(In the Gîzeh Museum)

Lady of liquid eyes and skin more fair
    Than that dear ‘favourite of the Sun,’ your lord,
    Who one time wooed you with a lover’s word,
And bound the daisy fillet in your hair;
You saw Seneferu’s pyramid, stair on stair,
    Rise snowy white, you heard with one accord
    The wail of ancient Egypt when they stored,
Within, his bones who made ‘the Good’ his care.

You little thought that from his mountainous tomb
    The King should cease, but you his prince’s wife,
        Unharmed for full five thousand years would rest,
From out the dark sand’s tutelary womb
        To bring the truth your faithful lips attest,
That Love’s great good is happy wedded life. 

  Close by the Mêdûm Pyramid, built by the last king of the third dynasty, Seneferu, whose name is said to mean ‘maker of the good,’ there was discovered in 1872, by Mariette Bey, what are probably the oldest portrait-statues in the world.  Visitors to the Gîzeh will remember well the life-like expression, calm dignity of their faces, their marvellously fresh colouring, and their glistening eyes.  These are the limestone statues of Ra Hotep, son of Seneferu, high priest of On, and commander of the king’s warriors, and his wife lady Nefert.  They are seated side by side, Ra Hotep (favourite of the sun-god Ra) is of darker complexion, and sits bare to the waist, holding a roll of papyrus in his left hand to show that he is a man of education.  Nefert, the beautiful, with fillet of riband starred with daisies in her hair, and with a banded necklet of pear-shaped jewels round her neck, is fairer of skin, and sits with folded hands, clad in a white garment close fitting above the breast.  The eyes of both of these statues have a peculiar lustre, owing to the fact that behind the crystal of which they are composed, is a thin plate of silver to give light and life to them.

(Idylls and Lyrics of the Nile, p. 45)

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The swifts were screaming high in sunny air as we turned our backs on Gloucester for Monmouth and Kymin Hill.  We passed through a land of orchards and rush-green corn to Ross, there changed trains, and soon found ourselves on the banks of the Wye en route for Symon’s Yat.  Wooded hills began to grow up on either side of us.  The cresséd isles of snow-white water-crowfoot gave us the impression of winter snow in summer flood. (p. 38)

Arrived at the station of May Hill, we crossed the bridge to take a photograph of the Kymin, with the bridge in the foreground, then recrossed it.  Haymakers were busy on one side of the road, and on the other side, beneath the shade of poplars, the sheep shearers were at work, not with the picturesque shears as we see them at clippings at the northern fellside farms, but with an unpicturesque and whizzing machine.  We turned to the left up the main road for Coalford and Gloucester, and in a couple of hundred yards began to ascend by a delightful hazel-bowered path which led to an open meadow, and thence turned steeply toward the Kymin Hill; a fine view was obtained from this meadow of the pink and white town, with its blue-grey roofs and single town spire beyond the gleaming Wye.  Thence to the right we made our way up a good cart road, passing one or two cottages covered with roses, whose gardens were gay with valerian and pansies, missed the near path up the hill by reason of an entire lack of guide-posts, and eventually leaving the main cart track went through another woodland path till we regained the cart road which turned sharply to the left beneath the shadow of fine beech trees.  We passed another house and eventually arrived at a gate through which we entered a wood, and again, more by luck than direction, found a path which led steeply up to the white tower on the top of the Kymin, which stands in nine acres of ground purchased by the National Trust in 1902 for the sum of £300. (pp. 38-39)

It was about three-quarters of an hour’s slow climb from the town, with endless variety of view, and the surprise of the open grass plateau which we gained, with its wind-blown Scotch firs and its comely sycamores, well rewarded us for the ascent.  From near the tower where dwells the custodian, though we were somewhat troubled by the fact that seedling sycamores and badly grown oak trees shut out the main view, we were able to obtain at a small opening a fine panorama (pp. 39-40)….

Tranquil as the panorama was, a note of war was sounded by the rose-pink newly-ploughed lands high upon the ridge of the Buck Holt hill.  But we forgot the sound of war in the singing of the garden warbler and willow wren.  Then we turned from the view and made our way to what looked like a summer-house, or walled enclosure, to the east, and there again the sound of “unhappy far-off things and battles long ago” asserted itself.  For this summer-house was in memory, as the inscription tells us, of the glorious deeds of the British navy more than one hundred years ago.  The inscription runs as follows 

“THIS NAVAL TEMPLE

WAS ERECTED AUG. I, 1800,

TO PERPETUATE THE NAMES OF THOSE
NOBLE ADMIRALS
WHO DISTINGUISHED THEMSELVES BY THEIR
GLORIOUS VICTORIES FOR ENGLAND
IN THE LAST AND PRESENT WARS
AND IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO
HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF BEAUFORT
DAUGHTER OF
ADMIRAL BOSCAWEN.”

