THE DEVONSHIRE AVON 



Babbacome Bay, above which they were standing, 

 didn't remind him of Switzerland. * Yes, ma'am, 

 very much ; only here there are no streams, and in 

 Devonshire there are no stockbrokers,' and this in truth 

 would have been quite inadequate to the blazing 

 topographical idiocy of my fellow-traveller's outburst. 



Urging its bright, impetuous streams through most 

 of its seaward pilgrimage beneath a rarely interrupted 

 canopy of foliage, this obscurest of all English Avons 

 purls upon gravelly beds or lingers in deep rocky pools, 

 overshadowed by fern-tufted crags and the spreading 

 foliage of wild woods that clothe the hill-sides and 

 hold the river in their sylvan grip. There are green 

 meadowy strips too, plenty of them, on one bank or 

 the other, sometimes on both. But even then thick 

 foliage often bristles along both banks and holds the 

 would-be bank angler at arm's length. Old stone 

 bridges, too, festooned with trailing ivy, give here and 

 there a more perfect finish to some vista of water 

 that dances through flickering bands of sun and 

 shadow beneath the swaying boughs. 



All, or nearly all, this water is in the hands of an 

 association whose moderately apprised tickets make 

 any one free of this Avon fishery who feels equal to 

 grappling with it, an effort well worth the while. 

 But it is no use poking about dry-shod on the bank 

 here if you mean business, though there are brief inter- 

 ludes where you might take your ease in this rather 

 unprofitable fashion. You must get right down into 

 the water and stay there, and push your way between 

 and often beneath the trees, and face a current that 

 is generally strong and rocks that are always glacial. 



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