On Something (Dodo Press) (16 page)

Bridges have always lived with fear in their hearts; and if you think
this is only true of old bridges (Individual), have you forgotten the Tay
Bridge with the train upon it? Or the bridge that they were building over
the St. Lawrence some little time ago, or the bridge across the Loire
where those peasants went to their death on a Sunday only a few months
since? Carefully consider these things and remember that the building and
the sustaining of a bridge is always a wonderful and therefore a perilous
thing.

No bridges more testify to the soul of man than the bridges that leap
in one arch from height to height over the gorge of a torrent. Many of
these are called the Devil's Bridges with good reason, for they suggest
art beyond man's power, and there are two to be crossed and wondered at,
one in Wales in the mountains, and another in Switzerland, also in the
mountains. There is a third in the mountains at the gate of the Sahara, of
the same sort, jumping from rock to rock. But it is not called the Devil's
Bridge. It is called with Semitic simplicity "El Kantara," and that is
the name the Arabs gave to the old bridges, to the lordly bridges of the
Romans, wherever they came across them, for the Arabs were as incapable
of making bridges as they were of doing anything else except singing love
songs and riding about on horses. "Alcantara" is a name all over Spain,
and it is in the heart of the capital of Portugal, and it is fixed in the
wilds of Estremadura. You get it outside Constantine also where the bridge
spans the gulf. Never did an Arab see bridges but he wondered.

Our people also, though they were not of the sort to stand with their
mouths open in front of bridges or anything else, felt the mystery of
these things. And they put chapels in the middle of them, as you may see
at Bale, and at Bradford-upon-Avon, and especially was there one upon old
London Bridge, which was dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket, and was very
large. And speaking of old London Bridge, every one in London should
revere bridges, for a great number of reasons.

In the first place London never would have been London but for London
Bridge.

In the second place, bridges enable the people of London to visit the
south of the river, which is full of pleasing and extraordinary sights,
and in which may be seen, visibly present to the eye, Democracy. If any
one doubts this let him take the voyage.

Then again, but for bridges Londoners could not see the river except
from the Embankment, which is an empty sort of place, or from the windows
of hotels. Bridges also permit railways from the south to enter London.
If this seems to you a commonplace, visit New York or for ever after hold
your peace.

All things have been degraded in our time and have also been multiplied,
which is perhaps a condition of degradation; and your simple thing, your
bridge, has suffered with the rest. Men have invented all manner of
bridges: tubular bridges, suspension bridges, cantilever bridges, swing
bridges, pontoon bridges, and the bridge called the Russian Bridge, which
is intolerable; but they have not been able to do with the bridge what
they have done with some other things: they have not been able to destroy
it; it is still a bridge, still perilous, and still a triumph. The bridge
still remains the thing which may go at any moment and yet the thing
which, when it remains, remains our oldest monument. There is a bridge
over the Euphrates—I forget whether it goes all the way across—which the
Romans built. And the oldest thing in the way of bridges in the town of
Paris, a thing three hundred years old, was the bridge that stood the late
floods best. The bridge will remain a symbol in spite of the engineers.

Look how differently men have treated bridges according to the passing
mood of civilization. Once they thought it reasonable to tax people who
crossed bridges. Now they think it unreasonable. Yet the one course was
as reasonable as the other. Once they built houses on bridges, clearly
perceiving that there was lack of room for houses, and that there was
a housing problem, and that the bridges gave a splendid chance. Now no
one dares to build a house upon a bridge, and the one proceeding is as
reasonable as the other.

The time has come to talk at random about bridges.

The ugliest bridge in the world runs from Lambeth to the Horseferry Road,
and takes the place of the old British trackway which here crossed the
Thames. About the middle of it, if you will grope in the mud, you may or
may not find the great Seal of England which James II there cast into
the flood. If it was fished up again, why then it is not there. The most
beautiful bridge in London is Waterloo Bridge; the most historic is London
Bridge; and far the most useful Westminster Bridge. The most famous bridge
in Italy to tourists is the old bridge at Florence, and the best known
from pictures the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. That with the best chance
of an eternal fame is the bridge which carries the road from Tizzano to
Serchia over the gully of the muddy Apennines, for upon the 18th of June,
1901, it was broken down in the middle of the night, and very nearly cost
the life of a man who could ill afford it. The place where a bridge is
most needed, and is not present, is the Ford of Fornovo. The place where
there is most bridge and where it is least needed is the railway bridge
at Venice. The bridge that trembles most is the Bridge of Piacenza. The
bridge that frightens you most is the Brooklyn Bridge, and the bridge that
frightens you least is the bridge in St. James's Park; for even if you
are terrified by water in every form, as are too many boastful men, you
must know, or can be told, that there is but a dampness of some inches in
the sheet below. The longest bridge for boring one is the railway bridge
across the Somme to St. Valery, whence Duke William started with a
horseshoe mouth and very glum upon his doubtful adventure to invade these
shores—but there was no bridge in his time. The shortest bridge is made
of a plank, in the village of Loudwater in the county of Bucks, not far
from those Chiltern Hundreds which men take in Parliament for the good of
their health as a man might take the waters. The most entertaining bridge
is the Tower Bridge, which lifts up and splits into two just as you are
beginning to cross it, as can be testified by a cloud of witnesses. The
broadest bridge is the Alexandre III Bridge in Paris, at least it looks
the broadest, while the narrowest bridge, without a shadow of doubt, is
the bridge that was built by ants in the moon; if the phrase startles you
remember it is only in a novel by Wells.

The first elliptical bridge was designed by a monk of Cortona, and the
first round one by Adam….

