An opportunity, which has presented itself, of sending this letter safely to the Embassy, enables me to share my travels with you thus far.
I therefore close it for the present,—always with Scheherezade’s condition of beginning again to-morrow.
‘Sans adieu,’ therefore,
Your L——.
LETTER XIX.
Whitby, Sept. 25th.
Dear Julia,
I slept rather late after my yesterday’s fatigues, and did not leave Scarborough till two o’clock. The road to Whitby is very hilly, and the aspect of the country singular. As far as the eye can reach, neither tree, house, wall, nor hedge;—nothing but an endless sea of wavy hills, often of a strange regularity of form, like heaps of rubbish shot down, thickly overgrown with heather, which at a near view presents the most beautiful shades of purple and red, but at a distance sheds one uniform dingy brown over the whole landscape, promising a rich harvest to grouse-shooters. Nothing breaks the uniformity but a number of white spots moving slowly here and there—the down sheep, with their black faces and fine wool. About three miles from Whitby, as you descend from the hilly country, the scene gradually changes, and near the town becomes very romantic. Meanwhile English cleanliness and elegance sensibly diminish. Whitby is exactly like an old German town; without ‘trottoirs,’ equally dirty, and with as narrow streets.
Probably few strangers of any ‘apparence’ visit this miserable place; or whether they took me for somebody else I know not,—but so it was, that they besieged me like some strange animal, and did not let me depart without an escort of at least a hundred people, who crowded round me, very good-naturedly indeed, but rather too pressingly, and examined me from head to foot. I could not help thinking of a droll anecdote the Duke of Leeds told me. This nobleman was very affable with his tenants and people; one of them came up to him one day when he was riding, and told him he had a great favour to beg of him. The Duke asked him what it was. The man replied, after some hesitation, that he had a little boy who plagued him day and night to let him see the Duke, and that as His Grace was now close to his cottage, he would perhaps do him the great favour to let his son look at him. The Duke readily consented, and rode laughing to the cottage, where the delighted father ran in and fetched his child. The boy stood amazed, looking at the middle-aged gentleman of not very commanding exterior before him, of whose greatness and power he had heard so much; gazed at him a long time; then touched him; and suddenly asked, “Can you swim?” “No, my good boy,” said the Duke. “Can you fly?” “No, I can’t fly neither.” “Then I like father’s drake better, for he can do both.”
Whitby has a harbour shut in between very picturesque rocks, with a handsome granite pier stretching far into the sea, from which you have a fine view of the town. The ruins of the celebrated abbey, standing on an abrupt crag, are peculiarly beautiful. It was founded by a King of Northumberland in the sixth century, and is now the property of some private individual, who does nothing for the preservation of this sublime memorial of ancient greatness. His cattle feed among its mouldering walls, which are so choked with dirt and rubbish that I could hardly approach to see them. I alighted by the light of the young moon, and was enchanted by the romantic effect,—lofty columns, darting up into the air like the slender trunks of pines; long rows of windows in good preservation, and many finely executed ornaments about them, still as perfect as if the wind of the first autumn now played among their ample arches. Other parts were quite altered and decayed, and many a frightful face lay scattered about, grinning at me in the moonlight. Near the abbey is a very ancient church, which is still used, and is surrounded by hundreds of moss-grown gravestones.