The estuary of the Dee has its Lindisfarne; for, as an old writer on Hillbree Island, with the square tower of its church rising above a wooded knoll, has remarked, "It is an island but twice a day, embraced by Neptune only at the full tydes, and twice a day shakes hands with great Britain." The sands stretch away in almost illimitable expanse, the Wirral Promontory making a distant, faint, and irregular boundary between the Dee and the Mersey. Kingsley's account of one of Copley Fielding's sketches of the Dee estuary says almost all that is possible in the way of description:--"A wild waste of tidal sands, with here and there a line of stake-nets fluttering in the wind--a gray shroud of rain sweeping up from the westward, through which low red cliffs glowed dimly in the rays of the setting sun--a train of horses and cattle splashing slowly through shallow, desolate pools and creeks, their wet red and black hides glittering in one long line of level light." It was the simple, dreary grandeur of the picture, combined with the relation of a tragic story, which inspired one of the most pathetic ballads in the language--that long, piercing wail, "The Sands of Dee":-- "'O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee.' The western wind was wild and dank with foam, And all alone went she. "The western tide crept up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see. The blinding mist came down and hid the land: And never home came she. * * * * * "They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea: But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee." /Aaron Watson./ [Illustration: THE SANDS OF DEE.] [Illustration: THE MERSEY AT STOCKPORT (_p. 244_).] THE MERSEY. A Modern River--Derivations--The Tame, the Goyt, and the Etherow--Stockport--Northenden-The Irwell and its Feeders--Manchester and Salford--The Ship Canal--Bridges over the Irwell--Ordsall--Eccles--Barton--Warburton--Irlam--Warrington-- Latchford--Runcorn and Widnes--The Weaver--Eastham Locks--Liverpool and its Growth--Its Docks and Quays--Birkenhead and its Shipbuilding Yards--New Brighton--Perch Rock Lighthouse.