"Clere Coin and lovely Leche, so dun from Cotswold's plain."
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The confluence of these streams with the Thames at Lechlade makes the river navigable for barges; and from this point it sets up a towingpath. At this point also end may be seen—a distant glimmering circle—from the other. Then the canal pursues a level course for some miles, and descends about 130 feet to the Thames at Lechlade, having traversed in all a distance of rather more than thirty miles.
Below Lechlade the river passes into almost perfect solitude. Few walks in England of the same distance are at once so quietly interesting and so utterly lonely as the walk along the grassy towing-path of the Thames. A constant water-traffic was once maintained between London and Bristol by way of Lechlade and the canal; but this is now superseded by the railway, and the sight of a passing barge is rare.
