28 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [part i. 



tells us of a river in Surrey, it is called Mole, that 

 after it has run several miles, being opposed by 

 hills, finds or makes itself a way under ground, and 

 breaks out again so far off, that the inhabitants 

 thereabouts boast, as the Spaniards do of their river 

 Anus, that they feed divers flocks of sheep upon a 

 bridge. And lastly, for I would not tire your pa- 

 tience, one of no less authority than Josephus, that 

 learned Jew, tells us of a river in Judea, that runs 

 swiftly all the six days of the week, and stands still 

 and rests all their Sabbath. 



But I will lay aside my discourse of rivers, and 

 tell you some things of the monsters, or fish, call 

 them what you will, that they breed and feed in 

 them. Pliny the philosopher says, in the third 

 chapter of his ninth book, that in the Indian Sea, 

 the fish called the Balcena or Whirlpool is so long 

 and broad, as to take up more in length and breadth 

 than two acres of ground, and of other fish of two 

 hundred cubits long ; and that in the river Ganges, 

 there be Eels of thirty foot long. He says there, 

 that these monsters appear in that sea, only when 

 the tempestuous winds oppose the torrents of waters 

 falling from the rocks into it, and so turning what 

 lay at the bottom to be seen on the water's top. 

 And he says, that the people of Cadara, an Island 

 near this place, make the timber for their houses of 

 those fish-bones. He there tells us, that there are 

 sometimes a thousand of these great Eels found 

 wrapped, or interwoven together. He tells us there, 



