Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447

There are three of these fêtes every year—one in May, another in June, and a third in July. When the weather is fine, there is always a brilliant gathering of rank, and beauty, and fashion; but the June show is usually the best attended. English gardening is always well represented here. The plants and fruit brought for exhibition astonish even those who are best acquainted with what English gardeners can do. For several seasons past, it was thought that cultivation had reached its highest point; yet each succeeding year outvied the past, and report tells me, that the plants exhibited to-day are in advance of anything previously seen. They are sent here from widely distant parts of the country—many of them are brought one or two hundred miles; but most of the large collections are from gardens at a comparatively short distance from Chiswick. The principal prize is contended for by collections of thirty stove and greenhouse plants; and their large size will be apparent, when it is stated that one such collection makes eight or ten van-loads. There are never more than three or four competitors for this prize. Their productions are generally brought into the garden on the evening previous to the day of exhibition. At about daylight on the morning of the fête, the great bustle of preparation begins. Everything has to be arranged, and ready for the judges by ten o'clock a. m., at which hour all exhibitors, and others interested in the awards, are obliged to leave the gardens; and they are not readmitted until the gates are thrown open to those who may have tickets of admission, at two o'clock.

At last they are open. (How expectation clogs the wheels of time!) I join the throng; and in a few minutes I am among the flowers, which are arranged in long tents, on stages covered with green baize, as a background to set off in bold relief their beautiful forms and tints. There are three military bands stationed in different parts of the grounds, to keep up a succession of enlivening strains until six o'clock, the hour when the proceedings, so far as the public are concerned, are supposed to terminate. One of them is already 'discoursing most eloquent music.' Company rapidly arrives; well-dressed persons are strolling through the tents, sitting beneath the trees, or on the benches, listening to the music. The scene is a gay one. The richness and beauty of the masses of flower, rivalled only by the gay dresses and bright eyes of hundreds of fair admirers; the delicate green of the trees clothed with their young foliage, and the carpet-like lawns, all lit up by a bright May sun, and enlivened by the best music, combine to form a whole, the impression of which is not easily forgotten.

But I am forgetting the flowers. Suppose we enter the nearest tent, and note the more prominent objects on our way. Here is a somewhat miscellaneous assortment; geraniums are conspicuous. The plants are remarkably fine, averaging nearly a yard across, and presenting masses of flower in the highest perfection. One is conspicuous for the richness of its colouring; its name is magnet (Hoyle.) There is a collection of ferns, too; their graceful foliage, agitated by every breeze, adds much to the interest of this tent. Among the most remarkable are the maidenhair-ferns (adiantum), and a huge plant of the elk's horn fern, from New South Wales. It derives its name from the shape of its large fronds. Before us is a quantity of Chinese hydrangeas, remarkable in this case for the small size of the plants, and disproportionately large heads of pink blossoms. Cape pelargoniums, too, are well represented: they are curious plants, indigenous to the Cape of Good Hope; specimens of them are very often sent to this country, with boxes of bulbs, for which the Cape is famous. When they arrive, they look like pieces of deadwood; but when properly cared for, they rapidly make roots and branches, and produce their interesting flowers in abundance.

Passing to the next tent, we enter that part devoted to the fruit. A delicate aroma pervades the place. Directly before us is a large plant of the Chinese loquah, loaded with fruit. This is yellow, and about the size of a small plum. The plant is a great novelty; for although hardy enough to be grown out of doors in this country, it produces its fruit only in a hothouse. Associated with it are some large vines in pots, with a profusion of fine bunches of grapes. Then there are dishes of strawberries (British Queens), numerous pine-apples, cherries, peaches, bananas (grown in this country), melons, &c.; besides some very fine winter apples and pears, which have been admirably preserved. Of the former, the winter-queen, old green nonpareil, and golden harvey are conspicuous; of the latter, the warden and Uvedale's St Germain are fine.

