half-timbered, and barge-boarded; but they have either been demolished or re-fronted. Some of the shops, with painfully modern fronts, have low panelled interiors and carved staircases. [Illustration: THE ROYAL BARGE.] [Illustration: "THE ANGLERS," TEDDINGTON.] At Kingston the towing-path changes to the Surrey shore, and the river takes a bold sweep towards Teddington. Between Kingston Bridge and Teddington Lock the path is by no means picturesque; but the wooded beauty of the opposite bank diverts attention from the more homely shore. Right away to Teddington, and indeed beyond, is an almost uninterrupted succession of lawns and shrubberies and cool-timbered pleasure-grounds, surrounding pretty riparian villas. Life in summer in these cool veranda-girt pleasure-houses is idyllic. There you may enjoy tennis and boating, fishing and sailing, and drink your fill of admiration of the gaily-cushioned craft as they skim past with their lightsome burden of coquettish muslins and gossamers. Nor is this river-strand to be despised when the winds of "chill October" have stripped the trees and left but bare branches, which look mournful and desolate to those who know only the Thames of sunshine and boating flannels. The stream runs brown, brimming, and turbid, as it swirls along laden with a burden of russet leaves. The angler, happily, can follow his museful sport in all seasons, and to him, as to other contemplative men, the river has attractions in autumn not smaller than those of summer, though different. The best English weather is a fine autumn, good alike for work and play, and the second half of autumn is a by no means inauspicious time for the Thames angler, for the river has ceased to be crowded with small craft, and the lumpy water suits better the fish then in season than if it were clear and limpid. A day's angling upon the bosom, or a long stroll by the banks of Thames, has many charms upon a sober October day; and a late autumnal sunset, with its glow fading from across the water and deepening into grey behind the bare poles of the trees, is a thing all of loveliness. Such a sunset, with the soft mist which clouds the banks directly afterwards, is well seen along this reach between Kingston and Teddington, where the thickly-wooded shores shut in the mist, and where the night seems to issue from the weird recesses of the woodland. [Illustration: STRAWBERRY HILL.]