82 By Stream and Sea. 



session, if we may except, as unworthy of mention in the 

 same breath, the pugnacious little half-armed stickleback 

 which is found in great quantities in the river. 



The Darent, or, as it is often written, Darenth, though it 

 rises in the same hilly formation, sees the light at some 

 distance from the cradle of the Wandle. Its course, which 

 is a trifle over fourteen miles in length, is north-east, through 

 a broad vale smiling with rich pastures, and adorned by 

 many a noble country seat. By Wandleside you are never 

 wholly free from the associations of town; the enclosed 

 grounds give a suburban character to the surroundings, and 

 indeed a drive through Clapham to Mitcham and Carshalton 

 suggests that in process of time those genteel places will be 

 part and parcel of the metropolis. The Darent, on the 

 other hand, brings you into the pure open country, and into 

 the sunny districts where hops entwine and cherry-cheeked 

 fruits ripen for distant markets. Spenser, who took more 

 delight in the English rivers as a whole than any other poet 

 except Drayton, says : — 



" The still Darent, in whose waters clean 

 Ten thousand fishes play and deck his pleasant stream." 



Ten thousand might almost be taken in a more literal sense 

 than Spenser intended, for the Darent is nearly as good a 

 trout stream as the Wandle. The fish are thought to be 

 more numerous in the latter river, but some critics pretend 

 to have discovered a finer flavour in the Kent-bred fish. 

 Remembering how near London is to the Darent, it is 

 scarcely necessary to add that the water is most strictly pre- 

 served by the landowners. There is, however, a fair stretch 

 of fishing allowed to visitors at the hotel, Farningham, and 

 a more delightful summer resort you shall not find so near 



