46 THE ADVENTURES 



hills which rise behind it, but which we know to 

 be Flint Castle, on the other. 



The sands are yet wet with the receding 

 tide, and reflect the rays of the setting sun too 

 powerfully to aHow us to look steadfastly at 

 them, or to distinguish them from the water; 

 indeed, but for those dots moving along about 

 two miles off, with their reflected dots moving 

 under them, which might be beetles, but which 

 we know to be some of the fairest of their sex, 

 engaged in the pursuit of shrimping, those 

 shallow waters might conceal the illimitable 

 depths of ocean : but they too (the shoals, not 

 the ladies) will soon be dry, and then we shall 

 be able to examine the bed of the river more 

 deliberately. And first, what are those long 

 dark streaks, stretching from the very beach, 

 where the nurses are sitting under parasols, and 

 the children are picking up pebbles down into 

 that narrow devious thread of water, which 

 wanders from side to side of the desert-like 

 mazy estuary, and betrays the current of the 

 river ? See there are more of them further on ! 

 Some from the opposite side, too, coming across 

 as though to meet them ! Yet again another, 

 and another ! and another ! as far as the eye can 

 reach ; ragged blatjk lines, with here and there 

 a pole sticking tip, and a bush on the top of it. 



