The Homeward-bound Passenger Ship.
Refulgent ’rose day’s harbinger,
And lit with joy the azure space;
The good ship glided gently o’er
The ocean’s undulating face:
And on she goes, she ploughs the deep
With seeming skilfulness and love;
Her inmates gather out from sleep,—
Some send their orisons above:
While others,—thoughtless of the hour,
When it is meet to bend the knee,—
Begarb themselves, display their pow’r,
And revel on, as yesterday.
The cabin deck-light pane is bright,
Which tells them ’tis a cheery morn;
(They do not dream—that ere ’tis night,
Not even one shall live to mourn! * * *)
Good Zephyrus[9] speeds the ship along,
She heeds it—lovingly she bows;
The sailors raise their bowline-song,
And smiles adorn their iron brows.
All’s well, and everything goes meet,
The fleecy clouds, in sport above,
Afford an ocean scene so sweet—
It tempers friendship into love.
The decks are wash’d, the breakfast-meal
Is past, the passengers look gay;
Some pace the quarter-deck, and feel
Desirous to prolong their stay.
A few are lounging o’er the poop,
To see the log-line, out or in;
While on the forecastle’s a group,
Perhaps discoursing on the scene.
Mid-ships—some little children, there,
Dight the clean deck in playful mood;
While mothers hail them to repair
Below, to take their mid-day food.
So “pleased as Punch” away they run;
On Bobby’s back his brother rides;
Dear little Susan loves the fun,
And laughs enough to split her sides.
’Tween-decks, are now in dinner-trim,
The frugal meal is well pursued;
And not a cloud had yet made dim
The deck-light pane, above them view’d.
Sol now hath reach’d his highest point,
The captain marks its altitude;
The beauteous orb’s full golden front
Gives to the seaman—latitude.
The chart is traced, the captain smiles;
The rippling wavelets fly apace;
And all is well; Time thus beguiles,
For joy appears in every face.
The cabin-passengers partake
Their sumptuous fare, unlimited;
Out flies the cork! they freely slake,
And thus their meal is finished.
Down yonder hatchway, in the shade,
The dice or cards are nimbly dealt;
While those who move them oft degrade
Themselves by adding sin to guilt.
Whilst farther aft, in best of hope,
A group[10] seem pompous o’er their gain;
They saffron liquid freely tope,
And whisk the bottles in the main.
The miser counts his money o’er,
Then locks again his little trunk:
The spendthrift, as the day before,
Flies to the bottle and gets drunk.
Here, there is one hums out a tune;
And there, another fain would sleep:
(They little think, ere morrow’s noon
All, all would have to plumb the deep.)
Young wives, with rosy faces, trip—
Sing tunefully as they go by—
Towards the galley of the ship,
To boil, to broil, to bake, or fry,
Some little dainty—eggs, or ham,
An omèlet, or such rarities
As tarts composed with currant-jam,
In readiness towards their teas.
(Oh! had they known it was the last
Their beaming eyes would ever see;
Oh, had they known this one repast,
Preceded their eternity!—
Oh! had they known what sighs and sobs,
What streams of tears would sadly flit,
What beating breasts, what aching throbs,
And how the sturdiest brow would knit—
They would have stagger’d on the deck!
They would have shudder’d at their fate!
Instead of tripping by so quick,
Intent upon the dish or plate.
Yea—e’en the pen that writes it down,
Doth falter at the dismal thought—
That ere the sun, which lovely shone,
Had ’rose again, the wreck was wrought!)
But whilst within the galley, lo!—
A rather sudden lurch ’tervenes,
A little spray hops o’er her prow,
And all is not so well, it seems.
Nay, more: a gloom pervades the deck;
The air is cool; the sky’s o’ercast;
The ship’s smooth course receives a check;
The sturdy seamen scale the mast.
The captain scans the ruffled zone,[11]
And heeds the wind’s increasing scope;
He knows full well, and reckons on
His seamanship, but God’s his hope.
An angry-looking cloud appears,
Extends, and fast obscures the sky;
The timid, nay, the stout heart fears
A storm’s approaching, that ’tis nigh.
The beautiful and sun-lit main,
Which greeted all at early morn,
Is dight with sullen clouds, and rain;
(Already is a jib-sail torn.)
The whistling wind seems full of woe—
The roy’l-top-gallant yard is broke;
The boatswain calls aloud, “Let go!”
