42 SOUTHERN ESTUARIES 



actual gate by which the outflow from the hundreds of 

 acres of swollen waters escapes at the ebb into the sea, 

 is a short and narrow channel, called the " Run," which 

 cuts its way between two overlapping claws of sand- 

 spit, the inner planted, down almost to its point, with 

 gradually dwindling pines, the outer rising from flat 

 shingle to moulded heaps of " sand-bennets," until it 

 joins the ironstone rock of Hengistbury. It is in the 

 narrow waters of the " Run " that the salmon are 

 caught, as they begin to ascend the river at the turn of 

 the tide. The mystery which the near presence of the 

 invisible sea adds to the approach to this strange spot 

 makes a visit a series of surprises and discoveries. Not 

 until the last few yards are reached of the long road, 

 which skirts the eastern side of the bay, does the scene 

 suggest that the harbour is anything but a land-locked 

 lake, dominated by the great pile of the priory walls 

 and towers. The path runs along the claw of the 

 inner spit, at the end of which are three or four old 

 brown brick houses, with that bare, battered, salted 

 look which betrays the neighbourhood of the sea. The 

 pines on the left grow thinner and more gaunt, and as 

 the view suddenly opens, there, within a stone's-throw, 

 lie two long strips of sand, a short length of shining 

 river, and beyond its mouth the long, grey, tumbling 

 sea. On the left stretches the richly-wooded Solent 

 shore ; beyond, and across the water, the chalk cliffs of 

 the Isle of Wight, the Needles, and the open waters of 

 the Channel. 



In the short channel through which the harbour 



