90 DAYS IN DOVE DALE 



meadow's breadth, and parallel with it, runs the 

 river " Manifold " ; which curious river oozes 

 from its many miles of subterranean travelling, 

 a short distance higher up in the grounds of 

 beautiful Ham Hall. l 



Part of " The Izaak Walton " is as old as, 

 or older than, its name, for there is a tradition 

 that in this old farmhouse the great piscator 

 himself used to take up his abode when he 

 had fished down the dales from Beresford 



1 The seat of R. Hanbury, Esq., to whose great kind- 

 ness we are indebted for the unusual privilege of fishing 

 in " The Manifold." 



"We viewed a remarkable natural curiosity at Islam, 

 two rivers bursting near each other from the rock, not 

 from immediate springs, but after having been for many 

 miles underground. Plott, in his ' History of Stafford- 

 shire,' gives an account of this curiosity ; but Johnson 

 would not believe it, though we had the attestation of 

 the gardener, who said he had put in corks where the 

 river * Manifold ' sinks into the ground, and had 

 catched them in a net, placed before one of the openings 

 where the water bursts out." BosweWs Life of 

 Johnson. 



The incident of the corks seems to have been quite 

 forgotten in the neighbourhood. I was told, as though 

 it was a new discovery, that the underground course of 

 " The Manifold" had been proved only a few years 

 ago by some one throwing chaff in its upper waters, 

 which came out at Ham. 



