io8 ANGLERS' EVENINGS. 



return. We gladly welcomed the daylight as we arrived 

 at the river side. Four of the six retreated all the way 

 home, frightened, and indisposed to try more fishing. 

 Myself and one companion tackled up again, and 

 before we left caught several fish. The river, in those 

 early days, was seldom seen by us beyond Ringley ; 

 but above, it had many beautiful lengths. All are now 

 marred by some of the many uses to which the riverside 

 is devoted. In later years, I have seen many other parts 

 of the river, and certainly few streams have originally 

 been more varied and beautiful than our Irwell and its 

 tributaries. 



Even at this day, with a little license of omission of 

 shafts, mills, and other works, or by taking the prophetic 

 view of some eminent men and replacing the above- 

 named objects with broken walls, ivy-covered roofs and 

 shafts, with other such poetic arrangements ; and improv- 

 ing off the rocks and trees the perpetually recurring grime 

 of continual smoke, clothing the dead branches with 

 verdure, and putting in a few anglers fly-fishing, the lover 

 of the picturesque may yet find miles of beauty full of 

 precious "bits," or broadening into grand views of lake, 

 river, and mountain. We call the lakes " razzervoirs," 

 and the mountains are "nobbut hills," while the river 

 itself is but an open drain ; yet in a ten miles' walk from 

 Manchester to Bolton (by river nearly twenty miles), or 

 in a five miles' walk by the brook-side above Bolton to 

 Turton, or by Wayoh and Bradshaw Brook to Entwistle, 

 or from Prestolee to Bury, or from Bury to Haslingden, 

 or branching off towards Tottington to Holcombe, or from 



