Though the "music
of the waters" cannot be heard there, yet you may in a few hours be
transported to scenes where Ocean revels in his wildest grandeur. Few
places are more favourably situated for the tourist. There is a regular
communication by steam with the romantic and interesting coasts of North
Devon and South Wales; while the sylvan Wye, Piercefield, Ragland, and
above all, Tintern, are within the compass of a day's excursion. Clifton
can boast of much architectural magnificence: its buildings rising from
the base to the summit of a crescent-shaped eminence remind me, in a
distant view, of an ancient Greek city; while the tiers of crescents
have a singularly fine effect, and seem to fill a sort of gap in the
landscape.
The rise of the tide in the Avon, in common with most of the ports on
the Bristol Channel, is a very extraordinary phenomenon. The whole
strength of the mighty Atlantic seems to rush up the Channel with
impetuous force. At Rownham Ferry, five miles inland, near the entrance
to Cumberland-Basin, the spring-tides frequently rise thirty-seven feet.
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