river Kitayama, particularly at a place called "Toro-hatchō" (Gorge of Eight Chō) and its continued gorge, where, for a distance of several miles, the waters run in a tranquil and listless manner, giving the impression of being as still as a deep mountain lake, and it is flanked with tall cliffs and rocky bands of indescribable beauty. The gorge is best visited in May and June when the azaleas and rhododendrons in bloom in the crannies of cliffs are reflected in the liquid mirror below. It is good for bathing, boating and angling, and most visitors to Kumano go up or down the river by the special local craft driven by a propeller. This peculiar type of boat is used because of the shallows and rapid currents at some parts. The river flows from the Yoshino mountains, and joins the Kumano at the lower reaches before pouring into the Kumano sea. The coast of the Kumano sea again affords an exquisite landscape, especially in the vicinity of Katsuura, where the water is deep, making a lovely harbor with many picturesque islets adorning its mouth. This part is often compared to the pine-clad-isle Matsushima of northern Japan, and to its own advantage. Along the harbor of Katsuura and its vicinity are found several good hot springs, and the added charm of this shore resort is the exceptional mildness of its climate, which, with its bracing mountain and sea air, renders it a most admirable summer and winter resort.
The Japan Alps
There is not one of the twelve National Parks but has a strong element of mountainous scenery. Even the Lake Park, Towada, or the Inland Sea Park has mountains close at hand or in the background, to heighten its general pictorial effect. The Japanese term for scenery is often written with two characters meaning "mountains" and "waters," and the Japanese idea of a garden or park is incomplete without a mountain either in the foreground or as a backscreen. Moreover, one of the necessary accessories of the miniature mountain in artificial gardens is the stone lantern, preferably moss-covered and oldlooking. The idea of it is to lend a sacred air to the mountain, the stone lantern being an indispensable feature of any temple of god or Buddha. Thus, the mountain, an integral part of a perfect Japanese park, is emblematic of religious piety. Great saints of Buddhist and Shinto religions have at all times sought refuge in the fastness of mountains for prayer and contemplation, as Abraham, Moses and even Christ Himself did. Hardly a mountain in Japan which is not sacred in one sense or another, and mountain-climbing in old days was almost exclusively the sacrament of priests and devout folk.
Bearing such a fact in mind, we can best appreciate the modern character of the Japan Alps Park, both in name and character. Most other mountains are chiefly linked with temples and shrines, surrounding landscapes of historical and legendary memories. Not that the Japan Alps are not without attractions of scenery, hot springs, etc., but the Alps differ from other mountains in this, that the Alps' principal boast is the scope they give to mountain-climbling under most propitious conditions. Their very name is exotic to the Japanese ear, with a secular and alluring appeal. The name "Japan Alps Park" contains "sacred" mountains, to be sure, which, however, the exotic word "Alps" seems to kill. They add a "new" flavor, illustrating the national craze for mountaineering among the youth of the nation. In short, the Japan Alps Park has been chosen as an ideal mountaineering resort which both its great size and variety of scenery, and its wealth of characteristic mountain grandeur justify. Fine gradient slopes, steep precipices, gorges, lakes, hot springs, noble panoramas, etc., are all there perfectly represented in the Japan Alps Park.
The Japan or Japanese Alps is a generic term, coined, it is said, by the Englishman, Mr. William Gowland, half a century ago, to which Rev. Walter Weston gave the sign and seal of authority, so to speak, by writing Mountaineering and Exploration in the Japanese Alps in 1896. The Japan Alps then covered only some portions of what has since become generally known as such. Today it includes the three great ranges--Southern, Central and Northern Alps --extending through the central and the widest part of the main island to the very edge of the Pacific Ocean and the Japan Sea. Of these three the Northern Alps alone have been designated as a National Park.
The Park covers an area of 427,770 acres, extending over 98 miles with a width of 37 miles. It contains more than 100 peaks, of which about forty have altitudes of over 8,000 feet. Of these the most popular climbing peaks are Yarigatake (10,430 feet), Hotakadake (10,332), Ontake (9,801), Tateyama (9,632), Shirouma (9,385), etc.
The Park abounds in good hot springs -- evidence of the volcanic nature of the mountains -generally located on the slopes and in the valleys. Of such by far the most popular is Kamikōchi--a plateau of nearly 5,000 feet above sea level. It is a delightful long belt of 10 miles from east to west with a maximum width of a mile, screened with towering peaks, double its own height. It possesses all the best features of a mountain resort--some comfortable hotels with radio-active hot springs, beautiful lakes, crystal-clear rivers, lovely alpine flowers, as well as wild mountain scenery. Its cool climate, seldom above 60 degrees F. in midsummer, and its bracing mountain air make it an ideal summer resort, as well as a comfortable starting and arriving stage for more ambitious Alpine climbers. This beautiful oasis in the Japan Alps Park is only 28 miles from Matsumoto, where Alpine-bound visitors generally alight, the distance being covered by motorbus in 2 hours. Seeing that Matsumoto is only 156 miles from Tokyo, Kamikōchi is within ten hours' easy journey of the capital. It is a triumph of quick and comfortable traveling never dreamed of by our forefathers.
Bearing such a fact in mind, we can best appreciate the modern character of the Japan Alps Park, both in name and character. Most other mountains are chiefly linked with temples and shrines, surrounding landscapes of historical and legendary memories. Not that the Japan Alps are not without attractions of scenery, hot springs, etc., but the Alps differ from other mountains in this, that the Alps' principal boast is the scope they give to mountain-climbling under most propitious conditions. Their very name is exotic to the Japanese ear, with a secular and alluring appeal. The name "Japan Alps Park" contains "sacred" mountains, to be sure, which, however, the exotic word "Alps" seems to kill. They add a "new" flavor, illustrating the national craze for mountaineering among the youth of the nation. In short, the Japan Alps Park has been chosen as an ideal mountaineering resort which both its great size and variety of scenery, and its wealth of characteristic mountain grandeur justify. Fine gradient slopes, steep precipices, gorges, lakes, hot springs, noble panoramas, etc., are all there perfectly represented in the Japan Alps Park.
The Japan or Japanese Alps is a generic term, coined, it is said, by the Englishman, Mr. William Gowland, half a century ago, to which Rev. Walter Weston gave the sign and seal of authority, so to speak, by writing Mountaineering and Exploration in the Japanese Alps in 1896. The Japan Alps then covered only some portions of what has since become generally known as such. Today it includes the three great ranges--Southern, Central and Northern Alps --extending through the central and the widest part of the main island to the very edge of the Pacific Ocean and the Japan Sea. Of these three the Northern Alps alone have been designated as a National Park.
The Park covers an area of 427,770 acres, extending over 98 miles with a width of 37 miles. It contains more than 100 peaks, of which about forty have altitudes of over 8,000 feet. Of these the most popular climbing peaks are Yarigatake (10,430 feet), Hotakadake (10,332), Ontake (9,801), Tateyama (9,632), Shirouma (9,385), etc.
The Park abounds in good hot springs -- evidence of the volcanic nature of the mountains -generally located on the slopes and in the valleys. Of such by far the most popular is Kamikōchi--a plateau of nearly 5,000 feet above sea level. It is a delightful long belt of 10 miles from east to west with a maximum width of a mile, screened with towering peaks, double its own height. It possesses all the best features of a mountain resort--some comfortable hotels with radio-active hot springs, beautiful lakes, crystal-clear rivers, lovely alpine flowers, as well as wild mountain scenery. Its cool climate, seldom above 60 degrees F. in midsummer, and its bracing mountain air make it an ideal summer resort, as well as a comfortable starting and arriving stage for more ambitious Alpine climbers. This beautiful oasis in the Japan Alps Park is only 28 miles from Matsumoto, where Alpine-bound visitors generally alight, the distance being covered by motorbus in 2 hours. Seeing that Matsumoto is only 156 miles from Tokyo, Kamikōchi is within ten hours' easy journey of the capital. It is a triumph of quick and comfortable traveling never dreamed of by our forefathers.
Manipulation of Chinese culture Japan
As the knowledge of Chinese culture began to pile upon in Japan there arose the increasing problem of how to integrate the new elements into Japanese life. The earlier solutions were to adapt it wholesale, but slowly Japanese became sufficiently skillful in the manipulation of Chinese culture traits to be able to discriminate between the merely new and the really useful aspects of Chinese traits. Not only was this process operative among the political leaders of Japan who dropped out features they did not like, but it gradually became applied throughout the whole range of Japanese life. In the mild climate of southern Japan the domestic architecture of North China was hardly necessary, and its strictly utilitarian features were too subdued to appeal to the Japanese. Slowly there evolved several distinctive Japanese housetypes, variably using movable panel walls, designed to let in light and sun, clean floors and mats, and a minimum of furniture reminiscent of southeastern Asia. Taken from Chinese patterns, Japanese housing still resembles its origins in many respects, but it is distinctively different.
Japanese agriculture basically resembles that of China in many respects, but it has developed its own distinctive methods, tools, and customs. The early arts of Japan closely resemble those of China, but gradually there have evolved subtle distinctions that often are hard for the occidental to recognize but that the educated Chinese and Japanese know well. This holds true in painting, sculpture, literature, drama, and the whole range of decorative and utilitarian arts. It holds true for many of the social customs, such as the ceremonial greeting, for dietary habits, such as the use of tea as a national drink, for the patterns of clothing, and many other elements of culture. In all these things the Japanese have slowly modified the basic elements into something peculiarly Japanese.
The process of converting Chinese cultural examples into Japanese customs and material developments was not done rapidly. The earliest elements in this adaptation of Chinese culture came early during the period when the Japanese were still consciously studying Chinese affairs. The most distinctive transformations, of course, came in the centuries after the Japanese had stopped observing China, and were independently living their own lives. The culture historian is apt to classify the centuries between about A.D. 900 and A.D. 1400 as the most important era of activity in the field of cultural transformation. The political historian is apt to divide the time span between about A.D. 800 and A.D. 1550 into two eras in which he first distinguishes the attempt to install a system of political nationalism and, second, the development of feudalism in Japan after about A.D. 1000.
In the sixth century A.D. the Japanese already were pushing northward beyond the Inland Sea and into the edges of the hill country of central Japan. As their culture developed more and more, and their population increased, the contrasts between the southern peoples and the aboriginal population of the north and the hill country heightened. There began a process of expansion northward out of the hearth that can be likened to the expansion of the seaboard American colonies westward across the United States. It was a slower process, and it involved different kinds of issues, but there are similarities. The Japanese had to fight their way northward against a stubborn resistance on the part of the hunting and gathering aboriginals who did not want to see their hunting ranges turned into farmlands. There developed a professional soldiery on the frontier who resembled the American "Indian fighter," settlers often found their advance locations raided, and forts and a frontier force of farmer-soldiery were employed. Some Japanese left the settled areas for various reasons and took up residence among the Ainu, often inciting them to resistance. By the end of the eighth century the lowlands well north of modern Tokyo had been cleared of Ainu, and considerable settlement by southerners had taken place. During the eighth and ninth centuries the Japanese pushed steadily northward, slowly learning the military techniques required to conquer the Ainu. By the end of the ninth century the strength of the Ainu had been broken, though groups remained in the uplands to bother the Japanese for another century or more. Some intermarriage steadily introduced Ainu blood and physical types into the Japanese people.
