Chatterbox, 1906 Part 96

And so Jack found her when he came home. The stillness of the whole place showed him the children must be absent, and a vague alarm seized upon him. His fears for Estelle were easily roused. Yet fear or danger seemed very far from that bright, cheerful kitchen. Putting down the armful of things he was carrying, he gazed tenderly at his mother as he warmed his fingers over the genial flames. He could not bear to awaken her, and surely it was not necessary. She would never be sleeping so peacefully unless their little girl were safe. Yet something tugged at his heart, making him stir uneasily. The movement, slight though it was, awoke his mother. She opened her eyes, gazed at him a few moments sleepily, and sat up with a laughing remark about her own laziness.

'Where's Missy?' asked Jack, as soon as he had answered all her questions about his fishing and the luck he had had.

'They were playing on the beach,' she said, putting her cap straight before taking up her knitting. 'M. Julien came to join her in watching for your return. Did you not see them on your way up? If they are not there, they must be in the caves,' she added hastily, seeing her son's face change, and instantly becoming a prey to all sorts of fears. 'They _must_ be there if they are not on the beach,' she repeated, turning pale.

Jack only stared at her, his eyes wild, unable to believe the extent of his mother's trust in so young a boy as Julien Matou. Recovering himself quickly he rushed off without a word to his own room, and presently reappeared with a long rope in his hand.

'What do you think has happened?' cried Mrs. Wright, rising quickly from her chair in her fright at his face and manner.

'The tide!' exclaimed Jack, seizing a pair of grappling irons he had laid upon the bench a few minutes before. 'If they are in the caves there is but one way of saving them--the Treasure Cave. Pray that I may be in time!'

He was gone almost before he had ceased speaking, his light step and long limbs carrying him swiftly down the sandy path, and round the corner of the spur of cliff. The tide had already reached the gorge. It must be well into the caverns then. With firm feet he scrambled along the rocks wherever they could help him, or took to the water when he thought the waves would serve him better. As he drew nearer, he found there was still time to gain the entrance to the outer cave before it was submerged. With the tide in his favour, he managed this with ease.

His chief troubles would be with the strong under-tow and numerous currents among the rocks.

Half swimming, half clambering, he made his way to the Cave of the Silver Sand. Here the daylight was in his favour, but the whirl of waters was dangerous and strong. Anybody who did not know the rocks as well as Jack must have been sucked under to his destruction. Clinging to the rocks, he made his way towards the Rift. Awaiting his chance, he swam through this on the crest of a wave, and beheld the feeble light of one remaining candle glimmering in front of him.

With anxious eyes he surveyed the darkness around, and then the objects moving within the radius of that faint spark. Steadying himself against the rocks, he was about to plunge again into the water, in order to reach that point of light, when a heavy body was thrown against him.

Instinctively he grasped it, the surge of the water and the weight of the inanimate form making him almost lose his hold. A few moments more and his burden would have been sucked into the Rift, where his fate would have been sealed indeed. It did not take Jack long to discover it was Julien he held in his arms: Julien senseless, cold, drowning!

Then who was the second figure in that faint circle of light? One must be Estelle. But the other? Jack's heart filled with painful anxiety.

Could it be Thomas? If so, what was he doing there? It was exasperating that Julien should require his services just when it was vitally urgent that he should save Estelle. His duty was clear, however. The boy must be placed in a position of safety before he could feel free to attend to the needs of the little girl, whose sole protector he was.

Happily, Estelle had not yet seen the sailor. The rapid rising of the tide, the urgent appeals of Thomas, and the agony of her distress about her playmate, had made her nearly frantic. It was with much difficulty that the ex-gardener managed to pull her up a little higher, out of the immediate wash of the waves. It was all he could do, for the ledge was too far above their heads for him to place her upon it, though he could save himself. He was making up his mind that the child must be sacrificed, that there was no way of saving her, when he became aware of a voice shouting above the thunder of the sea. Estelle's quick ear caught the sound, too, and with a start that nearly threw her off her perilous perch, she cried out in reply----

'Jack! Jack!'

(_Continued on page 322._)

PLOUGHING IN SYRIA.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The life of a farmer in Syria and Palestine is very different from the life of a farmer in England. He does not live in an isolated farmhouse, in the midst of a number of enclosed fields, which he owns or rents, and which he cultivates at his own cost and for his own profit alone. The country is much too unsettled to permit families to dwell alone, and so they cl.u.s.ter in little villages for their common safety and defence. The cultivated lands of the villagers lie outside the village, and the most fertile ground is sometimes a mile or two away from the houses. The villagers are too poor to enclose each a farm for himself, and the farms are simply cultivated plots lying unenclosed in a great waste, which belongs, perhaps, to the Government, or to some great feudal lord.

