xxxvn LETTERS TO MARCO 255 



much overgown by brushwood ; and I was 

 told that some years ago a wretched woman 

 threw her six months' old baby down this, 

 expecting, of course, that it would be killed 

 and its dead body probably not found for a 

 long time. It happened, however, a day and 

 a half after the child had been thrown in, that 

 some passers-by, hearing a cry from the well, 

 had it searched with great difficulty, when the 

 baby was found and brought up very little 

 injured, and eventually lived for seven or 

 eight years. It was supposed that the child's 

 dress must have acted somewhat as a para- 

 chute in the confined air of the shaft of the 

 well, and so broken the fall. 



I have not much to tell you in the bird 

 line since my last letter, except that some 

 sand-martins built their nest in a drain-pipe, 

 or what builders term a weeper, in the high 

 retaining wall at the approach to my boat- 

 house. This wall rises from the river some 

 twelve feet or more, and the weepers in it are 

 to allow the water from the bank behind it to 