The abominable habit of the scribblers who visit Kymin Hill have rendered the inscription almost illegible.  One would have thought that we, who owe so much to our navy, should at any rate have been shamed into abstention from such desecration, and the sooner the scribblers’ work is painted out the better.  The summer-house roof which runs right round is in sad disrepair, and the seats have by horse-play been partially destroyed—not to the disadvantage of certain cattle that were thereby enabled to shelter from the sun.  They, at least, were setting an example to humankind, for they were enjoying the cool and rest, and not doing indignities to their surroundings. (pp. 40-41)

(A Nation’s Heritage, pp. 38-45)

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“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (the necessities of life) shall be added unto you.”  This week—a dark week for England, with death on our shore and deadly strife at our pits’ mouths—one would wish ten thousand angel voices could sound this message in the ears of all the people.  For on the one side stand the coalowners with their quite legitimate demand of 17¾ per cent reduction of wage.  On the other hand is ranged the great army of starving colliers and hauliers, sullenly and slowly giving ground from a position of quite legitimate protest against the reduction to which they have been led by ignorance of the laws of supply and demand, and by leaders who, however much in earnest, are bad generals and tacticians, who do not appear to have counted the cost.  Whilst the fires of burning coal wagons serve but as watch-fires for our soldiers, who, in the name of the Queen, must, with aching hearts, demand with bullet and musket smoke that riot shall cease and law abide supreme.  And all the while, above the quarrel of the Federation and the sliding scale of the no-arbitration-at-any-price and the no-return-to-work-at-the-old-wage; above the degenerate ruffianism of the coalmen and the dogged determination of the coal masters, I see a fiery scroll written over of lamentation and woe—

            Mourning of hearts that must long be sore,
            And woe for the love that shall be no more.

And should not men’s hearts tremble when they find that the whole of our 19th century civilisation in England is checkmated, that civil war is at our gates, and our commerce throughout the land paralysed, over a question of 2s and 6d a week wage, more or less.  Friends, the worst is to tell.  This thoughtless rioting and mischievous lawlessness alienates sympathy with the poor and oppressed, of which they really stand in need.  And this banding together of men in great impersonal federations, or of masters into great impersonal caucuses for action, makes it impossible for love as a human personal thing to make its local and personal appeal to heart and to home.  Oh for a Moses to come among us and to strive to set the two contending forces of work and wage, of capital and labour, of master and men at one, crying, “Sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one to another?”….

But though we know Him not, yet there in the midst of the uproar, there at that sorrowful house-wreck, One is standing, and shows us His hands and His feet wounded afresh for our transgressions.  He the silent sufferer, and there He shall stand until this tyranny be overpast, a silent pleader for the right.  And that One, whom we know not, is the Christ, the Saviour of working men till the world’s work be done….

Yes, friends, if we could indeed begin to believe that there were better things than carrying on commerce at the price of blood, nobler things than trying to restrict output and forcing prices in the market, a more excellent way than refusing to acknowledge the law of supply and demand, and determining to sit idle till the mere animal in man must have its bone cast to it by exasperated hands, a more Christian course than an attitude of war to the knife between employers and employed, a time might come when England’s prospects of sunset for her commercial life and sundown for her civic and religious life would not seem to be so near the doors.  And that time in my humble judgment, can best come if masters and men begin to believe less in “the almighty dollar” and more in the Almighty Love, when master and men shall realise the brotherhood of labour and the brotherhood in the fruits of their toil….  When all from the greatest to least shall understand that the kingdom of God, which is within us and not outside of us, consisteth not in the making of fortunes, nor in 2s 6d more or less of weekly wage; not in eating or drinking, but in the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, brotherly sympathy, and self-sacrifice, in doing unto others, no matter of what class or condition, as they would be done by, and so fulfilling the law and the prophets; in the bearing of one another’s burdens for the good of the community, and so fulfilling the law of Christ; in living principles of honour and justice in all relations between man and man; in kindliness of heart and reasonableness of mind; in a word, in “seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” with a sure belief that all other things that make for order and peace, for health and prosperity and happiness and good shall be added thereunto.

