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As a result of these floods, the grassy banks that once distinguished the river are now but little more than a tradition, while the older terraces, which under normal circumstances would now be safe, are being cut away more and more each year.
The broad, quiet road, named after our late dear Queen, has nothing but these detached or semi-detached little cottages ornés, one-storeyed villas with a studio behind, or two-storeyed components of "terraces," for about a quarter of a mile; and just before the War, building speculators were wont to pace its pavements with a hungry gaze directed to left and right buying up in imagination all this wasted space, pulling down these pretty stucco nests, and building in their place castles of flats, high into the air.
The finest fruit in the world ripens there with a southern exposure. The patient toil of many generations has cut terraces in the cliff, so that the face of the rock reflects the rays of the sun, and the produce of hot climates may be grown out of doors in an artificially high temperature.
The grain for the hens, the price of the last load of the second crop of hay, the number of bales of straw stored in a magnificent circular granary, furnished him with matter for scolding for a whole day; and certain it is that, when one gazed from a distance at that lovely estate of Savigny, the chateau on the hillside, the river, like a mirror, flowing at its feet, the high terraces shaded by ivy, the supporting wall of the park following the majestic slope of the ground, one never would have suspected the proprietor's niggardliness and meanness of spirit.
"Shall we go still higher?" he soon asked as he fixed his eyes on the dizzy terraces two thousand feet above them. "In your presence I fear no height," was her confiding response. The trolley cars ascended no higher, so they proceeded to the interior elevators. But they were told that no visitors were allowed above that point that privilege being reserved alone for the inventors.
I should exceed the limits of this work, were I to attempt to give a full description of all the geographical circumstances attending these singular terraces, or to discuss the ingenious theories which have been severally proposed to account for them by Dr. Macculloch, Sir T. Lauder, and Messrs. Darwin, Agassiz, Milne, and Chambers.
On the German-inspired maps it was shown as a place, whereas, according to the Askari's description M'ganga was a fairly extensive table-land, precipitous on three sides, while on the fourth the ground descended in a series of slight terraces to a broad but shallow river, fordable at a dozen places, within a distance of a couple of miles.
Though, as we have seen, crocodiles have long ago left the Lower Nile, the river abounds in fish, and from the terraces of its banks one may constantly see fishermen throwing their hand-nets, while in the shallows and backwaters of the river, drag-nets are frequently employed. I recently watched the operation, which I will describe.
Not on them lies the blame. A wintry, watery sun was shining on the terraces as Lord Royallieu paced up and down the morning after the Grand Military; his step and limbs excessively enfeebled, but the carriage of his head and the flash of his dark hawk's eyes as proud and untamable as in his earliest years.
I may even live to see a child running about these silent terraces . . . But this, my dearest wish, outruns all present indications; and if Prosper ever marries again it will be as his father married, and not for love. By good fortune I am able to supply the reader with some later news of two members of the expedition, Mr. Fett and Mr. Badcock.
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