the whirring and thumping of the works in the mills and factories, and of the iron steeds, eating coals, and breathing fire and smoke like the dragons in our storybooks, racing about in every direction, dragging behind them carriages filled with people, and waggons loaded with wool, cotton, coal, and other things needed in the mills. We are now over one of the parts of England where coal can be dug out of the earth, and such parts of the country are always busy and noisy and black. We are quite breathless and deafened with the bustle, and ready to enjoy the quiet of the heathery Yorkshire moors which lie ahead of us. To the west of them lies the grand chain of hills that make the "backbone" of England, and further on, in the north-west, we can almost see ourselves in the bright, still lakes, set like blue eyes among the giant hills of Cumberland. The air is colder as we cross the hills into Scotland and pass over another busy district of works and mills, over hasty glance at the two wonderful bridges near beautiful Edinburgh. As Ireland is so near to this "narrow waist" of Scotland, the seagull party will fly over the few miles of sea that separate the north of Ireland from the west of Scotland. What a busy place we see with our bird's eye as we hover over Belfast! It reminds us of Glasgow on the Clyde, where we heard the clang of the hammers. They seem as loud here, for some of the largest ships in the world first glide into the water at Belfast. Look at the fine quays and docks, the tall chimneys and handsome streets. But we soon pass over the busy city, and find ourselves over grand rocks with the sea dashing against them, and forcing a way here and there into the land. Nearly all round the "other island," as Ireland is often called, we can see the chains of hills standing like rough, strong sentinels to guard the flatter land inside. What a contrast, as we look down from above, are the dark bogs and great lakes, green countless The land we live in is only a very tiny part of the whole earth, just as the earth is only a tiny part of the whole universe. These globes steamers mov-show us the whole earth, and at the top left-hand corner of the globe bright ing to and on the right we see our own country as hardly more than a little white meadows, and fro like bees speck. Yet no country has a greater power in the world than ours. low hills of about a hive. That loud hammering of metal is from the shipbuilding yards on the River Clyde. Soon all below us is still. Great solemn mountains seem to stand on guard, in their uniform of brown, yellow, and purple, from their covering of bracken and heather, with patches of dark woods and fluttering silver birches. See the gleams of light from the trickling streams, and the waterfalls that make music on their rough sides. What a number of lakes! The sea runs into the land from either side as if trying to meet in the middle! And now just a peep at the very north of Scotland, where the waves are beating and hissing and surging over the rocks no wonder that point below is called Cape Wrath! the centre, to the grand and jagged mountain wall which lies round about it! The damp air, brought by the soft west wind from the great ocean, sheds such a soft light on lake and field and mountain side that we feel we are in fairyland as we pass over Killarney and many another lovely spot, and we are quite glad that there is no large Black Country to spoil them as we have seen in England and Scotland. We start homewards from "Dublin's fair city," with a glance at its fine parks and houses and the busy crowds, and cross over to Wales, passing by the great port of Liverpool, to which so many Irish folk come to find the work they cannot get in the land in which they were born. Let us now enjoy the It is so cold that we are glad to turn beautiful, restful mountains of Wales; southwards, and on our way give a there are great masses of them THE LAND WE LIVE IN everywhere. We get peeps of shining lakes and waterfalls, and children playing on the seashore; and here and there we pass over busy districts where toilers get coal out of the earth, and slates and stones from the hillsides. THE LITTLE BOATS CARRY THE FISH INTO THE QUIET HARBOURS We pass another hive of shipping in the English Channel, and at last find ourselves over the sweet West Country. Everything moves slowly here. The people who live here never hurry. All is peaceful and placid. The dear, shaggy ponies on the high, breezy moors only hurry when you try to catch them. The pretty, brown-sailed fishing boats all around the coast move gently and slowly into the quiet harbours with their silvery loads. How blue is the sea, and how blue is the sky! How gay the shutters of the little stone houses, looking like toy houses from our height! How delicious it must be to bathe in those little coves among the brown rocks! But this is a long trip in the air, and we must not linger to look at those grey men-of-war in the Channel, nor at those whale-like torpedo boats near Portsmouth, nor even at the soldiers and sailors exercising on the common. We must sweep on over the round chalk downs, covered with springy grass and sweet wild thyme, all cheerful with the song of larks, till we find ourselves back on the Kentish sands, whence we started to get a first glimpse of our homeland. Sand modelling becomes more interesting than ever, for now we know where to throw up little hills, and make lakes and rivers out of green seaweed. THE WONDERFUL SIGHT DOWN LONDON'S BUSY RIVER But the holidays are over, and as we settle down happily in the home where once we had no thought for what lay beyond, we find that a new delight has been given to us. It is the power of being able to see over again with a sort of inside eye, which we call memory, the views we have had of wide valleys and busy towns, mountains, rivers, and lakes. But we want to see more of London than we have yet seen from the tops of trams, or from our birdseye view. Let us first find our way to the river, and listen to what old Father Thames can tell us. We will take a steamer, if they are running; if not, we can stand a while on London Bridge, or on the Tower Bridge, or on that delightful wharf in front of the Tower. It is always beautiful and wonderful there, whether the stiff breeze in your face