RINGWOOD TO FORDINGBRIDGE. 99 



against the horizon. Under the bridge arches 

 the Avon eddies along over its beds of weeds and 

 by the brown and green clusters of its bordering 

 rushes. To the east is the quiet, half drowsy- 

 looking town of Bingwood though from our level 

 stand-point we can see little of it and the Church 

 tower peeping up behind trees fronting a meadow 

 that margins the river. Yet so much of the sur- 

 rounding foliage which we can see from our point 

 of view is already autumn-tinted with brown and 

 yellow and russet and orange. 



We leave the town by a road which runs north- 

 wards along by the western side of the Church 

 and follow fche up-stream course of the Avon, 

 which, just as we pass beyond the Church, is half 

 screened from view by trees that border it 

 Lime, Oak, Sycamore and Elm. "We now find 

 ourselves in an elm-bordered lane with the Avon 

 on our left and meadows and homesteads on our 

 right. The river is here margined by reedy beds 

 and by clustering shrubs of Alder, Briar, Black- 

 thorn, Elm and Elder the Alders showing their 

 fruit in yellowish-green cones, which, beneath the 

 leaves, are seen depending in bunches from the 



G 



