CHAP, ii.] THE FIRST DA Y. 229 



PISCATOR. I know them all, and they were not hard to reckon, 

 were it worth the trouble : but the most considerable of them I 

 will presently name you. And to begin where we now are, for 

 you must know we are now upon the very skirts of Derbyshire, we 

 have, first, the river Dove, that we shall come to by-and-by, which 

 divides the two counties of Derby and Stafford for many miles 

 together, and is so called from the swiftness of its current, and 

 that swiftness occasioned by the declivity of its course, and by 

 being so straitened in that course betwixt the rocks, by which 

 (and those very high ones) it is, hereabout, for four or five miles, 

 confined into a very narrow stream : a river that from a contempt- 

 ible fountain, which I can cover with my hat, by the confluence 

 of other rivers, rivulets, brooks, and rills, is swelled, before it fall 

 into Trent, a little below Eggington, where it loses the name, to 

 such a breadth and depth, as to be in most places navigable, were 

 not the passage frequently interrupted with fords and weirs ; and 

 has as fertile banks as any river in England, none excepted. And 

 this river, from its head for a mile or two, is a black water, as all 

 the rest of the Derbyshire rivers of note originally are, for they 

 all spring from the mosses ; but is in a few miles' travel so 

 clarified by the addition of several clear and very great springs, 

 bigger than itself, which gush out of the limestone rocks, that 

 before it comes to my house, which is but six or seven miles from 

 its source, you will find it one of the purest crystalline streams you 

 have seen.* 



VIATOR. Does Trent spring in these parts ? 



PISCATOR. Yes, in these parts ; not in this county, but some- 

 where towards the upper end of Staffordshire, I think not far from 

 a place called Trentham ; and thence runs down, not far from 

 Stafford, to Wolseley Bridge, and, washing the skirts and purlieus 

 of the forest of Needwood, runs down to Burton in the same county ; 

 thence it comes into this, where we now are, and, running by 

 Swarkeston and Dunnington, receives Derwent at Wildon ; and, 

 so, to Nottingham ; thence, to Newark and, by Gainsborough, 



* Between Beresford Hall and Ashbourn lies Dove Dale, whose crested cliff's and 

 swift torrents are again noticed by Cotton in his "Wonders of the Peak." Through this 

 singularly deep valley the Dove runs for about two miles, changing its course, its motion, 

 and its appearance perpetually ; never less than ten, and rarely so many as twenty yards 

 in widih ; making a continued noise by rolling over or falling among loose stones. The 

 rocks which form its sides are heaved up in enormous piles, sometimes connected with 

 each other, and sometimes detached ; some perforated in natural cavities, others adorned 

 with foliage ; with here and there a tall rock, having nothing to relieve the bareness of 

 its appearance but a mountain-ash flourishing at the top. The grandeur of the scenery 

 is probably unrivalled in England. E. 



