We are now more than ever reminded that the Tees is the dividing line of two counties. Though the river has constantly increased in width, all the towns from Croft downwards are situated more or less on each side of the stream. The first of these is the quiet and sleepy town of Yarm, with a single broad street on one side of the river, and a few scattered houses and windmills on the other. Up to Yarm the tide reaches, and here also the net-fishing for salmon begins, small cobles, with salmon-nets on board, being plentiful in the neighbourhood of Yarm Bridge. What else the people of Yarm do for a living in these days is not readily discernible. In former times they were shipbuilders on a limited scale, though they must have been exceedingly small vessels which could be launched in such a situation. Yet there must have been some period of great prosperity in the previous history of the place, as will be guessed from the fact that the houses are almost all of great width and height, and--as is evident from a peculiarity of style not seen elsewhere--were built with some thought of show. The one street of the place is of the width of three or four streets in the more crowded quarters of the larger towns lower down the Tees, and has in its centre an odd sort of Town Hall, like a large sentry-box on arches. At Yarm we set our faces towards the great, growing Tees-side towns, passing the pretty bridge at Blackwell, where Sir Henry Havelock-Allan has a beautiful seat. Already the smoke of great industries is darkening the atmosphere, and when the wind is still and the clouds are low, a black, unpleasant haze creeps over the face of the country and spreads itself far inland. [Illustration: STOCKTON.] By the time it reaches Stockton Bridge the Tees has been transformed from one of the most wild and lovely to one of the most tame and repellent of existing rivers. Its soiled waters henceforth flow between banks of blast-furnace slag; unpleasant odours float about its shores; it is ploughed by great steamships; all around there is the smoke of furnaces, the noise of hammers, the ugliness of trade. Stockton is a town of ancient foundation, which, after sleeping beside the Tees for ages, suddenly woke up to find itself in the nineteenth century, and, full of the nineteenth century desire to "get on," shook off its old apathy, measured itself against the age, deepened its river, built ships, smelted ironstone, cast and forged and manufactured, until it found itself accepted as one of the most spirited and enterprising of English towns. In the process of growth everything that may have been beautiful in its surroundings has been destroyed, and now, glorying in its ugliness, it flaunts its frightful aspect as one of its claims to consideration. [Illustration: HIGH STREET, STOCKTON.]