102 OCTOBER IN BROADLAND, 



chirruping of the sparrows ; and the sweeter sounds that greeted us in the sunnier 

 days have given place to harsher cries and wilder call-notes. 



The holidays are over ; the seaside watering-places have assumed their nor- 

 mal appearance; no longer the huge trains of joyous excursionists and the heavily 

 laden steam-boats pour forth their loads of holiday-making humanity ; the towns 

 and cities have settled down again for a long spell of serious work. The dwellers 

 in the quiet country are still busy in the fields, for a prospective harvest in the 

 coming year demands their following the ploughshare and the harrow. Contented 

 Hodge is whistling at the plough-tail, his merry ' Who-oaa, Dobbin! ' bespeaking 

 the completion of another furrow. 



The white-winged craft that recently crowded the silent-flowing river are 

 absent, the river-ways and the lagoons of Broadland are no longer ploughed by the 

 sharp bows of the swift-gliding yachts -nothing but the huge tanned sails of the 

 wherries may be seen speeding their devious ways among the sedge-lined rivers 

 and reed-surrounded broads. On many a sloping shore the dismasted yachts may 

 be found, there to remain until another springtime shall see them spick-and-span, 

 ready to glide down again into their favourite element once more. 



We shall have a quiet run-up to-day, and it is a strange little craft in which 

 we hope to reach the Broads. 



' Though I say it myself,' says Skipper Bessey, ' there ain't her likes on the 

 Broads an' rivers for miles around, and there ain't another as is built for the self- 

 same purpose and let get her clear of the town, and you'll see what a merry little 

 thing she is ! ' 



Our skipper is an eel-merchant, and as such has been known to the fen-men 

 far and near for the last thirty years; hundreds of tons of eels have passed through 

 his hands. Our vessel is simply a big ship's gig, with a streak or two added to her 

 height, her sharp stem and stern and cutter-rig giving her an exceedingly rakish 

 appearance. At the fall of the year, when eels are ' running,' and the eel-catchers 

 are busy with their eel-sets, up and down she plies, going empty, returning full, 

 sometimes with several hundredweights in her i well.' Fore and aft the craft is 

 buoyant ; indeed at the stern is a famously snug cabin in which the skipper and 

 his man make comfortable when on their strange voyaging to and fro. Midway 

 the vessel is one huge tank, the sides of it being perforated with innumerable 

 holes for the free ingress of water. What a squirming mass of living things will 

 there be below-decks on her return ! 



