The Apple-Trees Are Just In Bloom,
Though There Are But Few Of Them To Be Seen, And The Blossoms Of The
Hawthorn Are Only Just Beginning To Open.
The foliage of some of the
trees, rich as it is, bears the appearance in some places of having felt
the late frosts, and certain kinds of trees are not yet in leaf.
Among the ornaments of Liverpool is the new park called Prince's Park,
which a wealthy individual, Mr. Robert Yates, has purchased and laid out
with a view of making it a place for private residences. It has a pretty
little lake, plantations of trees and shrubs which have just began to
strike root, pleasant nooks and hollows, eminences which command extensive
views, and the whole is traversed with roads which are never allowed to
proceed from place to place in a straight line. The trees are too newly
planted to allow me to call the place beautiful, but within a few years it
will be eminently so.
I have followed the usual practice of travellers in visiting the ancient
town of Chester, one of the old walled towns of England, distant about
fifteen miles from Liverpool - rambled through the long galleries open to
the street, above the ground-story of the houses, entered its crumbling
old churches of red freestone, one of which is the church of St. John, of
Norman architecture, with round arches and low massive pillars, and looked
at the grotesque old carvings representing events in Scripture history
which ornament some of the houses in Watergate-street. The walls are said
to have been erected as early as the time of William the Conqueror, and
here and there are towers rising above them. They are still kept in repair
and afford a walk from which you enjoy a prospect of the surrounding
country; but no ancient monument is allowed to stand in the way of modern
improvements as they are called, and I found workmen at one corner
tumbling down the stones and digging up the foundation to let in a
railway. The river Dee winds pleasantly at the foot of the city walls. I
was amused by an instance of the English fondness for hedges which I saw
here. In a large green field a hawthorn hedge was planted, all along the
city wall, as if merely for the purpose of hiding the hewn stone with a
screen of verdure.
Yesterday we took the railway for Manchester. The arrangements for railway
travelling in this country are much more perfect than with us. The cars of
the first class are fitted up in the most sumptuous manner, cushioned at
the back and sides, with a resting-place for your elbows, so that you sit
in what is equivalent to the most luxurious armchair. Some of the cars
intended for night travelling are so contrived that the seat can be turned
into a kind of bed. The arrangement of springs and other contrivances to
prevent shocks, and to secure an equable motion, are admirable and
perfectly effectual. In one hour we had passed over the thirty-one miles
which separate Manchester from Liverpool; shooting rapidly over Chat
Moss, a black blot in the green landscape, overgrown with heath, which, at
this season of the year, has an almost sooty hue, crossing bridge after
bridge of the most solid and elegant construction, and finally entered
Manchester by a viaduct, built on massive arches, at a level with the
roofs of the houses and churches. Huge chimneys surrounded us on every
side, towering above the house-tops and the viaduct, and vomiting smoke
like a hundred volcanoes. We descended and entered Market-street, broad
and well-built, and in one of the narrowest streets leading into it, we
were taken to our comfortable hotel.
At Manchester we walked through the different rooms of a large
calico-printing establishment. In one were strong-bodied men standing over
huge caldrons ranged along a furnace, preparing and stirring up the
colors; in another were the red-hot cylinders that singe the down from the
cloth before it is stamped; in another the machines that stamp the colors
and the heated rollers that dry the fabric after it is stamped. One of the
machines which we were shown applies three different colors by a single
operation. In another part of the establishment was the apparatus for
steaming the calicoes to fasten the colors; huge hollow iron wheels into
which and out of which the water was continually running and revolving in
another part to wash the superfluous dye from the stamped cloths; the
operation of drying and pressing them came next and in a large room, a
group of young women, noisy, drab-like, and dirty, were engaged in
measuring and folding them.
This morning we take the coach for the Peak of Derbyshire.
Letter XIX.
Edale in Derbyshire.
Derby, England, _June_ 3, 1845.
I have passed a few pleasant days in Derbyshire, the chronicle of which I
will give you.
On the morning of the 30th of May, we took places at Manchester in the
stage-coach for Chapel-en-le-Frith. We waited for some time before the
door of the Three Angels in Market-street, the finest street in
Manchester, broad and well-built, while the porters were busy in fastening
to the vehicle the huge loads of luggage with which the English commonly
travel. As I looked on the passers by, I was again struck with what I had
observed almost immediately on entering the town - the portly figures and
florid complexions of some, and the very diminutive stature and sallow
countenances of others. Among the crowds about the coach, was a ruddy
round-faced man in a box-coat and a huge woollen cravat, walking about and
occasionally giving a look at the porters, whom we took to be the
coachman, so well did his appearance agree with the description usually
given of that class. We were not mistaken, for in a short time we saw him
buttoning his coat, and deliberately disentangling the lash from the
handle of a long coach whip.
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