NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
The Valley 
Yrack, 
muddy banks and goes a long way out of its 
course to get around a piece of hard ground. 
It is deep in places, too, and has a lazy fashion 
of sleeping in flat pools under the shade of 
some great oak or elm. It is in no hurry to 
be gone, and yet it always keeps moving, drift- 
ing seaward. 
We meet with quite a change in river char- 
acter when what is called the Valley Track is 
reached. It seems as though the great plain 
had been narrowed, as though the distant hills 
had grown almost to mountains and stood 
closer to the water’s edge, and the flat farms 
had been converted into side-hills or foot-hills. 
How different now is the river! It has a rocky 
or stony bed, there are sharp, confining banks ; 
sometimes there are cliffs, about the bases of 
which the clear water laps and gurgles. The 
stream is now running swiftly and turns in 
bends and angles, flashing light and color 
from its rippling surface. There are also 
rapids at different places, and where the bank 
bends sharply we meet with racing water on one 
side, and the deep pool with its back-water on 
the other side. Clumps of saplings or dank 
masses of bushes fringe the sides and droop into 
the water, and occasionally in the centre of the 
