There Are More Of These About Peterborough, Who Send The Fowl Up
Twice A Week In Waggon-Loads At A Time, Whose Waggons Before The
Late Act Of Parliament To Regulate Carriers I Have Seen Drawn By
Ten And Twelve Horses A-Piece, They Were Laden So Heavy.
As these fens appear covered with water, so I observed, too, that
they generally at this latter part of
The year appear also covered
with fogs, so that when the downs and higher grounds of the
adjacent country were gilded with the beams of the sun, the Isle of
Ely looked as if wrapped up in blankets, and nothing to be seen but
now and then the lantern or cupola of Ely Minster.
One could hardly see this from the hills and not pity the many
thousands of families that were bound to or confined in those fogs,
and had no other breath to draw than what must be mixed with those
vapours, and that steam which so universally overspreads the
country. But notwithstanding this, the people, especially those
that are used to it, live unconcerned, and as healthy as other
folks, except now and then an ague, which they make light of, and
there are great numbers of very ancient people among them.
I now draw near to Cambridge, to which I fancy I look as if I was
afraid to come, having made so many circumlocutions beforehand; but
I must yet make another digression before I enter the town (for in
my way, and as I came in from Newmarket, about the beginning of
September), I cannot omit, that I came necessarily through
Stourbridge Fair, which was then in its height.
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