The next river in Dorsetshire is the /Frome/, formed, as seems to be the fashion in Wessex, of two branches, both uniting at Maiden Newton. Frampton Court, the seat of the Sheridans, is in this neighbourhood. The county town of Dorchester rises from the bank of the river, and has magnificent avenues as high-road approaches. The Black Downs that interpose between the country that is fairly represented by the Blackmore vale of the hunting men further north, and the sea at Weymouth, are bare enough; Dorchester is surrounded by chalk uplands, and it is, no doubt, because there were few forests to clear that the entire neighbourhood is remarkable for its Roman and British remains. The trees around the town have fortunately been sedulously planted and preserved, and the avenues of sycamores and chestnuts on the site of the old rampart have somewhat of a Continental character. The well-defined remains of ancient camps are numerous on the slopes overlooking the Frome, Maiden Castle and the Roman amphitheatre being wonderfully perfect in their typical character. Yet, old-world as Dorchester is in its associations, it has few appearances of age, standing rather as a delightful example of the clean, healthy, quiet, well-to-do country town of the Victorian era, pleasantly environed, and boasting several highways that were Roman roads. Flowing through the sheep country so graphically described by Mr. Hardy in his novels, the Frome arrives, after an uneventful course, at Wareham, and is discharged into Poole Harbour, a place of creeks and islands, sand and mud banks, regularly swelling with the incoming tide into a noble expanse of water. /William Senior./ [Illustration: WIMBORNE MINSTER.] [Illustration: BIDEFORD BRIDGE (_p. 48_).] RIVERS OF DEVON. General Characteristics--Sources of the Devon Streams: Exmoor and Dartmoor. The /Otter/: Ottery Saint Mary and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Exmoor Streams:--The /Exe/: Its Source in The Chains--The Barle--The Batherm--Tiverton and Peter Blundell--Bickleigh Bridge and the "King of the Gipsies"--The Culm--Exeter--Countess Weir--Exmouth. The /Lyn/: Oareford--The Doone Country--Malmsmead--Watersmeet--Lyndale--Lynton and Lynmouth. Dartmoor Streams:--The /Teign/: Wallabrook--Chagford--Fingle Bridge--Chudleigh--The Bovey--Newton Abbot--Teignmouth. The /Dart/: Holne Chase--Buckfast Abbey--Dartington Hall--Totnes--The Lower Reaches--Dartmouth. The Tavy. The /Taw/: Oxenham and its Legend--Barnstaple--Lundy. The /Torridge/: The Okement--Great Torrington--Bideford--Hubbastone. The /Avon/, Erme, and Yealm. The /Plym/: Dewerstone--The Meavy and Plymouth Leat--Plympton St. Mary and Plympton Earl--The Three Towns.