miles above Oxford, and, I should imagine,
pretty near one of the sources of England's mighty river. It was
little more than wide enough for the boat, with extended oars, to
pass,--shallow, too, and bordered with bulrushes and water-weeds, which,
in some places, quite overgrew the surface of the river from bank to
bank. The shores were flat and meadow-like, and sometimes, the boatman
told us, are overflowed by the rise of the stream. The water looked
clean and pure, but not particularly transparent, though enough so to
show us that the bottom is very much weed-grown; and I was told that the
weed is an American production, brought to England with importations of
timber, and now threatening to choke up the Thames and other English
rivers. I wonder it does not try its obstructive powers upon the
Merrimack, the Connecticut, or the Hudson,--not to speak of the St.
Lawrence or the Mississippi!

It was an open boat, with cushioned seats astern, comfortably
accommodating our party; the day continued sunny and warm, and perfectly
still; the boatman, well trained to his business, managed the oars
skilfully and vigorously; and we went down the stream quite as swiftly
as it was desirable to go, the scene being so pleasant, and the passing
hour so thoroughly agreeable. The river grew a little wider and deeper,
perhaps, as we glided on, but was still an inconsiderable stream; for it
had a good deal more than a hundred miles to meander through before it
should bear fleets on its bosom, and reflect palaces and towers and
Parliament-houses and dingy and sordid piles of various structure, as it
rolled to and fro with the tide, dividing London asunder. Not, in truth,
that I ever saw any edifice whatever reflected in its turbid breast,
when the sylvan stream, as we beheld it now, is swollen into the Thames
at London.

Once, on our voyage, we had to land, while the boatman and some other
persons drew our skiff round some rapids, which we could not otherwise
have passed; another time, the boat went through a lock. We, meanwhile,
stepped ashore to examine the ruins of the old nunnery of Godstowe,
where Fair Rosamond secluded herself, after being separated from her
royal lover. There is a long line of ruinous wall, and a shattered tower
at one of the angles; the whole much ivy-grown,--brimming over, indeed,
with clustering ivy, which is rooted inside of the walls. The nunnery is
now, I believe, held in lease by the city of Oxford, which has c