The Ainu had been a hunting and gathering people who lived along the shores of the islands and used the lowland interior regions that provided fish, game, and some plant resources. In the north country they found little in the mountain country of value, and increasingly found their range of support reduced as the southerners conquered the coasts and lowlands. Ainu had also inhabited the shores of Hokkaido for a long period, and some of them retreated to Hokkaido when dispossessed on Honshu. In Hokkaido, however, the upland country was largely barren of resources useful to hunters and gatherers, and the Ainu stuck to the coastal fringes and some of the more open lowland areas. In taking over Ainu territory the southerners found little developed land upon which to base their own occupation. They faced a forested environment with a cooler climate having few directly useful land resources to begin with. Their occupation of the north country, therefore, was a slow matter of clearing forests, developing fields on rough surfaces, changing their crops, and finding short-season varieties of crop plants that would mature in the cooler, shorter growing seasons.
Throughout northern Honshu, therefore, settlement and resource development was slow. Many Japanese settlements came to depend more upon fishing than upon agriculture. In many respects the southern people moving northward did not basically alter their southern patterns of culture. Housetypes, clothing, food patterns, customs, and habits remained much the same. The northern, colder parts of Honshu were slow to fill up with settlers, many of whom found this northern country unattractive in comparison to the milder portions of southern Japan. It was almost A.D. 1400 before most of the easily settled land of northern Honshu was occupied.
Japanese agriculture basically resembles that of China in many respects, but it has developed its own distinctive methods, tools, and customs. The early arts of Japan closely resemble those of China, but gradually there have evolved subtle distinctions that often are hard for the occidental to recognize but that the educated Chinese and Japanese know well. This holds true in painting, sculpture, literature, drama, and the whole range of decorative and utilitarian arts. It holds true for many of the social customs, such as the ceremonial greeting, for dietary habits, such as the use of tea as a national drink, for the patterns of clothing, and many other elements of culture. In all these things the Japanese have slowly modified the basic elements into something peculiarly Japanese.
The process of converting Chinese cultural examples into Japanese customs and material developments was not done rapidly. The earliest elements in this adaptation of Chinese culture came early during the period when the Japanese were still consciously studying Chinese affairs. The most distinctive transformations, of course, came in the centuries after the Japanese had stopped observing China, and were independently living their own lives. The culture historian is apt to classify the centuries between about A.D. 900 and A.D. 1400 as the most important era of activity in the field of cultural transformation. The political historian is apt to divide the time span between about A.D. 800 and A.D. 1550 into two eras in which he first distinguishes the attempt to install a system of political nationalism and, second, the development of feudalism in Japan after about A.D. 1000.
In the sixth century A.D. the Japanese already were pushing northward beyond the Inland Sea and into the edges of the hill country of central Japan. As their culture developed more and more, and their population increased, the contrasts between the southern peoples and the aboriginal population of the north and the hill country heightened. There began a process of expansion northward out of the hearth that can be likened to the expansion of the seaboard American colonies westward across the United States. It was a slower process, and it involved different kinds of issues, but there are similarities. The Japanese had to fight their way northward against a stubborn resistance on the part of the hunting and gathering aboriginals who did not want to see their hunting ranges turned into farmlands. There developed a professional soldiery on the frontier who resembled the American "Indian fighter," settlers often found their advance locations raided, and forts and a frontier force of farmer-soldiery were employed. Some Japanese left the settled areas for various reasons and took up residence among the Ainu, often inciting them to resistance. By the end of the eighth century the lowlands well north of modern Tokyo had been cleared of Ainu, and considerable settlement by southerners had taken place. During the eighth and ninth centuries the Japanese pushed steadily northward, slowly learning the military techniques required to conquer the Ainu. By the end of the ninth century the strength of the Ainu had been broken, though groups remained in the uplands to bother the Japanese for another century or more. Some intermarriage steadily introduced Ainu blood and physical types into the Japanese people.
The Ainu had been a hunting and gathering people who lived along the shores of the islands and used the lowland interior regions that provided fish, game, and some plant resources. In the north country they found little in the mountain country of value, and increasingly found their range of support reduced as the southerners conquered the coasts and lowlands. Ainu had also inhabited the shores of Hokkaido for a long period, and some of them retreated to Hokkaido when dispossessed on Honshu. In Hokkaido, however, the upland country was largely barren of resources useful to hunters and gatherers, and the Ainu stuck to the coastal fringes and some of the more open lowland areas. In taking over Ainu territory the southerners found little developed land upon which to base their own occupation. They faced a forested environment with a cooler climate having few directly useful land resources to begin with. Their occupation of the north country, therefore, was a slow matter of clearing forests, developing fields on rough surfaces, changing their crops, and finding short-season varieties of crop plants that would mature in the cooler, shorter growing seasons.
Throughout northern Honshu, therefore, settlement and resource development was slow. Many Japanese settlements came to depend more upon fishing than upon agriculture. In many respects the southern people moving northward did not basically alter their southern patterns of culture. Housetypes, clothing, food patterns, customs, and habits remained much the same. The northern, colder parts of Honshu were slow to fill up with settlers, many of whom found this northern country unattractive in comparison to the milder portions of southern Japan. It was almost A.D. 1400 before most of the easily settled land of northern Honshu was occupied.
Japanese culture similarities Chinese culture
Japanese culture possesses many similarities to the culture of China, some of which trace back to introductions before the Christian era. And during the early centuries of the Christian era, when the southern peoples were making their first real advances in civilization, many Chinese traits were taken up in an unconscious pattern of acceptance. This hit-and-miss learning process went on until the late sixth century. By then Japanese leaders appreciated the value of Chinese culture, appeared to realize that their knowledge was incomplete, and set out to broaden their contacts and patterns of learning. Early in the seventh century Japanese leaders despatched commissions to the Chinese court that compare with the modern system of organized despatch of students abroad to centers of learning. The best educated young Japanese were selected to study all possible aspects of Chinese culture. Some remained in China for many years and upon their return to Japan became leaders in a program of "modernization," as it were, that spread elements of Chinese culture throughout southern Japan. All manner of subjects were studied, from Buddhist theology to city planning, from painting to manufacturing. This constituted an enormous program of cultural borrowing, but the learning can hardly be called mere copying, for it had to be integrated into a whole and blended with the elements of native existing culture. And the very organized manner of approaching the problem was far in advance of any process of cultural development in vogue elsewhere.
The whole program perhaps evolved because China had just begun to blossom again into one of its high periods of development. The Sui had begun to organize North China into one state, and the T'ang were just completing the task of making China the greatest empire in the world at that time, politically and culturally. The Japanese thus were able to study China during one of its best periods, when Chinese culture perhaps stood foremost among the world's cultures. But another significant element in the picture was the fact that administrative power in Japan was already sufficiently centralized in the hands of a small group of leaders for a major program of action to be decided upon and carried into effect without a long period of debate or struggle. It is important to note this early illustration of the far-reaching results of the decisions of a small number of people, Japanese leaders at a particular point of time, because it is a phenomenon that has occurred repeatedly throughout Japanese culture history.
The first cultural missions to China were so successful that they were repeated rather continuously for over two centuries. By the middle of the ninth century official sponsorship for study of China came to an end, though privately the process continued for almost two centuries longer in lesser degree. By the latter part of the ninth century the T'ang were declining in China, and perhaps there was less to learn that could be of use to the leaders of Japan. This long period of study made the leaders of Japan familiar with the workings of Chinese civilization and spread Chinese culture traits throughout those parts of Japan inhabited by the peoples spreading out of the southern hearth region.
The impact of Chinese culture showed up in many ways. In the early eighth century the Japanese set out to build an imperial capital city of Nara, off the Inland Sea, which they modeled upon the great T'ang capital of Ch'ang-an. Grid-plan streets were laid out, buildings were built in the Chinese style, functional zoning was applied, and the city had come to stay. The matriarchal society of early Japan finally disappeared in favor of the patriarchal system of China, and the social status of women became permanently altered. The tribal and clan leaders saw utility in the nationalized political system of China, topped by an emperor, and so they installed it and in so doing rewrote Japanese history to give the system an ancient status. But the leaders of Japan could not bring themselves to install the full pattern of Chinese education, the examination, and the civil service, which would have meant throwing open to all Japanese the opportunities for political power. Thus they kept alive the clan system which facilitated the preservation of real power in the hands of hereditary leaders. Similarly they reorganized the land system and systems of taxation, but in the end let the land system of China degenerate, while keeping the tax system, so as more effectively to consolidate power in the hands of the few.
Japanese religion grew into a mixture of Buddhism and native animism, but the study of Chinese Buddhism was serious and it became an important element drawn from China. Chinese art, handicraft manufacturing, and agriculture were studied and adapted so far as practical and possible. Here there was less danger to real power in the hands of leaders if a full application of Chinese practices took place. A farreaching item that was taken from China was the written language, but the results have been less than satisfactory. At the time of earliest contact with Chinese culture no system of writing was known in Japan, but the spoken languages were polysyllabic. Chinese is a monosyllabic language easily written by single ideographs or characters. The first writing employed in Japan was Chinese, written by people brought from Korea. These immigrant scholars became the first recorders of Japanese historiography, the first scribes, and bookkeepers. Slowly the Japanese learned this complex system of writing, and it gradually became the written language of Japan. The grafting of a monosyllabic writing onto a polysyllabic speech resulted in a cumbersome system that never has been outgrown.
Though the adapting of only a few features of Chinese culture have been discussed, it must be obvious that the process involved selective adaptation rather than indiscriminate imitation. A close study of Japanese culture in this period suggests that a clear imprint of Chinese culture was spread throughout much of Japan with the result that Japanese culture is modeled upon that of China. But it is equally discernible that slavish copying was never permitted in many lines and that the leaders of Japan were extremely skillful in checking those trends which would have truly converted Japan into a little China in all respects. Chiefly the checks were applied at those points which preserved in the hands of the old line of Japanese leaders the power, wealth, and control of Japan.
The whole program perhaps evolved because China had just begun to blossom again into one of its high periods of development. The Sui had begun to organize North China into one state, and the T'ang were just completing the task of making China the greatest empire in the world at that time, politically and culturally. The Japanese thus were able to study China during one of its best periods, when Chinese culture perhaps stood foremost among the world's cultures. But another significant element in the picture was the fact that administrative power in Japan was already sufficiently centralized in the hands of a small group of leaders for a major program of action to be decided upon and carried into effect without a long period of debate or struggle. It is important to note this early illustration of the far-reaching results of the decisions of a small number of people, Japanese leaders at a particular point of time, because it is a phenomenon that has occurred repeatedly throughout Japanese culture history.
