PEDESTRIAN WANDERINGS OF THE LEARNED BLACKSMITH.

Otago Witness, Issue 663, 12 August 1864, Page 11

PEDESTRIAN WANDERINGS OF THE LEARNED BLACKSMITH.

(From the Athenaeum, April 23.)

"A Walk from London to John o' Groat's, with Notes by the Way. Illustrated with Photographic Portraits. By Elihu Burritt." (Low and Co.) It is nearly twenty years since the " learned blacksmith" first set foot in England, with, as he tell us, an intention to walk from one end ot our island to the other, in order to become more thoroughly acquainted with the country and peopie than he could by any other mode of travelling. He accomplished part of the journey when teetotallers and peace societies pressed him into their fcervice, and during ten years left him time for ho other work but theirs. Then be ■went back to his native village in Connecticut for _ seven years, and "dabbled a little in farming," inspiring his neighbors with so much interest in agriculture that when, at the beginning of last year, he spoke of revisiting England, he was made to promise to "write them letters about farming in the mother country." Insteai of letters, Mr Burritt has written a book, which, though addressed principally to his own countrymen, will not fail of readers on this side the Atlantic. <Jut let no one take it up who looks for light reading only or mere amusement, for the book would be best described as an agricultural tour, interspersed with notes on trees and scenery, a plea for the donkey, a few pages on the condition-of-the-laborer question, with remarks on the beauty and purpose of birds and flowers, and devout dissertations. Among these an observant reader might gather a fresh store of Sparks from the Anvil.

The author set out on his walk in the middlejof July, and went by rail into Essex, where he visited Jlr Alderman Mechi's farm at Tiptree, and saw much to admire in the utilisation of liquid manure and its results, in the application of steam power to tillage, and the fattening of livestock. He believes that Mr Mechi's practice will be more and snore adopted by farmers everywhere. We hope he has good reason for his belief ; but for onr part we fear that the day is still distant which is to see a general application of liquid manure to our fields, or when tbe waste of sewerage in our cities and towns shall cease to be an opprobrium to chemical science.

From Tiptree, Mr Burritt journeyed on foot, to Babraham, in Cambridgeshire, a place rendered famous by the late Jonas Webb s improvements in the breeds of cattle and sheep ; and he writes about it in a strain which seems to anticipate that henceforth American citizens will make pilgrimages to Babraham as they now do to Stratford-on-Avon and Abbotsford. Then follows the account of a visit to Samuel Jonas, " who may be called the largest farmer in England," at Chrishal! Grange, near Royston. Here Mr Burritt notices the English labourers' propensity to drink beer ; and, as an illustration 4>f the magnitude of the operations on the farm, he mentions that the commutation money paid to the laborers instead ot beer amounts to 1452 a-year. "It would b? quite safe to say," he adds, ''that there is not a faira in the State of Connecticut that produces pasturage, hay, grain, and roots enough to pay this beer bill of a single English occupation." Less in the jug and more in the basket— more beef and Übh beer— would, with the endeavors to provide better cottages, do much to improve the laborers' condition. Suggestions are offered for further reforms :—: —

<r ln this po -ahead age, ecorea of things are made _ portable that pnee were fast-anchored solidities. We have portable houses, portable beds, portable stoves and cooking ranges, as well as portable steam-en-gines. Now if some benevolent and ingenious man would get up a little portable affair, at the coat of two or three shillings, especially for agricultural laborers in this country, which they could carry with one hand into the field, and by which they could make and keep hot a pot of coffee, cocoa, chocolate, broth, or porridge, and also bake a piece of meat and a few potatoes, it ■would be a real benefaction to thousands, and help them up to the high-road of a better condition."