The most attractive feature of these shows appears to be the orchideous or air-plants, as they are popularly known. A greater number of persons are always collected round them than in any other part of the tents; nor is this to be wondered at. Nothing can be more singular in appearance or gorgeous in colouring. Their fragrance, too, is so delightful. Description can convey but a faint idea of their great beauty and diversity of character. They seem to mimic the insect world in the shapes of their blossoms; nor are the resemblances distant. Every one has heard of the butterfly-plant: there is one on the stage now before us, and as the breeze gently waves its slender stalks, each tipped with a vegetable butterfly, it becomes almost difficult to imagine that we are not watching the movements of a real insect flitting among the plants. Here is a spike of Gongora maculata, bearing no faint resemblance to a quantity of brown insects with expanded wings collected round the stem. Close to it are some Brassias, mimicking with equal fidelity insects of a paler colour, besides hundreds of others equally curious and beautiful. Some bear their flowers in erect spikes, or loose heads; others have drooping racemes a yard in length, as some of the dendrobiums. More have a slender flower-stalk making a graceful curve, with the flowers placed on the uppermost side, as Pholænopsis amablis, which bears a profusion of white blossoms closely resembling large moths with expanded wings. Here are some remarkable plants we must not pass without noticing: they are equally attractive both by their beauty and associations. They are two plants of Stanhopea tigrina, exhibited by Her Majesty, and a fine specimen of Acincta Humboldtii, named in honour of the philosophic traveller. They are all worthy of the associations they call up; they grow in open baskets, and the flowers are produced from below, directly opposite the leaves. The ordinary law of flowering-plants is reversed in them.

We pass on: everywhere gorgeous masses of flower are before us. Huge plants of Indian azaleas, filling a space of several feet, literally covered with blossoms of every hue. Heaths from the Cape, far outrivalling their brethren in their native wilds; rhododendrons from the Himalaya; and cactuses from the plains of South America. In fact, here are collected examples of the flora of almost every known country of the globe. But we must not be carried away by these more showy plants to the exclusion of some very curious and interesting little things which I see we are in danger of forgetting. Here, carefully covered by a bell-glass, is a fine specimen of Dionæa muscipula, or Venus's fly-trap. Every reader of natural history is familiar with its economy; but one does not often get a sight of it. By the side of it are many other curious plants, covered with equal care. Anœctochillis argenteus, a little dwarf plant, with leaves which, both in their beautiful lustre and peculiar markings, resemble a green lizard, must serve for an example. Among other curiosities, is a small plant of one of the species of rhododendrons, recently introduced by Dr Hooker from the mountains of Sikkim Himalaya; close to it are some azaleas imported from the northern parts of the Celestial Empire. There are also some very rare and valuable specimens of hardy trees, from the mountains of Patagonia. They belong to the very extensive family of coniferous plants, and have been named respectively Fitz-Roya Patagonica and Saxe-Gothea conspicua. There is also a remarkably handsome creeper, Hexacentras mysorensis, having pendent racemes of large flowers in shape resembling the snap-dragon, and of a rich orange and chocolate colour.

To revert to the little Sikkim rhododendron, I shall give here the description of a still more diminutive specimen, met with by Dr Hooker during his journey, and which he has figured and described in his beautiful work, The Rhododendron of Sikkim-Himalaya. It is called R. nivale, or snow-rhododendron. 'The hard, woody branches of this curious little species, as thick as a goose-quill, struggle along the ground for a foot or two, presenting brown tufts of vegetation where not half-a-dozen other plants can exist. The branches are densely interwoven, very harsh and woody, wholly depressed; whence the shrub, spreading horizontally, and barely raised two inches above the soil, becomes eminently typical of the arid, stern climate it inhabits. The latest to bloom, and earliest to mature its seeds, by far the smallest in foliage, and proportionally largest in flower, most lepidote in vesture, humble in stature, rigid in texture, deformed in habit, yet the most odoriferous, it may be recognised, even in the herbarium, as the production of the loftiest elevation on the surface of the globe—of the most excessive climate—of the joint influences of a scorching sun by day, and the keenest frost by night—of the greatest drought, followed in a few hours by a saturated atmosphere—of the balmiest calm, alternating with the whirlwind of the Alps. For eight months of the year, it is buried under many feet of snow; for the remaining four, it is frequently snowed on and sunned in the same hour. During genial weather, when the sun heats the soil to 150 degrees, its perfumed foliage scents the air; whilst to snow-storm and frost it is insensible: blooming through all; expanding its little purple flowers to the day, and only closing them to wither after fertilisation has taken place. As the life of a moth may be indefinitely prolonged whilst its duties are unfulfilled, so the flower of this little mountaineer will remain open through days of fog and sleet, till a mild day facilitates the detachment of the pollen and the fecundation of the ovarium. This process is almost wholly the effect of winds; for though humblebees, and the "Blues" and "Fritillaries" (Polyommatus and Argynnis) amongst butterflies, do exist at this prodigious elevation, they are too few in number to influence the operations of vegetable life.' To this Dr Hooker adds: 'This singular little plant attains a loftier elevation, I believe, than any other shrub in the world.'

