160 Country Rambles. 



the Irk, that unfortunate little river which, rising in or 

 near tree-crested Tandle Hill, north-east of Middleton, 

 seems to grow ashamed of its blackened waters as it 

 creeps into the town by Collyhurst, and which, as it 

 hastens to its oblivious refuge in the Irwell, is known to 

 every one in its last leap, the hideous fall underneath 

 the Victoria Station, on the side next Millgate. " Man- 

 chester Rivers, their Sources and Courses," would form a 

 capital subject for a book. The Mersey, the Irwell, the 

 Irk, the Tame, the Etherowe, the Bollin, the Goyt, and 

 several others, are full of interesting associations; and if 

 they be not of the clearest water in their lower portions, 

 remember the work they do. A limpid stream among 

 the hills is lovely and poetical; but the most pleasing of 

 all rivers are those of which the banks are occupied by 

 an industrious and intelligent population; and we must 

 not cry out too vehemently about the soiling and spoiling, 

 unless it be easily avoidable and a piece of downright 

 and wilful damage, when their first and highest value is 

 that of facilitating industrial efforts, and helping on the 

 prosperity of a town and nation. The truly poetical man 

 is never a sentimentalist; and though he may pity the 

 destruction of beautiful objects, he is content to see them 

 converted into sources of general welfare, and to look 

 elsewhere for new materials of enjoyment. 



Bamford Wood is a cluster of leafy dells or dingles, 

 reached, in the first instance, by going to Heywood, the 

 rather tedious and uninteresting streets of which have to 

 be pursued till we come to "Simpson Clough." The 



