CHARM OF THE FENLANDS 3 



it ever, in my opinion — prevent its being highly 

 picturesque. Those, indeed, who cannot feel the 

 charm of the fenlands should leave nature — as dis- 

 tinct from good hotels — alone. For myself, I some- 

 times wonder that all the artists in the world are 

 not to be found there, sketching ; but in spite of 

 the skies and the windmills and Ely Cathedral in 

 the near, far, or middle distance, I have never met 

 even one. It is to the fens that the peewits, which, 

 before, haunted the river and the country generally, 

 retire towards the end of October, nor do they 

 return till the following spring, so that Icklingham 

 during this interval is almost — indeed, I believe 

 quite — without a peewit. Bury is eight miles from 

 Icklingham, and about half-way between them the 

 country begins to assume the more familiar features 

 of an English landscape, so that the difference which 

 a few miles makes is quite remarkable. 



Fifty years ago, I am told, there were no trees in 

 this part of the world, except a willow here and 

 there along the course of the stream, and a few 

 huge ones of uncouth and fantastic appearance, 

 which are sometimes called " she oaks " by the 

 people. The size of these trees is often quite 

 remarkable, and their wood being, fortunately, value- 

 less, they are generally allowed to attain to the 

 full of it. They grow sparingly, yet sometimes 

 in scattered clusters, and the sand, with the wide 

 waste of which their large, rude outlines and scanty 

 foliage has a sort of harmony, seems a congenial 

 soil for them. They are really, I believe, of the 

 poplar tribe, which would make them "poppels" 

 hereabouts, were this understood. These trees, with 



