“Our first morning at Coltishall revealed another rime-frosted landscape. The wintry breath had decorated the dead umbelliferae on the banks with exquisite silver frostings.

Nature seemed to have preserved these dead stalks as skeleton frames for her ornamental work, so delightfully did she blend her silver crystals on the ebon stems; but alas, the sun soon destroyed her handiwork. The pure frosted stage, when the dead stalks are all white with snowy powder, lasting only till the sun got strong enough to melt some of the crystals disclosing the ebon stalks. At this stage, the work is the most beautiful; but as the crystals melt all their sharp outlines become blurred, their purity of colour is lost, the mass becomes greyish and formless.” ⎯On English Lagoons, Chapter XXXIII, p. 177

At the lower right side of the frame, hoarfrost coating umbellifers is reflected on the surface of the River Bure while a horse-drawn cart crosses a stone bridge in the distance. The plate appears opposite the start of Chapter XXXI: Winter on the Bure

Coltishall is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. Coltishall is located on the River Bure and within the Norfolk Broads, 2.4 miles (3.9 km) north-west of Wroxham and 7.7 miles (12.4 km) north-east of Norwich. -Wikipedia (2025)