BREYDON IN SPRINGTIME 85 



ago; "and there WERE wildfowl, too," they told me. But 

 we must describe Breydon as it is to-day. 



I was astonished beyond measure one spring it may be 

 four years ago to see a spoonbill restfully feeding here, 

 almost within gunshot of the bridge-builders hammering and 

 toiling with sledge and bellows ; it paid no more heed to the 

 clangour than if it were a puff of wind rustling the sedges 

 beside a desert pool. I saw an Iceland gull, innocent 

 evidently, and trustful of men's ways, pottering about on 

 the flat yonder under the wall ; I crawled along the wall to 

 within a few yards of it, and feasted my eyes on the in- 

 teresting stranger, creamy of plumage, and tired after rough 

 winds. An hour later the gun of a Breydoner, who was not 

 sentimental, had slain it. 



You notice that Breydon is " staked," i.e. at intervals of a 

 few hundred yards a trimmed-up tree-trunk, an oak for 

 choice, has been driven into the mud to mark the channel. 

 This leafless avenue extends quite to Burgh and Berney 

 Arms. On the left, going up, the stakes are painted red ; 

 on the right they are glistening black with tar. Each one is 

 numbered; the last one being Number 56. No boat without a 

 keel should ever dare to get outside this course, for the flats 

 come wellnigh out to them ; and he who, not knowing the 

 risk of it, ventures there, may have to pay for his audacity or 

 his ignorance by sticking on the mud. A yachtsman may 

 ground there, as I have seen him, on the top of the last of 

 the spring tides which, " falling off" directly after, may leave 

 him prisoner for days, unless he pays the native "pirates" to dig 

 him out. The main channel is over four fathoms deep in places. 



The punter runs few risks, for three or four inches of water 

 will suffice to float him, and if he goes aground a sturdy 

 shove with the oar or his little "quant" will back him 

 speedily into sufficiently deep water again. To the ex- 

 perienced eye the extremely sinuous drains that intersect the 

 flats are easily followed, even when the big flood tide covers 

 everywhere : the colour of the water usually greenest where 

 deepest the peculiar ruffling made over deep water by the 

 faintest breeze, and other signs are as readable as a chart to 

 him. I myself have, in a dense fog and in darkest night, 

 piloted my punt across to and from the Moorhen, simply by 

 feeling my way with the oars. But this is not easy on a 



