ng the beauties of Nature in the slightest degree, there must
be something soothing and elevating in constantly being brought face to
face with Nature in all her varying charms. Now gliding calmly past a
water-side village, with the children running out to give you a greeting;
then through a waving, poppy-starred cornfield, or past low-lying meadows,
with the meditative cattle standing knee-deep in the sweet pasturage, and
anon a bend in the canal carries you past wood-lands where the trees meet
overhead and form a cool canopy through which the rays of the sun can only
penetrate here and there in slanting beams.

When my thoughts wander in this groove, I often marvel at people electing
to live in stuffy, smoky towns, when the charms of the country are at
their bidding.

Proceeding on our journey after tea, we eventually arrived at
Stoke-on-Trent, and went ashore to seek shelter for the night at a
wayside cottage.

We got afloat in the morning after our swim and a hearty breakfast,
and proceeded past the outskirts of the town, which we were not sorry
to leave behind.

It came on to rain soon after we left Stoke-on-Treat; but as we were
well prepared with macintoshes to face the elements, we proceeded
cheerily on our way.

After paddling for about four miles we came to the entrance of another
long tunnel, which we entered, after taking the precaution to provide
ourselves with candles. We had a nasty experience in navigating through
this tunnel, which I should not much care to encounter again.

After proceeding cautiously for some distance, during which we had to avoid
a ducking, and possibly a swamping, from the numerous "weep-holes" that let
showers of land water descend from the roof, our candle suddenly went out
and left us in total darkness. To make matters worse, a lot of land-water
was coming through the tunnel, which, together with the backwash of a tug
some little way ahead of us, tried us considerably, and finally wedged our
canoe between the two walls of the tunnel.

We did not relish the situation at all, I can assure you, especially as we
could not take stock of our whereabouts; but after a deal of rocking and
shoving (during which we had a narrow escape from capsizing), we managed
to get the canoe clear of the walls, and worked our way backwards,
hand-over-hand, to the mouth of the tunnel.

After this experience we were strangely unanimous as to the desirability of
going through in some less risky