OLV lfER TOIS 167 



river is derived from an Indian word meaning boat 

 destroyer, in allusion to the fury of its sudden tides. 

 During a few days in every month the sea, " instead of 

 taking its usual time to come up the river, swells to its 

 full height in less than a couple of minutes," with a roar 

 that may be heard at a distance of five miles. The tidal 

 wave that enters the wide estuary of the Amazon, 

 becoming cramped for room as it advances by the 

 narrowing channel of the stream, is piled into a wall of 

 water twelve or fifteen feet high, that rushing with 

 tremendous swiftness up the river sometimes tears huge 

 trees from the banks and even sweeps away whole tracts 

 of land. 



The Bore that floods the channel of the Parret has 

 little of the grandeur of a wave like this. But with the 

 narrow, dingy river that makes its slow way seaward 

 among the mud flats of the channel are linked interests 

 unknown to many a mightier stream. 



Long after the Saxon conquest the Parret formed the 

 boundary between the Kelts and the invaders. It was 

 by the Parret that Alfred found shelter in the Isle of 

 Athelney island indeed no longer. From the quays of 

 its little port generations of sea rovers have watched the 

 rush of the tide into the narrow river. The soft 

 northern speech of the fair-haired Vikings who warp 

 their craft into the docks recalls the days when the 

 war-galleys of their fathers came to anchor off the town. 

 When Cabot set sail from Bristol on his great voyage to 

 the westward, half his crew were men of Bridgwater 

 famous even then for its sons of enterprise and daring. 