After all, Mr Burritt shows that the condition of the English laborer is not so hopelessly bad as certain politicians declare it to be ; that, with his 12s a week, having a wife and two children, he can save as much as a New England labourer similarly circumstanced as regards wife ana children, but whose weekly earnings are 245. Lord Overston has built cottages on hi 3 estates in Northamptonshire, which are let at au annual Tent of L 3. On which the author remarks : — " Now with a three-pound cottage, having a parlour, kitchen, bedroom, and buttery on the lower floor, and an equal number of apartments en the upper ; with a forty-rod gardeu to grow lis vegetables, and with a free school for his children at easy walking distance, tbe agricultural labourer in England will be placed as far forward on the road of improvement as the Government or people, or both, can set him. .. The rest of the way upward and onward he must make by lm own industry, Tirtue, and economy. From this point he must work out his own progress and elevation." At the market dinner at Oundle, Mr Burritt aat down " with a large company of farmers, and cattle and corn dealers," who, to hie surprise, had no peculiarity of dress or language to distinguish them from ordinary midile-class gentlemen engaged in trade or manufacture; and he fears that the old-fashioned English farmer has disappeared with stage-coaches and some other things that were familiar to the last generation. The author may take comfort, for there is manj » specimen left, broad of shoulder, warm in pocket, and hearty in voice. And whatever may be the case at Oundle, we know by much experience that peculiarities ot appearance and rich rustic dialect do still distinguish ihe guests at »any a market dinner. Stamford and Burghley House appear next in toe Walk. The House was not open, and Mr Burritt found a compensation in the outside world of architecture— the avenue of elms and oaks— magnificent tree 3, at sight of which he breaks out into eloquent admiration. The following passage is an example of his matter and manner :■—

' I walked down one long avenue and counted them on either side. There were not sixty on *,j 2 L e - t thf l r green and F acef il foliage reached a full third of a mile. Not sixty to pillar and tarn such an arch as that ! I sat down on a seat *t the end to think of it. There was a morning service going on in this cathedral of nature. The dew-moistened foliated arches so lofty, so interwebbed with wavy, waky Bpangles of sky, were all set to the music of tua. anthem. JThe street musicians ot the

heavenly city' were singing one of its happiest hymns out of their mellow throats. The long and lofty orchestra waa full of them. Their twittering treble shook the leaves with its breath, as it filtered down and flooded the temple below. Beautiful ip this building of God ! Beautiful and blessed are these morning singing birds of his praise ! Amen !"

And he supplements this outburst by a quotation from his Hebrew Paslter, in which we recognise a touch of his learning. And we take the opportunity here to express our hearty concurrence in his earnest deprecation of the up- • rubbing of he'lges and up rooting of trees which modern agriculture so remorselessly involves The eye reqnires to be fed as well as the mouth Oakhnrn and Melton Mowbray lie next in the route. At the latter town, Mr Burritt satisfied himself, by an inßpestion of the factory, that the pork pies for which it is famous may be eiten with confidence. A little further, and we have the glorious prospect of the Vale of Belvoir. the beauty of which is attributed to the " Briareanhan'led Blind Painter, who still wears a smock frock and hob-nailed shoes, and lives in a low damp cottage, and dines on bread and cheese among the golden sheaves of harvest."

Nottingham i? described as " take it all in all, perhaps the most English town in England ; stirring plucky, and radical." Aad the ingenuity of lace-making machinery is allowed to be more ingenious than a certain Yankee machine wh ; ch we have heard spoken of as able to do everything: buc talk. What will the frequenters of Turkish batba say when they hear that part of the process of lace-manufacture is carried on day after day by a large number of women and girls, and a few men and boys, in a temperature of 120 ° ]

Mansfield is " substantial and venerable •.'' Chesterfield is "intelligent-looking," its corkscrew steeple notwithstanding, "withahouse in the outskirts in which George Stephenson died, leaving upon that haloed spot a biograph /which the ages of time to come shall not wash out. On the 11th September Mr Burritt started from Esinburgh for the North; on the 27th he entered Wick, "a brave little city by the Norse Sea." '• the great metropolis of Fi3hdo:n," and how he ended his walk the next day shall be told in his own words :-—