The first cultural missions to China were so successful that they were repeated rather continuously for over two centuries. By the middle of the ninth century official sponsorship for study of China came to an end, though privately the process continued for almost two centuries longer in lesser degree. By the latter part of the ninth century the T'ang were declining in China, and perhaps there was less to learn that could be of use to the leaders of Japan. This long period of study made the leaders of Japan familiar with the workings of Chinese civilization and spread Chinese culture traits throughout those parts of Japan inhabited by the peoples spreading out of the southern hearth region.
The impact of Chinese culture showed up in many ways. In the early eighth century the Japanese set out to build an imperial capital city of Nara, off the Inland Sea, which they modeled upon the great T'ang capital of Ch'ang-an. Grid-plan streets were laid out, buildings were built in the Chinese style, functional zoning was applied, and the city had come to stay. The matriarchal society of early Japan finally disappeared in favor of the patriarchal system of China, and the social status of women became permanently altered. The tribal and clan leaders saw utility in the nationalized political system of China, topped by an emperor, and so they installed it and in so doing rewrote Japanese history to give the system an ancient status. But the leaders of Japan could not bring themselves to install the full pattern of Chinese education, the examination, and the civil service, which would have meant throwing open to all Japanese the opportunities for political power. Thus they kept alive the clan system which facilitated the preservation of real power in the hands of hereditary leaders. Similarly they reorganized the land system and systems of taxation, but in the end let the land system of China degenerate, while keeping the tax system, so as more effectively to consolidate power in the hands of the few.
Japanese religion grew into a mixture of Buddhism and native animism, but the study of Chinese Buddhism was serious and it became an important element drawn from China. Chinese art, handicraft manufacturing, and agriculture were studied and adapted so far as practical and possible. Here there was less danger to real power in the hands of leaders if a full application of Chinese practices took place. A farreaching item that was taken from China was the written language, but the results have been less than satisfactory. At the time of earliest contact with Chinese culture no system of writing was known in Japan, but the spoken languages were polysyllabic. Chinese is a monosyllabic language easily written by single ideographs or characters. The first writing employed in Japan was Chinese, written by people brought from Korea. These immigrant scholars became the first recorders of Japanese historiography, the first scribes, and bookkeepers. Slowly the Japanese learned this complex system of writing, and it gradually became the written language of Japan. The grafting of a monosyllabic writing onto a polysyllabic speech resulted in a cumbersome system that never has been outgrown.
Though the adapting of only a few features of Chinese culture have been discussed, it must be obvious that the process involved selective adaptation rather than indiscriminate imitation. A close study of Japanese culture in this period suggests that a clear imprint of Chinese culture was spread throughout much of Japan with the result that Japanese culture is modeled upon that of China. But it is equally discernible that slavish copying was never permitted in many lines and that the leaders of Japan were extremely skillful in checking those trends which would have truly converted Japan into a little China in all respects. Chiefly the checks were applied at those points which preserved in the hands of the old line of Japanese leaders the power, wealth, and control of Japan.
The Northern Part of main Continent
The Northern Part of this peculiar Division of the main Continent is formed by a Succession of deep Lakes, the Lakes George and Champlain, which issue the Waste of their Waters through the little River Sorel into Canada River; the Bed of these Lakes is likewise formed by a deep Chasm amidst Mountains, running North and South, as continuing the same Line of the Hudson's [Hudson] River.
This River is usually, & especially by the Dutch Inhabitants of this Country, called North River. The Tract of Country lyeing between This River & the Delaware River inclusive was possessed by the Dutch under the Name of New Netherlands. They gave the two relative names of North & South River to this & the Delaware River. Their Chief Post & Town was New-Amsterdam which the English afterwards called New-York.
The Hudson's [Hudson] River arises from Two main Sources derived by Two Branches which meet about Ten Miles above Albany, the one called the Mohawk's [Mohawk] River (rising in a flat level Tract of Country, at the very Top or Height of the Land to Westward) comes away E. and S.E. at the Foot, on the North Sides of the Mountains, which the Indians call by a Name signifying the Endless Mountains. It runs in a Vale, which it seems to have worn itself, with Interval Lands on each Side, for about 100 miles.
The soil at the height of the Land & at the head of this River doth appear to be Low Land, that is, It is flatt, & a deep Rich Soil not yet worn away & full of bogs, ponds, & springs from whence not only this Mohawk River But the Onondaga River which empties itself into Lake Ontario at Oswego derive. The River keeps on with a quiet still Stream to Burnet's field having Lands of a deep & rich soil on both sides. At Burnet's field (a very fine settlement so called from Govr Burnet) The Vale & Interval Lands form a Space from ye west or upper end to ye Falls about 11 miles long & from 2 ½ to 3 ½ miles wide. This Settlement in 1754 consisted of about 120 Houses. The Stream after this quickens in its motion & begins to Wear a Valley by washing away the soil of the Lands through which it runs, but has however rich interval Lands on both sides which Produce Wheat Peas & Hemp without Dunge or Manure.
Going from Albany one rides along the banks of the Hudson river for six miles through most delightfull meadows, that is what we should call meadows in England, but all in tillage form. The river is on the right hand: The bank on the opposite shore is high woodlands sloping gently down to the Waters edge; on the left are these meadows from half to three quarters of a mile in breadth, then hilly woodlands rising gently. For two miles further through the commencement of settlements but in part clear'd. Then through Woods, Oak, Chestnut Walnut, Chesnutoak & Elm & so for the rest of the way about four or five miles more. Here one begins to hear the Pouiflosboish noise of the Tumultuous rushing & dashing of Waters which amidst the stillness of the Woods is like the roar of a Storm at Sea heard from the Land in the dead of night.
This River is usually, & especially by the Dutch Inhabitants of this Country, called North River. The Tract of Country lyeing between This River & the Delaware River inclusive was possessed by the Dutch under the Name of New Netherlands. They gave the two relative names of North & South River to this & the Delaware River. Their Chief Post & Town was New-Amsterdam which the English afterwards called New-York.
The Hudson's [Hudson] River arises from Two main Sources derived by Two Branches which meet about Ten Miles above Albany, the one called the Mohawk's [Mohawk] River (rising in a flat level Tract of Country, at the very Top or Height of the Land to Westward) comes away E. and S.E. at the Foot, on the North Sides of the Mountains, which the Indians call by a Name signifying the Endless Mountains. It runs in a Vale, which it seems to have worn itself, with Interval Lands on each Side, for about 100 miles.
The soil at the height of the Land & at the head of this River doth appear to be Low Land, that is, It is flatt, & a deep Rich Soil not yet worn away & full of bogs, ponds, & springs from whence not only this Mohawk River But the Onondaga River which empties itself into Lake Ontario at Oswego derive. The River keeps on with a quiet still Stream to Burnet's field having Lands of a deep & rich soil on both sides. At Burnet's field (a very fine settlement so called from Govr Burnet) The Vale & Interval Lands form a Space from ye west or upper end to ye Falls about 11 miles long & from 2 ½ to 3 ½ miles wide. This Settlement in 1754 consisted of about 120 Houses. The Stream after this quickens in its motion & begins to Wear a Valley by washing away the soil of the Lands through which it runs, but has however rich interval Lands on both sides which Produce Wheat Peas & Hemp without Dunge or Manure.
Going from Albany one rides along the banks of the Hudson river for six miles through most delightfull meadows, that is what we should call meadows in England, but all in tillage form. The river is on the right hand: The bank on the opposite shore is high woodlands sloping gently down to the Waters edge; on the left are these meadows from half to three quarters of a mile in breadth, then hilly woodlands rising gently. For two miles further through the commencement of settlements but in part clear'd. Then through Woods, Oak, Chestnut Walnut, Chesnutoak & Elm & so for the rest of the way about four or five miles more. Here one begins to hear the Pouiflosboish noise of the Tumultuous rushing & dashing of Waters which amidst the stillness of the Woods is like the roar of a Storm at Sea heard from the Land in the dead of night.
Two distinct different Tracts of Country
When we proceed to a more exact Detail of this Country, so as to examine it in its Parts, we must observe, that as the Country in general is divided into different Stages, so the general Face of it contained in this Map is divided into Two distinct and very different Tracts of Country, viz. Into that Part which lies W. and S.W. of Hudson's [Hudson] River, and that which is E. and N.E. of Hudson's [Hudson] River and Lake Champlain. This specific Difference will be marked in the Descriptions which I shall give of each Part. It will be sufficient here to say, that the Mountains of the Western Division, beginning from an immense high Tract of Land lying in the Angle formed by the Mohawks [Mohawk] and Hudson's [Hudson] Rivers, go off from Hudson's [Hudson] River in one general Trending in parallel Lines and in uniform Ranges of Ridges South Westerly to West Florida and Louisiana. The Mountains of the other Division on the East Side of the River run in like uniform Ranges, but in a Direction almost due North and South parallel to the River, and end in steep Ridges and bluff Heads at or near the Coast on Long Island Sound: And in the Latitude 45 or thereabouts, turning Eastward run away to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Hudson's [Hudson] River, and the Lakes George and Champlain, and the River Sorel form the very peculiar Line of this Division of the Country. The Bed of the Hudson's [Hudson] River (as if it were a great deep Chasm formed in the Body of the Country by its being split down to the Level of the Sea) is a strait deep Channel running (to speak generally) North and South betwixt Two Tracts of very high Land, and admits, amidst and through high Mountains, the Flow of the Tide more than 180 Miles up it. Where it lies thus (180 Miles from the Ocean) on a Level with the Flow of the Tide, the Rivers which have their Sources in the high Lands on each Side of it, the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers particularly, which are very great Rivers, run tumbling with a precipitate Course over Rifts and Falls for many hundred Miles S. and S.E. before they reach the same Level; even the Connecticut River on the east of it & parallel to it runs with many a Swift and over many Falls above 100 Miles South before it reaches the same Level.
