The Severn’s powerful currents were not to be described; the vast plain of water moved at an extraordinary speed, and the boats upon the torrent appeared to be toys incapable of either direction or resistance agains such forces. The tides in the immense estuary were increased by the sand-bars that constricted the flow of the water, the latter being visible only at low tide. Embarkation when the tide was gone out was particularly difficult, owing to the roughness of the lower shore-line and the force of the current in the narrowest points of the channel. The scenery, looking back up the broad Severn, was magnificent: the hills of Monmouthshire and their patch-work of hedgerows and trees, behind which rose the great peaks of Plinlimmon; the Wye, and the rocks at Piercefield towering above it, varied with hanging woods and jutting precipices, were all at once visible in the setting summer sun. To the south, the confluence of the Avon and Severn, and the Somersetshire coast extended into the distance. Mr. Darcy noted that the old woods had been felled and the commons exposed, wherein grazed fat sheep and black Pembrokeshire cattle, and a number of ditches had been new-cut into the fields for the purpose of catching shrimp as they were washed up the Severn by the tide.