And ere another word is spoke,
A sea hath struck hard on her port;[12]
The gale increases fearfully;
For safety now the crew resort,
And fasten down the main-hatchway.
The first dread peal of thunder rolls;
And loud, and louder shrieks the wind;
The captain, through his trumpet, calls—
“Make fast the spanker-boom, behind.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” is the pert reply,
As readily it is obey’d;
While some below prepare to die
On bended knee, with lifted head.
The sweating helmsmen try, in vain,
To guide her through the troubled sea;
And as she pitches in the main,
They labour on incessantly.
Stripp’d of her gayest canvas clothes
She seems undone, yet faileth not
(Though turbulently toss’d) like those
Who to their sleeping berths have got.
She willingly doth brave the storm:
But now the elements conspire,—
The lightning flits in hideous form,
And tints the ship with ghostly fire!
The thunders clap with horrid din,
The minute-guns their storm-cries send;
The fearful shrieking hurricane
Her foretop-gallant mast doth rend!
Sea after sea, leaps o’er her bows;
Sail after sail, are torn in shreds;—
The angry trough more angry grows,
And would-be sleepers fly their beds!
Confusion reigns above, below,—
And Jews and Gentiles fear the Lord,—
Yea, strong men seem as children now,
And strive to utter forth the word.[13]
The boats are lower’d in dreadful haste;
But ’tis too late,—for, one by one,
The merc’less ocean lays them waste;
And fruitless is the minute-gun.
At last the captain, in despair,
Exhorts the passengers t’attend
Unto his last few words of prayer,—
To meet their ’nevitable end!
In every feature death is seen,
In every gesture dire dismay,
For now the seas are stoving in
The starboard, gunwale, and gangway.
For hours the pumps in vain were mann’d,
As tenfold did the waters rise;
The pumpers frenzically scann’d * * *
And some, unnerv’d, betear’d their eyes.
(My muse doth falter to go on,
But on I must, so on I write,—
Though tears are all but trickling down,
As I bewail that mournful night.)
Then mothers, with their infants, cry
And pray, if ne’er before they pray’d;
And those that knew not how, now try:
But in an instant all is said!—
The ship hath rent herself in twain:
A hundred shrieks, and all is lost!
Now, now the furious raging main
Engulfs the overwhelmèd host.
And not a single craft at hand
To witness, or to render aid? * * *
(Read on, if thou canst understand
The dreadful havoc that was made.)
The day before, the sailors’ song
Rang merrily upon the ear;
Sweet infants to their mothers clung,
And fathers did their children cheer.
The night before, the mainmast-truck
Strain’d lovingly the courter’s eye;
Though lack’d it inland flowers to pluck,
The spangled stars flow’rèd the sky.
The good moon took her wonted tour
Along an almost cloudless sky;
Round roll’d the planets as of yore,
And all was pleasant to the eye.
Yes, all was pleasant to the eye
To see the myriad wavelets play,
Or frolic, as it were, so coy
Upon the moon’s expansive ray.
Ah! then she furrow’d the green sea,
And toss’d the phosphorescent spray,
As on she glided merrily
Along th’ unfathomable way.
Next (as the muse described before)—
Refulgent ’rose day’s harbinger;
A prosperous voyage seem’d in store
For passenger and mariner.
The Ocean donn’d its garb of green,
And every little wave that rose
Enhanc’d the beauty of the scene;
And here and there did birds repose.
They watch’d the vessel’s onward course;
The refuse crumbs to them were bliss:
Although its particles were coarse,—
They peck, and deem’d it not amiss,
(Oh! would that vessel ’d been a bird,
To ’ve flown beyond the gale’s dread scope,
And then to ’ve dropp’d again unheard,
Again sail’d on with former hope.)
They saw the ship, dismantled, sink,
And ’lighted on the floating wreck:—
Yea, on the whirlpool’s ghastly brink,
They mock’d the dying on the deck,
(Saw they, alone, the craft divide—
Save Him, in heaven, whose unknown way
Sets men’s poor handiworks aside,
And summons them t’eternity!)
And on the foaming billows lept
With bird-like similè of joy;
Thereon they swung, thereon they slept,
Until the next returning day.
