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.There it had a wide mouth with stonyclifflike gates at either side whose feet were piled with shingles.The LongLake! Bilbo had never imagined that any water that was not the sea couldlook so big.It was so wide that the opposite shores looked small and far,but it was so long that its northerly end, which pointed towards theMountain, could not be seen at all.Only from the map did Bilbo know thataway up there, where the stars of the Wain were already twinkling, theRunning River came down into the lake from Dale and with the Forest Riverfilled with deep waters what must once have been a great deep rocky valley.At the southern end the doubled waters poured out again over high waterfallsand ran away hurriedly to unknown lands.In the still evening air the noiseof the falls could be heard like a distant roar.Not far from the mouth of the Forest River was the strange town heheard the elves speak of in the king's cellars.It was not built on theshore, though there were a few huts and buildings there, but right out onthe surface of the lake, protected from the swirl of the entering river by apromontory of rock which formed a calm bay.A great.bridge made of woodran out to where on huge piles made of forest trees was built a busy woodentown, not a town of elves but of Men, who still dared to dwell here underthe shadow of the distant dragon-mountain.They still throve on the tradethat came up the great river from the South and was carted past the falls totheir town; but in the great days of old, when Dale in the North was richand prosperous, they had been wealthy and powerful, and there had beenfleets of boats on the waters, and some were filled with gold and some withwarriors in armour, and there had been wars and deeds which were now only alegend.The rotting piles of a greater town could still be seen along theshores when the waters sank in a drought.But men remembered little of all that, though some still sang old songsof the dwarf-kings of the Mountain, Thror and Thrain of the race of Durin,and of the coming of the Dragon, and the fall of the lords of Dale.Somesang too that Thror and Thrain would come back one day and gold would flowin rivers through the mountain-gates, and all that land would be filled withnew song and new laughter.But this pleasant legend did not much affecttheir daily business.As soon as the raft of barrels came in sight boats rowed out from thepiles of the town, and voices hailed the raft-steerers.Then ropes were castand oars were pulled, and soon the raft was drawn out of the current of theForest River and towed away round the high shoulder of rock into the littlebay of Lake-town.There it was moored not far from the shoreward head of thegreat bridge.Soon men would come up from the South and take some of thecasks away, and others they would fill with goods they had brought to betaken back up the stream to the Wood-elves' home.In the meanwhile thebarrels were left afloat while the elves of the raft and the boatmen went tofeast in Lake-town.They would have been surprised, if they could have seen what happeneddown by the shore, after they had gone and the shades of night had fallen.First of all a barrel was cut loose by Bilbo and pushed to the shore andopened.Groans came from inside, and out crept a most unhappy dwarf.Wetstraw was in his draggled beard; he was so sore and stiff, so bruised andbuffeted he could hardly stand or stumble through the shallow water to liegroaning on the shore.He had a famished and a savage look like a dog thathas been chained and forgotten in a kennel for a week.It was Thorin, butyou could only have told it by his golden chain, and by the colour of hisnow dirty and tattered sky-blue hood with its tarnished silver tassel.Itwas some time before he would be even polite to the hobbit."Well, are you alive or are you dead?" asked Bilbo quite crossly
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