"Clear Colne and lively Leech have down from Cotswold's plain, At Lechlade linking hands, come likewise to support The mother of great Thames. When, seeing the resort, From Cotswold Windrush scrowers; and with herself doth cast The train to overtake; and therefore hies her fast Through the Oxfordian fields; when (as the last of all Those floods that into Thames out of our Cotswold fall, And farthest unto the north) bright Elnlode forth doth beare." Woodstock is not more than four miles from Eynsham, but it is generally reached from Oxford. The river winds now round the foot of Witham Hill, and we are on close terms with the outskirts of the immense wood through which one could walk for eight miles before losing its shade. The portion that comes to within a few yards of the Thames consists of oak-trees, with an occasional ash, and as we halt to sit a while under the umbrageous canopy we receive as a salute the cooing of doves, agreeable contrast to the reception, a few miles higher up, conveyed in the harsh squawk of a couple of herons. Longfellow might have sat amongst these identical brackens when he wrote:-- "But when sultry suns are high, Underneath the oak I lie, As it shades the water's edge, And I mark my line, away In the wheeling eddy play, Tangling with the river sedge." The Thames describes a sharp horseshoe curve round the base of the hill. From the bank a fine view across the flat is obtained of Cassington Church spire, and of the last mill on the River Evenlode, making for the Thames midway between the bridge and Hagley Pool. The paucity of pleasure-boats on the river between Lechlade and Bablock Hythe may be attributed to the great weediness of the river, rendering it sometimes almost impassable; also to the prevalence of shallows, and the absence of anything particular to see, and the all-important consideration that there are few hotels to stop at. There is not a riverside house of call between the little cottage inn at Bablock Hythe and Godstow. An occasional steam-launch finds its way from Oxford up the Canal and into the Thames, by way of the Wolvercott Paper Mill; but this unpleasant type of vessel is very rarely seen so far up, since the forests of aquatic undergrowth are the reverse of favourable for the working of the screw. [Illustration: OXFORD, FROM GODSTOW.]