It feeds such different religions and
looks on such diverse landscapes. It makes Geneva and it makes Avignon;
it changes in colour and in the nature of its going as it goes. It sees
new products appearing continually on its journey until it comes to
olives, and it flows past the beginning of human cities, when it
reflects the huddle of old Arles.
The sources of the Garonne are well known. The Garonne rises by itself
in a valley from which there is no issue, like the fabled valleys shut
in by hills on every side. And if it were anything but the Garonne it
would not be able to escape: it would lie imprisoned there for ever.
Being the Garonne it tunnels a way for itself right under the High
Pyrenees and comes out again on the French side. There are some that
doubt this, but then there are people who would doubt anything.
The sources of the River Arun are not so famous as these two last, and
it is a good thing, for they are to be found in one of the loneliest
places within an hour of London that any man can imagine, and if you
were put down there upon a windy day you would think yourself upon the
moors. There is nothing whatsoever near you at the beginnings of the
little sacred stream.
Thames had a source once which was very famous. The water came out
plainly at a fountain under a bleak wood just west of the Fosse Way,
under which it ran by a culvert, a culvert at least as old as the
Romans.
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