2 i8 IN THE ISIS VALLEY 



of Oxford against the bargee from the Potteries who 

 had fought and beaten successively the local champions 

 at each stopping-place by the canal on his way from the 

 Midlands. Roused from his bed for he was "in 

 training" and had retired early he met the insolent 

 foe and defeated him in less than thirty rounds. 



On the other hand, perhaps the boats of Bossom out- 

 number those of Beasly. The largest house-boat at 

 Medley is inhabited by a Bossom. Behind it, in 

 diminishing series, are other house-boats his " cast 

 shells," so to say, which he has outgrown, like a water- 

 snail. I hired a gig, and placing in it my rod, rowed 

 gently up to Rosamond's Bower at Godstow. On the 

 left were the Wytham Woods ; on the right the great 

 flat of Port Meadow, covered with the cattle and geese 

 of the freemen of Oxford. Half-way to Godstow is a 

 marsh, noted for rare water-plants, where among beds 

 of arrowhead and forget-me-not I found that beautiful 

 plant the water- villarsia. It is not unlike a water-lily, 

 but even more graceful, with the edges of its leaves 

 scalloped and slightly upturned ; the petals of its 

 yellow flower are alternately opaque and semi-trans- 

 parent, the latter delicately frilled, Here, too, was the 

 flowering rush, tall as the iris, bearing a coronet of pale 

 rose-pink flowers. By this time the geese had made up 

 their minds that I was not to be trusted ; and, forming 

 a phalanx of some 200, with their yellow goslings in 

 the centre, marched to the river and swam to the mud- 

 bank which they occupy at night. I also took to the 

 water, and rowed up to Godstow once the fairest spot 



