THE RIVER 119 



apart and glitter, and every dip of the oars and the 

 slippery oar-blades themselves, as they rise out of the 

 water, reflect the sunshine. The boat appears but to 

 touch the surface, instead of sinking into it, for the water 

 is transparent, and the eye can see underneath the keel. 



Here, by some decaying piles, a deep eddy whirls slowly 

 round and round ; they stand apart from the shore, for 

 the eddy has cleared away the earth around them. Now, 

 walking behind the waves that roll away from you, dark 

 shadowy spots fluctuate to and fro in the trough of the 

 water. Before a glance can define its shape the shadow 

 elongates itself from a spot to an oval, the oval melts into 

 another oval, and reappears afar off. When, too, in flood 

 time, the hurrying current seems to respond more sensi- 

 tively to the shape of the shallows and the banks beneath, 

 there boils up from below a ceaseless succession of 

 irregular circles as if the water there expanded from a 

 centre, marking the verge of its outflow with bubbles and 

 raised lines upon the surface. 



By the side float tiny whirlpools, some rotating this 

 way and some that, sucking down and boring tubes into 

 the stream. Longer lines wander past, and as they go, 

 curve round, till when about to make a spiral they 

 lengthen out and drift, and thus, perpetually coiling and 

 uncoiling, glide with the current. They somewhat re- 

 semble the conventional curved strokes which, upon an 

 Assyrian bas-relief, indicate water. 



Under the spring sunshine, the idle stream flows easily 

 onward, yet every part of the apparently even surface 

 varies ; and so, too, in a larger way, the aspects of the 

 succeeding reaches change. Upon one broad bend the 

 tints are green, for the river moves softly in a hollow, with 

 its back, as it were, to the wind. 



The green lawn sloping to the shore, and the dark 



