POOLE HARBOUR 61 



The best way to learn the habits of the fowl is to row 

 up on the flood-tide with a boatman, if possible a local 

 fisherman who knows the habits of the birds and the 

 set of the tide. Yet the exploration of such harbours 

 without local knowledge has its charms. My first 

 visit to Poole Harbour was paid in the form which all 

 history prescribes as the right one for approaching 

 unknown shores, that is by sea, and on a voyage of 

 discovery. In other words we were in a yacht a large 

 and comfortable steam-yacht which had to be very 

 carefully navigated into the harbour and over the bar. 

 An hour spent musing over the charts in the chart- 

 house on deck as we crossed the chord of the Bourne- 

 mouth Bay, after rounding Hurst Castle, showed more 

 completely than most maps the extraordinary character 

 of this intricate estuary, for a chart shows the formation 

 not only of the land, but of the sea-bottom, and the 

 fathom-markings show the respective areas of shoal, 

 deep water, sand, and mud-bank. 



The chart not only showed how at Poole, harbour 

 lay within harbour, like the outline of a bunch of 

 grapes, but the enormous expanse of " slob-lands " in 

 proportion to navigable water in these inland lagoons. 

 One inlet runs for many miles up towards the " Trough 

 of Poole," another, Hollesley Bay, lies at the back, and 

 to the east of Poole town, which itself lies several 

 miles from the narrow entrance. To the left another 

 lagoon stretches inland further than the eye can see, 

 surrounding islands of sound ground with trees and 

 cattle on them. But we were not prepared for the 



