THE DEVONSHIRE AVON 



Devonians of their own complacency, which in this 

 particular is immense, run away with the notion that 

 their streams are as beautiful as those of Wales, because 

 they are not by a long way, though they in their turn 

 incomparably excel in beauty those of any other 

 English rivers south of Derbyshire. And the first of 

 these invidious comparisons is made, at any rate, 

 honestly and impartially, Heaven knows, for I was 

 * bred a fisherman,' as the Ancients have it, in the 

 western county, and that means — well, a good many 

 people know what it does mean, while the others 

 wouldn't understand, and elaboration would be futile. 

 When on rare occasions I tread the banks of a Devon- 

 shire stream to-day, with those subtle odours and 

 accessories which belong to them alone, I can very 

 nearly cheat myself into the beHef that life lies before 

 me, instead of mainly behind. 



As a mere pious opinion, with the exception per- 

 haps of the much preserved Tamar, and subject to 

 the correction of any widely experienced native, I 

 would give preference, as a trout stream pure and 

 simple, to a river scarcely known by name outside the 

 county. Something of its obscurity is possibly due 

 to the very fact of its name, which, for reasons obvious 

 to the most elementary etymologist, is shared by so 

 many notable rivers in the three kingdoms. I have 

 never yet met any outsider who was even aware that 

 there was an Avon in Devonshire. But there is — and 

 a very bewitching Avon too, the very antithesis of 

 those placid, silent, and rather turgid haunts of pike 

 and roach that fame has chiefly illumined. Of the 

 rivers that flow out of Dartmoor the Tavy may boast 



217 



