surprised at noticing George hurriedly smooth out his trousers, ruffle up

his hair, and stick his cap on in a rakish manner at the back of his
head, and then, assuming an expression of mingled affability and sadness,

sit down in a graceful attitude, and try to hide his feet.
My first idea was that he had suddenly caught sight of some girl he knew,

and I looked about to see who it was. Everybody in the lock seemed to
have been suddenly struck wooden. They were all standing or sitting

about in the most quaint and curious attitudes I have ever seen off a
Japanese fan. All the girls were smiling. Oh, they did look so sweet!

And all the fellows were frowning, and looking stern and noble.
And then, at last, the truth flashed across me, and I wondered if I

should be in time. Ours was the first boat, and it would be unkind of me
to spoil the man's picture, I thought.

So I faced round quickly, and took up a position in the prow, where I
leant with careless grace upon the hitcher, in an attitude suggestive of

agility and strength. I arranged my hair with a curl over the forehead,
and threw an air of tender wistfulness into my expression, mingled with a

touch of cynicism, which I am told suits me.
As we stood, waiting for the eventful moment, I heard someone behind call

out:
"Hi! look at your nose."

I could not turn round to see what was the matter, and whose nose it was
that was to be looked at. I stole a side-glance at George's nose! It

was all right - at all events, there was nothing wrong with it that could
be altered. I squinted down at my own, and that seemed all that could be

expected also.
"Look at your nose, you stupid ass!" came the same voice again, louder.

And then another voice cried:
"Push your nose out, can't you, you - you two with the dog!"

Neither George nor I dared to turn round. The man's hand was on the cap,
and the picture might be taken any moment. Was it us they were calling

to? What was the matter with our noses? Why were they to be pushed out!
But now the whole lock started yelling, and a stentorian voice from the

back shouted:
"Look at your boat, sir; you in the red and black caps. It's your two

corpses that will get taken in that photo, if you ain't quick."
We looked then, and saw that the nose of our boat had got fixed under the

woodwork of the lock, while the in-coming water was rising all around it,
and tilting it up. In another moment we should be over. Quick as

thought, we each seized an oar, and a vigorous blow against the side of
the lock with the butt-ends released the boat, and sent us sprawling on

our backs.
We did not come out well in that photograph, George and I. Of course, as

was to be expected, our luck ordained it, that the man should set his
wretched machine in motion at the precise moment that we were both lying

on our backs with a wild expression of "Where am I? and what is it?" on
our faces, and our four feet waving madly in the air.

Our feet were undoubtedly the leading article in that photograph.
Indeed, very little else was to be seen. They filled up the foreground

entirely. Behind them, you caught glimpses of the other boats, and bits
of the surroundingscenery; but everything and everybody else in the lock

looked so utterly insignificant and paltry compared with our feet, that
all the other people felt quite ashamed of themselves, and refused to

subscribe to the picture.
The owner of one steam launch, who had bespoke six copies, rescinded the

order on seeing the negative. He said he would take them if anybody
could show him his launch, but nobody could. It was somewhere behind

George's right foot.
There was a good deal of unpleasantness over the business. The

photographer thought we ought to take a dozen copies each, seeing that
the photo was about nine-tenths us, but we declined. We said we had no

objection to being photo'd full-length, but we preferred being taken the
right way up.

Wallingford, six miles above Streatley, is a very ancient town, and has
been an active centre for the making of English history. It was a rude,

mud-built town in the time of the Britons, who squatted there, until the
Roman legions evicted them; and replaced their clay-baked walls by mighty

fortifications, the trace of which Time has not yet succeeded in sweeping
away, so well those old-world masons knew how to build.

But Time, though he halted at Roman walls, soon crumbled Romans to dust;
and on the ground, in later years, fought savage Saxons and huge Danes,

until the Normans came.
It was a walled and fortified town up to the time of the Parliamentary

War, when it suffered a long and bitter siege from Fairfax. It fell at
last, and then the walls were razed.

From Wallingford up to Dorchester the neighbourhood of the river grows
more hilly, varied, and picturesque. Dorchester stands half a mile from

the river. It can be reached by paddling up the Thame, if you have a
small boat; but the best way is to leave the river at Day's Lock, and

take a walk across the fields. Dorchester is a delightfullypeaceful old
place, nestling in stillness and silence and drowsiness.

Dorchester, like Wallingford, was a city in ancient British times; it was
then called Caer Doren, "the city on the water." In more recent times

the Romans formed a great camp here, the fortifications surrounding which
now seem like low, even hills. In Saxon days it was the capital of

Wessex. It is very old, and it was very strong and great once. Now it
sits aside from the stirring world, and nods and dreams.

Round Clifton Hampden, itself a wonderfully pretty village, old-
fashioned, peaceful, and dainty with flowers, the river scenery is rich

and beautiful. If you stay the night on land at Clifton, you cannot do
better than put up at the "Barley Mow." It is, without exception, I

should say, the quaintest, most old-world inn up the river. It stands on
the right of the bridge, quite away from the village. Its low-pitched

gables and thatched roof and latticed windows give it quite a story-book
appearance, while inside it is even still more once-upon-a-timeyfied.

It would not be a good place for the heroine of a modern novel to stay
at. The heroine of a modern novel is always "divinely tall," and she is

ever "drawing herself up to her full height." At the "Barley Mow" she
would bump her head against the ceiling each time she did this.

It would also be a bad house for a drunken man to put up at. There are
too many surprises in the way of unexpected steps down into this room and

up into that; and as for getting upstairs to his bedroom, or ever finding
his bed when he got up, either operation would be an utter impossibility

to him.
We were up early the next morning, as we wanted to be in Oxford by the

afternoon. It is surprising how early one can get up, when camping out.
One does not yearn for "just another five minutes" nearly so much, lying

wrapped up in a rug on the boards of a boat, with a Gladstone bag for a
pillow, as one does in a featherbed. We had finished breakfast, and were

through Clifton Lock by half-past eight.
From Clifton to Culham the river banks are flat, monotonous, and

uninteresting, but, after you get through Culhalm Lock - the coldest and
deepest lock on the river - the landscape improves.

At Abingdon, the river passes by the streets. Abingdon is a typical
country town of the smaller order - quiet, eminently respectable, clean,

and desperately dull. It prides itself on being old, but whether it can
compare in this respect with Wallingford and Dorchester seems doubtful.

A famous abbey stood here once, and within what is left of its sanctified
walls they brew bitter ale nowadays.

In St. Nicholas Church, at Abingdon, there is a monument to John
Blackwall and his wife Jane, who both, after leading a happy married

life, died on the very same day, August 21, 1625; and in St. Helen's
Church, it is recorded that W. Lee, who died in 1637, "had in his

lifetime issue from his loins two hundred lacking but three." If you
work this out you will find that Mr. W. Lee's family numbered one hundred

and ninety-seven. Mr. W. Lee - five times Mayor of Abingdon - was, no
doubt, a benefactor to his generation, but I hope there are not many of