But one might go on indefinitely about bridges and I am heartily tired of
them. Let them cross and recross the streams of the world. I for my part
will stay upon my own side.

I have thought it of some value to contemporary history to preserve the
following document, which concerns the discovery and survey of an island
in the North Atlantic, which upon its discovery was annexed by the United
States in the first moments of their imperial expansion, and was given the
name of "Atlantis."

The island, which appears to have been formed by some convulsion of
nature, disappeared the year after its discovery, and the report drawn up
by the Commissioners is therefore very little known, and has of course
no importance in the field of practical finance and administration. But
it is a document of the highest and most curious interest as an example
of the ideas that guided the policy of the Great Republic at the moment
when the survey was undertaken; and English readers in particular will
be pleased to note the development and expansion of English methods and
of characteristic English points of view and institutions throughout the
whole document.

Any one who desires to consult the maps, etc., which I have been unable
to reproduce in this little volume, must refer to the Record Office at
Washington. My only purpose in reprinting these really fascinating pages
in such a volume as this is the hope that they may give pleasure to many
who would not have had the opportunity to consult them in the public
archives where they have hitherto been buried.

A. 2. E. 331 ff.

[Sidenote: Preamble.]

Your Honour's three Commissioners, Joshua Hogg, Abraham Bush and Jack
Bimber, being of sound mind, solvent, and in good corporeal health, all
citizens of more than five years' standing, and domiciled within the
boundaries, frontiers or terms of the Republic, do make oath and say, So
Help Them God:—

[Sidenote:
Arrival off Atlantis
.]

I. That on the 20th of the month of July, being at that time in or about
Latitude 45 N. and betwixt and between Longitude 51 W. and 51.10° W., so
near as could be made out, the captain of the steamboat "Glory of the
Morning Star" (chartered
for this occasion only
by the Government
of the Republic, without any damage, precedent or future lien whatsoever),
by name James Murphy, of Cork, Ireland, and domiciled within the aforesaid
terms, boundaries, etc., did in a loud voice at about 4.33 a.m., when it
was already light, cry out "That's Hur," or words to that effect. Your
three Commissioners being at that moment in the cabin, state-room or cuddy
in the forward part of the ship (see annexed plan), came up on deck and
were ordered or enjoined to go below by those having authority on the
"Glory of the Morning Star." Your three Commissioners desire individually
and collectively to call attention to the fact that this order was
obeyed, being given under the Maritime Acts of 1853, and desire also to
protest against the indignity offered in their persons to the majesty of
the Republic. (See Attorney-General's Plea, Folio 56, M.) At or about
6.30
a.m. of the same day, July 20th, your Commissioners were
called upon deck, and there was put at their disposal a beat manned by
four sailors, who did thereupon and with all due dispatch row them towards
the island, at that moment some two miles off the weather bow, that is
S.S.W. by S. of the "Glory of the Morning Star." They did then each
individually and all collectively land, disembark and set foot upon the
Island of Atlantis and take possession thereof in the name of Your Honour
and the Republic, displaying at the same time a small flag 19" x 6" in
token of the same, which flag was distinctly noted, seen, recorded and
witnessed by the undersigned, to which they put their hand and seal,
trusting in the guidance of Divine Providence.

[Sidenote:
Shape and Dimensions of the Island
]

II. Your Commissioners proceeded at once to a measurement of the aforesaid
island of Atlantis, which they discovered to be of a triangular or
three-cornered shape, in dimensions as follows: On the northern face from
Cape Providence (q.v.) to Cape Mercy (q.v.), one mile one furlong and a
bit. On the south-western face from Cape Mercy (q.v.) to Point Liberty
(q.v.), seven furlongs, two roods and a foot. On the south-eastern face,
which is the shortest face, from Point Liberty (q.v.) round again to Cape
Providence (q.v.), from which we started, something like half a mile, and
not worth measuring. These dimensions, lines, figures, measurements and
plans they do submit to the public office of Record as accurate and done
to the best of their ability by the undersigned: So Help Them God. (SEAL.)

[Sidenote:
Appearance and Structure of the Island
.]

III. It will be seen from the above that the island is in shape an
Isosceles triangle, as it were, pointing in a north-westerly direction
and having a short base turned to the south-east, contains some 170 acres
or half a square mile, and is situate in a temperate latitude suited to
the Anglo-Saxon Race. As to material or structure, it is composed of sand
(
see its specimens in glass phial
), the said sand being of a yellow
colour when dry and inclining to a brown colour where it may be wet by the
sea or by rain.

[Sidenote:
Springs and Rivers
.]

IV. There are no springs or rivers in the Island.

[Sidenote:
Hills and Mountains
.]

V. There are no mountains on the Island, but there is in the North a
slight hummock some fifteen feet in height. To this hummock we have
given (saving your Honour's Reverence) the name of "Mount Providence"
in commemoration of the manifold and evident graces of Providence in
permitting us to occupy and develop this new land in the furtherance of
true civilization and good government. The hill is at present too small
to make a feature in the landscape, but we have great hopes that it will
grow. (See
Younger
on "The Sand Dunes of Picardy," Vol. II, pp.
199-200.)

[Sidenote: Harbours.]

VI. The Island is difficult of approach as it slopes up gradually from the
sea bottom and the tides are slight. At high water there is no sounding
of more than three fathoms for about a mile and a half from shore; but at
a distance of two miles soundings of five and six fathoms are common, and
it would be feasible in fine weather for a vessel of moderate draught to
land her cargo, passengers, etc. in small boats. Moreover a harbour might
be built as in our Recommendations (q.v.). There is on the northern side
a bay (caused by indentation of the land) which we think suitable to the
purpose and which, in Your Honour's honour, we have called Buggins' Bay.