Because each man is poor and defenceless, the villagers combine to cultivate these plots together, and they divide among themselves the produce which is raised by their labours. The Government, or the lord of the land, is paid with a certain share of all that is grown upon the land, and this share is collected from the villagers by an officer who is appointed for the purpose, or has bought the right to collect these corn-rents for himself. He is often guilty of great extortion, and even cruelty, in taking his share, or his master's share, of the produce.

How these Syrian villagers perform their farm labours in common we shall see best if we watch them ploughing the land, and sowing corn. They go forth in a band from the village, and make their way to the plot which is to be tilled. Every man is armed, for beyond the cultivated land there is a great waste, or desert, over which bands of robbers roam at will, or there are rocky mountains in which they may hide, and set all good government at defiance.

The ploughs used by these Syrian cultivators are little more than a bent wooden stock, having a long bar, by which it may be drawn. The lend of the stock is in shape somewhat like that which is formed by a human foot and leg, the foot being the 'share,' which scratches up the soil. That part which corresponds to the leg is prolonged upwards into a long handle, with the help of which the ploughman guides the plough. The bar by which the plough is drawn is attached to the inner or fore side of the bend, at the ankle, as it were. Two oxen of a small kind are, as a rule, attached to each plough.

With such a light kind of plough as this it is impossible to cut and turn over the soil as an English plough, drawn by two or three powerful horses, would do it. The ground is, in fact merely scratched, and, in order that the scratching may be a little more complete, a number of ploughs follow each other in single file over the ground. As many as from six to twelve, or more, ploughs will thus work together upon one plot, the ploughmen chatting with each other all the time. A sower sprinkles the seed before them, and the ploughs loosen and scatter the soil about it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ploughing in Syria.]

Where the soil is too rocky for the ploughs to work, men with mattocks break it up. The Syrian plough does not turn over the soil always upon one side, as the English plough does, and so the Eastern ploughman can return along the same line, or close to it, without spoiling the regularity of his furrows.

In exceptionally dry seasons, when the ground is very hard, the English plough cannot be used to good effect. The Syrian plough, however, is worse; for it is so small and ill-planned that it will only do its work when the ground is thoroughly wet and soft. The ploughing has, therefore, to be done in the winter season: not, of course, in that clime a winter of frost and snow, but a time of cold winds and heavy rains, most trying to the poor labourers in the fields. If they had better ploughs they might break up the ground before the winter set in, and leave the ploughed land ready for the sower at the proper season.

The Syrian plough, too, only does its work slowly, and the whole set of men working together will plough scarcely more than one-third as much as an English ploughman, with a pair of good horses, would do in the same time.

MARVELS OF MAN'S MAKING.

X--THE BIRMINGHAM WATERWORKS

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Hard working Birmingham was getting short of water, and it certainly looked as though the time would soon come when there would be none to quench its thirst with. The wells and streams in the countryside had served their purpose splendidly while the city did not demand too much, but as the number of people increased, the number of taps increased too, and water was getting short.

In this unpleasant state of affairs, Mr. Mansergh, a well-known civil engineer, said that he knew where to get the water from. Forty years before, when travelling in South Wales, he had been struck by the suitability of the country for storing water in. The rivers Elan and Claerwen, he said, flowed through valleys which would make splendid natural reservoirs if only they were crossed by the necessary dams. The distance, it was true, would be seventy-three miles from Birmingham, but then it would be all down-hill, and so the water would flow of its own accord. The rivers Elan and Claerwen, in Brecon and Radnor, collect their waters from mountain streams over an area of seventy-one square miles. If preserved in reservoirs, this would supply one hundred and two millions of gallons a day. A certain proportion of this would, of course, be allowed to escape, as it would never do to stop the river Elan altogether. It is an important tributary to the Wye, and the city of Hereford would have had cause for complaint if its water supply had been interfered with.

[Ill.u.s.trations: Valley before Building the Dam. A Sluice in the Dam.

Building the Pen-y-Gareg Dam.]

The work was begun in 1894. Just below the point where the two rivers join, preparations were made for building the first dam. A stank, or wall of timber, was first constructed to turn the water of the river aside, and in the channel over which it had flowed, thus rendered dry, excavations were made for the foundations. When the wall had been raised to a height of thirty feet, with two large culverts or openings left in its lower part for the great water-pipes to pa.s.s through, the stream was again turned into its old course, through these openings, and the next part of the dam was begun. Thus in three sections the water-wall rose till a height of one hundred and twenty-two feet was reached, stretching six hundred feet at the top, to the sloping walls of the valley. As this dam will have to hold back five hundred acres of water, containing 7800 million gallons of water, its base has been made as wide as its height.

The wall tapers to the top and is perpendicular towards the reservoir.

