Potosi Journal

WITH THE RISING TIDE

BOATMEN MAKE ALL SNUG WHEN THE AEGIR IS AT HAND.

Peculiar Swell That Is a Characteristic of English River and Really Has No Counterpart, So Far as Is Known.

"'Ware Aegir! 'Ware Aegir!"

The river has been flowing out to the sea for hours, leaving long stretches of brown mud glittering in the light of the setting sun. It is a calm summer evening and we sit waiting and listening on one of the old wharves of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. The cry is taken up by every boatman who shouts it again up stream--a strange, eerie warning.

Several small boats are now pushing off into midstream to avoid the mass of churning water which breaks on the foreshore. A group of children add to the tumult with a shrill cry of "Wild Aegir! Wild Aegir!" which they consider a much better rendering than "'Ware, Aegir!" according to a writer in the Wide World.

By craning forward we can see it now, rounding a bend of the river by the shipyard. The first wave is big and smooth stretching right across the river with a swirl of angry water at each side; next follow five or six big rollers, which roar and foam along, leaving masses of broken water in their wake. These are called the "whelps." Presently we shall see the force of these "whelps," when they reach those big, unwieldy square-nosed barges--which, by the way, are called "keels." There is one such swinging at anchor in midstream just opposite to us. For the last half hour the old keelman was lolling about the deck smoking his clay and looking idly at the water. Now he is alert all at once, and, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, he gives a turn at the windlass to tighten the anchor chain. After a glance along the deck to see that all is secure, he looks back up the river. He is calculating where the Aegir will carry him to.

There is another barge higher up the river, and as yet nobody has stirred on board. The old man has noticed it, for he shouts, "'Ware Aegir, Stoney, my lad!" and a young fellow jumps up the hatch and runs to the tiller. The distant swish has increased to a roar now, and a feeling of intense excitement grips us as we see a small boat rise up on the first wave and disappear for a moment in the hollow. Up again she rises, right into the froth of the "whelps." Another moment and she is through into calmer water.

See! The billow dashes like a monster tidal wave against a wharf and splashes high up into the air with a roar and smother of white foam. Now it has reached the "keel." With a groan and rattle of chain she rises to the wave and is carried along with it, but not very far, for the anchor holds fast and she swings slowly round. The keel is broadside on now, and the creamy "whelps" dash right over her deck as she rolls in the trough of the waves, but as quickly as it takes to tell, she swings stern on to the current, which is now rushing upstream with tremendous force, and will continue to do so for two hours or more until high water, when the water lazily returns toward the sea.

The Aegirs are not all as big as this one; some are a mere swell about a foot high. The best time to see them is in the spring and autumn, when the equinoctial tides are on the coast. Just below Gainsborough the Aegir is seen at its best, as it rushes along some of the longest reaches of the Trent.

This curious tidal phenomenon only occurs on one or two other rivers in this country, the Severn being one of them, where it is known as the "bore." Those who have seen it, however, say that it does not equal the Aegir in any way.