FIRST DAY. 389 



natives of these mountains, and acquainted with them, dis- 

 dain to alight. 



VlAT. I hope, though, that a foreigner is privileged to 

 use his own discretion, and that I may have the liberty to 

 entrust my neck to the fidelity of my own feet, rather than 

 to those of my horse, for I have no more at home. 



PlSC. 'Twere hard else. But in the meantime, I think 

 't were best, while this way is pretty even, to mend our pace, 

 that we may be past that hill I speak of ; to the end your 

 apprehension may not be doubled for want of light to dis- 

 cern the easiness of the descent. 



VlAT. I am willing to put forward as fast as my beast 

 will give me leave, though I fear nothing in your company. 

 But what pretty river is this we are going into ? 



PlSC. Why, this, Sir, is called Bently Brook, and is full 

 of very good trout and grayling; but so encumbered with 

 wood in many places, as is troublesome to an angler. 



VlAT. Here are the prettiest rivers, and the most of them 

 in this country that ever I saw : do you know how many 

 you have in the country ? 



PlSC. I know them all, and they were not hard to reckon, 

 were it worth the trouble, but the most considerable of them 

 I will presently name you. And to begin where we now 

 are, for you must know we are now upon the very skirts of 

 Derbyshire : we have first the river Dove, that we shall come 

 to by-and-by, which divides the two counties of Derby and 

 Stafford for many miles together ; and is so called from the 

 swiftness of its current, and that swiftness occasioned by the 

 declivity of its course, and by being so straitened in that 

 course betwixt the rocks ; by which, and those very high 

 ones, it is, hereabout, for four or five miles, confined into a 



