The Hobbit JR Tolkien - Mr Collins

to dwell here under the shadow of thedistant dragon-mountain. They still throveon the trade that came up the great riverfrom the South and was carted past thefalls to their town; but in the great days ofold, when Dale in the North was rich andprosperous, they had been wealthy andpowerful, and there had been fleets ofboats on the waters, and some were filledwith gold and some with warriors inarmour, and there had been wars anddeeds which were now only a legend. Therotting piles of a greater town could stillbe seen along the shores when the waterssank in a drought.But men remembered little of all that,though some still sang old songs of thedwarf-kings of the Mountain, Thror andThrain of the race of Durin, and of the