FRESH AND SALT. 207 



me I once ticked off four-and-tvventy without having 

 exhausted the two counties. The largest Broads are 

 Surlingham, Rockland, Breydon, Filby, Ormesby, Rollesby, 

 Hickling, Barton, Irstead, .and Wroxham. I have spent 

 pleasant days at Ormesby, where you are quite out of the 

 pale of civilisation. Attached to the little inn there is a 

 rare old-fashioned flower garden and a pretty approach to 

 the lake ; generally, however, the scenery of the Broads 

 partakes of the flatness, and therefore prosiness of the 

 county. Fritton decoy, in another direction, is the most 

 picturesque piece of water, almost entirely surrounded by 

 lofty trees ; the water is unpleasant, being of a greenish 

 tinge, by which reason the fish, though numerous, are flabby 

 and uninviting. One afternoon a party of three of us were 

 perpetually pestered by small eels and popes until the 

 nuisance was beyond bearing. The eels spoiled our tackle 

 and desecrated the seats of the boat ; the ruffs came up 

 with their goggle eyes, veritable goblins from the vasty deep, 

 and between them they beat us off the field. 



Take your own tackle when you go into Norfolk, and 

 scoured baits also. At the Broads (I was on the point of 

 writing broad sides) the gardeners or servant boys will 

 give you buckets full of meal and brewers' grains for ground 

 bait, and when the crops do not claim their first care, you 

 may obtain the services of a rower. The latter, except 

 for pike-fishing, is a superfluity, inasmuch as you bring up 

 your boat at given pitches generally beds of bulrush 

 and remain there. Plain homely meat and drink will be 

 your fare at the modest hostelries, bushel baskets will be 

 lent you for the fish, and the native innkeepers have not yet 

 learnt the fashionable art of extortion. 



