Little rivers seem to have the indefinable quality that belongs to certain people in the world,—­the power of drawing attention without courting it, the faculty of exciting interest by their very presence and way of doing things.

The most fascinating part of a city or town is that through which the water flows.  Idlers always choose a bridge for their place of meditation when they can get it; and, failing that, you will find them sitting on the edge of a quay or embankment, with their feet hanging over the water.  What a piquant mingling of indolence and vivacity you can enjoy by the river-side!  The best point of view in Rome, to my taste, is the Ponte San Angelo; and in Florence or Pisa I never tire of loafing along the Lung’ Arno.  You do not know London until you have seen it from the Thames.  And you will miss the charm of Cambridge unless you take a little boat and go drifting on the placid Cam, beneath the bending trees, along the backs of the colleges.

But the real way to know a little river is not to glance at it here or there in the course of a hasty journey, nor to become acquainted with it after it has been partly civilised and spoiled by too close contact with the works of man.  You must go to its native haunts; you must see it in youth and freedom; you must accommodate yourself to its pace, and give yourself to its influence, and follow its meanderings whithersoever they may lead you.

Now, of this pleasant pastime there are three principal forms.  You may go as a walker, taking the river-side path, or making a way for yourself through the tangled thickets or across the open meadows.  You may go as a sailor, launching your light canoe on the swift current and committing yourself for a day, or a week, or a month, to the delightful uncertainties of a voyage through the forest.  You may go as a wader, stepping into the stream and going down with it, through rapids and shallows and deeper pools, until you come to the end of your courage and the daylight.  Of these three ways I know not which is best.  But in all of them the essential thing is that you must be willing and glad to be led; you must take the little river for your guide, philosopher, and friend.

And what a good guidance it gives you.  How cheerfully it lures you on into the secrets of field and wood, and brings you acquainted with the birds and the flowers.  The stream can show you, better than any other teacher, how nature works her enchantments with colour and music.

Go out to the Beaver-kill

     “In the tassel-time of spring,”