5 Star Hotels in Rome
Aldrovandi Palace, 15 Via Ulisse Aldrovandi 00197
Ambasciatori Palace, 62 Via Vittorio Veneto 00187
Bernini Bristol, 23 Piazza Barberini 00187
Cavalieri Hilton, 101 Via Cadlolo 00136
De Russie, 9 Via del Babuino 00187
Eden, 49 Via Ludovisi 00187
Exedra, 47 Piazza della Repubblica 00185
Grand Hotel De La Minerve, 69 Piazza della Minerva 00186
Hassler Villa Medici, 6 Piazza Trinita' dei Monti 00187
Intercontinental De La Ville Roma, 69 Via Sistina 00187
Le Grand Hotel St.Regis Grand
Lord Byron, 5 Via Giuseppe De Notaris 00197
Majestic, 50 Via Vittorio Veneto 00187
Parco Dei Principi, 5 Via Gerolamo Frescobaldi 00198
Plaza, 126 Via del Corso 00186
Radisson Sas Hotel Roma, 171 Via Filippo Turati 00185
Regina Hotel Baglioni, 72 Via Vittorio Veneto 00187
Splendide Royal, 14 Via di Porta Pinciana 00187
Villa Spalletti Trivelli, 4 Via Piacenza 00184
Westin Excelsior, 125 Via Vittorio Veneto 00187
Ambasciatori Palace, 62 Via Vittorio Veneto 00187
Bernini Bristol, 23 Piazza Barberini 00187
Cavalieri Hilton, 101 Via Cadlolo 00136
De Russie, 9 Via del Babuino 00187
Eden, 49 Via Ludovisi 00187
Exedra, 47 Piazza della Repubblica 00185
Grand Hotel De La Minerve, 69 Piazza della Minerva 00186
Hassler Villa Medici, 6 Piazza Trinita' dei Monti 00187
Intercontinental De La Ville Roma, 69 Via Sistina 00187
Le Grand Hotel St.Regis Grand
Lord Byron, 5 Via Giuseppe De Notaris 00197
Majestic, 50 Via Vittorio Veneto 00187
Parco Dei Principi, 5 Via Gerolamo Frescobaldi 00198
Plaza, 126 Via del Corso 00186
Radisson Sas Hotel Roma, 171 Via Filippo Turati 00185
Regina Hotel Baglioni, 72 Via Vittorio Veneto 00187
Splendide Royal, 14 Via di Porta Pinciana 00187
Villa Spalletti Trivelli, 4 Via Piacenza 00184
Westin Excelsior, 125 Via Vittorio Veneto 00187
Cappadocia Kapadokya
Cappadocia (Kapadokya) occupies the centre of Anatolia, the region between the Black Sea in the north and the Taurus Mountains (Toros Daglari), between the capital Ankara and the city of Malatya to the east. Famous for its spectacular natural rock formations and valleys, Göreme National Park (Göreme Milli Parki), as it is known today, is strewn with underground cities, monasteries and dwellings and stone chapels that were hewn out of the eroded volcanic rock from as long ago as 400 BC.
Ephesus Efes
Ephesus (Efes in Turish) is the biggest and best-preserved ancient city in the country and is one of the world’s spectacular historical sites. The city was established with a harbour on the mouth of the Cayster River, and in the 2nd century BC it became the most important port and commercial trading centre in Anatolia (Anadolu in Turkish), from Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic period to capital of Roman Asia under Augustus. The city went into final decline during the Byzantine era with the silting up of the harbour. The city is also important as the early seat of Christianity, visited by St Paul, whose letters to the Ephesians are recorded in the New Testament.
The site needs little imagination to see what a functioning Roman city would have looked like, but guides are available and can offer a rich insight into the history and architecture of the ruins. Among the amphitheatres, mosaics and murals, baths, columns, fountains and brothels, the chariot-worn streets lead to some of the highlights, including the enormous Library of Celsus, the impressive Temple of Hadrian, a row of public latrines and the Grand Theatre where Paul preached to the Ephesians. The city was originally dedicated to the goddess Artemis and her once-magnificent temple was considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The site needs little imagination to see what a functioning Roman city would have looked like, but guides are available and can offer a rich insight into the history and architecture of the ruins. Among the amphitheatres, mosaics and murals, baths, columns, fountains and brothels, the chariot-worn streets lead to some of the highlights, including the enormous Library of Celsus, the impressive Temple of Hadrian, a row of public latrines and the Grand Theatre where Paul preached to the Ephesians. The city was originally dedicated to the goddess Artemis and her once-magnificent temple was considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Kas Turkey
Delightfully situated among towering vertical cliffs, Kas (Antalya) is the region’s second major resort, and although lacking in idyllic stretches of beach, the dramatic rocky coastline creates easy access to clear and unpolluted Mediterranean waters; and an abundance of outdoor activities, and a lively nightlife have maintained its reputation as a satisfying holiday destination.
It is the centre for glass-bottomed boat trips to the sunken cities around Kekova Island from where remains of mysterious civilisations can be viewed just below the surface of the water, and visits can be arranged to the surrounding archaeological sites at Demre, Myra and the Xanthos Valley. The town is built around the remains of ancient Antiphellos, and there are ruins of a Hellenistic theatre, the monumental Lion Tomb, and some hillside rock tombs in and around the town. Despite the tourist development of what was once a simple fishing village, Kas still preserves its small-town charm, with narrow cobbled streets and novel boutique shops.
Hotels in Kas, Antalya
Amphora, Kas
Medusa Hotel, Kas
Hotel Club Barbarossa, Kas
Hotel Aquapark, Kas
Hotel Maki, Kas
Aquarius, Kas
Hadrian Hotel, Kas
Hotel Likya, Kas
Aqua Princess Hotel, Kas
Club Capa, Kas
Kale Hotel, Kas
Hera Hotel, Kas
Diva Residence Hotel, Kas
Hotel Club Phellos, Kas
Villa Hotel Tamara, Kas
Onur Pension, Kas
Hotel Kayahan, Kas
Hideaway Hotel, Kas
Deniz Feneri Lighthouse, Kas
Gardenia Hotel Kas, Kas
It is the centre for glass-bottomed boat trips to the sunken cities around Kekova Island from where remains of mysterious civilisations can be viewed just below the surface of the water, and visits can be arranged to the surrounding archaeological sites at Demre, Myra and the Xanthos Valley. The town is built around the remains of ancient Antiphellos, and there are ruins of a Hellenistic theatre, the monumental Lion Tomb, and some hillside rock tombs in and around the town. Despite the tourist development of what was once a simple fishing village, Kas still preserves its small-town charm, with narrow cobbled streets and novel boutique shops.
Hotels in Kas, Antalya
Amphora, Kas
Medusa Hotel, Kas
Hotel Club Barbarossa, Kas
Hotel Aquapark, Kas
Hotel Maki, Kas
Aquarius, Kas
Hadrian Hotel, Kas
Hotel Likya, Kas
Aqua Princess Hotel, Kas
Club Capa, Kas
Kale Hotel, Kas
Hera Hotel, Kas
Diva Residence Hotel, Kas
Hotel Club Phellos, Kas
Villa Hotel Tamara, Kas
Onur Pension, Kas
Hotel Kayahan, Kas
Hideaway Hotel, Kas
Deniz Feneri Lighthouse, Kas
Gardenia Hotel Kas, Kas
Grisons
The Grisons, often referred to as "Switzerland in miniature," is the largest canton in Switzerland. Here three languages -- German, Italian, and Romansch -- are spoken. This is the canton, together with the Bernese Oberland, which is the most familiar to the sport lovers of all nations. Here are located St. Moritz, Davos, Arosa, Flims, Lenzerheide, Klosters and many other world famous, all year round resorts. But it is not only for its sports or its beautiful mountains and 150 valleys that the Grisons is famous. It can boast as well of a rich cultural tradition and a vivid history.
The canton of the Grisons is the largest canton in Switzerland, covering 2703 square miles and including more than one sixth of the Confede″ ration. The canton consists of an immense network of mountains furrowed by 150 valleys and in many ways is Switzerland in miniature. Here three languages are spoken -- German, Italian and Romansch. A little more than half of the population speaks German, a third Romansch and the rest, about a sixth, an Italian dialect.
Because of the mountainous nature of the country, it might be expected that this region would not have had a particularly interesting history. In reality the history of the Grisons is most dramatic. Existing records show that Rhaetus, Prince of the Etruscan tribe, first invaded this district which he named Rhaetia, as early as 600 B.C. In 15 B. C. this part of the country became a Roman province called Rhaetia Prima. The population fought in the Roman army and their graves have even been discovered as far distant as Libya.
The history of the Grisons actually centers around its many mountain passes which have brought great advantages but also much trouble to the canton. It was over these passes that the German empe″ rors travelled to be crowned in Rome or to fight their enemies on Italian soil. And these passes were of such strategic importance during the Thirty Years War, that the Grisons were invaded by the armies of Austria, Spain and France. But thanks largely to the energy and ability of Jurg Jenatsch ( 1596″ 1693), a most daring and colorful individual, the country finally rid itself of foreign influence. From the 15th century onwards the « Grey Confederates » as they were called (from whence the German name of the canton: Graubünden) were on good terms with the Swiss and in 1803 their territory was incorporated in Switzerland as the 18th canton.
In addition to its mountain passes the Grisons is famous for its rivers which flow north, south and east, into the North Sea, the Adriatic and the Black Sea. The Rhine rises here -- and naturally there are quarrels as to which of the contributory streams is the Rhine -- but by the time these streams have reached Reichenau, they flow peacefully on as one river, past Chur where they are joined by the Landquart, and eventually reach the North Sea. The streams in the eastern valleys flow into the Inn which eventually joins the Danube. While the rivers to the south join the Adda and eventually flow into the Po.
It has been said that the business of the Grisons is Germans, English, wood and cattle. During the war years, the forests of the Grisons cóntributed greatly towards providing fuel to replace the coal which could no longer be imported, while the cattle of the Grisons are a sturdy small, brown race, known throughout the world. Yet cattle raising in such mountainous regions is fraught with difficulties. On account of the severity of the climate, the cattle have to be kept in stables half the year, which means large quantities of hay. Yet the farmers of the Grisons are still using the same old fashioned scythes their ancestors used. A great deal of time is also consumed driving the cattle up in the mountains to graze and then back down again into the valleys. The farmers here, as in the Valais, have a hard life which serves as a decided contrast to the fashionable cosmopolitan life led in the world famous hotels of this canton.
The canton of the Grisons is the largest canton in Switzerland, covering 2703 square miles and including more than one sixth of the Confede″ ration. The canton consists of an immense network of mountains furrowed by 150 valleys and in many ways is Switzerland in miniature. Here three languages are spoken -- German, Italian and Romansch. A little more than half of the population speaks German, a third Romansch and the rest, about a sixth, an Italian dialect.
Because of the mountainous nature of the country, it might be expected that this region would not have had a particularly interesting history. In reality the history of the Grisons is most dramatic. Existing records show that Rhaetus, Prince of the Etruscan tribe, first invaded this district which he named Rhaetia, as early as 600 B.C. In 15 B. C. this part of the country became a Roman province called Rhaetia Prima. The population fought in the Roman army and their graves have even been discovered as far distant as Libya.
The history of the Grisons actually centers around its many mountain passes which have brought great advantages but also much trouble to the canton. It was over these passes that the German empe″ rors travelled to be crowned in Rome or to fight their enemies on Italian soil. And these passes were of such strategic importance during the Thirty Years War, that the Grisons were invaded by the armies of Austria, Spain and France. But thanks largely to the energy and ability of Jurg Jenatsch ( 1596″ 1693), a most daring and colorful individual, the country finally rid itself of foreign influence. From the 15th century onwards the « Grey Confederates » as they were called (from whence the German name of the canton: Graubünden) were on good terms with the Swiss and in 1803 their territory was incorporated in Switzerland as the 18th canton.
