CHAP. u. Tin-: 9BEAT i.KVKi. <F THK FKNS. 33 



part of the adventurers, nor after any well-devised plan. 

 Indeed, so long as the river outfalls were neglected, the 

 drainage of one district only had the effect of drowning 

 some other ; and hence arose perpetual quarrels amongst 

 the fen-owners, with constant appeals to the law. The 

 England of that day was very weak in engineering 

 ability ; and it was natural that the King, in this emer- 

 gency, should bethink him of resorting for help to the 

 skilled drainers of Holland, then the great country of 

 water engineers. Out of this necessity arose the em- 

 ployment of Cornelius Yermuyden, the Dutchman, 

 whose career in England will form the subject of suc- 

 ceeding chapters. 



The need of skilled engineering for the rescue of the 

 drowned lands in the Fens was at this time certainly 

 most imminent. It would be difficult to imagine any- 

 thing more dismal than the aspect which they pre- 

 sented. In winter, a sea without waves; in summer, a 

 dreary mud-swamp. The atmosphere was heavy with 

 pestilential vapours, and swarmed with insects. The 

 meres and pools were, however, rich in fish and wild- 

 fowl. The Welland was noted for sticklebacks, a little 

 fish about two inches long, which appeared in dense 

 shoals near Spalding, every seventh or eighth year, and 

 used to be sold during the season at a halfpenny a 

 bushel, for field manure. Pikes were plentiful near 

 Lincoln; hence the proverb, " Witham pike, England 

 hath none like." Fen-nightingales, or frogs, especially 

 abounded. The birds-proper were of all kinds ; wild- 

 geese, herons, teal, widgeons, mallards, grebes, coots, 

 godwits, whimbrels, knots, dottrels, yelpers, ruffs, and 

 reeves, many of which have long since been banished 

 from England. Mallards were so plentiful that 3000 

 of them, with other birds in addition, have been known 

 to be taken at one draught. Round the borders of 

 the fens there lived a thin and haggard population 

 of " Fen-slodgers," called u yellow-bellies "in other 



VOL. I. D 



