CHAP. II. TIIK (illKAT LKVKL <>F TIIK KKNS. 19 



at a distance like fields of waving* corn; and they were 

 haunted by immense flocks of starlings, which, when 

 disturbed, would rise in such numbers as almost to 

 darken the air. Into this great dismal swamp the 

 floods descending from the interior were carried, their 

 waters mingling and winding by many devious channels 

 before they reached the sea. They were laden with 

 silt, which became deposited in the basin of the Fens. 

 Thus the river-beds were from time to time choked 

 up, and the intercepted waters forced new channels 

 through the ooze, meandering across the level, and 

 often winding back upon themselves, until at length 

 the surplus waters, through many openings, drained 

 away into the Wash. Hence the numerous abandoned 

 beds of old rivers still traceable amidst the Great Level 

 of the Fens the old Nene, the old Ouse, and the old 

 Wei la iid. The Ouse, which in past times flowed into 

 the Wash at Wisbeach (or Ouse Beach), now enters 

 at King's Lynn, near which there is another old Ouse. 

 But the probability is that all the rivers flowed into 

 a lake, which existed on the tract known as the 

 Great Bedford Level, from thence finding their way, 

 by numerous and frequently shifting channels into the 

 sea. 



Along the shores of the Wash, where the fresh and 

 salt waters met, the tendency to the deposit of silt was 

 the greatest ; and in the course of ages, the land at the 

 outlet of the inland waters was raised above the level of 

 the interior. Accordingly, the first land reclaimed in 

 the district was the rich fringe of deposited silt lying 

 along the shores of the Wash, now known as Marshland 

 and South Holland. This was the work of the Romans, 

 a hard-working, energetic, and skilful people; of whom 

 the Britons an- said to have complained 1 that they wore 

 out and consumed their hands and bodies in clearing 



1 Tacitus, 'Liferf Agricola.' 



c 2 



