72 THE FENLAND 



recent times, and the drainage tax which the Com- 

 missioners levy for this purpose amounts to about los. 

 per acre, varying with the situation and level of each 

 area. The work of reclamation probably began with 

 the construction of sea walls in Roman or pre-Roman 

 times, but, as we know, it was carried out piecemeal by 

 different bodies of adventurers from the time of Charles I. 

 onwards, and even before that under some of the 

 great monasteries. In consequence the system is 

 somewhat haphazard and confused ; could it be re- 

 designed with the whole end in sight it might be made 

 far more effective and economical. From the agricul- 

 tural point of view there are two distinct types of land 

 in the Fens the black soil, or fen proper, and the 

 silt, or marsh as it is locally called. The black soil 

 is developed on the inland side where the rivers enter 

 the Fen, by Cambridge and Ely, along the course of 

 the Bedford Levels, and round Ramsay, Peterborough, 

 and March. Doubtless in this area the country used 

 to be always awash with land water from the rivers, 

 and out of the marsh vegetation growing in the com- 

 paratively clear water the black deposit of peat, nearly 

 4 ft. thick, was formed, with a comparatively small 

 admixture of earth. Nearer the Wash, from King's 

 Lynn to Wisbech and on to Boston, the country 

 was doubtless regularly flooded by the muddy estuarine 

 waters, and thick deposits of silt have been built up by 

 a process of natural warping; this soil is not black, 

 but has the character of ordinary alluvial marsh land. 

 Monotonous as the fenland may seem, with its endless 

 succession of cornfields and long reed-bordered dykes, 

 it cannot be denied a certain grandeur, if only for its 

 vast canopy of sky and unbroken horizon. Looking 

 over it as we did from its edge on the Ely road on 

 that bright morning in late July, when a stately pro- 