Then, while the sun, swol’n round and red,
Was garnishing the lolling sea,
Uprose the albatross and fed,
(And fed, I ween, luxuriously,)—
Perch’d on a barrel, block, or spar,
An upset boat, a riven mast,
A rope, that shone afresh with tar,
Which yielded to th’ unerring blast.
Or on, methinks, a sailor’s trunk
(Ransack’d in haste for some lov’d thing),
The bottle which, perhaps, got drunk
Him who was last to laugh and sing,—
Unwilling to believe his soul
Would vanish with another breath,
Beyond the influence of the bowl,
Into th’ eternal gulf of death!
(O God, forbid that such an one
Should breathe his last in such a state!
Or ever an unholy son
Inebriately should meet death’s fate.)
Look, look ye down the plumbless deep,
See,[14] if ye can, their lifeless forms!—
Here laid, poor things! across a steep,
An infant in its mother’s arms;
There, it may be, a man and wife
(Embracing either now as when
They went to rest at night, in life),
Are resting in a turbid glen;
And here a damsel, once so fair,
A smile still lurking on her cheek,
But now across that cheek her hair
Is floating wildly in a creek;
There, laid a stripling, great in build,
A leathern girdle’s round his loins,
In which a pocket’s nearly fill’d
With sundry gold and silver coins.
Oh! could we see the ocean’s bed,
(Strewn o’er, no doubt, with mangled bones,
And where there are no bones, instead
Lie gems of rare and precious stones—
Jewels of value set in gold,
And gold engraved by skilful hands,
With marks of friendship on them told,
Near ’bliterated by the sands,)
Our sorrow would vent out in tears;
Nay, should we not, think, shun the sight,—
To see more than a thousand years
Of dismal relics prone to light? * * *
Now in the morn, when all was o’er,
And heaven reveal’d the glorious sun—
When the dire tempest roar’d no more,
And all those leaden clouds were gone—
It chanc’d the ocean’s limpid breast
Bore on and on a minor craft,
From head to foot garb’d in her best,
And meetly trimm’d afore and aft.
Observant did her seamen see
(What prov’d, indeed, too true a sign:)
A splinter’d wreck of the Dundee—
(Ah! once a “clipper” of the “line”)—
On which they read the name in full,
And grasp’d it as it hugg’d the side;
For then the zephyrs seem’d to lull
Expressly to obey the tide.
This cast a sudden gloom on board,
A sort of stupor seiz’d the crew;
They solv’d the mystery in a word—
She’s lost! Then farther on they view
The drifting particles of woe,
Strewn o’er the now peace-waving main.
Confirming what they sadly knew—
“That she would never sail again!”
[8] The Author had the gratification of receiving a present from the late Viscount Palmerston (January, 1864), in acknowledgment of a manuscript copy of this poem.
[9] The west wind.
[10] Perchance a party of lucky adventurers; such, for instance, as three or four fortunate diggers, who probably had worked as a company on some gold field in Australia, and were returning to their native country.
[11] A figurative expression, intended by the author to signify the horizon.
[12] Port-bow.
[13] Prayer.
[14] Imagine.
“Raven Rock.”[15]
A Word for my Native Place.—Should any of my readers ever be making a tour to the west of England, I venture to say they will be highly gratified with the grandeur of the prospect afforded them on “Raven Rock,” and other commanding points in that locality; and there are several high Tors, besides other places of attraction, in the neighbourhood of Ashburton, which will well repay the visitor.—E. E. Foot, London, 1867.
Some summer’s day, upon that rock—
A cliff, wherein the ravens flock,
List ye to the Dart,[16] below;
See the little rapids flow:—
From that proud stream no discords rise
No shipwrecks e’er bedim our eyes.
Oft have I[17] watch’d, thereon, its course,
(Astride the rock, as ’twere a horse,)
Singing o’er a favourite song,
Twice and thrice to make it long;
Then closed my ears against the stream,
And fancied that it was a dream.
But when I open’d them again,
I heard the same harmonious strain,—
Saw the river stickling forth—
Hurrying southward from the north,—
And almost wish’d myself a wave,
As peacefully going to my grave!
On yon domain, surnamed the “Chase,”
And from the bank five furlongs’ space,
Standing in a pleasant spot,
’Rises gentle Bouchier’s[18] cot,—
Directed, east, towards a vale;
And west, beshelter’d from the gale.
From this rude cluster,[19] miles away,
Hills, dells, and woodlands greet the eye;
None can prize it, as it should,
’Less upon the rock they’ve stood:
To the right a mountain tow’reth,
To the left a valley low’reth.