It is formed of large blocks of granite called 'plums,' set in strong cement, and weighing many tons each. Over the top, when the reservoir is full, the flood water pours like a small Niagara. If we could launch a boat on the glittering surface of the reservoir, from the top of this dam, we should have to row for four and a half delightful miles, between the overshadowing sides of the valley, before we reached the next princ.i.p.al dam, at a place called Pen-y-gareg--so huge are these cups of water in Birmingham's service. On the way we should pa.s.s under the arches of a stone bridge, thirteen feet wide, stretching from side to side of the artificial lake. The archways spring from the top of a submerged dam, forty feet below the surface. And this was built because Birmingham, seventy-three miles away, is six hundred feet above the level of the sea. In constructing the long water-hill from the Welsh mountains down to the famous Warwickshire city, it was deemed necessary that the upper end should be one hundred and seventy feet higher than the lower end. Now at the point where the first dam was erected, the river-bed is only one hundred feet higher than the land on which Birmingham stands. Therefore, the starting point for the water was made farther up the valley at a spot seven hundred and seventy feet above sea-level (thus giving the necessary fall of one hundred and seventy feet), and just below that spot the sunken dam of which we have spoken was built across to hold back enough water when the main bulk had been used.

As our boat glides onward from under the shadow of the arch, we see near the eastern sh.o.r.e a strongly built stone tower. This stands over the mouth of the aqueduct (as the huge pipes are called which convey the water to Birmingham). The water flows into the tower through several large openings on all sides, and its entrance into the aqueduct is controlled by hydraulic machinery.

Bending to our oars again we follow the curves of the lake for about three miles, with the railway running close to the water's edge. It was laid by the engineers to a.s.sist them in this great undertaking. Then we come in sight of the Pen-y-gareg wall. This was built in the same manner as the first dam, though slightly different in design. At regular intervals all along the top, we see square openings like windows in an old castle. They are to admit light and air into a narrow pa.s.sage left in the heart of the dam and stretching from end to end. It is only six and a half feet high and two and a half wide, so that two people, however obliging they might be, would have a difficulty in letting each other pa.s.s if they met half-way. But it is not a public pa.s.sage, being only constructed for the purpose of admitting workmen to the valve tower, which regulates the flow of water into the lower reservoir.

Some mile and a half farther on we come to the third and last dam on the Elan River. It is called the Craig Goch, and is the tallest of them all, rising one hundred and thirty-five feet from the river-bed. In order to build it a tunnel was driven through the hills on one side to carry the water past, the stream being guided into this tunnel by means of a concrete wall built a short distance from the scene of operations. The dam is built on a curve, the bow being towards the reservoir. It carries on its summit a handsome stone bridge with a public roadway less than ten feet wide between the parapets. To stand on this bridge and watch the flood water flow between its arches, to fall with a roar like thunder on its way to the lower reservoir, is very impressive. It is said that at times the water pa.s.ses over the crest of the dam in a cascade eighteen to twenty inches deep. Thus the water is held back among the mountains in three huge steps, much as the water in a ca.n.a.l is banked up by the locks. On the river Claerwen three similar dams are being built.

While this work was going forward, another army of engineers was preparing the road to Birmingham. Hills had to be tunnelled through, valleys and rivers crossed by bridges, while syphons were used for pa.s.sing under small streams and similar obstructions. One of the tunnels was no less than four and a half miles long, and another two and a half.

They are, however, only six or seven feet in diameter, just large enough for workmen to enter for the purpose of doing repairs. The pipes for conveying the water are a little more than one yard across, and are capable of delivering twelve and a half million gallons per day. There is room on the road for six such pipes to be laid, so it is considered that Birmingham will not run short of water for at least a hundred years. It need hardly be pointed out that these pipes do not descend at one uniform grade throughout their journey of seventy-three miles, but any irregularity in their rise and fall is of little consequence so long as the end of that irregularity which is nearest Birmingham is at a lower level than the point at which it begins. Thus, for instance, if the pipes are to take a sudden dip to pa.s.s under a stream, they should not rise again on the other side to quite the same level. This _dip_ is called a syphon, and in no way r.e.t.a.r.ds the natural flow of the water.

There are many such 'ups and downs' between Radnor and Warwickshire; so many, indeed, that we might almost look upon the whole aqueduct as a syphon seventy-three miles long. Birmingham is the lower end, and water _must_ flow to the lower level.

On July 22nd, 1904, the King and Queen, at one of the great reservoirs, turned the tap which admitted the water into the aqueduct, and in due course it rippled to the noisy city so many miles away, and Birmingham drank its first gla.s.s of crystal water drawn from the three stupendous cups standing among the silent hills of Wales.

We are indebted for our ill.u.s.trations to Mr. Thomas Barclay, of Birmingham, and to Messrs. Mansergh & Co., Engineers, of London.

THE FOUNTAIN.

A little spring of water rose Within a shady grot; It bubbled up all bright and pure, And freshened that sweet spot.

Clear as a crystal was its wave, And I was very sure The waters were so pure and sweet, Because the fount was pure.

So when from little lips there flow Words that are kind and good, And thoughts that are as fresh and sweet As violets in a wood, The reason we can understand, For, oh, we may be sure The thoughts and words are pure and sweet Because the fount is pure.