(West Cumberland Times, 16 September 1893, p. 2)

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It is satisfactory to know that the most beautiful part of Borrowdale is now in the hands of the National Trust, and until that body is dissolved by Act of Parliament (for nothing else can dissolve it) it will remain safe for the enjoyment of the people, unharmed by the speculating builder and free from the restrictions which land preserved for sporting rights must necessarily involve. (p. 208)….

And how did this beauty spot of Borrowdale become a national possession?  The story is as follows:—Just before the Barrow Estate came unexpectedly into the market, the question of the right of free navigation on Derwentwater had been raised, and the National Trust, as riparian owners of Brandlehow, had been in communication with the Lords of the Manors on the subject.  It was seen to be a most important thing that this question of a right-of-way for boats on the lake should be settled once for all. (p. 229)  

As soon, therefore, as it was known that that part of the Barrow Estate which was in the market contained valuable water rights as being part of the freehold of Borrowdale held under the Great Deed, it was thought that great efforts should be made to secure it for the National Trust, and this the more because friends of the National Trust had already secured the adjacent woodland of Manesty, and it was seen that if this Barrow land with its picturesque bays and promontories at the southern end of the lake could be obtained, it would virtually give right of way to the public as far as the river on the east, and by arrangement with an adjacent landowner, a right of way from the shore to the Borrowdale road beyond the Manesty farm. (pp. 229-230)

At the same time it was seen that the Barrow Estate which was for sale contained Grange Fell, the Borrowdale birches, the Bowder Stone, and all the land east of the river between Grange Bridge and the Rosthwaite meadows.  The heart, in fact, of the most beautiful part of Borrowdale. (p. 230)

The matter was brought to the notice of the National Trust, but having just appealed for a very large sum of money to obtain Gowbarrow, it was impossible for them to ask for subscriptions for a new possession in the English Lake District.  The only possibility of obtaining it lay in the chance of some private individuals purchasing it and holding it for five years, with an option for the National Trust.  Two local gentlemen, members of the National Trust Council, knowing the importance of the purchase to the nation, and that it was the chance of a life-time to obtain it, determined to advance the money and give the National Trust this option. (pp. 230-231)

They therefore approached the vendors and asked if they would sell the south shore of the lake, and the adjacent rough ground and the land in Borrowdale, comprising the Grange Fell and the Bowder Stone, the latter being an estate of 310 acres of freehold, together with the Bowder Stone, the adjacent cottage, 46 shares in the Wheyfoot Quarry, and a mile of the foreshore and bank of the River Derwent. (p. 231)

The vendors were unable to meet them.  They said that they were willing to sell only on condition that an adjacent farm, of which this estate was part, the farm of Riggside, Grange, should also be purchased.  These gentlemen had neither any wish to become land-owners nor were they anxious to find the larger sum for this purchase.  But they had no option in the matter, and they therefore determined to effect the purchase of the whole estate.  The matter was eventually settled by telegram, and how near a thing it was may be seen from the fact that they learned afterwards that within half an hour of the purchase others were willing to make higher offers for the same properties. (p. 231)

The question then arose as to what should happen in case the National Trust failed to secure it at the end of five years.  It was decided by these gentlemen that the property must be divided.  It chanced that the rentals from the farm and the rentals from the fell in Borrowdale were almost equal; but an independent valuer was called in who fixed the prices of each property according to its rental, and these figures were laid before the National Trust. (p. 232)

Inasmuch as the purchasers had had to borrow money to effect the purchase, or to sell out stock at a reduction, the National Trust were willing to guarantee interest at four per cent. on the money expended for such part as they should purchase at these fixed prices, and the purchasers of the property were willing to agree that all rental received during the five years from those parts of the property purchased should be returned to the National Trust in order to enable them to pay this four per cent. (p. 232)

On these terms the National Trust eventually became purchasers of all they desired and all that suited their purpose, at a proportional price of the original purchase money; the farm itself to remain in the hands of one or other of the original purchasers. (p. 232)

It is interesting to note that, notwithstanding the bona-fides of the purchasers, rumour at once put it about that they had purchased a farm in Borrowdale at a comparatively small sum and sold all the worthless parts of it at an exorbitant sum to the National Trust.  It is not very encouraging to public endeavour, but the story is worth telling, if only, in spite of any such discouragement and disparagement, it will lead others who believe in the mission of the National Trust, when a beauty-spot falls into the market, to consult the National Trust as to whether, if a purchase is made, the Trust will at some future time make efforts to take it over, at the price paid, for the public good. (p. 233)

(By Fell and Dale at the English Lakes, pp. 208-233)

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