But here is a plant, or rather flower, more curious than any we have seen. The corolla is on a long stalk, a foot or more high; but how to describe it is the difficulty. Imagine a bat with expanded wings, with the addition of a tail, spread out before you, having on its breast a rosette of narrow ribbon, of the same dusky colour, and you will gain some idea of its form and colour. Its botanical name is Attacia cristata.

Here is the rose-tent. In no previous season have the plants appeared in finer condition. A few years ago, nobody could grow roses fit to be seen in pots; many said it was impossible to do so: now, one can scarcely imagine anything finer than they are seen at the metropolitan flower-shows. Both in healthy appearance, and in fineness of flower, they exceed those which we admire so much in the open garden in summer. One or two are conspicuous, though all are beautiful. Souvenirs d'un ami has pale flesh-coloured flowers, exceedingly delicate; nor is the perfume they emit less attractive. Niphetus, pure white; Adam, very pale; and Géant des Batailles, of the richest crimson, are among the most attractive; but there are numerous others, rivalling them in beauty and fragrance.

As the afternoon wears away, the more fashionable visitors depart. At six o'clock, the several bands of music form one, the National Anthem is played, and the fête is over.

GOLD-SEEKING AT HOME

The Lomond Hills, in the shires of Fife and Kinross, were known in ancient times as the hunting-grounds of the kings of Scotland, when these monarchs resided in their summer-palace at Falkland, a village on their north-eastern declivity. At a period intermediate between these and the present times, they were the haunt of the persecuted Covenanters, and often resounded with the voice of psalms raised at conventicles. Since then, their solitude and silence have seldom been disturbed, save by the bark of the shepherd's dog, or the echoes caused by the blasting of rocks in the limestone quarries which run along their southern and western ridges. But during the month of May last, this solitude and silence were completely destroyed, by thousands of persons plying every kind of instrument upon them, from the ponderous crowbar and pickaxe, to the easily-wielded trowel and hammer, in search of gold, which they believed to be hidden in their recesses. The information on which they acted seemed to them to come from an authentic source, and to be confirmed by competent authority.

On the southern base of the hills, overlooking the far-famed Lochleven, lies the village of Kinnesswood, noted as the birthplace of the poet Michael Bruce. A native of this village entered the army, and there learned manners at war with good morals, which, after his discharge, brought upon him the vengeance of the law, and he was banished 'beyond seas.' His subsequent good-conduct, however, procured him 'a ticket-of-leave,' and he became servant to the commissariat for the convicts in Van Diemen's Land. In this capacity he had frequent opportunities of seeing the substance brought from the Bathurst 'diggings,' containing the gold which is now arriving in this country in such large quantities. It at once struck him that he had seen abundance of the same material in his native hills, when visiting the quarries in which several of his friends and acquaintances earned their livelihood. This impression he conveyed in a letter to his mother, who, as a matter of course, afforded the information to all to whom she had an opportunity of communicating it. The intelligence spread with the rapidity of an electric telegraph; and an excitement was produced such as is seen among bees when their hive has received a sudden shock. The mountain pathways became immediately alive with human beings, and noises arose like the hum of a city heard at a distance during the busiest hours of the day. In the villages immediately adjoining the place of resort, the excitement was wholly confined to youngsters and idlers, who are ever ready to seize upon novelty and enter upon bustle; but further off, it extended to old and young, hale and infirm, asthmatic and long-winded, grave and gay, taught and untaught, respectable and disreputable, industrious and idle, till it reached a compass of twenty miles at least, extending not only to the Forth and Tay, but stretching inland from their opposite shores. In short, men who had never climbed a mountain all their lives before, though living in close proximity to one, were seen on its loftiest peaks, and toiling there with all the ardour of Cyclops.

