Hitherto the Avon's gliding way has lain by the low-lying dairy lands of North Wiltshire, through peaceful pastoral scenes, its banks clothed with the brightest flowers of the field, and here and there shaded with willows and elms, But now, beyond Chippenham, it embarks upon the chequered and romantic phase of its career. The country becomes more hilly directly we near the clothing district of Wiltshire. For a short space the Avon renders the useful service of a boundary, effectually dividing Wilts and Somerset. The scenery of Chippenham Vale, through which the river flows on to Melksham, Trowbridge, and Bradford--a trio of interesting towns, each watered by the same stream--is extremely beautiful. Melksham, a town of one long principal street, is flanked by rich meadows, through which meanders the Avon. The quaint, old-fashioned houses are built on the acclivity of an eminence which may fairly be ascribed to the river's wearing work through the ages; and the inhabitants are not without reason proud of their handsome four-arched bridge. Again there comes a season of increase, in which the river gains, from this source and that, a considerable addition to its volume. At Broughton Gifford a brook by that name surrenders to the brimming river from the west, whilst from the east enters the Whaddon streamlet. Then, again, near Staverton the little Biss joineth the great Avon. So our river swells with importance as it approaches romantic Bradford-on-Avon. The name of this town--from the "broad ford" over the river--is by no means its only indebtedness to the Avon, for the highly picturesque situation of Leland's "clooth-making" centre is entirely the outcome of Nature's handiwork. Immediately on the north side of the river a hill abruptly rises, and it is on the brow and along the sloping declivity of this eminence that most of the tastefully-designed dwellings have been erected. The deep and hollow valley of the Avon now extends between two ranges, the hills here and there richly wooded to their summits; and pretty villages have scattered themselves along these bold acclivities. Bradford-on-Avon Church is of considerable interest, and is remarkable for the success of its highly sympathetic restoration by Canon Jones, the vicar, a distinguished archæologist. Two bridges here cross the Avon; the most ancient, in the centre of the town, being described by Aubrey, two centuries since, as "a strong handsome bridge, in the midst of which is a chapel for Mass." Bradford gained its original eminence in the woollen trade mainly from the introduction of "spinners" from Holland in the seventeenth century, and lost it with the development of the greater Bradford of the North, in the midst of the coalfields.