A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS.
AS distances shrink and facilities for rapid transit in- crease, some change must take place in the interests and sympathies of mankind. The enlargement of the mental horizon must be attended with a practical extension of the geographical basis of life. At one time the "grand tour " was the limit of travel for an educated man, and the journey from his country house to London and back again was ample change of scene. Now we rush off in short vacations to the far corners of the globe; and your neighbour, whom you miss from the club for a month or two, may have been in the Hindu Boost' or Patagonia. Even in a man's dwelling-place, where he looks first for stability, and is therefore conservative, we see the effect of the same spirit. To have a moor in Scotland or a villa on the Riviera was once considered the sign of an uncanny enterprise ; now it is the rule, not the exception, with rich men; and there are Englishmen who have their country homes in Norway, and some even further afield. In the United States, however, the experiment has been worked out in its most logical form. One or two rich men have built themselves shooting-lodges in the far backwoods, several days' journey from the nearest railhead. There, in the centre of savagery which is still only half explored, they have established
civilised homes. The traveller or hunter who has seen no white man for days, and believes himself many hundred miles from the comforts of civilisation, comes suddenly out of the snowy forest upon a garden, and there in the heart of the wilderness finds a house with warm fires, good food, books, pictures, and all the amenities of life. It is the true romance of country life. You must have the contrast between wild Nature and civilisation drawn hard and sharp, so that you can bring both fully into your daily routine. The contrast accentuates the charm of each. A rose-garden is more beautiful when it marches with a wild moor, and the land- scape and sport of the desert are more attractive if there is the background of solid and accessible comfort to which at any moment you can return. A pleasant mansion in a Home County means nothing to the imagination; but transplant the same house to the wilds, and the simplest accessories of civilised life will be endowed with a. new freshness and charm.
How far, we wonder, is this taste destined to grow, as the infinite variety of the world is brought home more nearly to men's minds? A lodge in the wilderness is no new thing in history. The Portuguese created many in their East African possessions, the early Virginian settlers did the same ; but in most cases they were dwellings not for pleasure but for use, the homes of colonists and pioneers. A pleasure-house in the wilds—the real wilds— seems to us a reasonable ambition for an active millionaire who is fond of travel and has abundant leisure. Leisure, in deed, is essential at present; the true wilds cannot be reached on a week-end visit. Perhaps, as our Empire becomes more closely intercon- nected, and Englishmen acquire wider interests in the Colonies and travel more habitually, the desire may grow up for country estates of an ampler and more romantic type than can be found at home. Our country gentleman on the grand scale will be a real seigneur, for in the wilds his lands will be measured not by acres but by miles. His servants, too, will not be individuals but tribes. It is a wild fancy; but could not a palace finer than Kahle Khan's be erected on some of the forest-clad ridges below the snows of Ruwenzori ? It would be a misty land, but a marvellous one. Below, the Equatorial forests and the Great Lakes of the heart of Africa around, pines and temperate plants, with a giant Alpine flora of groundsels and lobelias ; and above, the fields and pinnacles of virgin snow. It would be a long journey to that pleasure.. house,—up the Uganda Railway to Victoria Nyanza, across it and through the dense forests to the Semliki, and then up many precipitous mountain roads to the park gates. You would be in the most secret and mysterious of the world's regions, with an aboriginal earth below your windows, and every variety of climate and landscape within one horizon. Or, for those who wish a more strenuous land, there are the mountain valleys of British Columbia, or the woods and lakes of the St. Lawrence basin, or, perhaps beat of all, some pine- clad ridge in the Himalayas, such as Mr. Douglas Freshfield has descriled so well in his recent book on Kangchenjunga, or some flowery valley in Kashmir. For the yachtsman there are the islands of the South Pacific; for the lover of highlands the Alps of New Zealand or some of the foothills of the Drakensberg. The country gentleman and the cosmopolitan have hitherto been contradictory terms; but why should not a class arise of cosmopolitan country gentlemen who will have a town house in London and a shooting in the Mountains of the Moon?
There is a chance, we think, that this novel and attractive type may become commoner as Imperial union is removed from the domain of rhetoric to the world of fact. But it can never be very common, because the qualities required for it must always be scarce. The man who attempts such a country house must be very rich. He must have ample leisure, and he must have an active and adventurous mind which can realise the charm of such an heritage. Doubtless to the ordinary rich man a home where he can entertain his friends, and have his bags and house parties chronicled in the newspapers, presents more attractions than to be the ruler of a kingdom like Prester John's. The expense would be very great, for apart from construction and the carriage of materials, the mere cost of getting there might be enormous. It is the kind of thing which must be done supremely well or not at all. The house and furnishing and the laying out of the grounds must be of the best, otherwise the charm of
contrast would be lost. -The owner would have to carry his friends there at his own expense, or be would get no visitors to entertain. He might have trouble, too, with his women- folk, who would not see the amusement of a lodge in the wilds. To overcome the great difficulties of preparation, to undergo the considerable fatigues of travel, and to feel the specific delight of living the life of civilisation in the midst of savagery require a mental vigour and a breadth of taste which are none too common among the very rich. But even a few people of this kind would be a powerful civilising force, and a deadly weapon against that most offensive form of insularity which limits the habitable portions of the globe to the British Isles and a few places on the Continent. The fascinations of geography are little understood save by the greatest political dreamers ; but to the few who realise them, and have the wealth to enjoy them, there is in this strange variety of country house a chance of the career on a minor and private scale of a Brooke of Sarawak, or of those old Portuguese and Spanish seigneurs who made gardens out of wild islands of the sea.
If the experiment were tried by an enlightened millionaire, imagine the delights of it. Let us put the house on some African hill-top in the Tropics commanding a great country of lake and forest. The traveller emerging from the bush after months of hard living would come suddenly upon a lawn and a flower-garden. Having almost forgotten the meaning of civilisation, he would find a library and a cook and a cellar, and a house furnished like an English country home save for the trophies of African sport and the difference of the flowers and fruits. With the wonders of tropical vegetation and fauna at the door, and mountaineering, which was also pioneering, at hand, life would be infinitely varied. Half the charm of sport is the return, tired and hungry, to enjoy the comforts of idleness; but how much greater the charm where the sport would be big game, and the hunter would return, not to a but or tent in the bush, with tinned meats and slovenly native boys, but to a civilised home and the endless little contrivances by which civilisation smoothes the corners of life. For a man, too, of any imagination we can think of no finer mental stimulant. It would be that rare thing, a " complete change," a new and attractive world in which the mind would recover the elasticity which the grooves of European life had robbed it of, a life in which there would be no divorce between Nature and Art. If there is any million- aire with a taste for the Arabian Nights and at a loose end for a hobby, we recommend this career to his attention.
Previous page
