622 
to town, by the butter-boats, or sell them to the higlers that keep 
London market. But what is that to the extravagance of a 
Norwich weaver, who sends a special messenger from thence to ^ 
Caxon, * which is near one hundred miles, to meet the north j 
country carrier wdth fresh salmon.” And, again : “ It is almost ^ 
incredible to believe, what great advantage the skilful Fen-man 
makes of his winter shooting, in a drowned year, and in the 
following summer of his fish. By the overflowing of Whittlesea 
Mere, and other great reservoirs of fish, the Avhole country is 
plentifully stocked with them.” After an overfloAV of Whittlesea 
IMere, when the waters retired, they were said to have “ folded ; ” 
and at that time the dykes and rivers would be found full of fish, 
Avhich had escaped from the !Mere during the flood, and afforded J 
ample harvests to the Fen-men. Another very considerable source . 
of profit w'as the Smelt-fishery. Large quantities of these fish 
were taken, then as now, when they came up the rivers to spawn, | 
and a single share in this fishery was known to amount to fifty 
pounds. 
Our Fen-Parson refei’s to the malarious emanations from the 
sodden Fen, and draws a loathsome picture of the “ Genius ” of the 
place, “ pale Febris,” as “ she shiver’d o’er a cow-dungt smoky fire,” 
and laments the absence of health, even when plenty smiles the 
fairest : — 
“ The moory soil, the wat’ry atmosphere, 
With damp, unhealthy moisture fills the air. 
Thick, stinking fogs, and noxious vapours fall. 
Agues and coughs are epidemical.” 
It is probable that malarious fevers would be more prevalent during ^ 
the drainage of the Fens than when they were still more or less in ; 
a state of nature ; and the writer has vivid recollections of his i 
sufferings as a boy from “ intermittent ” fever, which was at that 
time prevalent at Lynn, it may be in consequence of the cutting 
of the Eau brink canal, which led the course of the river Ouse 
direct from St. Germains to the town of Lynn, leaving the old and 
sinuous course of the river to "wharp up. The cut, which Avas 
* Caxton is a small market-town in Cambridgeshire, and is situated at the 
point Avhere the road from Norwich vid Newmarket and Cambridge first 
strikes the great north road, about twelve miles north of Royston. 
t C/. p. 616. 
1 