In addition to its mountain passes the Grisons is famous for its rivers which flow north, south and east, into the North Sea, the Adriatic and the Black Sea. The Rhine rises here -- and naturally there are quarrels as to which of the contributory streams is the Rhine -- but by the time these streams have reached Reichenau, they flow peacefully on as one river, past Chur where they are joined by the Landquart, and eventually reach the North Sea. The streams in the eastern valleys flow into the Inn which eventually joins the Danube. While the rivers to the south join the Adda and eventually flow into the Po.
It has been said that the business of the Grisons is Germans, English, wood and cattle. During the war years, the forests of the Grisons cóntributed greatly towards providing fuel to replace the coal which could no longer be imported, while the cattle of the Grisons are a sturdy small, brown race, known throughout the world. Yet cattle raising in such mountainous regions is fraught with difficulties. On account of the severity of the climate, the cattle have to be kept in stables half the year, which means large quantities of hay. Yet the farmers of the Grisons are still using the same old fashioned scythes their ancestors used. A great deal of time is also consumed driving the cattle up in the mountains to graze and then back down again into the valleys. The farmers here, as in the Valais, have a hard life which serves as a decided contrast to the fashionable cosmopolitan life led in the world famous hotels of this canton.
Valais
The canton of Valais, with its capital at Sion, is a countryside presenting remarkable and picturesque contrasts. Here the highest Alps are situated and here in the Rhone valley is Switzerland's richest fruit growing district. The sun shines most of the year in the Valais and the irrigation of the soil presents the hard working, strictly Catholic population with many problems. This canton is rich in history, in art treasures and in folklore, as well as in the opportunities it offers for mountaineering in summer and skiing in winter.
Emerging from the Lötschberg tunnel which connects Berne with Brig and passes under 6,000 feet of rock and snow, we enter the canton of Valais with the valley of the Rhone river spreading out a thousand yards below us. The Rhone itself, like a metallic snake, winds through a sandy plain lined with rows of poplars and bordered by vineyards, forests and rocky cliffs on which are perched ruined towers and castles. The colors of this countryside are gray, olive green, yellow and red. Here are none of the vivid greens of the rest of Switzerland, but rather the same dusty, luminous landscape as in certain parts of Spain.
To the north and south, the broad, regular slopes are covered first with chestnut trees, then with meadows. Higher still is the bare, red earth with its bluish grey shadows, and, behind the first line of rocky peaks, a few snow capped summits rise against the unusually light blue sky. On every level there are villages, and above the timberline, blackened chalets cluster about white Catholic churches. Some of these simple mountain chapels attain an artistic charm of a high order, as, for example, in the baroque chapel Zur Hohen Stiege, near SaasFee.
These villages, with their pastures running often to the very foot of the glaciers, are located at what seem to be almost inaccessible heights. No inch of ground is lost in the Valais and the surefooted cattle wander in uplands which to the traveller seem unbelievably steep and remote. Many of these mountain settlements can be reached only on mule″back over narrow trails and lie at many hours distance from the nearest center. Some of them were built by men who took refuge on the heights from the persecutions of the decaying Romanh Empire. In such communities the ideas of liberty on the one hand and of neighborly cooperation on the other have been ever present. The wooden farmsteads, particularly in the Upper Valais, are distinguished by their blockhouse″like appearance on wooden piles, and the granaries by the circular stone slabs supporting them.
For centuries the Valaisans have lived an independent life in this separate and individualistic land of theirs. In the Middle Ages, they founded their own republic, and although they were bound to the old Swiss Confederation by traditional ties of friendship, they did not become a member until 1815. The other Swiss sometimes call them, rather contemptuously, backward and reproach them for being conservatism incarnate. It is true that the Valaisans are the most conservative and traditional minded people imaginable. And when Pope Gregory XIII, who might reasonably have expected obedience from the strictly Catholic Valaisans, introduced his new calendar, his flock on the upper Rhone refused to accept, for over 100 years, the new fad from Rome.
As in Corsica, bloody feuds were common in the Valais up until the late Middle Ages. Many laws from the days of the foundation of the Republic have been handed down to the present generation and the quarrels about their interpretation still go on. Sometimes lawsuits ower water rights have been drawn out over two centuries.
However, although the Valaisans are conservative, their politics somewhat turbulent and although to other Confederates they may sometimes seem backward, in many things the Valaisans are ahead of the other Swiss. A thousand years before Karl Marx, the Valaisans organized their society on the lines of a naturally developed collectivism and their small corporations for mutual aid came into being long before the Swiss Confederation. Such partnerships, corporations and farmers guilds passed on the leaven for baking and allotted to each household the precious water for irrigation. Nowadays these cooperatives have made possible the use of modern machinery, such as the hydraulic wine press, which greatly decreases the labor of the vintage, yet is beyond the means of the individual wine grower.
In the alluvial plain of the Rhone, which has been put under cultivation only fairly recently, apricots, asparagus, strawberries, peaches, pears and apples are grown. On the slopes surrounding this plain there are vineyards where by grafting American vines on the local species, wine production has been increased from eight to thirty million litres annually within two decades. But unfortunately this rich, fruit growing plain is only the smallest part of the Valais, which is composed of one fifth glaciers and two fifths irrigated mountain country.
Two languages are spoken in the Valais -French and German -- and the Swiss German dialect of the Valaisans is one of the most difficult to understand among the Swiss dialects even for other Swiss. There is also, thanks to the difficulty of life in this canton, a strong tradition of emigration and today there are more citizens of' Ernen in Santa Fé in the Argentine than there are in Ernen itself.
Sion, the capital of the canton, has the beautiful church of NotreDame de Valre dating back to the 12th cent, tury as well as the ruins of the castle of Tourbillon perched on two neigh, boring hills and visible from a great distance. These two hills rising abrup″ tly out of the surrounding plain, crowned with their lovely buildings and ruins, give an atmosphere of originality to Sion which an exploration of the town confirms. Sion has had an interesting and colorful history, dating from the time of the conquest of this countryside by the legions of Julius Caesar. In the town itself the sights which are particularly recommended are the Romanesque tower of the late Gothic Cathedral; the Supersax House with carved wooden ceilings by Jacob de Malacridis ( 1505) and the early baroque Council Hall with rich portico wings and the earliest Christian inscription in Switzerland, dating from the year 377 A. D. Below Sion a visit should be made to the Romanesque church of St. Pierre de Clages with its quaint octagonal spire and to the ruins of Castle Saillon. During the 16th century Sion, at that period the home of Matthew Schin, ner, experienced its pe″ riod of greatest glory.
Emerging from the Lötschberg tunnel which connects Berne with Brig and passes under 6,000 feet of rock and snow, we enter the canton of Valais with the valley of the Rhone river spreading out a thousand yards below us. The Rhone itself, like a metallic snake, winds through a sandy plain lined with rows of poplars and bordered by vineyards, forests and rocky cliffs on which are perched ruined towers and castles. The colors of this countryside are gray, olive green, yellow and red. Here are none of the vivid greens of the rest of Switzerland, but rather the same dusty, luminous landscape as in certain parts of Spain.
To the north and south, the broad, regular slopes are covered first with chestnut trees, then with meadows. Higher still is the bare, red earth with its bluish grey shadows, and, behind the first line of rocky peaks, a few snow capped summits rise against the unusually light blue sky. On every level there are villages, and above the timberline, blackened chalets cluster about white Catholic churches. Some of these simple mountain chapels attain an artistic charm of a high order, as, for example, in the baroque chapel Zur Hohen Stiege, near SaasFee.
These villages, with their pastures running often to the very foot of the glaciers, are located at what seem to be almost inaccessible heights. No inch of ground is lost in the Valais and the surefooted cattle wander in uplands which to the traveller seem unbelievably steep and remote. Many of these mountain settlements can be reached only on mule″back over narrow trails and lie at many hours distance from the nearest center. Some of them were built by men who took refuge on the heights from the persecutions of the decaying Romanh Empire. In such communities the ideas of liberty on the one hand and of neighborly cooperation on the other have been ever present. The wooden farmsteads, particularly in the Upper Valais, are distinguished by their blockhouse″like appearance on wooden piles, and the granaries by the circular stone slabs supporting them.
For centuries the Valaisans have lived an independent life in this separate and individualistic land of theirs. In the Middle Ages, they founded their own republic, and although they were bound to the old Swiss Confederation by traditional ties of friendship, they did not become a member until 1815. The other Swiss sometimes call them, rather contemptuously, backward and reproach them for being conservatism incarnate. It is true that the Valaisans are the most conservative and traditional minded people imaginable. And when Pope Gregory XIII, who might reasonably have expected obedience from the strictly Catholic Valaisans, introduced his new calendar, his flock on the upper Rhone refused to accept, for over 100 years, the new fad from Rome.
As in Corsica, bloody feuds were common in the Valais up until the late Middle Ages. Many laws from the days of the foundation of the Republic have been handed down to the present generation and the quarrels about their interpretation still go on. Sometimes lawsuits ower water rights have been drawn out over two centuries.
However, although the Valaisans are conservative, their politics somewhat turbulent and although to other Confederates they may sometimes seem backward, in many things the Valaisans are ahead of the other Swiss. A thousand years before Karl Marx, the Valaisans organized their society on the lines of a naturally developed collectivism and their small corporations for mutual aid came into being long before the Swiss Confederation. Such partnerships, corporations and farmers guilds passed on the leaven for baking and allotted to each household the precious water for irrigation. Nowadays these cooperatives have made possible the use of modern machinery, such as the hydraulic wine press, which greatly decreases the labor of the vintage, yet is beyond the means of the individual wine grower.
In the alluvial plain of the Rhone, which has been put under cultivation only fairly recently, apricots, asparagus, strawberries, peaches, pears and apples are grown. On the slopes surrounding this plain there are vineyards where by grafting American vines on the local species, wine production has been increased from eight to thirty million litres annually within two decades. But unfortunately this rich, fruit growing plain is only the smallest part of the Valais, which is composed of one fifth glaciers and two fifths irrigated mountain country.
Two languages are spoken in the Valais -French and German -- and the Swiss German dialect of the Valaisans is one of the most difficult to understand among the Swiss dialects even for other Swiss. There is also, thanks to the difficulty of life in this canton, a strong tradition of emigration and today there are more citizens of' Ernen in Santa Fé in the Argentine than there are in Ernen itself.
Sion, the capital of the canton, has the beautiful church of NotreDame de Valre dating back to the 12th cent, tury as well as the ruins of the castle of Tourbillon perched on two neigh, boring hills and visible from a great distance. These two hills rising abrup″ tly out of the surrounding plain, crowned with their lovely buildings and ruins, give an atmosphere of originality to Sion which an exploration of the town confirms. Sion has had an interesting and colorful history, dating from the time of the conquest of this countryside by the legions of Julius Caesar. In the town itself the sights which are particularly recommended are the Romanesque tower of the late Gothic Cathedral; the Supersax House with carved wooden ceilings by Jacob de Malacridis ( 1505) and the early baroque Council Hall with rich portico wings and the earliest Christian inscription in Switzerland, dating from the year 377 A. D. Below Sion a visit should be made to the Romanesque church of St. Pierre de Clages with its quaint octagonal spire and to the ruins of Castle Saillon. During the 16th century Sion, at that period the home of Matthew Schin, ner, experienced its pe″ riod of greatest glory.