brings a taste of the sea over which it has come, and the sunshine turns the muddy water into shining gold, or there is a misty fog, and the steamers and barges loom darkly through it as they twist and turn and hoot and shriek. How those three barges tied together seem to swagger along behind the fussy little tug! Time yourself, and see how long a list you can make in five minutes of what you can see of the cargoes in boats and barges fish, coals, oil in casks, stone for building, oranges, ice, and so on. But busy as it all is, it is busier still further down the river, and the ships are larger as we come to the docks, for here are the deep basins, with convenient wharves and quays for them to lie alongside, and give up what they have brought, or take in fresh cargoes to carry away. T THE ENDS OF THE EARTH TO LONDON HE SHIPS THAT BRING GOODS FROM Wherever you look you can see cranes swaying as they swing round to lift weights in and out; huge warehouses for storing goods; the trolleys, waggons, trains; hundreds of busy, shouting sailors, and men carrying loads and packing. What thousands of ships! What miles and miles of docks, and what stacks and stacks of boxes, sacks, casks, and bales! How it all sets us thinking! Where have they all come from? What is in them? Where are they all going? Think over what you use in your home every day, and what you see in the shops. Many of these things come through the Port of London. Now, large as London is, and much as its thousands of homes use of everything they can afford to buy, a great deal of all these cargoes before you is simply on its way to somewhere else. The docks are used as a sort of junction for goods-not passengers-to change at: and some of these goods are taken from one ship to another and packed off to other countries in ships, and some are sent to places all over the British Isles. ENGLAND THROUGH A BIRD'S EYE: WHAT IT WOULD LOOK LIKE If you hold these two pages flat, and fix your eyes closely on the picture, you will begin to realise IF WE COULD SEE IT ALL AT ONCE FROM A GREAT HEIGHT very clearly what England is like, and what it would look like if we could see it all at once, from a balloon But do not think that the Port of London is the only junction for goods in the British Isles. If your home is at Glasgow or Liverpool, or Belfast, or Hull or Bristol, you can go to great docks and watch many such scenes as these on the Thames. How W THE GOODS ARE CARRIED And now you want to know how the goods are sent over England, or to Scotland, Ireland, or Wales? You understand at once how steamers can take things by sea abroad or round our coasts; but do you know that barges can travel right across England, say, from London to Liverpool on an "inland voyage"? Where there is no natural river, or in cases where it is not wide or deep enough, canals have been dug out by the work of men's heads and hands. Sometimes the canals join two rivers. Perhaps you noticed the Regent's Canal, when you visited the Zoological Gardens, and realised that it is a slow way of travelling as you watched the poor, thin horse tug the barge along. But it costs less than to send goods by rail. If you look at a plan or map of London you will notice a sort of ring of great stations, the ends of the railway lines that branch out in every direction. Beyond the passenger part of the stations are the "sidings," where trucks are being emptied, or loaded with goods brought from other stations, or goods that have been made in London itself, or have been sent by vans from the docks; and the goods go to supply the homes and the factories in the districts through which the railway passes. THE GREAT SPIder's web OF RAILWAYS ALL OVER OUR LAND You want to know where the railways go to? Then get a railway map, and see how the Great Northern Railway runs to York, and then on, under another name, to Scotland; how the Midland and North-Western also run towards Scotland. Then trace the Great Western from Paddington, and the South-Western from Waterloo to Wales and the West Country. Finish with the shorter lines that run from London to the South Coast, and you will see that the position of the great city is like the centre of a spider's web, the railways being the threads stretched in all directions. Now, eager as you may be to travel on these lines of railways, to see more of the homeland, there is something you want to do first. The question you asked about the other side of the sea, when you first began to watch it, is still unanswered; the dreams that the flash of white cliffs across the waves brought to you as you played on the Kentish coast are still only dreams; the wonder that filled your mind, when you watched the busy ports, as to where the incoming ships come from, and the outgoing ships go to, is still unsatisfied. You want, in fact, to 'place" your homeland on that great round ball which is our world. 66 Perhaps you can get a model of it; the same shape, but thousands of times smaller than it really is. Take it in your hands. The real world is a ball so huge that it would take you three months of travel in steamer and train to go right round it. THE HE PLACE OF OUR LITTLE ISLAND Turn your globe round, noticing as you do so the blue colour that covers so much of its surface and shows the sea, and remember that there are three times more water than land in our world; the other colours in patches of varying shapes show where dry land rises. Do you think our British Isles take up a large proportion of this dry land ? You cannot find them, though you know their shape quite well, you say. There they are, under your little finger the islands you thought so large, as you passed from the Kentish coast to the wild seas of Cape Wrath, then to the rocky sentinels of Ireland that look for ever towards the setting sun, then by Wales and the West Country to the breezy South Downs. There is Australia on the globe, 25 times larger than the British Isles ; India, 11 times larger; Canada, 30 times larger than our homeland. You can find answers to some of your questions now. The white cliffs across the Channel are in France; the steamers come from any countries beyond the sea that have anything to send that we need, and go to those that need something we have to send. The next story of our land is on page 183. |