From hills and slopes, dales and uplands, we will take our departure
and look at the flattest land of England, the wide, level stretches of
country around the Wash, the Fens. A fen is a marsh, and once these
immense stretches of flat land were marshes pure and simple. There is
plenty of water about them now, but it is penned up by dikes and
embankments, and run off by drains as big as rivers.
It is often said that those who care for Dutch landscape have no need
to leave our own country to enjoy it, for the Fenland is Holland in
miniature. There may be seen the same long flat stretches of country,
cut by long, straight canals bordered by willow and alder; the same
kind of dikes making the same fight against the encroaching sea, the
windmills pumping water into drains and out of some pool which is being
reclaimed; the green fields deep in grass, and the dark peat-cuttings
whence the peasantry obtain their fuel.
It is nearly 300 years since a beginning was made of draining the Fens.
Before that time the whole country was one great marsh, through which
slow-moving streams crept to the sea. Very often vast tracts were
completely under water. Perhaps there was heavy rain and a flood ran
down the rivers; it might be met by a high tide sweeping far up the
low, flat river-beds. The flood and the tide met, and the water rose
high above the shallow banks, and converted the land into a huge morass.
It is significant that the earliest drainers of the Fens were Dutchmen,
who directed Dutch labourers. These men knew what had been done in
their native Holland in the way of reclaiming land, and they saw that
good land could be made in the Fens if the water could only be kept in
its proper place. So they began to raise embankments, to scour out the
channels of rivers, to build sluices, and to pump the water out of
standing pools.
The drainers had to make a great struggle with the forces of Nature;
they had almost a severer and sterner fight still with the Fen-folk.
The latter had been born and bred amid their wild watery wilderness,
and loved it. Their cottages were raised here and there wherever a
patch of dry earth showed itself above the bog, and they traversed the
Fens far and wide in their boats or on foot. When afoot, each man
carried his long leaping-pole over his shoulder. With its aid he would
skim like a bird over a stream or pool, and so make his way where
another man would have found his path hopelessly blocked.
The Fen-men made a living by catching the fish which swarmed in the
countless waterways, and by snaring the birds which haunted the wide
reed-beds in vast flocks. They felt great anger at the thought of
their marshes being turned to dry land, and one of their ballads gives
their opinion very clearly:
"Come, Brethren of the water, and let us all assemble
To treat upon this Matter which makes us quake and tremble;
For we shall Rue, if it be true that Fens be undertaken;
And where we feed in Fen and reed, they'll feed both Beef and Bacon.
"They'll sow both Bean and Oats, where never man yet thought it;
Where men did row in Boats ere Undertakers bought it;
But, Ceres, thou behold us now, let wild oats be their venture,
Oh, let the Frogs and miry Bogs destroy where they do enter."
The Fen-men fought hard against the improvements, and broke down dikes
and burst open sluices, but in the end the drainers outlived these
attacks, and the works were built.
Generation after generation has drained and diked and embanked until,
at the present day, we may cross vast stretches of fruitful country
bearing splendid crops of corn and potatoes, which were once wild
marsh-land and impassable morass. And so it soon would be again if the
utmost care was not taken. The sea--the hungry sea--is always ready to
break in; the rivers are always ready to break their bounds; but the
former is held at bay by dikes, and the latter are kept in bounds by
strong embankments, and every defence is closely watched.
It is strange to find here and there places in the Fens called
islands--as, for instance, the Isle of Ely--places far from the sea.
But once they were real islands rising from the waters of the vast
marsh. Perhaps the dry, firm land of which they consisted only rose a
few feet above the level of the water, but it enabled the Fen-men to
build their cottages, to pasture their sheep and cattle, to grow their
corn, and to plant fruit-trees.
The most famous of these islands was the Isle of Ely, a patch of dry
land seven miles long and four miles broad, well remembered as one of
the last strongholds of the Saxons against William the Conqueror. But
the vast morass which once surrounded Ely has long been drained and
converted into fruitful soil, forming the immense flat amidst which
rises in stately and majestic fashion the noble cathedral of Ely.
