This beautiful stream, the queen of rivers,—famed in British story and noticed by classic historians,—the theme of poets and the admiration of tourists, is next in importance to the Thames.

It rises in Plinlimmon mountain, Montgomeryshire, and pursues its course through that county, receiving in its meanderings numberless tributary streams, and presenting to proud Salopia the richest variety of picturesque scenery. After winding sixty or seventy miles through the centre of Shropshire, passing Worcester, &c. it at length becomes “a mighty river, potent, large,” and empties itself into the Bristol Channel, fifty miles below Gloucester.

THE NAVIGATION OF THE RIVER

is free for barges from thirty to eighty tons burden, during the whole of its course throughout Shropshire, which are towed up the stream by horses belonging to a company; but the navigation is liable to interruption from high and rapid floods in winter, and occasional want of depth of water in summer.