Ah! beauteous Dart, thou art a home—
In thee a myriad fishes roam;
Some, ensnared, are flung on high,
Others revel ’til they die;
And come what may, there is no sorrow,
And no preparing for to-morrow.
Behold a sea of lofty trees—
See how they gently heed the breeze—
Sturdy-branching, skyward oaks,
Fated for the woodman’s strokes,
For thousands then were doom’d to fall,—
The knight’s commands were “one and all.”[20]
Methinks I hear the axe, and saw,
Re-echoing through the wood below;
And the fell-man’s clam’ring tongue
Timing forth a welkin-song,
Whilst he obeys the knight’s decree,
And labours on right cheerfully.
Now, Time, the ablest workman there,
’ll lay the forest bleak and bare.—
Listen to the crackling sound,
As they topple to the ground;
And where, like antler’d deer asleep,
They calmly lie upon the steep:
But not like them—to rise again
To grace the hillock, vale, or plain,
Or bound the fence: for ever dead—
Lopp’d and chopp’d from foot to head
Their limbs lie scatter’d o’er the ground,
Until the barker trims them round.
Ah! never more will they o’ershade
The lovers’ footsteps in the glade;
No: nor foxes, hares, or birds,
Truant-playing flocks and herds,
Will evermore again be plighting—
Beneath their branches—love’s delighting.
Some hoary oaks, far down the glen,
Have many a time half barr’d the sun;
When the clarionet gave note,
Followed by the piping flute,
The cornet, trumpet, and trombone,
The curling horn, and blurt bassoon;
Whilst well-dress’d youths made virgin love,
And arm’d their sweethearts through the grove—
Stealing from their lips a kiss—
Paving paths to future bliss:
While old and young were there partaking
The blithe picnic’s merry-making.
Hush! listen:—fancy that you hear
The banging of the bottled beer;
Look, and see the sparkling glass,
’Round the festive circle pass:
And then behold their smiling faces,
As some for frolic make grimaces.
Conceive the scene—a “country dance,”—
A granddame with a stripling, glance,—
See them sweep the avenue,
She ’n her new-made bonny blue:
Contrive your mind to hear their laughter,
As two-and-two they follow after:
Presume you see them flitting through;
Return; cross hands with I, or you;
Then posetting pair and pair,
To the screaming fiddle’s air,
Now halting step unto its tuning,
And then again their flight resuming:
Observe that happy little fellow,—
(Whilst those yon donkeys loudly bellow,
’Mong the ferns close by the stream,)—
How he loves the bread-and-cream:
His mother ’spies his pretty glances,
As she, with him—her husband—dances.
I’ve been again upon that rock—
A cliff, whereon the ravens flock,
Listen’d to the Dart, below;
Seen the little rapids flow:
But I, alas! saw not those trees
Which made such music in the breeze.
The knight’s commands had laid them low;
Not one escaped the woodman’s blow:
And that pleasant spot is bare
(Save the coppice growing there),
Whereon so oft the violin
Had bade the merry dance begin.
Yet there remain’d a vast resource
Of holy-holly, bramble, gorse,
Stalwart elms, and tow’ring pine,
Chesnuts, and wild eglantine,
The maiden-ash, beech, whortle, larch,
Nut-blooming hazel, and low birch.
Full many a time I’ve heard the horn,
Along those devious pathways borne,
When Sir Henry[21] swept the vale,
Reynard flew before the gale:—
Alas! I know not why or how
Sir Henry doth not hunt there now.
Still (fancy leads my muse to dwell
On scenes I loved so truly well)
Hear I now the hurried notes
From o’er thirty chiming throats,
As when they bounded past those rocks,
A terror to the flying fox:
Close now my eyes, methinks I see
A hundred hunters there with me;
Horses, and their riders, standing
On some spot of choice commanding;
Whilst the fleet fox, awoke to day,
Stirs out to buckle for the fray.
I hear, as ’twere, the signal given;
Espy the creature madly driven,
Bounding off towards that Tor,[22]
Where, perchance, he’d been before,
And where the knave directs his nose,
In hopes again t’evade his foes.