Yet the sea is not altogether the loser in the battle with man along
this coast. Much land has been won from it, much land has been lost to
it, and is being lost to this day. The low shores of Norfolk and
Suffolk, south of the Wash, are being steadily worn away in places by
the attacks of the sea, and year by year the low cliffs fall before the
waves of some great storm, and the sea makes a fresh inroad upon the
land.
At Cromer, the well-known watering-place, the old town is under water.
The present town is quite new, and out to sea lie the houses of the
Cromer of past days, covered with seaweed, and with the fish swimming
up and down the streets where once the Cromer folk went about their
business. At low tides the ancient dwellings and ways can still be
clearly traced.
Still farther out to sea lie the remains of a yet older village, called
Shipden. Five hundred years ago Shipden was a port on the seaward side
of Cromer, but harbour, village, and church were swallowed up by the
waves. The church tower was built of flint, as is the custom of the
East Country, and so well had the old masons done their work that a
piece of the tower is at times seen by the fishermen about 400 yards
out to sea, and they call it "the Church Rock."
The same story is told of many other places. Towns, villages,
churches, have been swallowed, either little by little or at one great
gulp, by the never-resting sea. So serious are these inroads that
plans are being formed by Government to check the rush of the sea and
keep the waves in bounds.
[Illustration: IN AN ENGLISH VILLAGE]
A great feature of the county of Norfolk is the Broads--wide stretches
of water connected by rivers and streams, large and small--a district
beloved by yachtsmen and fishermen. All who love to sail a boat find
the Broads a summer paradise. They can go by innumerable waterways
from lake to lake, from pool to pool, from mere to mere, through a wide
district.
A summer journey by boat through this land of streams and pools is a
very pleasant excursion. The traveller must fit out his yacht with
plenty of food, for the region is lonely, and houses and inns few and
far between. Very particular people carry fresh water as well, for the
drinking water drawn from the marshy soil is a very doubtful liquid;
the watermen who live on the Broads just dip up what they want from the
river, and there are those who say that the plan is as good as any.
Even better than a yacht for a trip through the Broads is the local
barge, a Norfolk wherry. The Norfolk wherry is a true descendant of
the Viking longship, once so well known along this coast. It is a
long, low boat, broad and roomy, drawing very little water, and sailing
very fast. It has one huge brown sail, which is hoisted forward, right
in the bow; and to see a big wherry cracking at full speed across a
great broad with a favouring wind is to see a very fine sight indeed.
Stranger still is it to look across an open stretch of grassy country
and see brown sails dotting, as it seems, the surface of the fields.
They belong to wherries slipping along some hidden waterway.
The sides of the Broads and rivers are often marshy, and dotted with
rushy and reedy islets in the most picturesque fashion. Among these
islets lie innumerable little pools called "pulks." From the islets
pheasants may be often flushed in summer and autumn, and coot in
winter; from the "pulks" may be taken large baskets of fish.
The quantity of fish, especially in the remoter or preserved portion of
the Broads, is almost incredible, and anglers often reckon their catch
by the stone weight instead of the number of fish. A single "pulk"
will often afford a good basket, and a well-known fishing writer says:
"Once while yachting on the Norfolk Broads, we were lying at anchor
close to the shore. About a yard from our bows was a clear pool amid
the weeds, about 6 feet in diameter and 3 feet deep. This was
literally as full as it could be of roach and rudd swimming to and fro;
the brilliant sunshine lit up the red and silver and gold of the fishes
as they hovered over the bright green weed, and the whole made as
pretty a sight as I have ever seen of the kind."
When winter comes, yachts and wherries are laid up, and summer
visitants fly away with the swallows; yet the Broads are not deserted.
The sharp weather fills them with myriads of wild-fowl--ducks and
geese, snipe and widgeon--and the wild-fowl hunter is out in his
slate-coloured punt. The boat is painted of this colour in order to
blend with its surroundings and escape notice, and in its bow is fixed
a huge gun, often throwing half a pound of large shot at a single
discharge. When this gun is fired into a flock of wild-duck, it will
often fetch down ten or a dozen at once, and the skilful punt-shooter
soon makes a big bag.
Then, perhaps, comes sharper weather still, and the punts can no longer
move over the ice-bound waters. This is the time of the skater's
festival, and a nobler skating-ground can nowhere be found. Over river
and pool and broad he flies, with unnumbered miles of clear, open ice
before him.