THE WATER-WITHE. 
125 
THE WATER-WITHE. 
March 6th. — From Shrewsbury I went a little 
W'ay into the woods to see the Coulter-Spring, a 
stream so named. A walk of half a mile through the 
tall and dark forest brought me to a wild rocky de- 
file, in the bottom of which the stream ran. In the 
rains this is a roaring, impetuous torrent, and must 
he wildly magnificent ; at this time it was romantic 
enough, though in another way. The water was 
dwindled by the parching weather, until it no longer 
formed a stream, but lay in calm, glassy pools, 
hounded by the huge, angular masses of black rock 
that lay in confused disorder in the ravine. Tiny 
threads of water trickled from one reservoir to 
another, and produced a tinkling music, sufficiently 
audible in the deep silence of the woods. The lofty 
trees that shot up their straight branchless stems all 
around, were reflected in the dark pools with perfect 
outline ; not a bird, not an insect was visible ; the 
obscurity, the stillness, and the silence gave a gloomy 
awe to the scene, and I felt a sort of relief at again 
breaking out into the sunny fields of Shrewsbury. 
In this obscure glen the friend who acted as my 
guide pointed out the Water- Withe {Vitis Indica), 
a valuable plant, for the resource it affords to thirsty 
travellers. A long twisted stem, much like that of 
the common Grape-Vine, and about as thick as one’s 
wrist, was hanging down from one tree to another ; 
with a stroke of his heavy knife he cut this in two, 
and putting one extremity to my mouth, bade me 
