COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



billy-boys and keels, on the broad streams of the Trent and 

 Ouse, which at this point join the broader Humber ; some 

 wending their way to the markets of the West Riding ; some 

 dropping down, laden with potatoes from the warping grounds, 

 bound for the great vorago of London ; others lying helplessly 

 on the mud banks, waiting the coming tide. Curlews and sea- 

 gulls, and, in the winter time, grey-backed crows hover over the 

 water. Between the two rivers is a rich alluvial delta, with the 

 old church of Luddington, near which is Waterton, and not far 

 off Amobtts, the nurseries of those ancient names. On the 

 Ouse, Saltmarsh, the residence of that race for many a long 

 3 r ear, the modern spire of Goole, the lofty tower of Howden, 

 the Abbey of Selby, and beyond, rising in solemn majesty, the 

 minster of York."* The long outlook over the wooded valley 

 between Benniworth and Lincoln Cathedral, on one side of the 

 Wolds, and the grassy, so-called "marshes," near Great Cotes 

 and Stallingborough, on the eastern side, with the varied play 

 of sun and shadow sweeping over them on a gusty day are 

 two other most characteristic landscapes, which once seen are 

 never forgotten. 



Such, then, being the aesthetical value of the Wolds, we shall 

 not dwell upon their agricultural capabilities, the large fields of 

 corn waving in the keen air of the uplands, the huge flocks of 

 Leicester sheep dotted over their swelling pastures these 

 pictures being at present somewhat tantalising to Lincolnshire 

 farmers. It will be safer to turn to their physical character. 

 A long ridge of chalk runs down the county parallel to the 

 Lincoln heights, something like the " duplex spina " extending 

 along the back of Virgil's well-bred horse. This ridge enters 

 the county after dipping beneath the Humber, near Barton, 

 and runs in a south-eastern direction till it dies away into the 

 Fens near Spilsby. On the eastern side, lower terraces break 

 </.own towards the sea, also trending to the east ; while, every 

 * Sir C. Anderson's Lincoln Pocket Guide (Stanford, 1880), p. 8. 



