136 NATURE NEAR LONDON, 



V, stretch apart and glitter, and every dip of the oars 

 and the slippery oar blades themselves, as they rise 

 out of the water, reflect the sunshine. The boat 

 appears but to touch the surface, instead of sinking 

 into it, for the water is transparent, and the eye can 

 see underneath the keel. 



Here, by some decaying piles, a deep eddy whirls 

 slowly round and round; they stand apart from the 

 shore, for the eddy has cleared away the earth around 

 them. Now, walking behind the waves that roll away 

 from you, dark shadowy spots fluctuate to and fro in 

 the trough of the water. Before a glance can define 

 its shape the shadow elongates itself from a spot to an 

 oval, the oval melts into another oval, and reappears 

 afar off. When, too, in flood time, the hurrying 

 current seems to respond more sensitively to the shape 

 of the shallows and the banks beneath, there boils up 

 from below a ceaseless succession of irregular circles 

 as if the water there expanded from a centre, marking 

 the verge of its outflow with bubbles and raised lines 

 upon the surface. 



By the side float tiny whirlpools, some rotating this 

 way and some that, sucking down and boring tubes 

 into the stream. Longer lines wander past, and as 

 they go, curve round, till when about to make a spiral 

 they lengthen out and drift, and thus, perpetually 

 coiling and uncoiling, glide with the current. They 

 somewhat resemble the conventional curved strokes 

 which, upon an Assyrian bas-relief, indicate water. 



Under the spring sunshine, the idle stream flows 

 easily onward, yet every part of the apparently even 

 surface varies; and so, too, in a larger way, the 



