AND THEIR INHABITANTS. 185 



ingly to this hole, which had formed the lower 

 story of some building, but had become filled h with 

 water and so converted into a pond. It was being 

 pumped out, and the old fisherman had beforehand 

 offered ^10 for the fish it contained ; this being 

 thought a ridiculously high price was at once closed 

 with. We waited until all the water was drawn 

 off but about two feet, and then the old man waded in. 

 The chamber was about 20 feet by 18, and about the 

 same depth ; its walls were clothed with green weed. 

 I got upon a wall, which was just out of the water, 

 and gazed into the basin, which appeared a perfect 

 swarm of fish. I waded in until the water was two- 

 inches above the knees, and could hardly stand for the 

 wriggling mass of eels. I noticed one or two savage- 

 looking pike, and fearing they might bite me withdrew 

 to the wall. One followed me, glaring as fiercely as a 

 fish could, and, making a desperate spring, leaped high 

 and dry on the top of the wall. It was a three-pound 

 pike, and I secured it by standing on its tail. The water 

 was still further drawn off until there were only a few 

 inches left one moving mass of eels, roach, loach, 

 carp, pike, tench, and dace. The old fisherman could 

 hardly contain himself with astonishment ; he had 

 ordered two market carts to convey the fish away, but 

 this was not enough. He packed thirty large baskets 

 of eels in one van, and sent them to meet the train for 

 London. He got in all many hundredweights of 

 fish, being the greatest capture ever made in the neigh- 

 bourhood. Nine-tenths of the amount were eels, but 

 there were about ij hundredweight of carp, and as 

 much more of other species. This had been a sus- 