" I set out on my last day's walk northward with a sense of satisfaction I could hardly describe. The scenery was beautiful in every direction. The road was perfect up to the last rod; as well kept aa if it ran through a nobleman's park. The country most of the way was well cultivated — oats being the principal crop. Here, almost within sight of the Orkneys, I heard the clatter e-f the reaping machine. * * It would seem strange to an American, who had not realised the difference of the two climates, to see fields full of reapers on the very threshold of October, as I saw them on the last day's walk I counted twelve women and two men in one field plying the sickle, all strongly built and good-looking, and well dressed withal. The sea was as still Bnd blue as a lake. A lnrk was soaring and warblinsr over it with as happy and hopeful a voice a 9 it it were singing over the greeenest acres of an English meadow. When I had made half of the seventeen miles between Wick and Johu O'Grcat's, I began to look with the liveliest interest for the first glimpse of the Orkneys, but projecting and ri^gy headliftids intercepted the prospect^ About 3 p.m., as the road emerged from behind one of them, those famous islands burst suddenly into view ! There they were !— in full sight, so near that their grain fields and white cottages and all their distinguishing featuies seemed within half a mile's distance. This was the most interesting coup d'ail thit I ever caught in any country. Here, then, after weeks and months of travel en foot, I wa at the end of my journey. Through all the days of this ppriod I bad faced northward, and here was the Ultima Thule, the goal and termination of my tour. The zoad to the sea diverged from the main turnpike, which continued around the coast to Thurso. Followed this branch a couple of miles, when it ended at the door of a little quiet, one-3torey ion on the very shore of the Pentland Firth. It was a moment of tbe liveliest eiijoyment to me, When I left London about the middle of July, I was slowly reroverinjr from a severe indisposition, and hardly expected to make more than a few miles of my projeded walk. But I had gathered strength daily, and when I brought up at tbis little inn at the very jumping-off end of Scotland, I was fresher and more vigorous on foot than at any previous stage of the journey." The book is illustrated by photographs of the author and of the eminent agriculturists whom hp visited, and we are led to infer that it will be followed at some future time by the " Walk from the Land's End to London." Mr Burritt informs us that he has left out a chapter on the meeting of theßritish Association at Newcastle, and other matters, through want of room ; we wish he had also left out certain phrases and novelties of spelling, which, however much they may be relished in Connecticut, will be regarded as blemishes by the English reader. " While pass ing through a grass field recently mown, a lark flew up from almo-t under my feet," is a mode of expression of which we could cite more than one example. And what is " entymology," and why does " exhiliarnting" occur twine in one page 1 To be " homed at the village inn is a curious synonym for made comfortable ; and what is a " gloryscape," and what is " baconising 1 "? Has it any affinity with "yeomanise?" Especially disagreeable, too, is the introduction of French words where good idiomatic English, which Mr Burritt prizes so highly, might have been used. Perhaps in a second edition, he -will show himself as just towards the language as he is towards the cnuntry of England. That he has a good opinion of the land which sent out the PHsrrim Fathers may be gathered from one of H3 observations: "After travelling and sojourning nearly ten years in this country, I have never seen a boy throw a stone at a sparrow ,or climb a tree for a bird's nest."

An old Oriental story relates that one day, Moolla Musseerodeeu ia a Mosque ascended the desk and thus addressed his audience : — '• Oh ! children of the faithful, do ye know what I am going 1 to say V They answered ♦« No !' " Wei!, then replied he, "It is no use for me to waste my time on so stupid a set of people 1" And saying this he came down and dismissed them. Next day he again mounted the desk and asked, " Oh ! true Musselmen, do ye knew what I am going to s.ay?" "We do," say they. " Then," replied he, "there is no need for me to tell you," an<i he again let them go. The third time his audience thought they should catch him, and on putting the usual question they answered, " Some of us do and some of us do not." " Well, then 1" replied he, " let those who know tell those, who do not."