THE RIVER 'TWISTERS.' 



MAY IN BKOADLAND. 



' Humble race of men, 

 Alike amphibious, by kind nature's hand 

 Forrn'd to exist on water and on land.' 



Life of a Fenmatij 1771. 



HE river Yare runs its enormous torrent of dull brown waters, on a 

 sluggish ebb, into the German Ocean. The streams which focus them- 

 selves at Breydon, a huge backwater 2,000 acres in extent, are three : 

 the Yare (by some still named the Wensum), which trails its sinuous 

 stream through Norwich and Marshland, continuing its course to the 

 sea; the Bure, draining North-east Norfolk; and the Waveney, that 

 divides the county from its neighbour, Suffolk. These, with some smaller tribu- 

 taries, drain some fourteen hundred square miles of country. Excepting only 

 three or four, all the great freshwater lagoons, now so well known as ' The Norfolk 

 Broads,' are connected with these rivers; they cover nearly 5,000 acres, the rivers 

 offering nearly 200 miles of navigable waterways. Here's El Dorado, indeed, for 

 the yachtsman, the naturalist, and the tourist ! And to-day we will reach the 

 Broads by water. 



Smiling May has burst upon us amid the merry music of birds, and clad in a 

 vesture of many-tinted greens. The hedgerows are bright with the white scented 



