472 



EFFECTS OF THE FEN DBATNAGE. 



PART VIII. 



near Peterborough, some fifteen miles from the sea, the 

 intelligence penetrated even to the congregation at 

 church for it was Sunday morning that " the waters 

 were running ;" when immediately the whole flocked 

 out, parson and all, to see the great sight, arid acknow- 

 ledge the blessings of science. 1 A humble Fen poet of 

 the last century thus quaintly predicted the moral results 

 likely to arise from the improved drainage of his native 

 district : 



" With a change of elements, suddenly 

 There shall a change of men and manners be ; 

 Hearts thick and tough as hides shall feel remorse, 

 And souls of sedge shall understand discourse ; 

 New hands shall learn to work, forget to steal, 

 New legs shall go to church, new knees to kneel." 



The prophecy has indeed been amply fulfilled. The 

 barbarous race of Fen-men has disappeared before the 

 skill of the engineer. As the land has been drained, 

 the half-starved fowlers and fen-roamers have subsided 

 into the ranks of steady industry ; become farmers, 

 traders, and labourers. The plough has passed over the 

 bed of Holland Fen, and the agriculturist reaps his 

 increase more than a hundred fold. Wide watery wastes, 

 formerly abounding in fish, are now covered with waving 

 crops of corn every summer. Sheep graze on the dry 

 bottom of Whittlesea Mere, and kine low where not 

 many years since the silence of the waste was only dis- 

 turbed by the croaking of frogs and the screaming of 

 wild fowl. All this has been the result of the science of 

 the engineer, the enterprise of the landowner, and the 

 industry of our peaceful army of skilled labourers. 2 



1 'Land we Live In,' vol. i., p. 371. 



2 Now that the land actually won 

 has been made so richly productive, 

 the engineer is at work with magni- 

 ficent schemes of reclamation of lands 

 at present submerged by the sea. 

 The Norfolk Estuary Company have 

 a scheme for reclaiming 50,000 acres ; 

 the Lincolnshire Estuary Company, 



30,000 acres ; and the Victoria Level 

 Company, 150,000 acres all from the 

 estuary of the Wash. By the pro- 

 cess called warping, the land is 

 steadily advancing .upon the ocean, 

 and before many years have passed, 

 thousands of acres of the Victoria 

 Level will have been reclaimed for 

 purposes of agriculture. 



