At Clifton Bridge the towing-path crosses to the Berkshire shore, and for the next two miles the scenery is, perhaps, the prettiest, with the exception of Clifton itself, between Abingdon and Wallingford. The Oxford bank is clothed luxuriantly with trees, out of which now and again peeps, half unperceived, the canvas shelter of a camping party. These occasional encampments are almost the only sign of life, so far as the banks of the river are concerned. Between Clifton and Day's Lock the country is remarkably solitary. The waterside meadows are nearly all empty; but here and there a herd of cattle browses leisurely, or, if it be high noon, shelters itself from the heat and the tormenting flies under the lee of the thick hedgerows. Pedestrians are never seen. That it is good to row upon a beautiful river, but undesirable to walk by the side of it, appears to be the popular idea; but despite the physical exhilaration and the æsthetic delight of the rhythmical swing of oars, the river can be seen best from the towing-path, and if the love of walking-tours had not very largely died out we might expect to see the banks of the upper Thames as much frequented as its waters. It is often possible to pass between Clifton and Day's Lock without meeting either man or boat, which seems a little odd, since that reach is in high favour during the season. To the walker upon the towing-path this silence and vacancy become oppressive, and the sudden splash of a water-rat striking out from among the rushes is quite startling. The Berkshire shore is flattish here; but there are swelling uplands beyond, and the Wrekin-shaped Sinodun Hill looms quite close upon the left. Presently there stands out from among the trees on the Oxford bank an old church with a very long nave and tall tower, with an unusual high-pitched red roof, topped by a vane. That is the famous Abbey Church of Dorchester, the solitary remnant of the ancient grandeur of the olden capital of Wessex. A little farther is Day's Lock, with the ferry between Little Wittenham and Dorchester, where, even in a season of drought, the water is unusually full and brimming, the result, perhaps, of the wedding near by of the little Thame with the more classic and magnificent Thames, or Isis, as the poets have preferred to call it. This conceit owes its origin almost entirely to such comparatively modern poets as Warton and Drayton, though Spenser, in the "Faërie Queen," seems to have originated the legend in somewhat of a backhanded way:-- "The lovely bridegroom came, The noble Thamis, with all his goodly traine, But before him there went, as best became, His auncient parents, namely, th' auncient Thame; But much more aged was his wife than he, The Ouze, whom men doe Isis rightly name. Full weak and crooked creature seemed shee, And almost blind through Eld, that scarce her way could see." [Illustration: DORCHESTER, FROM LITTLE WITTENHAM.]