136 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



Hurrying along to the sea with that impetuous course which 

 earned the river its name, meaning swiftness, the Otter gleams 

 like a glittering serpent below us as it rushes through meadows 

 full of red Devon oxen and Southdowns. Drayton, misled by 

 the spelling of Otry (instead of Autrie, meaning " rapid," its 

 ancient title), erroneously says, 



" Otry, that her name doth of the otters take 

 Abounding in her banks. "* 



This rapidity of its stream greatly enhances the natural beauties 

 of red sandstone cliffs with hanging trees and bushes which 

 bound one side of its channel. Among the many beautiful 

 streams of the county the Otter possesses a character of its 

 own. Frequent diversities of scenery occur beside it, which 

 modify its current and occasionally cause it to run in a deep, 

 silent trough ; but for the most part its shallowness, and the 

 numerous beds of many-coloured gravel over which it passes, 

 insure its being always attended by its own music. To the 

 angler it offers many a nook and "stickle" full of trout, while 

 the naturalist is delighted at the numbers of birds which every- 

 where haunt its banks. According to the legend, it was in 

 this corner of England that Brute and his Trojans, when ex- 

 pelled by the Saxons from the interior, 



" Found refuge in their flight, where Axe and Otrey first 

 Gave these poor souls to drink opprest with grevious thirst ; "t 



but the Otter's chief poet is Coleridge, who very affectingly re- 

 calls it in after-life, and faithfully paints its general features, 



" So deep imprest 



Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes 

 I never shut amid the sunny ray ; 

 But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, 

 Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey, 

 And bedded sand that veined with various dyes 



* Polyolbion, song i. t Drayton, ut supra. 



