to it no more , and this intimate transfusion of blood must cease and the .sx canal must find its way across the grassy uplands of an English watershed , .sx seeking ( like a beautiful vampire ) another stream to drain and to cajole , you see how carefully it must go , and with what delicately adjusted meanderings , among the quiet hills .sx The springs of the new river that it will presently plunder may be only four or five miles away , there on the other side of that slope that lifts against the near horizon , but to reach its waters at the nearest place where they will be abundant enough to fill its veins again , a dozen miles or more of careful groping in wide curves among the contours of the hills will have , with the nicest artistry , to be achieved .sx The summit-level of a canal is therefore always , because it simply cannot help it , a place where time stands still and distance does not seem to matter ; a place , too , of absolute quiet and stillness and untrodden ways .sx It can never , like a main road , take the direct way , nor like a country road turn out of its way to seek a farm , or justify its convolutions by the need of communication between villages .sx Its course is predetermined ( though this is a horrid way of stating it ) by the immutable laws of gravity and the passionate desire of water to seek its own level :sx villages are nothing to it , nor farms , nor the companionship of men ; it seems rather to avoid them , and to go with bandaged eyes , or as if walking in its sleep , through all the quietest places of the unfrequented hills and woods and pastures till at last , round a grassy bend , no different to look at than a hundred bends it has crept past for the last twelve or twenty miles , the valley of its new pilgrimage opens and there , just above the first lock of its descent , it lays itself across a baby stream and begins to take in fresh water for its journey downward to its other mouth .sx These summit-levels of our canals therefore take you through the most untrodden country ( sometimes peaceful but sometimes also wild as in the Brecon mountains or by the Dee or upon the Yorkshire moors ) where no rail or road or even footpath ( save only the footpath that is the towpath of the canal itself ) will take you and where , since there are no locks nor even any more the sound of running water , there is nothing to break the silence , and you may go all day , unless you meet a barge , without encountering one .sx human soul .sx There is another thing about canals forgive me if I seem to instruct in the obvious which adds to their fascination and endears them ( to me at least in certain moods ) almost above rivers , and that is that they do not shut you in their borders do not hide from you , as the banks of rivers so often do , the farther landscape .sx Long before it reaches its summit level a canal has begun its climbing and lies generally higher than the stream from which it last drank and from which presently it will drink again , so that though on one side its bank lies against the shoulder of the hill it turns , on the other the landscape lies open and actually below you ; and thus as you paddle or rest in your canoe you look down and across the - valley and see your parent river several fields away running between sedge and reed and willows in the valley bed .sx I remember I shall remember always one such place upon the Oxford Canal somewhere between Oxford and Banbury somewhere about Heyford I think it must have been .sx or Steeple Aston .sx It was an early Easter March or early April and I had .sx come up from Oxford in a canoe to find the Spring .sx It had been cold when I started , a north-west wind and even a few flakes of snow , but when I had come about sixteen miles and it was , I suppose , a little after mid-day or towards one o'clock , the wind fell and the sun came out suddenly warm and caressing and great blue patches opened in the clouds .sx I was paddling quietly round just such a bend as I have described , the rounded grassy slopes leaned down and closed me in on my right , but on my left the meadows fell away and all was open country , with the young Cherwell showing here and there among its willows three fields away in the valley bottom .sx I had breakfasted very early in Oxford and thought of lunch , and as I let my canoe come to rest against the sheltering bank a heavenly scent of Spring came to me on the sun-warmed wind and I looked up at the bank to see , just above my right shoulder , a colony of white violets .sx I had found Spring and would celebrate the discovery .sx I had provided for lunch , I remember , a fillet steak , cooked over-night and cold , with bread and .sx alt and a bottle of Burgundy .sx I do not remember ever to have enjoyed a better meal .sx Sun and water and a Cotswold wind and beef and burgundy and write violets and the young Cherwell running happily down there three fields away between pollard willows and osiers flushed red with Spring , and over on the other side of the valley , where the hills rose again , the square tower of a church and village roofs among trees elms purplish with flower .sx That was good enough I thought , even if it snowed again before I got to Banbury ; but there was better to come ; for , even as I was thinking how well the scent of white violets blended with and enhanced the scent of burgundy ( it was , I remember , a Nuits St. Georges , not the greatest of burgundies , but quite good enough for out of doors ) , there was the sound of a horn and then human voices and cries and presently the soft thunder of hooves as there swept