Meanwhile, some of the less impulsive minds in the district, not altogether untouched by the prevailing mania, began to cast about for warrants to justify their appropriation of some of this much-coveted material, and assure their confidence that it was really gold. Memory, research, tradition, testimony, all came to their help. They recollected how their fathers had told them that the Laird of Lathrisk had wrought a lead-mine on the northern declivity of the East Law, which yielded also a considerable proportion of silver, and which was abandoned only because of the high tax government had put upon the latter metal. Then came the ready query: That since there is silver in these hills, why not also gold, seeing they frequently go together? Then it was found that the mineral formations in which this metal occurs are the crystalline primitive rocks; and with these the Lomond Hills were held to correspond. Then it had been told them, that in days of yore shepherds had found pieces of gold while tending their flocks on the hills, and that gold had been frequently met with in the whole district of country between the Forth and the Tay. Last of all came the testimony of a man who had returned to the neighbourhood from California, and who assured them, that the substance they submitted to his inspection was in all respects similar to that which was dug out of the hills in the gold regions of America. Singularly enough, though they did not reflect upon the facts, this man had returned home as poor as he had departed, and manifested no desire to accompany them to the new El Dorado at their doors. Other persons were meanwhile pushing inquiries in a more certain direction, and subjecting the supposed precious treasure to infallible tests.

The chief centre of attraction is a partially-wrought limestone quarry, known by the name of the Sheethiehead, right above the village of Kinnesswood, and about a gunshot back from the brow of the Bishop Hill. It is surrounded on all sides by immense heaps of débris, which has been repeatedly dug into during the last thirty years by geologising students, in search of fossils connected with the carboniferous system, and who must have frequently met with the substance which has caused all this excitement, but never imagined it to be gold. The face of the quarry, to the depth of twenty feet from the top, is an accumulation of shale or slate, lying in regular layers, and easily broken. It has been turned to good account of late in the manufacture of slate-pencils of superior quality. Among this shaly accumulation, there are frequent layers of a soft, wet clay or ochre; and it is in this that the brilliants which have dazzled the imagination of so many are chiefly found, and which, accordingly, are frequently thrown out among the débris, of which it comes to form a part. In this quarry, then, and in the heaps around it, hundreds are earnestly busy in laying bare what is beneath; while scores of men, women, and children are silently and earnestly looking on. One has just brought out a ball of stone, or something like stone, about the size of a man's hand, known among the quarrymen as 'a fairy ball;' it is composed of a hard crust, like rusted iron, which, on being broken, is found to contain a yellow shining metal of various shapes and sizes—grains, octohedrons, cubes, and their allied forms, as is the case with gold; and what else can it be but the precious metal, thinks the finder, as he places it in his receptacle, and applies himself anew to his vocation. In a little while he stumbles on another of these balls, as big as a man's hat, which he breaks, and opens with increasing eagerness; when, lo! it is as empty as a 'deaf nut'—the water which percolated through the shale having rusted the iron that goes to form the crust along with the ochre, but failed, as in the previous case, to form crystals in the interior. A third, fourth, and fifth are found to be as hollow as the last, and the 'digger' begins to look a little crestfallen, and abate his eagerness.

