Ruperts Land Girls School - Eagle Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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A Rupertls Land College Magazine Canadian Boat Song. The Indians and Esquimaux also have their songs and chants, and probably, in a few years' time, our country will be famous for its folk-songs. ' The marching songs of different countries are always interesting. The nineteenth century military type of music is shown in The Girl I Left Behind Me. Modern songs, as those of the Great War, belong to this class. It's a Long Way to Tipperary, and Keep the Home Fires Burning, will long be remembered, and they are truly marching songs, being simple, primitive and sentimental, just as are all the earlier ones. These few examples of national folk-songs show that long before operas, which are attended by the more or less educated class, were being composed, popular music was developing. The songs illustrate the character, life, trials, occupations, and joys of the people 'who used to sing them first, and as such are treasured today. They were not the care- ful work of great composers, but the spontaneous voice of the people. I MARY MACHRAY, Matric. II. MY VISIT T0 THE BATTLEFIELDS With my parents and sisters I left London on June 25th, 1920, at 11.30 a.m., arriving in Dover at 1.30, after which we had a splendid voyage across the Channel to Calais. Arriving in Calais we took the train to Calais proper, where we went for a drive, and our first view of German des- truction was a tumble-down school or convent, which the Ger- mans had bombed when it was full of children. We left for Lille by train at 6 p.m., arriving at 8, and spent the night at the Hotel d'Europe. The next morning our courier informed us that we had occupied the suite of rooms used as headquarters by the Crown Prince of Germany and General Ludendorf during the German occupation of that city. After breakfast we motored around Lille, which we found not so badly destroyed as other places. Then we followed the Roubaix road, where the destruction and desolation on all sides was terrible for many miles, in many prosperous towns not a single building remained wholeg the people lived in cellars that would give them any kind of shelter, and also in dugouts the soldiers had used. We motored right on through Tourcoing, where the fighting had been less severe and the country had recovered to the extent of cultivation. After leaving Tourcoing the next place reached was Menin, which is situated half in Belgium and half in France. We haltedhere for some time to watch the procession of la 23

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Rapert's Land College .Magazine Meanwhile, Burns in Scotland and Moore in Ireland were writing melodies in which everyone still delights. The Harp That Once, and the Minstrel Boy show the Irish longing for freedom and liberty. Ye Banks and Braes, Auld Lang Syne, and Coming Through the Rye are probably all by Burns. It is rather interesting to know that the five-toned scale, used in the first two of these songs, was also employed by the Chinese about four thousand years ago. ' Many songs have been prompted by history or politics, as The Marseillaise, and Lillibu1:1ero. The former was com- posed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792. His mother was a Royalist, and as such he himself was forced to flee to the mountains of Jena. There he heard his song, and asked his guide its name. He then learnt for the first time that it had become famous as the Marseillaise hymn. It shows all the intensity of feeling in the French Revolution. To this group Ireland has contributed The Wearing of the Green, and Cornwall Shall 'Trelawney Die? while America has given Yankee Doodle. . Stephen Foster's pseudo-negro melodies were very popular in America about 1860, and Nelly Bly is a good example of the street song of that period. My Old Kentucky Home is a favourite ,with all. The real negro songs are in the minor key, and are full of deep melancholy, and often of religious feeling. The early German folk-songs were nearly all drinking songs, but these no longer appeal to us. Most of their later songs, however, have very exquisite music-as for example, The Wild Rose, by Schubert. Oh, My Dear Old Augustine is hardly of this class, but it and The Broken Ring and many other sentimental love-ditties are very popular. The Red Sarafan is a typical Russian national song. The Sarafan was the bridal head-dress of the peasants, and this song is one of the most famous of Central Russia. The Slavic music is weird and fantastic with a melancholy and fatalistic undertone. The Russian boating and logging songs are less famous, and show the occupations of the people. The Neapolitan songs are all boating songs, because so much of the Italian's life is spent on the water. They are very beautiful, perhaps the most popular is Santa Lucia. Sweden and Norway have also contributed many songs to the world's collection, which show the characters and interests of their people. . Canada, being a new country, has fewer folk-songs than the European nations. The French-Canadians, however, are responsible for Alouette, En Roulant Ma Boule, and A La Claire Fontaine. The lumbering life of Eastern Canada, and the travels of the voyageurs on the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers, are shown in the boating songs, such as The 22

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Ruperfs Land College Magazine Fete de St. Jean, which was of a very pretentious order, and a great crowd had gathered to watch it. It had been the first of its kind since the war, and the evidence of sorrow was shown everywhere by the crepe veils worn by the women and the black frocks of the children. . We motored back to Lille going by Ypres Cwhich is one mass of ruins owing to the many battles fought therej, Mt. Kemmel, Bailleul-the lace centre of Flanders-and Armen- tieres. i Arriving back at Lille we took the train to Arras. All along the railroad the destruction and desolation are indescrib- able. Arras had suffered terribly, there was only one hotel and we were glad we had secured our accommodations before- hand. The French are famous for their comfortable beds,'so that bare floors and curtainless windows did not trouble us, for we knew that what we had was luxurious, considering the con- dition of the country. ' We motored all day on June 28th, which was my sixteenth birthday, in the direction of Vimy Ridge and Lens. The destruction along this line was terrible and all the wells had been poisoned, so that not even a glass of water could be indulged in with safety. I can assure you that Winnipeg water would have tasted good that day. ' We visited Bois Carres cemetery, which is not far from Arras, where a Winnipeg boy whom we knew very well was buried, and we had the opportunity of planting some flowers on his grave. With Arras as our headquarters, we spent three days motoring around the surrounding districts, where we saw much that was interesting and also much that was trying and depressing. We proceeded to Albert, motoring along the Somme, where may places are marked only by mine craters. On the way we saw a big dugout, which was from eighty to one hun- dred feet below the ground. It housed over three thousand soldiersand their equipment. It was lit by electricity and also had telephones. I am sure the soldiers must have thought it a palace, but we were glad to get out of it. .At Albert we stopped at a Y.M.C.A. Hostel and had a re- freshing lemonade, which was the first we had tasted since leaving America. We motored on to Amiens, where we spent the night. In the morning we left for Paris and spent one day there. We took the train for Saar Valley, which is a ten-hour run from Paris, arriving in Saarbrucken on the evening of July lst, where we spent a few days with ex-Mayor Waugh and his family. The comparison between the desolation of France and the beautiful growth of Germany is striking. Germany is like 24