The Tees is not a river of traditions and memories. It must have a marvellous history, indeed, but it is, for the most part, unknown. Up among the fells, where it rises, one is constantly in danger of falling into pits in which the Romans or the Britons worked for lead; there is scarcely a space of fifty yards by the present roadside which does not bear traces of former mining; from which one surmises that the very road over which one travels has existed from the time when Rome conquered Britain for the sake of the metals which it was supposed to contain. The Watling Street approached the Tees at Greta Bridge; the Leeming Lane went through the river at Pierce Bridge, to cross the Watling Street near Middleton Tyas, in Yorkshire. There are almost innumerable remains of Roman camps and British defences; but, nevertheless, there is no history to speak of. When Sir Walter Scott sought a story with which to connect the scenery of the Tees he went back no further than to the conflict between the Cavaliers and Roundheads. The records of this wide district have, in fact, perished; between the present population and that of the earlier centuries of the Christian era there is no relationship of blood and no inheritance of tradition. The solitary fragment of the Castle of the Fitzhughs is more like a satirical commentary on the past than its memorial.
The Balder joins the Tees at Cotherstone; it is a shady little river flowing through a deep ravine. The Tees itself is at this point exceedingly lovely, streaming in a fine curve from beneath overhanging woods, and winding past a quaint old mill, which nestles by the waterside under high banks that are crowned by a tall fringe of trees. There is, probably, no English river which journeys for so many miles through such beautiful and unbroken woods. From the slope which is occupied by the village of Cotherstone one may see the domes of the Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle, rising out of what appears to be a vast forest, interspersed here and there with patches of cultivated ground. No sparkle of water is anywhere visible in the whole wide landscape, but the course of the Tees may be traced by a wavy and depressed line in the woodland verdure; and one guesses how, over many a mile, the bright river is making a sunshine in the shady place.
“Romantic Deepdale” joins the Tees a little above Barnard Castle. It is such a tributary as Wordsworth speaks of, a
”——torrent white,
The fairest, softest, loveliest of them all!
And seldom ear hath listened to a tune
More lulling than the busy hum of noon,
Swollen by that voice whose murmur musical
Announces to the thirsty fields a boon