CHAP. ii. THE FIRST DAY. 193 



before it falls 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. 



VlAT. Does Trent spring in these parts ? 



PlSC. Yes, in these parts ; not in this country, 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 Wolsly 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 Swarkston and Dunnington, receives Derwent at 

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

 Gainsborough, to Kingston-upon-Hull, where it takes the name 

 of Humber, and thence falls into the sea ; but that the map will 

 best inform you. 



VlAT. Know you whence this river Trent derives its name ? 



PlSC. No, indeed; and yet I have heard it often discouised 

 upon : when some have given its denomination from the fore- 

 named Trentham, though that seems rather a derivative from it; 

 others have said it is so called from thirty rivers that fall into it, 

 and there lose their names ; which cannot be, neither, because 

 it carries that name from its very fountain, before any other 

 rivers fall into it: others derive it from thirty several sorts of 

 fish that breed there ; and that is the most likely derivation : but 

 be it how it will, it is doubtless one of the finest rivers in the 

 woild, and the most abounding with excellent salmon, and all 

 sorts of delicate fish. 



VlAT, Pardon me, sir, for tempting you into this digression ; 



'3 