Oh! tell me, tell me, Destiny—
Say, has the dark futurity
Aught so joyous yet in store
As those little rapids’ roar?—
Or e’en that lovely scenery
(Ere Bouchier sign’d that dread decree)
Which gladden’d oftentimes my soul?—
Or when I lifted friendship’s bowl,
With my comrades down the glen,
Ere and after we were men;
Whilst the shrill trumpet, or the drum,
Desired the wanderers to come
To join the merry roundelay—
To make the most of the blithe day—
While on high God’s sun was bright?—
(For after day must come the night).—
Ay! canst thou answer my request,
And give my longing temples rest? * * *
Alas! I fear, O Destiny,
The all unknown futurity
Never will again impart,
By that beauteous river Dart,
Or there upon those mossy rocks,
Where, where the cawing raven flocks,
To me (methinks) a hundredth share
Of pleasures I’ve partaken there:
When full many a lovers’ vow
Were made, perhaps, and broken now—
Made and cemented with a kiss,
Resulting in, or not in, bliss.
Thus: some unto the altar led,
Have had to mourn a husband dead:—
Husbands who so sprightly tript,
Equally in turn have wept;
And children of their parents ’reft,
Now orphans to the world are left!
But there are some, I hope, more blest
Than when they were the bidden guest:
Turning to those scenes with pride—
Where[23] he met his future bride;
Or where her lover first she saw,
When saffron flushes mark’d her brow.
Since then—great changes have been wrought,
And many a thoughtless stripling taught
How to praise, and who to praise,
How to pass his Sabbath days;
And many a maiden (mother now)
Have reverentially learnt to bow!
O Destiny, guide thou the hand,[24]
That once forsook his father-land,
Vainly seeking after wealth,
Instead of quietude and health,
And train his muse, that it may tell—
How sweet it is at home to dwell.
[15] “Raven Rock” is about 500 feet above, and near the banks of, the river Dart; is distant about two and a-half miles from Ashburton, Devonshire, and bounded on the north side by Aswell Woods, from which it is easily accessible.
[16] The Dart river, whose source is in the forest of Dartmoor, is most appropriately called the “English Rhine.” The scenery in the locality of “Raven Rock” is very beautiful.
[17] The author of the poem.
[18] Sir Bouchier Wrey, Bart., the lord of the manor; great in stature, and a most amiable gentleman.
[19] The rock.
[20] Thousands of rare oaks which embellished this beautiful locality, belonging to Sir Bouchier, were hewn down ‘some few years since’, to the great regret of the people of the neighbourhood.
[21] Sir Henry Seale, Bart., of Dartmouth, Devon.
[22] Buckland-beacon, a very high point, commanding an immense tract of magnificent scenery, and where there is a strong refuge for the hard-hunted animal.
[23] For instance.
[24] A slight reference to the author’s short sojourn in Australia, 1855-56.
“Lovers’ Leap.”[25]
’Tis said two lovers (and it may be true),
For lack of reason, or of grace,
Lept from this rugged precipice
Down to the peaceful main below,
Whose silvery waters ever flow
(I’m more than glad it was not I or you).
Think ye, O reader,—while they scann’d the gulf,
What feelings must have rack’d their brain!
And picture in your mind the swain,
As forth he wandered through the grove,
Endeavouring to persuade his love. * * *
The thought, alone, is dreadful to one’s self.
Dwell but a moment on the sorrowing scene:—
Her arms entwined around his neck—
His lips her orisons doth check—
And in this act they reel the clift;
Another moment life is rift! * * *
The ruffled waters are at peace again.
What could, methinks, have caused such dread of life:
Was it forbidden them to woo?—
And thus despairingly they grew,
Till, mutually agreed, they swept
The craggy brink, and overlept:
So, with the world, they finished all their strife.
Think of the sudden splashing of the stream,
Which for a thousand years had flown
Harmoniously careering on,
Save when the clouds could not restrain
Their burden from the moorland plain;
And see each wave-ring’s sun-reflected beam.
Now, as the waters ’gan again to smooth,
A thousand little bubbles leap
From up the bottom of the deep;
Say, what were these? Oh! globes of air—
The breathings of the dying pair—
All telling mournfully the solemn truth.
Enough, enough: turn to a calmer day.
Here, once, on issuing from the wood,
The gentle Albert[26] stay’d and view’d. * * *
The grandeur of the sight drew forth
A plaudit of most precious worth
(For never did he more pass by that way).