Neuchatel and the Jura
The Jura Mountains, although less impressive than the Alps, have a melancholy beauty all their own with their stately pine woods and their wind-swept summits where cattle graze during the summer months. Neuchatel, with its exclusive old families, is the capital of the canton. Its cultural and aristocratic tradition is in sharp contrast to both the socialistic atmosphere of La Chaux-de-Fonds and the modern commercialism of Bienne. In this countryside lies the centre of the Swiss watch-making industry. Here also there is wine growing, horsebreeding and agriculture.
French is the common language, except for small German speaking settlements in the northern part of the canton. The French spoken in Neuchatel is the purest spoken in Switzerland and is even admired by the French themselves. There is the so-called low country, a long narrow strip of land between the lake of Neuchatel and the first hills. Then come the valleys, cut deep into the mountains, like the Val-de-Travers, through which the defeated Bourbaki army retreated from France in 1871 to seek refuge in Switzerland, or open plateaus like the Val-de-Ruz which again received regiments of a defeated French army in 1940.
The Jura mountains reach an attitude of between 4200-4800 feet. Their slopes are covered with dark pine forests, but their peaks are bare and wind swept. The majestic regularity of these mountains changes slightly in the north but without detriment to the picturesque severity and impressive, seductive melancholy of the countryside. The valleys and highlands are wild and often deserted except for the echo of cowbells. The towns and villages are small but there are plenty of inns and hotels to give a hearty welcome to the tourist. Life is hard in the Jura. The summers are short, the winters long and the cold, clear north wind -- "la bise" -- blows a great deal of the time. There is also a local wind known as the Joran which sweeps down from the Jura, causing sudden squalls on the lake of Neuchatel and making it very treacherous for sailing. However, despite the fact that life is hard in the Jura, the Neucha, telois know how to enjoy themselves when the day's work is done. It was in the Jura mountains that Hans Andersen wrote some of his loveliest fairy tales and it was here that the First International was started. In a little village at the foot of the Jura, there is a mill called the "Middle of the World", because from its mill pond flow two streams, one into the Aare and the Rhine, the other into the lake of Geneva and the Rhone. When Germany declared war in 1914, the miller closed the sluice gate which led to the Rhine, announcing quite simply : "They shan't have any water in Germany!"
Neuchatel, the capital of the canton, is a small, picturesque city with its yellow sandstone buildings making it seem, as Alexander Dumas said, "as if it were carved out of butter." Neuchatel was among the last cantons to join the Swiss Confederation, but in 1848 it finally overthrew its last sovereign who, curiously enough, happened to be a Hohenzollern, although the canton is so definitely French in feeling.
Neuchatel still offers the visitor many vestiges of its eventful past when first it belonged to the ducal house of Orleans″Longueville, then to the Kings of Prussia and lastly gained its political independence. Following the Swiss tradition of mercenary service, many Neuchatel aristocrats served under the King of Prussia. And a regiment from Neuchatel took the city of Seringapa, tam for the British East India Company. There has always been a definite international tradition among the old families of Neuchatel. A member of the Pourtales family helped found Colorado Springs over a century ago, another was German ambassador to Petrograd and many members of the family served in the French army: In the Second World War, several sons of old Neu, chatel families were killed fighting as volunteers in the Royal Air Force.
The Neuchatelois have a special way of thinking and of speaking. They are alert diplomats and extremely conscious of their culture. But they have a definite feeling of superiority and are convinced that, as far as the important things in life are concerned, the world begins and ends within the confines of their canton. Yet although they are even more famous for their grumbling than other Swiss, they know how to extricate themselves from any kind of trouble.
Neuchatel, this lovely town where the charms of the lake, the gardens, and the old houses are enchantingly combined, is essentially a town of study. It has a university, several high schools and many boarding schools. From the shady quayside on sunny, clear days there is a magnificent panorama of the Alps, beginning with the Bernese chain and ending with Mt. Blanc in the far distance.
French is the common language, except for small German speaking settlements in the northern part of the canton. The French spoken in Neuchatel is the purest spoken in Switzerland and is even admired by the French themselves. There is the so-called low country, a long narrow strip of land between the lake of Neuchatel and the first hills. Then come the valleys, cut deep into the mountains, like the Val-de-Travers, through which the defeated Bourbaki army retreated from France in 1871 to seek refuge in Switzerland, or open plateaus like the Val-de-Ruz which again received regiments of a defeated French army in 1940.
The Jura mountains reach an attitude of between 4200-4800 feet. Their slopes are covered with dark pine forests, but their peaks are bare and wind swept. The majestic regularity of these mountains changes slightly in the north but without detriment to the picturesque severity and impressive, seductive melancholy of the countryside. The valleys and highlands are wild and often deserted except for the echo of cowbells. The towns and villages are small but there are plenty of inns and hotels to give a hearty welcome to the tourist. Life is hard in the Jura. The summers are short, the winters long and the cold, clear north wind -- "la bise" -- blows a great deal of the time. There is also a local wind known as the Joran which sweeps down from the Jura, causing sudden squalls on the lake of Neuchatel and making it very treacherous for sailing. However, despite the fact that life is hard in the Jura, the Neucha, telois know how to enjoy themselves when the day's work is done. It was in the Jura mountains that Hans Andersen wrote some of his loveliest fairy tales and it was here that the First International was started. In a little village at the foot of the Jura, there is a mill called the "Middle of the World", because from its mill pond flow two streams, one into the Aare and the Rhine, the other into the lake of Geneva and the Rhone. When Germany declared war in 1914, the miller closed the sluice gate which led to the Rhine, announcing quite simply : "They shan't have any water in Germany!"
Neuchatel, the capital of the canton, is a small, picturesque city with its yellow sandstone buildings making it seem, as Alexander Dumas said, "as if it were carved out of butter." Neuchatel was among the last cantons to join the Swiss Confederation, but in 1848 it finally overthrew its last sovereign who, curiously enough, happened to be a Hohenzollern, although the canton is so definitely French in feeling.
Neuchatel still offers the visitor many vestiges of its eventful past when first it belonged to the ducal house of Orleans″Longueville, then to the Kings of Prussia and lastly gained its political independence. Following the Swiss tradition of mercenary service, many Neuchatel aristocrats served under the King of Prussia. And a regiment from Neuchatel took the city of Seringapa, tam for the British East India Company. There has always been a definite international tradition among the old families of Neuchatel. A member of the Pourtales family helped found Colorado Springs over a century ago, another was German ambassador to Petrograd and many members of the family served in the French army: In the Second World War, several sons of old Neu, chatel families were killed fighting as volunteers in the Royal Air Force.
The Neuchatelois have a special way of thinking and of speaking. They are alert diplomats and extremely conscious of their culture. But they have a definite feeling of superiority and are convinced that, as far as the important things in life are concerned, the world begins and ends within the confines of their canton. Yet although they are even more famous for their grumbling than other Swiss, they know how to extricate themselves from any kind of trouble.
Neuchatel, this lovely town where the charms of the lake, the gardens, and the old houses are enchantingly combined, is essentially a town of study. It has a university, several high schools and many boarding schools. From the shady quayside on sunny, clear days there is a magnificent panorama of the Alps, beginning with the Bernese chain and ending with Mt. Blanc in the far distance.
French Switzerland, Suisse Romande
French Switzerland, or the "Suisse Romande" as it is also called, includes the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, and Fribourg, as well as the Valais and Neuchatel. In other words any canton where French is spoken. Geneva, -- city of Calvin and the Reformation, of the International Red Cross and of the League of Nations, -- and Lausanne, -- the modern and flourishing capital of the canton of Vaud -are its principal cities. Fribourg, a lovely medieval town in the midst of a rich far. ming country is one of the important Catholic centers of Europe. And it is in the canton of Fribourg where Switzerland's most famous chocolate is made.
Swiss Civilisation in the Age of the Reformation
Whereas during the epoch of the Reformation and CounterReformation the political development of Switzerland took an unsatisfactory turn, it was otherwise with the general civilisation of the country. Switzerland played a leading part in the moral and intellectual process of rejuvenescence which the Reformation signified for Europe. Side by side with Luther and Melanchthon, the Swiss Reformers Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Bullinger, Calvin and Beza were the fathers of Protestantism; side by side with Wittenberg, Zurich and Geneva were its most notable centres. John Bale, the bishop of Ossory, wrote:
Had it not been that at Wittenberg Luther, the Atlas of the Christian doctrine, at Zurich Zwingli, the unconquered advocate of the pure truth and its confessor at the cost of his own blood, at Basel Oecolampadius, a shining light in God's house, opened for us the living sources of Holy Writ, there would have been no place on earth where Christ could lay his head.
In the sixteenth century the Swiss theologians occupied a position comparable to that held in the eighteenth by the French Encyclopaedists. Zwingli, Bullinger, Calvin and Beza corresponded with the spiritual and temporal leaders of the Reformation in Germany, France, Great Britain, Hungary and Poland; with the landgrave of Hesse, the Elector Palatine, the prince de Condeé, King Anthony of Navarre and Queen Jeanne d'Albret, Christian II of Denmark, Edward VI and Elizabeth of England and Lady Jane Grey. Their writings were disseminated throughout the world in reprints or translations. Even the theologians of the second rank, such as Leo Judä, Bibliander, Gwalter, Pellicanus and Petrus Martyr in Zurich, Grynäus, Simon Sulzer and Borrhaus in Basel, and Viret in Lausanne, were men of European reputation. The Helvetic Confession, drawn up by Bullinger and printed in Zurich in 1566, was adopted by the Elector Palatine, by the Waldenses of Piedmont, by the Scottish Reformers, and by those of Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, Transylvania and Holland, being regarded as a summary of the commonly held doctrine of all the Reformed Churches, which all pastors had to accept upon oath.
Equally good was the repute of the Swiss high schools. In Basel the university, profoundly affected by the withdrawal of the Humanists, was now re-established; and its reputation continued to increase through the work of distinguished men of learning, until towards the end of the sixteenth century. The high school founded by Zwingli in Zurich, the Carolinum, was regularly attended by Frenchmen, Italians, Netherlanders, Germans, Bohemians, Poles and Russians. The Englishman, Thomas Coryat, wrote of it in 1611:
For though it be no Vniuersitie to yeeld degrees of Schoole to the students, yet it hath bred more singular learned writers (at the least in my poore opinion) than any one of the famousest Vniuersities of all Christendome, especially Diuines, and such as haue consecrated their name to posterity euen til the end of the world by their learned works. . . . Howbeit I doe not by this praise of Zurich derogate frome the learned men of mine owne country. For I am perswaded that our two famous Vniuersities of Oxford and Cambridge do yeeld as learned men as any in the world; but for the quantity (not the quality) of writing the Tigurines without doubt haue the superioritie of our English men.
