OF A SALMON. 51 



How different the river here, to what we saw 

 it last evening some six miles lower down ! No 

 longer a wide shallow .estuary some miles in 

 breadth, making no account of a mile's differ- 

 ence or so, here and there ; but confined between 

 two high, artificial, unpicturesquely straight 

 banks, with a uninteresting Dutch-looking chan- 

 nel of about a breadth across which you 

 suspect you might chuck a half-crown or a penny 

 piece; if you were to try, perhaps you would 

 find yourself mistaken. 



And our friend Salmo ; is he up and stirring- 

 yet? I should not wonder. But take your 

 stand, now that we have at length arrived at a 

 bend in the straight canal of a river : look down 

 towards Flint ; your eye can see for nearly three 

 miles along a reach as straight as the road 

 between Paris and Dijon: and up the other way 

 you can look far enough to want a telescope. 

 What do we notice ? A number of artificial 

 jettys, formed of loose quarried stones, running 

 out into the current of the river, on each side, 

 at regular intervals of some hundred yards apart. 

 Those are the precious expedient of some defunct 

 engineer (peace be to his manes!) to deepen the 

 bed of the river ; and, as you see, the sole result 

 has been to arrest the sand both ways, so that 

 each shore describes a series of bays from point 



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