Turn’d ’round, he saw that midway pile,[27] wherein
In safety dwells the black-wing’d fowl,
While foxes ’neath them nightly prowl:
And then he turned around anew,
And bade the lovely spot adieu,
Expressing pleasure at the glorious scene.[28]
(But he, alas! was in the harvest field
Too soon;[29] but God, who gave, received:
Though it was hard for her who grieved—
And never did one grieve more keen
Than she, fair Albion’s widow’d Queen,—
Taught the most earthly treasure thus to yield.)
The sun shone forth, and graced with golden strokes
These time-carv’d crags, which intervenes
Those various blooming evergreens—
Dight here and there to garb the spot—
That arch full many a cooling grot,
Succeeding waterfalls, and purling brooks.
The Prince sped on towards the moorland height
(’Twixt ash, and fir, and oak, and pine,
Fair attributes of England’s “Rhine,”—
The silver-beech, and gorse, and fern,
Re-blooming every year in turn),
For Plymouth Sound must be regain’d ere night.
Through fragrant bow’rs, on, on the chariot hies;
Affrights, perchance, the timid hare;
Entraps the rabbit in the snare;
Sends high aloft the squirrel, too;
The pheasant, to its instinct true,
Spreads his fair sails, and to the azure flies.
“Ah!” some will say, “give me the open sea,
A ‘mackerel sky,’ a gentle breeze—
Much preferable to rocks and trees,
And birds that build therein their nests—
Give me the gull, that bravely breasts
The mountain-waves—these are the joys for me.
“Let me enjoy a ship’s transporting sway,
Replying to the faithful gale
Which constant swells her trim white sail.
I care not for the rock, the rill,
The rugged precipice, nor dell,
Which landsmen praise and call fine scenery!”
But when the storm converges fiercely round—
What say they when the ship is toss’d,
Strikes, breaks asunder, and is lost!—
Not one alive to tell the tale! * * *
Oh! think ye ’t better than the vale,
The ivied cluster, nook, or mossy mound? * * *
No! never, never be it sung or said—
“Sea scenes can ever match the land,”
Where, like to this, God’s works so grand
Majestically dight its face;
When Sol, empower’d afresh, with grace
Tips the lone cottage on the rough hill-side.
They’re happy out at sea: I’m happy here:—
High on the moor, let me inhale
The beauteous waftings of the gale,
Or hear the mounting lark’s blithe sound,
Reverb’rating the blue profound—
In the ethereal main, free from all care!
I long to roam about those woods, wild grown,
Where birds, at leisure, chirp so sweet,
And now and then like mortals meet,
Discussing instinctly their love,
And hatching little ones, which move,
Look up, are feather’d, wing’d, leap, and are flown.
Like as their parents—full of joy and glee—
Out on the sun-tipp’d hazel hedge,
Or black-berried thorn, or myrtle, sedge;
Or bounding o’er the fallow plain,
In search of some incumbent grain.
’Tis true their life-time’s short, but still ’tis free.
I love that precipice, of which my rhyme
Tries to depict unto the mind.
Go thither, thou’lt be sure to find
(Though I might fail to pen aright)
A picture pleasing to the sight;
And none, I ween, more fairer in our clime.
[25] “Lovers’ Leap,” which is situated in a very picturesque spot on the banks of the river Dart, is a perpendicular rugged precipice, immediately contiguous to a carriage-road. Its summit is about seventy feet above the river, and where, at the foot of the rock, the stilly waters flow: distance from Ashburton about three miles, and about half a mile from the foot of “Raven Rock,” which is seen on “Lovers’ Leap” with great advantage.
[26] The late lamented Prince Consort, accompanied by the late Colonel Phipps, and two other gentlemen in attendance on His Royal Highness, made a tour from Dartmouth, viâ Totnes, to Ashburton, and thence to Tavistock (en route for Plymouth by this circuit), proceeding by way of the river Dart, in the carriage-drive which passes over “Lovers’ Leap,” on the 20th of July, 1852; Her Majesty Queen Victoria proceeding, in the meanwhile, in her yacht to Plymouth.
[27] “Raven Rock”—aspect south from “Lovers’ Leap.”
[28] This is stated on the authority of Mr. G. Sparkes, of Ashburton, who had the honour of conducting His Royal Highness and suite through this part of the journey.
[29] Gathered to his fathers, December 14, 1861, in his forty-second year.