The most celebrated of all was the Academy of Geneva. Here, besides great theologians, there were at work philologists and jurists of the first rank, who gave the place the highest renown. From all the countries of Europe where there were Protestants, from the courts of the princes and the castles of the nobles, young men greedy for learning flocked to Geneva. In an album which began in Geneva in the year 1581 giving the names of all the princes, counts and nobles who studied in the town, we find the arms and signatures of the counts and barons of Nassau, Salm, Sayn-Wittgenstein, Rutland, Ostrorog, Labischin, Zerotin, of Antony Bacon, the brother of the philosopher, of Robert Devereux son of the Lord Essex who was executed in 1601, etc. The Huguenot academies of Orthez, Orange, Saumur and Montauban, and the high school of Leyden, were all founded after the Genevese example; while the Scottish universities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen and St Andrews were reconstituted on similar lines.
The intellectual activity awakened in Switzerland by the Reformation was by no means wholly absorbed in theology. Classical and oriental philology was diligently cultivated as the necessary basis for the return to primitive Christianity. In Geneva the celebrated printers, Robert and Henri Estienne, were distinguished for their editions of the Greek classics, which covered almost the entire field of Greek literature, and became proverbial for their beauty and accuracy, while in their Thesaurus Linguae Graecae ( Geneva, 1572) they became the founders of Greek lexicography. Isaac Casaubon (born in 1559 at Geneva, died in 1614 in London), one of the greatest philologists of all time, taught in the Academy of Geneva until 1596, when he was summoned to France, and subsequently in 1608 to England. The brilliant Joseph Scaliger, the founder of the sciences of epigraphy, numismatics and chronology, taught for a time in Geneva.
In Basel there lived the versatile Sebastian Münster, first among Germans to publish the Bible in the original Hebrew, but still better known through his Cosmographia Universalis (1544), the first comparative treatise on man founded upon a geographical basis -- a work which speedily ran through twenty-four editions and was translated into most European tongues. Bibliander, the Zurich Orientalist, founded the study of Mohammedanism, publishing the Koran for the first time in 1543, after a severe contest with the Basel censorship. He had to secure the approval of Luther before the Basel Town Council gave permission for the printing of the Turkish Bible. Johann Buxtorf of Basel and his son were regarded as the first Orientalists of their time. The Lexicon Chaldaicum, Talmudicum, et Rabbinicum, the Concordantiae Bibliorum Hebraicorum and other works written by the father and published by the son, served in many respects to lay the foundations of Semitic philology.
In the transition from Humanism to the mighty development of the natural sciences, Conrad Gesner ( 1516-65) physician and professor at Zurich, was an intermediary. In many fields he was one of the most industrious scholars of the sixteenth century. In the endless series of his philological, medical and other scientific works, there may be mentioned as of leading importance the Bibliotheca Universalis ( Zurich, 1545-55), a huge collection in which Gesner laid the foundation of bibliography; the Historia Animalium ( Zurich, 1551-8), through which he became the father of zoology; and his great work upon plants, which was not published until the eighteenth century, the Stirpium Historia ( Nuremberg, 1753-9). Gesner discovered, named, and described a large number of animals and plants; he was the first to recognise the significance of the reproductive organs of plants; he was the first to draw and print illustrations in his scientific texts. He too was the first to make carefully planned botanical journeys in the mountains, and to give literary expression to the grandeur and beauty of the Alpine world. A remarkable figure, ranking beside the universal spirit of Gesner, is that of the physician, Theophrastus Paracelsus (born in 1493 at Einsiedeln, died in 1541 at Salzburg). He wandered over Europe like a comet, was a revolutionary genius in the domain of medicine, applied chemistry to pharmaceutics, discovered important medicinal remedies (such as the use of mercury in the treatment of syphilis), and expounded in his writings a number of fruitful ideas, although these were concealed in the dress of his fantastical views of nature. An honourable place in the history of medicine is also occupied by Felix Platter ( 1536-1614) town physician and professor at Basel; he was one of the founders of pathological anatomy. Caspar Bauhin ( 1560-1624) professor at Basel, was celebrated both as anatomist and botanist; in the latter sphere of scientific activity he was the creator of the binary nomenclature which at a later date was erroneously attributed to Linnaeus.
Had it not been that at Wittenberg Luther, the Atlas of the Christian doctrine, at Zurich Zwingli, the unconquered advocate of the pure truth and its confessor at the cost of his own blood, at Basel Oecolampadius, a shining light in God's house, opened for us the living sources of Holy Writ, there would have been no place on earth where Christ could lay his head.
In the sixteenth century the Swiss theologians occupied a position comparable to that held in the eighteenth by the French Encyclopaedists. Zwingli, Bullinger, Calvin and Beza corresponded with the spiritual and temporal leaders of the Reformation in Germany, France, Great Britain, Hungary and Poland; with the landgrave of Hesse, the Elector Palatine, the prince de Condeé, King Anthony of Navarre and Queen Jeanne d'Albret, Christian II of Denmark, Edward VI and Elizabeth of England and Lady Jane Grey. Their writings were disseminated throughout the world in reprints or translations. Even the theologians of the second rank, such as Leo Judä, Bibliander, Gwalter, Pellicanus and Petrus Martyr in Zurich, Grynäus, Simon Sulzer and Borrhaus in Basel, and Viret in Lausanne, were men of European reputation. The Helvetic Confession, drawn up by Bullinger and printed in Zurich in 1566, was adopted by the Elector Palatine, by the Waldenses of Piedmont, by the Scottish Reformers, and by those of Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, Transylvania and Holland, being regarded as a summary of the commonly held doctrine of all the Reformed Churches, which all pastors had to accept upon oath.
Equally good was the repute of the Swiss high schools. In Basel the university, profoundly affected by the withdrawal of the Humanists, was now re-established; and its reputation continued to increase through the work of distinguished men of learning, until towards the end of the sixteenth century. The high school founded by Zwingli in Zurich, the Carolinum, was regularly attended by Frenchmen, Italians, Netherlanders, Germans, Bohemians, Poles and Russians. The Englishman, Thomas Coryat, wrote of it in 1611:
For though it be no Vniuersitie to yeeld degrees of Schoole to the students, yet it hath bred more singular learned writers (at the least in my poore opinion) than any one of the famousest Vniuersities of all Christendome, especially Diuines, and such as haue consecrated their name to posterity euen til the end of the world by their learned works. . . . Howbeit I doe not by this praise of Zurich derogate frome the learned men of mine owne country. For I am perswaded that our two famous Vniuersities of Oxford and Cambridge do yeeld as learned men as any in the world; but for the quantity (not the quality) of writing the Tigurines without doubt haue the superioritie of our English men.
The most celebrated of all was the Academy of Geneva. Here, besides great theologians, there were at work philologists and jurists of the first rank, who gave the place the highest renown. From all the countries of Europe where there were Protestants, from the courts of the princes and the castles of the nobles, young men greedy for learning flocked to Geneva. In an album which began in Geneva in the year 1581 giving the names of all the princes, counts and nobles who studied in the town, we find the arms and signatures of the counts and barons of Nassau, Salm, Sayn-Wittgenstein, Rutland, Ostrorog, Labischin, Zerotin, of Antony Bacon, the brother of the philosopher, of Robert Devereux son of the Lord Essex who was executed in 1601, etc. The Huguenot academies of Orthez, Orange, Saumur and Montauban, and the high school of Leyden, were all founded after the Genevese example; while the Scottish universities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen and St Andrews were reconstituted on similar lines.
The intellectual activity awakened in Switzerland by the Reformation was by no means wholly absorbed in theology. Classical and oriental philology was diligently cultivated as the necessary basis for the return to primitive Christianity. In Geneva the celebrated printers, Robert and Henri Estienne, were distinguished for their editions of the Greek classics, which covered almost the entire field of Greek literature, and became proverbial for their beauty and accuracy, while in their Thesaurus Linguae Graecae ( Geneva, 1572) they became the founders of Greek lexicography. Isaac Casaubon (born in 1559 at Geneva, died in 1614 in London), one of the greatest philologists of all time, taught in the Academy of Geneva until 1596, when he was summoned to France, and subsequently in 1608 to England. The brilliant Joseph Scaliger, the founder of the sciences of epigraphy, numismatics and chronology, taught for a time in Geneva.
In Basel there lived the versatile Sebastian Münster, first among Germans to publish the Bible in the original Hebrew, but still better known through his Cosmographia Universalis (1544), the first comparative treatise on man founded upon a geographical basis -- a work which speedily ran through twenty-four editions and was translated into most European tongues. Bibliander, the Zurich Orientalist, founded the study of Mohammedanism, publishing the Koran for the first time in 1543, after a severe contest with the Basel censorship. He had to secure the approval of Luther before the Basel Town Council gave permission for the printing of the Turkish Bible. Johann Buxtorf of Basel and his son were regarded as the first Orientalists of their time. The Lexicon Chaldaicum, Talmudicum, et Rabbinicum, the Concordantiae Bibliorum Hebraicorum and other works written by the father and published by the son, served in many respects to lay the foundations of Semitic philology.
In the transition from Humanism to the mighty development of the natural sciences, Conrad Gesner ( 1516-65) physician and professor at Zurich, was an intermediary. In many fields he was one of the most industrious scholars of the sixteenth century. In the endless series of his philological, medical and other scientific works, there may be mentioned as of leading importance the Bibliotheca Universalis ( Zurich, 1545-55), a huge collection in which Gesner laid the foundation of bibliography; the Historia Animalium ( Zurich, 1551-8), through which he became the father of zoology; and his great work upon plants, which was not published until the eighteenth century, the Stirpium Historia ( Nuremberg, 1753-9). Gesner discovered, named, and described a large number of animals and plants; he was the first to recognise the significance of the reproductive organs of plants; he was the first to draw and print illustrations in his scientific texts. He too was the first to make carefully planned botanical journeys in the mountains, and to give literary expression to the grandeur and beauty of the Alpine world. A remarkable figure, ranking beside the universal spirit of Gesner, is that of the physician, Theophrastus Paracelsus (born in 1493 at Einsiedeln, died in 1541 at Salzburg). He wandered over Europe like a comet, was a revolutionary genius in the domain of medicine, applied chemistry to pharmaceutics, discovered important medicinal remedies (such as the use of mercury in the treatment of syphilis), and expounded in his writings a number of fruitful ideas, although these were concealed in the dress of his fantastical views of nature. An honourable place in the history of medicine is also occupied by Felix Platter ( 1536-1614) town physician and professor at Basel; he was one of the founders of pathological anatomy. Caspar Bauhin ( 1560-1624) professor at Basel, was celebrated both as anatomist and botanist; in the latter sphere of scientific activity he was the creator of the binary nomenclature which at a later date was erroneously attributed to Linnaeus.
