The Hobbit

Wood-elves’
     king.
    So you see Bilbo had come in the end by the only road that was any good. It might have been some comfort to Mr. Baggins shivering
     on the barrels, if he had known that news of this had reached Gandalf far away and given him great anxiety, and that he was in fact finishing his other business (which does not come into this tale) and getting ready to come in search of Thorin’s
     company. But Bilbo did not know it.
    All he knew was that the river seemed to go on and on and on for ever, and he was hungry, and had a nasty cold in the nose,
     and did not like the way the Mountain seemed to frown at him and threaten him as it drew ever nearer. After a while, however,
     the river took a more southerly course and the Mountain receded again, and at last, late in the day the shores grew rocky,
     the river gathered all its wandering waters together into a deep and rapid flood, and they swept along at great speed.
    The sun had set when turning with another sweep towards the East the forest-river rushed into the Long Lake. There it had
     a wide mouth with stony clifflike gates at either side whose feet were piled with shingles. The Long Lake! Bilbo had never
     imagined that any water that was not the sea could look 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 the Mountain, could not be seen at all. Only from the map
     did Bilbo know that away up there, where the stars of the Wain were already twinkling, the Running River came down into the
     lake from Dale and with the Forest River filled 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 waterfalls and ran away hurriedly to unknown lands. In the still
     evening air the noise of the falls could be heard like a distant roar.
    Not far from the mouth of the Forest River was the strange town he heard the elves speak of in the king’s cellars. It was
     not built on the shore, though there were a few huts and buildings there, but right out on the surface of the lake, protected
     from the swirl of the entering river by a promontory of rock which formed a calm bay. A great bridge made of wood ran out
     to where on huge piles made of forest trees was built a busy wooden town, not a town of elves but of Men, who still dared
     to dwell here under the shadow of the distant dragon-mountain. They still throve on the trade that came up the great river
     from the South and was carted past the falls to their town; but in the great days of old, when Dale in the North was rich
     and prosperous, they had been wealthy and powerful, and there had been fleets of boats on the waters, and some were filled
     with gold and some with warriors in armour, and there had been wars and deeds which were now only a legend. The rotting piles
     of a greater town could still be seen along the shores when the waters sank in a drought.
    But men remembered little of all that, though some still sang old songs of 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. Some sang too that Thror and Thrain
     would come back one day and gold would flow in rivers, through the mountain-gates, and all that land would be filled with
     new song and new laughter. But this pleasant legend did not much affect their daily business.

    As soon as the raft of barrels came in sight boats rowed out from the piles of the town, and voices hailed the raft-steerers.
     Then ropes were cast and oars were pulled, and soon the raft was drawn out of the current of the Forest River and towed away
     round the high shoulder of rock into the little bay of Lake-town. There it was moored not far from the shoreward head of the
     great bridge. Soon men would come up from the South and take some of the casks away, and others they would fill with goods
     they had brought to be taken back up the stream to the Wood-elves’ home. In the meanwhile the barrels were left afloat while
     the elves of the raft and the boatmen went to feast in Lake-town.
    They would have been surprised, if they could have seen what happened down 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 and opened. Groans came from inside,
     and out crept a most unhappy dwarf. Wet straw was in his draggled beard; he was