267 
SUMMER IN SOMERSET. 
THE brown Barle River running over red rocks aslant 
its course is pushed aside, and races round curving 
slopes. The first shoot of the rapid is smooth and 
polished like a gem by the lapidary’s art, rounded and 
smooth as a fragment of torso, and this convex undula- 
tion maintains a solid outline. Then the following 
scoop under is furrowed as if ploughed across, and the 
ridge of each furrow, where the particles move a little 
less swiftly than in the hollow of the groove, falls back- 
wards as foam blown from a wave. At the foot of the 
furrowed decline the current rises over a rock in a broad 
white sheet—white because as it is dashed to pieces the 
air mingles with it. After this furious haste the stream 
does but just overtake those bubbles which have been 
carried along on another division of the water flowing 
steadily but straight. Sometimes there are two streams 
like this between the same banks, sometimes three or 
even more, each running at a different rate, and each 
gliding above a floor differently inclined. The surface 
of each of these streams slopes in a separate direction, 
and though under the same light thcy reflect it at vary- 
ing angles. The river is animated and alive, rushing 
here, gliding there, foaming yonder; its separate and 
yet component parallels striving together, and talking 
loudly in incomplete sentences. Those rivers that move 
