cried out, for coming to the place he found a great fowl caught by
the leg in the trap, which yet was so strong and so outrageous that
the boy going too near him, he flew at him and frighted him, bit
him, and beat him with his wings, for he was too strong for the
boy; as the master ran from the decoy, so another manservant ran
from the house, and finding a strange creature fast in the trap,
not knowing what it was, laid at him with a great stick. The
creature fought him a good while, but at length he struck him an
unlucky blow which quieted him; after this we all came up to see
what the matter, and found a monstrous eagle caught by the leg in
the trap, and killed by the fellow’s cudgel, as above.
When the master came to know what it was, and that his man had
killed it, he was ready to kill the fellow for his pains, for it
was a noble creature indeed, and would have been worth a great deal
to the man to have it shown about the country, or to have sold to
any gentleman curious in such things; but the eagle was dead, and
there we left it. It is probable this eagle had flown over the sea
from France, either there or at the Isle of Wight, where the
channel is not so wide; for we do not find that any eagles are
known to breed in those parts of Britain.
From hence we turned up to Dorchester, the county town, though not
the largest town in the county. Dorchester is indeed a pleasant
agreeable town to live in, and where I thought the people seemed
less divided into factions and parties than in other places; for
though here are divisions, and the people are not all of one mind,
either as to religion or politics, yet they did not seem to
separate with so much animosity as in other places. Here I saw the
Church of England clergyman, and the Dissenting minister or
preacher drinking tea together, and conversing with civility and
good neighbourhood, like Catholic Christians and men of a Catholic
and extensive charity. The town is populous, though not large; the
streets broad, but the buildings old and low. However, there is
good company, and a good deal of it; and a man that coveted a
retreat in this world might as agreeably spend his time and as well
in Dorchester as in any town I know in England.
The downs round this town are exceeding pleasant, and come up on,
every side, even to the very streets’ end; and here it was that
they told me that there were six hundred thousand sheep fed on the
downs within six miles of the town–that is, six miles every way,
which is twelve miles in diameter, and thirty-six miles in
circumference. This, I say, I was told–I do not affirm it to be
true; but when I viewed the country round, I confess I could not
but incline to believe it.
It is observable of these sheep that they are exceeding fruitful,
the ewes generally bringing two lambs, and they are for that reason
bought by all the farmers through the east part of England, who
come to Burford Fair in this country to buy them, and carry them
into Kent and Surrey eastward, and into Buckinghamshire and
Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire north; even our Banstead Downs in
Surrey, so famed for good mutton, is supplied from this place. The
grass or herbage of these downs is full of the sweetest and the
most aromatic plants, such as nourish the sheep to a strange
degree; and the sheep’s dung, again, nourishes that herbage to a
strange degree; so that the valleys are rendered extremely fruitful
by the washing of the water in hasty showers from off these hills.
An eminent instance of this is seen at Amesbury, in Wiltshire, the
next county to this; for it is the same thing in proportion over
this whole county. I was told that at this town there was a meadow
on the bank of the River Avon, which runs thence to Salisbury,