into view below me a pack of fox-hounds and close behind them the huntsman and three or four hard riders in pink , close up with the hounds and then a great bunch of riders , pink and black , and then the tail of the hunt straggling into view across the river .sx I had not seen the fox at first but now I saw him at the end of a big field almost out of sight , just as the hounds broke through the hedge at the other end and ran into view .sx Up went their heads , their sterns waved , they gave tongue in a shattered chorus , the huntsman whooped and leaned over capping them on , and the whole clamjamfry swept by me and in two minutes was gone and , except for the stragglers , out of sight round a shoulder of the hills .sx I did not see the kill , I did not want to , I had been given one of those experiences that are bestowed on us only once in a lifetime , and paddled on to Banbury or wherever I was going , in a muse of happiness ; but the point I wish to make is that I had seen and experienced something which I could have seen and experienced only from a canal , no river could have given it to me .sx Canals , too , give you the widest diversities of scenery .sx Though upon their summit-levels , when they are crossing the watershed , they must be remote from man , while they are climbing or dropping down the river valleys they see a great deal of life and of human companionship :sx The valley river and the valley road run close beside them and push for space , crossing and recrossing by a hundred bridges where men lean to see you go by ; and the valley villages are strung upon their silver thread like beads upon a rosary .sx Where the valley is comparatively wide and open , like the valley of the Cherwell , you will get open views and sight of distant villages such as I have described , but sometimes , where the sides of the valley rise steeply , there is not room for all three of them , river and road and canal , upon the valley floor ; they seem to jostle and push , and the canal , since it was the last comer and also because it must keep its level , is sometimes forced to cut a raised and overhanging channel for itself along the edge , and even sometimes to tunnel for a little way .sx These difficulties and this sort of straitness make the most fascinating places and pictures .sx Almost at the same spot the canal will cross the river , and the road the canal , one above the other ; they will swing away from each other where the valley widens a little and be forced together again in a few hundred yards , the road this time dipping under the canal and the river meeting it again at a lock or becoming for a little way the canal itself , since there is no room for both .sx In such places there is generally a water mill just above where the-river joins or crosses ; an old inn hangs out its sign to you , just seen in time , as you paddle under the bridge ; and through the trees ( for-this-sort .sx of place is always thickly wooded ) and clinging to the steep valley side you see the roofs of houses and know there is a village clustered farther up the road if you like to land and look for it .sx If you will look at an Ordnance Map of the Golden Valley , where the Thames and Severn canal runs between Stroud and the Sapperton Tunnel , you will see how road and river and railway and canal are all squeezed together between steep valley walls :sx it is a populous and even a manufacturing district , thick with villages and houses and mills but down there all is green and leafy and peaceful you are in Arcady .sx Even if canals were always the quiet , willow-fringed stretches of still water that most people think them to be , where nothing ever moves fast unless it be a dragon-fly , where there is no ripple , even , upon the water unless when cows come down to drink , and where twice a day you meet a sleepy barge they would still be good enough for me .sx I agree with Steven-son that since it is not possible nowadays to be a pirate nor easy to own a' desert island , the life of a bargee on inland waterways presents considerable attractions .sx You can still own a barge and it would be very much better than owning a caravan and being dragged along roads by a motor .sx Roads are never private and have long ceased even to suggest adventure .sx You do sometimes find flowers by the side of roads and see the hawthorn white , but road hedges and flowers are dusty things .sx Road hawthorn- is not -so white as that which leans over , Narcissus-wise , to see its reflection in -water- .sx Roads have no golden iris in June or ragged-robin , their elder flowers do not smell so sweet or look so like full moons in the dusk and , later on , there is no purple or yellow loosestrife or comfrey or scented snow of meadow-sweet .sx Dragonflies do not dart about roads ( to say nothing of kingfishers ) nor swallows ripple them with their breasts .sx I shall be sorry when I can never see again the slow barge coming to-wards me , pushing the quiet water away in front of its dutch bows and see the rope dip and lift all dripping and hear the drops falling in silver rain ; and then see its painted side go slowly by and the long grasses along the bank lift and swell and settle back again to sleep .sx I shall be sorry when I can see no more the bargee or the bargesse ( what is the feminine of bar-gee ?sx ) leaning against the tiller and looking out across the quiet fields with that bemused stare of an inward and sort of mystic contentment that only barges ( and cows when they are standing to their knees in water ) have ever yet , of all God's creatures , perfectly achieved .sx