DESCRIPTION OF THE FENS. 23 



tracked along the surface of the marsh-lands, marked to this day by 

 the names of Walsoken, Walton, and Walpoole. In the Middle Ages, 

 however, it returned to its primeval desolateness — a waste and 

 ■wilderness, haunted by the foul legends of an unwholesome super- 

 stition. In the immediate neighbourhood of the great monasteries 

 of Crowland and Ely, and of the thriving towns, the good work of 

 drainage went on slowly ; but elsewhere the land was given up to 

 the bittern and the heron." 



By Dukes of Bedford much was accomplished in the earlier half of 

 the seventeenth century, and by Rennie, the great engineer, some 

 hundred and fifty years later, to fit these fens for agricultural opera- 

 tions. " Works are now in progress," says the writer from whom, in 

 furtherance of my work, I have quoted so largely, " for rescuing a 

 further portion of the basin of the Wash, to be formed into a new 

 county, and named after the Queen, So that now, in tracts once 

 covered by the sea, or knee-deep in reedy, slushy, pestilential slime, 

 the grass grows luxuriantly, the crops wave in golden abundance, or 

 the breeze takes up and carries afar — 



' The livelong bleat 

 Of the thick-fleecfed sheep from wattled folds.' 



" But the dominion of labour has not yet been established over the 

 the whole Fen-districts. There are still dreary nooks, and gloomy 

 corners, and unproductive wastes ; wild scenes there are, which few 

 Englishmen have any conception of as contained within the boun- 

 daries of their own ' inviolable isle.' Romantic scenery, remarks Mr. 

 Walter White, must not be looked for on the Lincolnshire coast. In 

 all the journey from the Wash till you see the land of Yorkshire, 

 beyond the Humber, not an inch of cliff will your eyes discover. 

 Monotonous is the prospect of — 



' A level waste, a roitnding gray' 



of sand-hills, which vary but slightly in height, and bristle with 

 marum. ' But tame though it be,' continues our authority, ' the 

 scene derives interest from its peculiarity. Strange perspective 

 effects appear in those irregular hills : yonder they run out and form 

 a low dark, purple headland, against which the pale green and yellow 

 of a nearer tongue look bright by contrast. Here for a few furlongs 

 the range rises gray, cold, and monotonous ; there it has a warmth 

 of colour relieved by deep shadows, that change their tint during 

 the hours ihat accompany the sun while he begins and ends his day. 

 Sitting ou the summit of those dry hills, you will remark the con- 



