[Chap, iij USK : MY EARLIEST MEMORIES 21 



I got my little spade and scraped up stones off the gravel 

 path, and with it, of course, some of the soft gravel, but 

 instead of the water rising, it merely turned to mud ; and the 

 more I put in the muddier it became, while there seemed to 

 be even less water than before. At last I became tired and 

 gave it up, and concluded that the story could not be true ; 

 and I am afraid this rather made me disbelieve in experi- 

 ments out of story-books. 



The river in front of our house was the Usk, a fine 

 stream on which we often saw men fishing in coracles, the 

 ancient form of boat made of strong wicker-work, somewhat 

 the shape of the deeper half of a cockle-shell, and covered 

 with bullock's hide. Each coracle held one man, and it could 

 be easily carried to and from the river on the owner's back. 

 In those days of scanty population and abundant fish the 

 river was not preserved, and a number of men got their living, 

 or part of it, by supplying the towns with salmon and trout 

 in their season. It is very interesting that this extremely 

 ancient boat, which has been in use from pre-Roman times, 

 and perhaps even from the Neolithic Age, should continue to 

 be used on several of the Welsh rivers down to the present 

 day. There is probably no other type of vessel now in 

 existence which has remained unchanged for so long a period. 



But the chief attraction of the river to us children was the 

 opportunity it afforded us for catching small fish, especially 

 lampreys. A short distance from our house, towards the 

 little village of Llanbadock, the rocky bank came close to 

 the road, and a stone quarry had been opened to obtain 

 stone, both for building and road-mending purposes. Here, 

 occasionally, the rock was blasted, and sometimes we had the 

 fearful delight of watching the explosion from a safe distance, 

 and seeing a cloud of the smaller stones shoot up into the air. 

 At some earlier period very large charges of powder must have 

 been used, hurling great slabs of rock across the road into the 

 river, where they lay, forming convenient piers and standing- 

 places on its margin. Some of these slabs were eight or ten 

 feet long and nearly as wide ; and it was these that formed 

 our favourite fishing-stations, where we sometimes found 