But here is an Irishman, who has been vastly more lucky, dancing a jig, with a footless stocking near him, tied at each end, packed as full as it can hold of 'the fine stuff,' as he calls it, while with wonderful agility he flourishes a heavy pickaxe and spade over his head, and screams at the highest pitch of his voice: 'Sure, now, and isn't my fortune made!' By and by, getting at once hoarse and tired, he desists from his exertions, and entreats a boy near him 'to go into the bog beyont there, and get him some poteen, which he is sure is making in the stills among the turf;' offering him at the same time a lump of his 'treasure' as payment for his trouble.

Here is a tall, grave, shrewd-looking man, very like an elder of the kirk, throwing away part of his accumulation, but somewhat stealthily retaining a portion in the large cotton handkerchief in which he had placed it, while a respectable-looking woman is saying to him: 'John, the minister says, it's no gold, but only brimstone.' To which he answers, with an audible sigh: 'Well hath the wise man said, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.' Here is a strong-built but lumpish-looking fellow, seemingly a ploughman or day-labourer, leaving the scene of action in evident disgust, who, on being asked if he had been successful, answers roughly: 'No!' and adds: 'I'll sell you this pick for a glass of ale or a dram of whisky.' Here are angry words passing between a middle-aged man and a youth, respecting the right of possession, the former having driven the latter away from a promising-looking place on which he was employed, and commenced operations upon it himself.

It is Saturday; and the mills on the river Leven are stopped at noon, to allow the water in the lake from which it flows to accumulate its supplies for the following week's operations. Freed thus from labour, the spinners hasten to the scene of attraction, and largely swell the crowd already assembled there. The men begin the search with eagerness, while the women content themselves with looking on; but it is evident that they are unaccustomed to the use of the instruments they have assumed, and that long practice will be necessary before they can turn them to much account. Here are bands of colliers able to wield them to purpose, yet how unwilling they appear to be to put forth their strength. They came in the expectation of getting gold for the lifting, which is nowhere the case; and are evidently disappointed in finding that both effort and perseverance are necessary. Indeed, it surprised us to see so little disposition to make and maintain exertion on the part of those who fancied that certain riches would be the result. Notwithstanding the numerous traces of picking, hammering, and shovelling they have left behind them, there is not an excavation a foot deep; while over a crevice in the rock, three inches square, 'a digger' has left the words, scratched with a piece of slate: 'There is no gold here,' as if he had done all that was necessary to prove it. Even in the loose débris around the quarry—with which the substance referred to abounds—there is no trace of a digging wider or deeper than a man's hat. We have seen a student make greater and longer-continued exertion to get a fossil shell, and a terrier dog to get a rat or a rabbit, than any of the gold-seekers have. Burns the poet, in his lament, entitled Man was made to Mourn, complains, with more pathos and sentiment than truth and justice, that the landlords will not 'give him leave to toil.' That is not the leave most men desire, but the leave to be idle. If gold were to be got for the lifting, and bread were as easily procured as water, man would not be disposed to take healthful exercise, much less labour or toil.

We shall not describe the scene as it developed itself on Sunday. It was at total variance with the reputation Scotchmen have acquired for the observance of that day, but in perfect keeping with the notoriety they have gained for their love of strong drink. Monday was the fifteenth day of the gold-fever; and, like most other fevers, it was then at its height. Parties had been on the hill soon after the previous midnight awaiting the dawn, resolved to be the first at the diggings that morning, and 'have their fortunes made before others arrived.' But the lark had not got many yards high in his heavenward ascent, and only struck the first note of his morning-carol, when the mountain concaves sent back echoes of music from a whole band of men, marching at the head of a still greater number, who might have been taken for a regiment of sappers and miners. They have come from a distance; and, like the others who have preceded them, can have known little or nothing of 'balmy sleep, kind nature's sweet restorer,' unless they have taken it at church the preceding day, or in their beds, when they should have been there. The morning has grown apace, and shews the mountain-sides and table-land teeming with life. 'The cry is still, they come;' and long before mid-day, it is calculated that there are at least 1200 persons on the hill—many of them spectators of the scene, but most of them actors in it.