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The Balkan Mountains
The Balkan Mountains to the south are not the barrier that they appear on most maps, and low passes connect the north and south sides, the Shipka Pass (4,377 feet) being the most important. One of the branches of the Danube, the Isker, cuts through the Balkan range and provides a route to the capital, Sofia. The whole mountain system trends downward to the Black Sea. A depression due to a sharp down-faulting of the land lies along its southern base. It is marked by several hot springs where thermal bathing resorts have arisen. South of this depression lie the so-called anti-Balkans, a smaller, more southerly range, which in turn separates the depression from the Maritsa Valley. A little coal, small deposits of copper, lead, and zinc, abundant forests of oak and beech, facilities for waterpower, and abundance of wool from the sheep of the mountains all favor the development of small home industries. Even more important, however, is the character of the people. The Bulgarians, not only here, but elsewhere, have an industrious quality and a degree of intelligence which cause home handicrafts to be more widely developed than in most parts of eastern or southern Europe. In this respect they resemble the Swiss and the Bavarians.
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Richmond Apartments
Rihab Rotana Hotel
Rimal Rotana Suites Hotel
Ritz Carlton Hotel & Resort
Riviera Hotel
Rolla Residence
Rose Garden Hotel Apartment
Rose Rotana Suites
Royalton Hotel
Royal Ascot Hotel
Royal Falcon Hotel
Royal Home Hotel Apartment
Royal Mirage
The Residence & Spa Royal Mirage
The Arabian Court Royal Mirage
Royal Plaza Hotel Apartments
Rush Inn Hotel
Rydges Plaza Hotel
San Marco Hotel Deira
Sandras Inn Hotel
Savoy Suites Furnished Apartments
Savoy Crest Hotel Apartment
Savoy Park Hotel Apartments
Shangri-la Hotel
Sea Shell Inn Hotel
SeaView Hotel
Semiramis Hotel
Sheraton Dubai Creek Hotel
Sheraton Deira Hotel
Sheraton Jumeirah Beach Resort
Sofitel City Centre Hotel & Residence
Somerset Residence, Jadaf Dubai St. George Hotel
Sun and Sand Hotel
Syaj Hotel
Symphony Hotel Apartments
Taj Palace Hotel and Apartments
The Palm Hotel
The Emirates Tower Hotel
The Monarch
The Montgomerie Hotel
The Palace The Old Town
Traders Hotel
Towers Rotana Hotel
Tulip Inn Hotel
Vendome Plaza Hotel
Versailles Hotel
Villa Arabella
Villa Orchid
Villa Rotana Suites
Waterview Executive Apartments
W Hotel Festival City
York International Hotel
Zain International Hotel
Al Bustan Centre and Residence
Al Bustan Rotana Hotel
Al Maha Desert Resort
Al Jawhara Gardens Hotel
Al Jawhara Metro Hotel
Al Jawhara Hotel Apartment
Al Khaleej Palace Hotel
Al Khaleej Hotel
Al Khaleej Holiday Hotel
Al Khaleej Suites
Al Majara 2 Tower Two Bedroom Apt
Al Majara 3 Tower Two Bedroom Apt
Al Majara Apt Marina
Al Manzil Hotel
Al Mesk Tower 3 Bedroom Apt Marina
Al Murooj Rotana Hotel and Suites
Al Nadha Hotel Apartment
Al Raya Hotel Apartment
Al Sham Hotel
Al Shams Plaza Hotel Apartment
Al Sondos Suites by Le Meridien
All Seasons Hotel Apartments
Al Yaquob Tower
Ambassador Hotel
Amwaj Rotana Resort Jumeirah
Arabian Courtyard Hotel
Arabian Park Hotel
Arabian Dreams Hotel Apartments
Arabian Ranches Al Reem-III
Arabian Ranches Golf Club
Ascot Hotel
Astoria Hotel
Avari Hotel
Bab Al Sham Desert Resort & Spa
Bavaria Executive Suites
Belvedere Apartment Marina
Beith Al Bahar Villa
Broadway Hotel
BurJuman Rotana Suites
Burj Al Arab Hotel
Burj Dubai Lake Hotel
California Hotel
Capitol Hotel
Capitol Residence Apartments
Carlton Tower Hotel
Cascade Tower 2 Bedroom Furnished Apt
Chelsea Hotel
Chelsea Tower Hotel Apartment
City Seasons Hotel Apartment
City Seasons Hotel
City Star Hotel
Claridge Hotel
Comfort Inn Hotel
Coral Boutique Hotel Apartment
Coral Boutique Villas
Coral Deira Hotel
Coral Oriental
Corp Executive Hotel
Courtyard Marriott Hotel
Crowne Plaza Hotel
Crowne Plaza Hotel Festival City
Delmon Hotel
Dar Al Sondos Apartments
Deira Park Hotel
Deira Town Hotel
Desert Rose Hotel Apartment
Dhow Palace Hotel
Dolphin Hotel Apartments
Dream Palace Hotel
Dubai Concorde Hotel & Residence
Dubai International Airport Hotel
Dusit Dubai Hotel
Grand Hotel
International Hotel Apartment Marine Beach Resort & Spa
Nova Hotel
Palm Hotel
Rose Villa
Dulf Hotel
Elite Concepts Hotel Apartment
Embassy Suites Apartments
Emirates Marina Hotel & Residence
Eureka Hotel
Express By Holiday Inn
Fairmont Hotel
Flora Grand Hotel
Flora Park Hotel Apartments
Florida Hotel
Fortune Hotel
Four Points Hotels
Sheraton Dubai Four Points by Sheraton Downtown
Sheraton Dubai Four Points by Sheraton Sheikh Zayed Road
Four Seasons Hotel
Festival City Grand Hyatt Hotel
Grand MidWest Hotel Apartment
Grand Moov Dubai Hotel
Golden Sands Apartments
Golden Tulip Al Barsha
Grosvenor House Apartment
Gulf Desert Hotel
Gulf Pearl Hotel
Habtoor Grand Resort and Spa
Hatta Fort Hotel
Hallmark Hotel
Hawthorn Hotel Deira
Highland Hotel
Hilton Creek Hotel
Hilton Dubai Jumeirah Beach Hotel
Holiday Inn Down Town Hotel
Hotel Florida International
Hyde Park Hotel
Hyatt Regency Hotel
Ibn Battuta Hotel by Movenpick Hotel & Resort
Ibis World Trade Centre
Imperial Hotel Apartments
Imperial Suites Hotel
InterContinental Hotel Festival City
Jasmine Villa
Jebel Ali Hotel & Golf Resort
Jormand Hotel Apartment
Jormand Suites
Jumeirah Beach Club
Jumeirah Beach Hotel & Resort
Jumeirah Rotana Hotel
JW Marriott Hotel
Karama Hotel
Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates
Khalidia Hotel Apartments
Kirklees Hotel Apartment
K-Porte Inn
Land Mark Hotel Dubai
Land Mark Plaza Hotel
La Riviera Two Bedroom Apartment
Le Meridien Fairway Hotel
Le Meridien Baniyas Residence
Le Meridien Deira Residence
Le Meridien Mina Seyahi Beach Resort
Le Royal Meridien Beach Resort & Spa
Le Meridien Hotel
Liwa Plaza Hotel
London Crown Tower
London Crown One Hotel Apartment
London Crown Two Hotel Apartments
London Crown Three Hotel Apartments
Lords Hotel
Lotus Hotel
Lotus Boutique
Lotus Grand Hotel Apartment Deira
Madinat Jumeirah - Al Qasr Hotel
Madinat Jumeirah - Dar Al Masyaf Dubai
Madinat Jumeirah - Mina A' Salam
Majestic Hotel Tower
Marcopolo Hotel
Marina Terrace 1 Bedroom Furnished Apt
Marina Terrace V.I.P. 1 Bedroom Apt
Marriott Executive Apartments
Mayfair Hotel
Media Rotana Hotel
Metropolitan Deira Hotel
Metropolitan Hotel
Metropolitan Palace Hotel
Millennium Airport Hotel
Midriff 3 Bedroom Villa
MiNC Al Barsha Hotel Aparment
MiNC Waterfront Hotel Apartment
Montreal Hotel
Moon Valley Hotel Apartment
Moscow Hotel
Mount Royal Hotel
Mövenpick Hotel Bur
Mövenpick Hotel & Residence Deira
Mövenpick Hotel Jumeirah Beach
Mövenpick Resort Oceana Palm Jumeirah
Mövenpick Resort & Spa Palm Jumeirah
Nihal Hotel
Number One Tower Suites Hotel
Nuran Al Majara Residences
Marina Nuran Greens Residences
Novotel World Trade Centre Hotel
Oasis Beach Hotel Dubai Oasis Beach Tower
Oasis Court Hotel Apartments
Orchid Hotel
Pacific Hotel
Palm Beach Hotel
Palm Executive Villa
Panorama Hotel Bur
Panorama Hotel Deira
Park Hyatt
Princess Hotel
Pearl Residence
Penninsula Hotel
Phoenicia Hotel
Premiere Hotel Apartrments
President Hotel
Qamardeen Hotel
Queens Hotel
Radisson SAS Hotel, Deira Creek
Radisson SAS Dubai Media City
Raffles Hotel
Ramee International Hotel
Ramada Continental Hotel
Ramada Hotel
Ramee Guestline Hotel
Ramee Guestline Deira Hotel
Ramee Royal Hotel
Regal Plaza Hotel
Regent Beach Resort
Regent Palace Hotel
Renaissance Hotel
Richmond Apartments
Rihab Rotana Hotel
Rimal Rotana Suites Hotel
Ritz Carlton Hotel & Resort
Riviera Hotel
Rolla Residence
Rose Garden Hotel Apartment
Rose Rotana Suites
Royalton Hotel
Royal Ascot Hotel
Royal Falcon Hotel
Royal Home Hotel Apartment
Royal Mirage
The Residence & Spa Royal Mirage
The Arabian Court Royal Mirage
Royal Plaza Hotel Apartments
Rush Inn Hotel
Rydges Plaza Hotel
San Marco Hotel Deira
Sandras Inn Hotel
Savoy Suites Furnished Apartments
Savoy Crest Hotel Apartment
Savoy Park Hotel Apartments
Shangri-la Hotel
Sea Shell Inn Hotel
SeaView Hotel
Semiramis Hotel
Sheraton Dubai Creek Hotel
Sheraton Deira Hotel
Sheraton Jumeirah Beach Resort
Sofitel City Centre Hotel & Residence
Somerset Residence, Jadaf Dubai St. George Hotel
Sun and Sand Hotel
Syaj Hotel
Symphony Hotel Apartments
Taj Palace Hotel and Apartments
The Palm Hotel
The Emirates Tower Hotel
The Monarch
The Montgomerie Hotel
The Palace The Old Town
Traders Hotel
Towers Rotana Hotel
Tulip Inn Hotel
Vendome Plaza Hotel
Versailles Hotel
Villa Arabella
Villa Orchid
Villa Rotana Suites
Waterview Executive Apartments
W Hotel Festival City
York International Hotel
Zain International Hotel
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