After lunch the wind has freshened so that we take our bonnet off (off the sail, that is) and smaller vessels reef. The wind, too, is ahead, and we have to tack a great deal as we continue our course down stream. Still the river course is so tortuous that every reach is not a head one; sometimes, indeed, we can lay one reach on one tack and the next reach on the other tack. It is pretty to watch the yachts shooting from side to side of the river (which widens as we proceed); they lay over, with the water bubbling over the lee deck and the foot of the great balloon jib deep in the water. The long bowsprit sweeps over the grass of the margin as the helm is let go; the boat shoots up into the wind, is upright with fluttering jib for a moment, then off she goes on the other tack to repeat the manoeuvre at the opposite shore. If the mainsheet is well handled the mainsail never shakes. As it loses the wind on one side it catches it on the other, the jib being kept slightly aback until the boat's head is well off the wind. It is no joke to handle the jibsheets of an 8- or 10-ton boat. In spite of soft cotton rope being employed, the chafe will try the horniest hand. In sailing the jib is worked to every puff, eased off or drawn in at every variation in direction or strength of wind. The man in charge watches the wind pressing down the grasses and reeds and darkening the water in advance, and trims his sheet to every puff or lull. If he does not, why, the boat is not sailing her best--that is all. The mainsheet man, too, is almost as particular. When there are hands enough to work the sheets no one thinks of making a sheet fast. The bends of the river are too frequent for that. Again, there is almost always another yacht ahead or astern, and you strive to overtake the one or sail away from the other, so that every day's sail is more or less of a race. In passing or meeting other craft the rules of the road are well observed, and the steering is usually so excellent that a space of six inches is considered an ample margin of distance from the other vessel. These narrow rivers soon develop considerable skill in this direction, and accidents do not often happen. The least rare is that of misjudging the rate at which a wherry is coming, and getting athwart her bows while tacking; but a direct collision is averted, and the yacht's bowsprit or mainsheet is the only thing which suffers. [Illustration: Smooth-water bowsprit.] On the right we pass Ranworth Broad, a fine lake in two sections, the larger of which is now in process of being closed to the tourist; on the left the mouth of the narrow river Ant, which, after twisting like an eel for some five miles, opens into the navigable but shallow Barton Broad, of considerable size. There is a bridge over the Ant so narrow that the larger kind of vessels cannot get through.