One of the oldest streets in Oxford, now George Street, was in ancient times called Platea Thamesina. In the days of Julius Cæsar, the river was known as the Tamesis, the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of which is Temese. This appears to be the derivation of the name Thames, the proper modern designation of the river from its source to its mouth.

The source of the Thames also Its Source has been the subject of much dispute. Seven Springs, the source of the Churn, about three miles from Cheltenham, has been described as the true source of the Thames. The river Churn joins the Thames at Cricklade. The oldest maps and documents, however, are alike in representing Thames Head near Cirencester, as the head of the river Thames. Stow tells us that "the most excellent and goodly river beginneth in Coteswold, about a mile from Tithury and as much from the hie way called Fosse"; Leland, that "Isis riseth at three myles from Cirencestre, not far from a village called Kemble within half a mile of the Fosseway where the head of Isis is."

It will be observed that Leland calls the river Isis, yet as early as A.D. 905 the "Saxon

Chronicle contains the following entry: "This year Athelwold enticed the army in East Anglia to break the peace, so that they ravaged over all the land of Mercia, until they came to Cricklade, and then went over the Thames."

Later, in the "Domesday Book,"

the river is referred to as the Thames, and in all the ancient records of the city of Oxford the name Isis cannot be found.

An ancient well, once surThames Head rounded by walls eight feet high, in "Yeoing Field," Trewsbury

Mead, a valley about three miles from Ciren

cester, near the village of Kemble, is the source known as Thames Head. In summer no sign of water or of water plants can be found near it. Its walls are now down, and thickly interlaced vines and brush hide it from view. In winter it overflows, floods the valley, and contributes its little force to the greatest of island rivers.

Thus from an obscure, hidden, and neglected origin, England's historic river swells and flows on until, upon its pellucid bosom above Folly Bridge to its brackish waters below the Tower of London, it nurses everything, from an infant's gentle pleasures to the sinister tragedies of the greatest city in the world.

CHAPTER II

FROM KEMBLE TO EATON HASTINGS

Cruising on the Thames - Cruise Equipment - The Church of Coates- Kemble and Ewen - Somerford

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Keynes Cricklade Eisey Bridge and Castle Eaton Kempsford The River Coln - Lechlade Kelmscott and Eaton Hastings- Cumnor and Amy Robsart Anthony Foster's Tomb.

Cruising on the Thames

The ideal cruise of the Thames is voyaging in a light canoe down the gentle current from Cricklade to Kingston, one of England's most ancient towns. Below Kingston, the tides affect the stream, and navigation in launches or canoes, which have to be plied up stream again, is not so practicable.

The cruise of the Fuzzy-Wuzzy taught me to love the Thames. She was a light, tippy, fifteen-foot canoe, prettily ribbed with ash and cedar, and decked-in fourteen inches from stern and bow. She was a rakish little craft, promising sport and mishap. How she came by her silly name her owner said he never knew. A sturdy boy could lug her

Q

over a portage of five hundred yards. She could, and did, spill out her cargo on so slight a favour as the shifting of my pipe from the windward to the leeward side. She was fleet, and a capricious delight of fine lines and many graces.

I had gone to England in the springtime, more or less intending to explore the United Kingdom from Land's End to John o' Groats. The British people and their foggy little island in the North Sea were always a puzzle to my youth. I could not understand how it was that John Bull, with only standing room at home, should have been permitted to sit down complacently in the world wherever he sent his ships and his pill-boxed soldiers. History had not explained to me why a country bounded by water on the outside, and by brandy, soda, and gout on the inside, dependent upon her enemies for her food and drink, and trammelled with the clumsy customs of duller ages, should have so much to say and so much to do.

ment

A voyager of the Thames orders Cruise Equip- his canoe at Folly Bridge, Oxford, of Messrs. Salter Brothers, and arranges for it to meet him wherever he intends embarking. Vans haul craft anywhere along