ON THE ITHON 29 



July 8. Notwithstanding my ill-luck yesterday, 

 I am as full of energy this morning as ever. I 

 find it impossible to lounge about on benches in 

 the sun and drink pump-house water all day as 

 most of the folk seem to do here. I must be doing 

 something, and surely angling is as innocent and 

 pleasant a diversion as has ever been found for 

 "the contemplative man's recreation." So away 

 I started for another part of the river. I began 

 at the Crabtree Green Bridge, and fished two or 

 three meadows up under similar circumstances to 

 those I have already mentioned ; the river still 

 runs deep, deep down away from the meadow's 

 edge, and still the everlasting alders bar the way. 

 There are places here and there where you can 

 get down about six feet on to an irregular ledge, 

 which sometimes gives you a little gravel space. 

 It was down such a place as this that I managed 

 to get a nice brace of trout, and hooked and lost 

 several more. Ah ! the tumbles and scratches 

 and escapes I had up and down those terrible 

 banks ! Sometimes getting along a sort of under- 

 cliff for one hundred yards, and then coming 

 suddenly on a quagmire, which plainly said : " Go 

 back, or I'll swallow you." 



Returning homewards 



"As one who long in thickets and in brakes 

 Entangled, winds now this way and now that," 



I had to scramble through a wood on a path over- 

 grown with brambles and briars. I was bitten by 



