Freston Tower waves towards us as we slip down the longer reach beyond Fen Bight, and gradually we open up Downham Reach and see in the distance the white-winged flock.

Several yachts are under weigh and working down towards Harwich. There are many moorings vacant, and we make up our minds to pick up the handiest.

We have known this quiet appropriation of other people's property sometimes applauded, and sometimes the reverse. As a matter of fact, if the owner is likely to be away for some little time one really does a service to him in picking up his moorings, as it clears them from the mud and keeps them clean. But we have known some people of such a dog-in-the-manger type that they would rather have their property slowly sinking under the mud at the bottom than have them kept clean and tidy by a stranger. With such people the idea of another benefiting by their possessions without acknowledgment or permission is a serious grievance.

Whether the owner of the moorings which we picked up has felt aggrieved or not we do not know. We hope he hasn't; we were very careful of them, and dropped them over in as gentle a manner as possible. We ask him to accept our best thanks, and hope he will make use of ours whenever he comes our way.

Having made all snug we go ashore. The village is as pretty ashore as it looks afloat-we mean as it looks from afloat-although really in the still afternoon light the reflections, are so perfect that one might call it a village afloat.

There are two little inns, one of kindly name, the Alma called, we imagine, more likely after the Crimean victory than from any remembrance of Alma Mater. The accommodation is primitive and the prices high. But then this is sure to be the case if you are suspected of belonging to a yacht. That is why we call our ark a boat. A sailing-boat is to a yacht what a "shay" is to a mail phaeton.

However, Pinmill is decidedly a nice little place. The anchorage is good, and exceedingly quiet. There is little traffic at night, and one can sleep well in absolute tranquillity. The tides are mild, and the breezes that blow are generally

By all means we

across the stream, not up or down it. recommend our followers, if they have not been there, to go to Pinmill. Chelmondiston is its official name. The Orwell is far superior to Southampton Water as regards scenery. It is an enlarged Beaulieu River with high ground on each side. The walks about are delightful. Although we were threatened with all sorts of pains and penalties by reason of our innocently taking a path which led us through a most lovely part of Woolverstone Park on our way to Freston Tower, this need not be the case if others follow our instructions. When over the big stile from Pinmill into the park, turn up the hill on which the obelisk stands. Don't take the path to the right, which leads along the shore; if you do, when you reach the end where the lodge is, they will tell you it is private, so you will have to walk all the way back again, above the most charming shrubberies imaginable, called the Cliff, where art, regardless of expense, has cultivated and improved the natural beauties of the place. The park is full of deer, and a pretty modern church stands among the old trees. Altogether we have seldom seen a more perfect specimen of the English country seat. The cottages on the estate are prettily placed, and mostly new, but so well designed that the newness does not offend; while the way in which the lodges and paths are kept, shows that there is one in authority who thinks that "order is heaven's first law."

The house is of that style so much admired during the last century, and which Horace Walpole did his best to decry. It consists of a central square block, with low wings of considerable extent, very formal and precise, and with nothing picturesque. The French influence is plainly evident, and the large gates at each end of the wings remind one of some of Vauban's guard-houses. But the whole is excellently placed,

and the views from the windows must be delightful.

Freston Tower is well worth visiting. It is a tall, slender, red brick turret of good design. The architect was certainly a man of originality. The windows on the Orwell side are varied with each storey, and the curtain round the top is of

open arched construction, well carried out in the brickwork. A story has been written about the tower, bearing its name, and purporting to tell its history.

We could linger long here. No wonder Gainsborough loved the neighbourhood; it is a perfect place for an artist.

Pinmill is also convenient, as the Great Eastern Railway Company's steamers, which by the way are unusually good river boats, and well found, go up and down four times a day each way, and take up passengers at Pinmill, who go off to the steamers in a boat.

The

There are many herons about here, and the long-necked ones have a merry time on the wide-reaching mud flats, where food inexhaustible seems to lie waiting to be picked up. We watched a crow and a heron fighting for a lob-worm. heron reached too far for the crow, who got into a wild passion, and flew up and down at the lengthy one, screeching the while madly at him, but the heron only eat the worm without saying anything, which shows it is not always the talkers who get the juicy morsels.

In Orwell Park, where we found the landing-place, which at low water is a very long hard, and was not so exclusively private but that the public are allowed to land at it, there is a clocktower with a most melodious set of chimes. We do not remember ever to have heard such soft, clear notes, followed by the deep and sonorous voice of the bell which strikes the hour.

It sounds like the voice of some guardian angel calling softly to us and bidding us think how the hours are flying, followed by the deep strong voice of Time solemnly reminding us that this hour will never return; and yet it does, for it repeats the same thing twice in every twenty-four hours. "Le roi est mort. Vive le roi!" Individuals are nothing; they are only the molecules of creation. Eternity in vast æons majestically repeats itself with a solemnly harmonious variation.

Listening to the sweet yet melancholy cadence of these melodious chimes calling over wood and river and upland slope, we feel the poetry of the hour as the moon is waning